237 lines
8.0 KiB
HTML
237 lines
8.0 KiB
HTML
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<head>
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<title>Questions for Microsoft on open formats</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<h1>Questions for Microsoft on open formats</h1>
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<p>
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Originally published on BBC, 2007 July 11th.
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</p>
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<p>
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After Microsoft announced it would work with the UK National Archives to
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help open old digital document formats, Georg Greve and Joachim Jakobs,
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of the Free Software Foundation Europe, question the US giant's motives.
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</p>
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<p>
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Today's customers drive the technological development of tomorrow. This
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insight is common sense.
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</p>
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<p>
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But when the same customers pay one and the same company for first
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creating a problem and then pay them again for solving that problem, most
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people would expect the customer to be dissatisfied. Although, at least
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some people seem to be pleased.
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</p>
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<p>
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The problem: Microsoft dominates the desktop and office market
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with a share of more than 90%. Any document stored in their proprietary
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binary formats and especially every document shared between multiple
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people strengthens the monopoly and harms competition, economy and
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society as a whole.
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</p>
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<p>
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The more widely these formats are being used, the higher the network
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effect forcing others into the same dependency - just as it happened to
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the UK National Archives.
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</p>
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<p>
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What happened: Microsoft asked the UK National Archives to invest
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in a solution that would grant access to their legacy data.
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</p>
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<p>
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Only last week BBC News reported on Mr. Gordon Frazer, managing director
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of Microsoft UK, who voiced concern that customers could lose their own
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data: "Unless more work is done to ensure legacy file formats can be read
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and edited in the future, we face a digital dark hole."
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</p>
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<h3>Honest statement</h3>
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<p>
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This is a surprisingly honest statement from a company that is the
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largest provider of incompatible and undocumented legacy file formats in
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the world.
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</p>
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<p>
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The best solution Microsoft can apparently offer is to "emulate" the old
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versions of Windows under the current version of Windows Vista.
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</p>
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<p>
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Indeed some libraries and museums may want to offer an idea of the
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previous ages of computing, and not all of them may want to offer the
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fully authentic experience of running it on the old hardware to get the
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original "look and feel" of bygone times.
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</p>
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<p>
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But are the UK National Archives primarily a museum dedicated to
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preserving the original experience of ages and technologies long past? Or
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are they focused on archiving the knowledge, thoughts and ideas of the
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generations we build upon?
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</p>
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<p>
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The broad audience may not want to read Caesar in the hand writing of a
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particular scribe on the original clay tablets or skin.
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</p>
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<p>
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Images of them would normally be sufficient, although indeed most people
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would prefer a transcription on paper or screen may be sufficient.
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</p>
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<h3>Good translation</h3>
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<p>
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Even more people are probably served best with a good translation. File
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formats are the equivalent of the transcription, they encode the original
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writing into a form for storage.
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</p>
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<p>
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This idea is not new. Humankind has always sought to preserve its
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knowledge, as is documented by clay tablets, scrolls and cave paintings
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of ages long past.
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</p>
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<p>
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But while the storage medium can last for a very long time, sometimes the
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meaning is lost because the key to the information is lost.
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</p>
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<p>
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In modern terms: We no longer know the encoding used for the cave
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paintings.
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</p>
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<p>
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Digital information could potentially be stored without loss of quality
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for a very long time to come.
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</p>
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<p>
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But without knowledge about the encoding, our documents will become a
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meaningless series of ones and zeroes to future generations, just like
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cave paintings are too often meaningless bits of colour on stone to us.
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</p>
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<p>
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The best way to preserve the encoding is to spread it as far as possible,
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to make it a public good that is preserved with the same or higher
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diligence than the encoded information itself.
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</p>
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<p>
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At best, there is currently only one company that knows exactly how it
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has implemented its proprietary legacy file formats.
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</p>
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<p>
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If Microsoft had used Open Standards from the moment it was founded in
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1975, this problem would not exist.
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</p>
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<p>
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In fact, the users of GNOME Office, Koffice or OpenOffice.org would have
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no problems reading documents written by users of Microsoft (MS) Office.
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</p>
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<p>
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As it is, the stability of the encoding completely depends on the future
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existence and behaviour of one company.
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</p>
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<p>
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Thanks to the co-operation of many companies that find themselves in
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strong competition, but understand the necessity of preserving the
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encoding, there is an Open Standard for office documents: the
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"OpenDocument format" (ODF), which is maintained and further developed by
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OASIS, an international e-business standardisation organisation, and has
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been certified by the International Organisation for Standardization
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(ISO).
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</p>
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<h3>Serious doubts</h3>
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<p>
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Microsoft has said it has its own open format, called MS-OOXML. But there
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are serious doubts whether MS-OOXML can be considered an Open Standard:
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Like a Russian doll, it wraps a number of legacy formats like "Word95" or
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"Word6", which are not publicly available and can only be implemented by
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Microsoft.
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</p>
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<p>
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Another issue is that OOXML may be subject to patent claims. Ultimately
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the development of the format depends completely on the future existence
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of one company. Can we bet our future on Microsoft to exist in 4007?
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</p>
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<p>
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The impact of such dual standards was recently explained by Open Forum
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Europe, a business association with members such as Fujitsu Siemens,
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Hewlett Packard, IBM, Intel, Novell and Sun.
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</p>
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<p>
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Their conclusion was to back ODF: "Multiple Open standards in the area of
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Interoperability are unwelcome, costly and impractical for both users and
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suppliers, and will be rejected by the market."
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</p>
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<p>
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The public needs to understand: As long as only Microsoft can write
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software that will be able to make use of the full extent of the
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predominant office file format, Microsoft will remain the predominant
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vendor for lack of alternatives and competition.
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</p>
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<p>
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In order to make MS-OOXML the predominant file format, Microsoft is now
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seeking approval through ISO for its format, expecting its market
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dominance and global lobbying efforts to coerce a sufficient amount of
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national standardisation bodies into approving MS-OOXML at ISO.
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</p>
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<p>
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We have laid down six questions we want Microsoft to answer - but the key
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one is this: Why did and does Microsoft refuse to participate in the
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existing standardisation effort?
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</p>
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<h2>Related reading</h2>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="/activities/msooxml/msooxml-interoperability.html">Interoperability woes with MS-OOXML</a></li>
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<li><a href="/activities/msooxml/msooxml-idiosyncrasies.html">DIS-29500: Deprecated before use?</a></li>
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<li><a href="/activities/msooxml/msooxml-questions.html">Six questions to national standardisation bodies</a></li>
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<li><a href="/activities/msooxml/msooxml-converter-hoax.html">The Converter Hoax</a></li>
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</ul>
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</body>
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</html>
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