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Story: Google: OOXML 'insufficient and unnecessary'

Posted by: Marbux (Friday 29 February 2008, 2:24 AM)

ODF and OOXML are standards in name only

Goldie, the problem really is more that both ODF and OOXML are signed, blank checks. Neither specify a minimum set of features that must be supported and both allow vendor- and application-specific extensions. These failings take both outside the definition of a standard, a specification for a standard product that specifies all product characteristics in mandatory form.

They also produce an interoperability nightmare for the same reasons. E.g., if you check Part 4 of the OOXML spec and grep for extLst, you will find 573 "future extension points" whose functionality is unspecified. But implementations that use those extension points are deemed conformant and documents that use them will validate against the schema.

Likewise, the ODF standard's "conformance" section 1.5 states:

Documents that conform to the OpenDocument specification MAY contain elements and
attributes not specified within the OpenDocument schema. Such elements and attributes must not be part of a namespace that is defined within this specification and are called foreign elements and attributes.
...
There are no rules regarding the elements and attributes that actually have to be supported by conforming applications, except that applications should not use foreign elements and attributes for features by the OpenDocument schema.

Not surprisingly, OpenOffice.org uses some 150 application specific-extensions and destroys all extensions created by other conformant applications other than paragraphs and text spans.

As was stated by the lead developer of the KDE KOffice word processor:

One thing I have always dreamed to be possible is that when I write a doc in KOffice I can then open it in OOo to use that one feature that's useful to me and then save it and continue in KOffice without loosing lots of data.
"Its still a dream, of course. Most features are lost on opening and saving it in OOo, but its a nice goal[.]

And if you check the OOXML conformance section (in Part 1), you get a series of excuses for not having any conformance requirements at all. Validation in OOXML is a two-step process, with elements and attributes specified by the schema validated by one method and extensions validated by another. The latter step is near worthless, since it can only check whether specified extension points have been used and whether "compatibility markup" is valid. Because extensions are by definition unspecified, the validity of the extensions can not be confirmed; there is no adequate specification/schema against which they could be validated.

Yet ISO/IEC JTC 1 Directives require that:

Standards designed to facilitate interoperability need to specify clearly and unambiguously the conformity requirements that are essential to achieve the interoperability. Complexity and the number of options should be kept to a minimum and the implementability of the standards should be demonstrable.

Both ODF and OOXML flunk that test badly. Their interoperable implementation neither has nor can be demonstrated. Both are designed for the waging of feature wars, not for interoperability. Both attempt to legitimize market-leading companies embracing and extending their own formats. They are standards in name only. What we are watching is a contest to decide which big vendor formats will be allowed to undeservedly claim the title of "international standard."

ODF wins a point because it is not patent encumbered, whereas the OOXML IPR documents are RAND-Z, requiring a negotiated patent license from Microsoft. But openness is pretty irrelevant without interoperability and it is an utter myth that an open format is necessarily interoperable. Indeed, because both ODF and OOXML allow vendor-specific extensions, one might observe that neither is an open format. Both permit extensions whose fu

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