Talk:Office Open XML/Archive 7

International standard

I don't agree with User:Alexbrn. Open Office XML is an international standard. A "consortium" standard is also an "international" standard if it is standardized by an international consortium.

• International standard: "International standards are standards developed by international standards organisations."
• Ecma International: "Ecma International is an international, private (membership-based) standards organization for information and communication systems."
• References:
  • "Standards body Ecma International passed a vote to make Microsoft Office document formats an international standard on Thursday."[1]
  • "Open XML, a data format used in Microsoft Corp.'s Office software line has been approved as an international standard — a move aimed at preserving access to documents created with the package for years to come."[2]
  • "Ho said another important change is that Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac (like Office 2007 for Windows ) will be based in the Office Open XML Format -- which was approved in December by the standards body ECMA International as an international standard."[3]
  • "The milestone marking the completion of the first step was the publication of ECMA-376 in December 2006, the first publication of an international standard for OpenXML."[4]
  • "And while Microsoft was expected as far back as 2004 to submit XAML to the ECMA organization, which last year approved its Office Open XML document format as an international standard, since that time, there's been no detectable international standardization activity on the XAML front."[5]
  • As an Ecma member, Draper-based NextPage will work with Microsoft, Apple, Barclays Capital, BP, the British Library, Essilor, Intel Corporation, Statoil ASA and Toshiba to co-sponsor a submission to Ecma for the international standard for Microsoft Office Open XML document format technology.[6]
  • On 7 December, 2006, Ecma International voted to approve Microsoft's Office Open XML document format as an international standard.[7]

Ghettoblaster (talk) 13:03, 27 June 2008 (UTC) Ghettoblaster (talk) 00:00, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

That's not quite right, I think. Of course Ecma want to brand their standards as "international" and it might be argued by some that (in laymen's terms or by the non-specialise press as quoted) they can be referred to that way (though always with a small "i"). However, the true test for an international standard is that is has been made by nations. The primary standards bodies for that are ISO, IEC and ITU-T. An Ecma standard cannot ever be called an International Standard (capital "i"), and because of this I think it is better to avoid any ambiguity and use more precise terminology. Some commentators (like Andy Updegrove) have tried to introduce the phrase "global standards" to refer to things like Ecma and OASIS standards, as distinct from International Standards, but that is not generally understood usage.

Of course if/when the spec is published as ISO/IEC 29500 then the phrase "International Standard" shall be used. Alexbrn (talk) 14:30, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

As an ISO committeemember you might say that but the Office Open XML format standardized by Ecma qualifies if looked at the wikipedia definitions given elswere on wikipedia in these articles Standards organizations#International Standards Organizations and International Standards. I think these wikipedia definitions should be used as reference for definition of international standards. hAl (talk) 15:44, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not just me that thinks so :-) Take a look for example at Rob Weir's blog entry here ... and Rob is no ISO apologist. Just because some other article on Wikipedia says something doesn't make it right (good gracious, the evidence of this article testifies to that!). If "international standard" is allowed to describe anything any organisation with any international dimension decides to call a "standard" then the designation is meaningless anyway! There is absolutely nothing about an Ecma standard that guarantees that it has an international dimension - and the same goes for all consortia. Alexbrn (talk) 19:53, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Let me quote from LinuxJournal.com, reporting on the Danish UNIX User Group's submission to the ISO: "It is noted that ECMA 376 is not an international standard. Furthermore it is noted that ECMA 376 contains a number of specifications that are undocumented about specific information on implementation of MS Office. And it is noted that a report procured by ITST itself found that ECMA 376 cannot be said to be entirely open, which has been a condition of the Danish Parliament (Folketinget) for accepting the regulations." With contentious issues like this, you can find quotes either way. Either attribute the statement to whoever made it, or leave it out completely.--Lester 23:02, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Here's another quote. From an official report from the New York State Information Officer, titled A Strategy For Openness (6MB Microsoft Word .doc) says: "OOXML is not an international standard, nor is it completely implemented by anyone other than Microsoft. Therefore any study around the use of OOXML would necessarily be about the use of Microsoft’s products and not about interoperability of standards-compliant products among competitors." (page 396). --Lester 23:11, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

From an official report is just a funny way of hiding the truth. That report is just a list of statement/report receiced from 3rd parties starting with a stament from Sun. And what part are you citing from. Ah, the part submitted by the IBM corporation. You are suddenly making sense, above you already cited Vinje who is a payed lobbyist by Microsoft competitors (including Sun and IBM) and now you are citing directly from reports submitted by such competitors and fierse opponents of Office Open XML. At least we now know your NPOV intentions.... hAl (talk) 07:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that it is relevant in this discussion whether Ecma standards in general are guaranteed to have "an international dimension". What really matters here is that Ecma-376 has "an international dimension". I believe the phrase "global standards" is more often used to describe ISO standards. Ghettoblaster (talk) 23:25, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, I like to quote the ISO article on Wikipedia: "In practice, ISO acts as a consortium with strong links to governments." ISO standards only become law through treaties or national standards. No nation is ultimately forced to use them. Ghettoblaster (talk) 23:30, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Looking further into this issue, I strongly believe that ISO does not own the term 'international standard'. Standards organizations such as W3C, OASIS, IETF, IEEE and many others are commonly called international standards organizations due to their international members. The standards that they publish are also commonly called international standards and are used world wide. Omitting the term will probably mislead readers into thinking that the Ecma-376 Office Open XML standard only applies to a single nation or only to Europe (Ecma's root) which is just wrong. Ghettoblaster (talk) 23:54, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I doubt it; the text current says the standard is an "Ecma International standard", where "Ecma International" is hyperlinked (so keeping the "International" bit with "Ecma" rather than with "standard"). That is factually correct. If readers want to see how "international" that is, they can read about Ecma. As this thread shows, applying words like "global" or "international" is (at least) a matter of interpretation and opinion. Why go into that murky area when we've got a clean factual statement already? (BTW, I also note that the OpenDocument article does not claim ODF is an international standard, and in its OASIS form it is only as "international" as Ecma 376.) 80.177.145.170 (talk) 04:19, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

No this is not original reasearch but a statement which is fully confirmed by cited information. If something is clearly defined by a definition of properties (which is the case in this issue) than one only needs to support that the defined properties are actually present (which is also clearly the case in this issue). hAl (talk) 12:43, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

So in a in a nutshell we have at least six independent and verifiable sources that say it is an international standard. Then I think we have Alex Brown's and Rob Weir's points of view who are directly involed in this issue, so they are not good references. Then we have the list of quotes from lobbyist by Microsoft competitors such as IBM and Sun, which are also no good sources in this regard, the same goes for the Danish UNIX User Group which IMHO can be considered biased towards everything that originates from Microsoft. I think – in consideration of the sources provided – it is fair to state in the article that Office Open XML is an international standard. Ghettoblaster (talk) 23:50, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Removal of Unreferenced claim

I am giving a last chance for other editors to find a reference for this claim.

With Ecma International publishing the specification for free and patents made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis through the Open Specification Promise, Office Open XML conforms to all characteristics [citation needed] of the European Union's definition of an open standard.

I placed the request for a reference on May 10th and no reference has been placed. As it sits it is original research. The only reference is to a EU document that lists what the characteristics are. There is no reference that says OOXML conforms to the European Union's definition of an open standard. AlbinoFerret (talk) 00:26, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

You already waited a month for a suitable reference to be provided. It wasn't. I'd say delete the claim. The other issue of concern, is that there is debate in the media as to whether or not the Open Specification Promise gives small companies protection against being sued by Microsoft (see ZDnet article. Because the OOXML spec refers to proprietary and patented Microsoft software, Ecma may not be a reliable source to say who could (or couldn't) get sued.--Lester 01:21, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I deleted the section. User hAl tried to add more original research references. References need to state the conclusions for the section. They cant solely link to what the guideline is. WP:NOR.

Wikipedia does not publish original research or original thought. This includes unpublished facts, arguments, speculation, and ideas; and any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position.

We need a reference that says OOXML conforms to a specific guideline, not what the guideline is. At this point I gave almost 2 months for it to be fixed. AlbinoFerret (talk) 12:27, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually references only need to support the stated claims in the article. And that is the case. hAl (talk) 20:32, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I refer to this edit where User:HAl has inserted the disputed material once again. It is highly problematic for the following reasons: (1.) The European Union has not stated that OOXML conforms to its definition of an "open standard". The reference supplied does not mention OOXML. To draw such a link is original research, is factually wrong, and breaches WP:SYNTH. (2.) The frequent use of the word "free" is not appropriate in a software article, where free software is generally accepted to mean free of copyright and patent restrictions, rather than just a reference to purchase price. (3.) The claim that OOXML is published "without copyright restrictions" is false, once again WP:SYNTH, and the references supplied don't mention OOXML. (4.) OOXML is embroiled in a worldwide controversy involving Microsoft, Ecma and the ISO. These organizations are in damage control, with public relations teams working the media. References from those organisations are not reliable or independent, and should not be used in this article. We need references that are independent of the organizations involved in the dispute, such as known technology magazines and news organizations. (5.) The repeated insertion of the disputed text is Wikipedia:Tendentious editing. Independent reliable references were requested months ago, yet not supplied. The reinsertion of this disputed content must stop. --Lester 21:45, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, do you mind sorting the issues that you're commenting on in corresponding sections instead of mixing them all together in one post? This does not help in the discussion. The headline is "Removal of Unreferenced claim" and you complain about User:HAl adding content [clarify: which is fine, since the section is about this content in question]. But then you go on and discuss the "free" concept again. What does this have to do with free software? Also, "generally accepted" is not a reference. And regarding the copyright, "all Ecma publications including standards, can be freely copied by all interested parties without copyright restrictions". I don't think they need to write this on every page of the specification, when everybody can just look it up on their website. Do you think removing this statement from the Ecma website in a few years is already planned as part of some kind of evil plan? I think it is kind of funny that apparently nobody bothers about the original research in OpenDocument related articles, but I'm pretty sure that this now also on your agenda: "More details about and the rationale for the EU's definition can be found in European Interoperability Framework for Pan-European eGovernment Services, Version 1.0.[4] Currently, OpenDocument fulfills all four of these requirements.[citation needed]" (Source: OpenDocument adoption#EU Definition of an open standard) Ghettoblaster (talk) 23:07, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

And talking about free software: In the GPL the author retains copyright and permits redistribution. In public domain software the author has abandoned the copyright. IMHO the Ecma statement reads more like public domain. Ghettoblaster (talk) 23:20, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I am sticking to one subject on this section. That a reference needs to have the words "Office Open XML conforms to all four characteristics of the European Union's definition of an open standard" or something that is close. Editors can not give a link to a guideline and then say that the specification conforms to it. That needs to be done by a 3rd party. Unless that reference can be found the claim can not pass WP:NOR. No amount of rewording or shifting the sentences can make this right without a reference. References also have to be found that say that any of the claims in that section apply specifically to OOXML. So the references need to be found that say

1. Office Open XML conforms to all four characteristics of the European Union's definition of an open standard - Not just what that standard is.
2. the Office Open XML specification for free - Not that all ECMA is free, but that OOXML is specifically free.
3. and without copyright restrictions allowing reuse of the standard - That OOXML is free from all copyright restrictions as ECMA recuires, not just that ECMA requires it for eveyone
4. and possible patents are made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis through the Open Specification Promise - that all "possible" patents in OOXML are covered by the osp.AlbinoFerret (talk) 03:20, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

To respond to Ghettoblaster. This is not the OpenDocument page. I have not edited that article. I want to focus on the issues that are in this article. Bringing up what is in another article does not make the problems here vanish. AlbinoFerret (talk) 03:35, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I have checked with the Wikipedia:No_original_research/noticeboard and the conclusion is that this is original research. AlbinoFerret (talk) 03:45, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

This is similar to having a stament that substance A is heavier than substance B by adding in references that state the weight of both substances. hAl (talk) 06:20, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

No, this is clear Original Research. You need to find clear 3rd party references that say the claim as is stated on the Wikipedia:No_original_research/noticeboard. I am Now going to remove the unreferenced claims. To replace them you need to find reliable references that state the conclusions of the claims, not just a reference that states the criteria for the claim. AlbinoFerret (talk) 12:01, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

How did you come to the conclusion that it clearly is Original Research? On the OR/noticeboard User:Someguy1221 only stated that "third-party sources are generally needed to make the connection" but he also stated that "There is the rare exception when the logical deduction really is as simple as 2+2". One might argue that the logical deduction in this special case really is that simple (given that the EU open standard definition is straightforward). As User:Someguy1221 mentioned, this "requires discussion, consensus, and dispute resolution as necessary in order to decide". Don't claim that all this is clear when right now there is obviously NO consensus that this qualifies as Original Research.

However, I'd also like to suggest a compromise. There is no reason not to state the individual criteria for the European Union's definition of an open standard. In addition to this, we can then add a list of all open standards criteria (e.g. published, royality-free, cross-platform etc.) which Office Open XML meets including the references for each criteria. Then we should allow the readers to form their own opinions. Ghettoblaster (talk) 23:21, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I cant see how anyone can read the comments of User:Someguy1221 in any other than to suggest that it is Original Research.

"Yes, this is a classic bait-and-switch form of false references, which may or may not be done in good faith."

I don't see how that isn't clear. You have selectively quoted an explanation of what may be placed, not a comment that the material is in that category. The multiple criteria claim is not a simple 2+2=4. There is also no consensus that it meets that criteria since I have challenged the statement by requesting a reference.

Now there is a a second comment on the section by user DGG has also said that a surly we should be able to find a source that states the claim. That says to me that one is needed.

I do not compromise on Wikipedia guidelines. They need to be followed. WP:NOR is one of three main content policies. All that is needed is a reference that states the claim by a 3rd party. What you are suggesting is a unpublished analysis of the criteria. AlbinoFerret (talk) 15:28, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Read my comment again. Where exactly did I suggest that you are compromising Wikipedia guidelines? Where exactly did I suggest they don't need to be followed? Where exactly did I suggest an unpublished analysis of the criteria? Also, don't accuse other editors of selectively quoting an explanation when you're actually doing just the same. Ghettoblaster (talk) 19:33, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I have found a third party statement, referring exactly to [8], which says that OOXML is not an open standard per that definition, because of patent problems (which are also discussed in this Wikipedia article). Also, look at the examples in WP:SYN - they look even more trivial than this one. If you look at samples on Wikipedia:These_are_not_original_research, you'll see that they're a lot simpler. However, we could discuss forever about how easy is the deduction. But a trivial logical deduction, for which there is no consensus (and here there is not, even because a premise is disputed), surely requires an external source. Especially since there is a reliable source stating the opposite. --Blaisorblade (talk) 22:59, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

As User:hAl has already pointed out above, the link to the noooxml site has already been removed by a Wikipedia admin in the past, because Wikipedia articles are not ment as a platform for protesting campaigns. This is an extremely biased lobby and certainly not a valid reference in this issue. Ghettoblaster (talk) 22:04, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I've just seen, and must quote, "the EU competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes" talking about OOXML: [9]. The commissioner agrees that the ISO standardization process has been unfairly influenced by Microsoft. Also, "The Commission's examination will therefore focus on all these areas, including the question whether Microsoft's new file format Office Open XML, as implemented in Office, is sufficiently interoperable with competitors' products." Do you still maintain your position? The article does not mention the words "open" or "free", but restricting to that would be wikilawyering. Hoping for consensus, Blaisorblade (talk) 23:26, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Can you please provide a quote in which Neelie Kroes "agrees that the ISO standardization process has been unfairly influenced by Microsoft"? Somehow I can't find that in the provided reference.

Furthermore, the fact that the EU Commission will examine "the question whether Microsoft's new file format Office Open XML, as implemented in Office, is sufficiently interoperable with competitors' products." is by no means a proof or judgement that the Office Open XML file format is not a free and open format. Presumption of innocence means being innocent until proven guilty. Neelie Kroes did not make any statement at all about whether the file format is free and open or not. Ghettoblaster (talk) 21:54, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I misread my article (in good faith). There are other statements from the commissioner (on the third page) which are (indirectly) against Microsoft, but it's another decision. Nor I missed presumption of innocence. However, saying that "OOXML agrees with this definition, but EU is examining whether this is true" would mean "we know better than EU itself". And I agree: Neelie Kross never stated OOXML isn't open/free. --Blaisorblade (talk) 12:12, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

It's clearly time to remove the unreferenced and contentious claim that the European Union considers OOXML to be an "open" format. This has now gone on for months. Other editors have been very patient, requesting a reference and waiting for it to be produced. It requires an independent reliable reference (eg news or known tech magazine) that explicitly states that the EU considers OOXML to be "open". You can't synth it by putting together two unrelated references to draw your own conclusion. The requested reference has not materialized, therefore it's clearly time to delete the contentious statement.--Lester

Unless I'm mistaken, this discussion is about Office Open XML conforming to all characteristics of the European Union's definition of an open standard. As far as I can see there is no "contentious claim" to remove right now. Ghettoblaster (talk) 00:43, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Lester and AlbinoFerret. My understanding is that the question isn't whether we feel it conforms to the EU definition, but whether trustworthy sources feel it conforms to the EU definition. For us to put one and one together and combine statements by the EU about open standards as well as statements of other about what OOXML is in order to say "EU says X, other organisation says Y, therefore OOXML is Z" would be contrary to WP:Synth: "If the sources cited do not explicitly reach the same conclusion, or if the sources cited are not directly related to the subject of the article, then the editor is engaged in original research". Even if OOXML was the most open standard in the universe and is the best ever example of the EU guideline that there has ever been, we still couldn't say it without finding a reliable source explicitly coming to that conclusion. --RS Ren (talk) 11:37, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Removal of Criticism of the Open Specification Promise

User HAl has removed a huge chunk of criticism from the open specification promise section and has instead placed original research. [10] There is no refute of the specific criticisms in the section he removed. The reference he added does not say that the criticism is wrong. The reference does not back up the removal of the criticism and a 3rd party reference would be needed to analyze that the changes to the open specification promise in fact fix the issues that were removed. AlbinoFerret (talk) 18:39, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

The Open specification promise only applies to Covered Implementations. The Software freedom law center has pointed out that the GPL requires the code be reusable. This use may not be a Covered Implementation. AlbinoFerret (talk) 14:56, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

As Office Open XML is a covered specification the OSP covers it. Critisism of SFLC is thus only relvant for implementations that are not Office open XML. That is mayby relevant to the OSP licensing article but not relevant to this article as any implementations for the format in this article are fully covered by this licensing. hAl (talk) 18:20, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

And for the record GPL only deals with 1rd party IP rights. Contributor rights. Only parties that have contibuted code in a GPL licensed piece of software are entering their IP rights by agreeing in the licensing. Nowehere in GPL are there requirements about 3rd party IP rights. hAl (talk) 18:24, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

It appears to me that the Software freedom law center is infact criticizing the OSP in general. The critisism affects all covered specifications such as SOAP, WSDL, Hyper-V, USB, Sender ID etc. – not just Office Open XML. Therefore I think this critisism belongs in the article Microsoft Open Specification Promise. We should not mirror it on all covered specification's articles just to make a point. For the same reason, we are not adding the same general criticism of Microsoft to each and every article about a Microsoft product. Critisism on any specific subject belongs in the corresponding article. Ghettoblaster (talk) 19:14, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Re:HAl That is in essence the criticism. The gpl requires that the code covered under the gpl is free to use in a multitude of ways. Code usd to implement the Office Open XML specification under the gpl has to be reusable in other things. While the code implementation of the Office Open xml spec is covered, if the code is used elsewhere for some other purpose it isn't. Therefore the author of a gpl developer cant implement because "*"Any code that implements the specification may also do other things in other contexts, so in effect the OSP does not cover any actual code, only some uses of code." and "...it permits implementation under free software licenses so long as the resulting code isn't used freely.". This is right on point. AlbinoFerret (talk) 19:26, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

You're wrong. The Code used to implement the Office Open XML specification can be used elsewhere for other purposes – as long as it does not infringe upon Microsoft's patents in these other purposes which are not covered by the OSP. The point here is, nothing stops you from releasing your own Office Open XML implementation under GPL. Ghettoblaster (talk) 19:44, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

No, the GPL requires the code to be free for other purposes. As such GPL has issues with the OSP. That stops GPL implementations. The Freedom law center reference says that. If you think it otherwise, please find a third party reference that says that. Because the OSP page says "we can’t give anyone a legal opinion about how our language relates to the GPL" so the Microsoft page is unusable. AlbinoFerret (talk) 22:20, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

If it is the GPL, that has issues with the OSP, then this content should probably be merged to the GPL article instead. Ghettoblaster (talk) 18:46, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Re:GhettoblasterI dont think so, the software freedom law center released its findings on Office Open XML and the open specification promise. Therefore it is on point for this article. Perhaps it would not be on pages dealing with those other topics. AlbinoFerret (talk) 19:30, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

GPL only requires patent licensing from contributors to the work. Not from third parties. Even for W3C standards which require Royalty free RAND licensing from working group members those licenses can be only limited to the standards (recommendations) themselfs [11]

may be limited to implementations of the Recommendation, and to what is required by the Recommendation;

And those w3c standards are heavily in use in GPL software. Limiting licensing for a standard to implementation of that standard is therefore normal practise and is not interfering with GPL code at all. hAl (talk) 21:35, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

This is the Office Open XML page. Your reference does not refute the Software Freedom Law Center reference. I think you should study the reference and the GPL because you are incorrect. The GPL gives the freedom to modify and use any code released under it without limits. If a piece of software can not be reused or modified to fit another use, it cant be placed under the GPL. The Software Freedom Law Center reference says correctly, the OSP doesn't have issue with the GPL, it is the GPL that has issues with the OSP with specific consideration of implementation of Office Open Xml but also on reuse of the code. AlbinoFerret (talk) 22:33, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

My reference show that the existing limitation on the licensing of a standard to belimited to only use of that standard does not interfere with the evident use of those w3c standards in GPL licensed code. The factthat the GPL has issues with reuse of code would then also apply to any standard. It however is not relveant in this article as is does not limit implementation of this format. Any such code can be freely reused in [Office Open XML]] implemetations. It might limit resuse of code that has patented technolgy in it for use outside implementations of office Open XML. That however is a lsiensing issue with GPL which would apply to reuse of code implementing any open standard format but is not of concern to implementers of Office Open XML that can freely implement this standard format and freely reused for implementing this format. It therefore is a limitation that does not apply to any use of this format itself and has no place in this particular article. hAl (talk) 05:32, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes it is relevant because as the reference from the Software Freedom Law center points out it stops GPL developers from implementing the specification with specific reference to Open Office XML. The GPL developer can not implement Office Open XML because of the limitations of the OSP in offering only coverage to covered implementations. This is even more relevant now that Microsoft who developed Office Open XML originally has changed the OSP trying to make it look like GPL implementations are possible. The section is heavily one sided and without this little section is even more unbalanced and also untruthful. AlbinoFerret (talk) 13:08, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

That is incorrect. Actuallty the SFLC document nowhere conclusivly states that Office Open XML cannot be implemented by GPL developers because of limitations. It does state that the limits of the OSP licensing for Office Open XML but that is fine as the limitations only apply when you try to reuse the code for other things than. The analysis only states that the OSP is inconsistent with GPL (which is true for licensing on almost every standard in existence) but that as I already stated is not a problem for implementing Office open XML itself but only for non Office Open XML implementations that are not within the scope of this article. Your statement that GPL developers cannot implement Office Open XML is original research that is backed up by the SFLC analysis. GPL developers are only required to sublicense patentrights they control (1st party rights) and not any possible 3rd party patents. So developers implement the w3c XML implementation in a GPL licensed application they automatically get intellectual property rights from the W3C workgroupmembers. Developers cannot sublicense that rights using GPL just like you cannot do that for OOXML. However that is not a problem for any developers as long as the code is reused for implemtation of the format. Those will also be granted the same rights. So for all Office Open XML implementations which are in the scope of this article there is no problem. If the SFLC would be interested in stating that standards from standard organisations, with licensing that has scope limitations on them, cannot be implemented by GPL then the GPL licensing would become worthles immediatly as nearly all commen ICT standard fall into that category. I would like you to notice that Microsofts OSP licening also applies to about 100 common internet and communication protocols like FTP and HTTP v1.1 . If you want to suggest that OSP licensed formats cannot be implemented under GPL I suggest you also add that information to the articles of those formats. It would be interested to add to the Firefox article that according to the SFLC it can no longer be GPL licensed because it uses OSP licensed technologies. hAl (talk)

The GPL requires that the code be reused or modified for whatever purpose as the reference states. "The OSP cannot be relied upon by GPL developers for their implementations not because its provisions conflict with GPL, but because it does not provide the freedom that the GPL requires." as it relates to Office Open XML. This is a clear statement that the GPL developers cannot implement Office Open XML because of limitations of the OSP not granting the freedom the GPL requires. "Any code that implements the specification may also do other things in other contexts, so in effect the OSP does not cover any actual code, only some uses of code." and "They would also be unable to distribute their code for any type of use, as is integral to the GPL and to all free software." I have no knowledge of other specifications, neither does the SFLC document discuss other specifications. AlbinoFerret (talk) 17:39, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

You're wrong. The reference does not state that "The GPL requires that the code be reused or modified for whatever purpose.". Also, do you mind explaining in which way the OSP relates to Office Open XML any different than to any other covered specifications according to the given reference? It seems that Office Open XML is merely used as an example here.

Furthermore, I see no difference between Microsoft's OSP and Sun's public non-assertion declaration in this issue. Sun's declaration is "an irrevocable covenant not to enforce any of its enforceable U.S. or foreign patents against any implementation of the OASIS OpenDocument specification".[12] Reusing any of the GPL code from the OpenOffice ODF implementation for any other purposes that are not covered by this covenant will also infringe upon Sun's patents. However, we all know that there are already implementations of both OpenDocument and Office Open XML under GPL. Ghettoblaster (talk) 19:51, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The reference states "They would also be unable to distribute their code for any type of use, as is integral to the GPL and to all free software." That is a referenced claim that the GPL requires reuse of the code for other purposes. A restating by me does not make it any less referenced. I suggest you read the reference and not simply scan for words.

No I am not going down the path of coming up with unreferenced examples of your claims. The SFLC article is expressly about the OSP, GPL, and Office Open XML. That is the only topic we can discuss when dealing on the Office Open XML article and using the SFLC article as a reference on this talk page. I will also not enter into discussions on the differences between Microsoft and Sun because they are not the OSP and not included in the SFLC article. AlbinoFerret (talk) 20:56, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The SLFC reference does not state that OSP licensed formats cannot be implemented by GPL developers. That is interpretation on your part. That qualifies as WP:OR. The GPL license does not state that 3rd party IP licensing has to be transfereed but only states that for 1st party controlled IP rights. Also you can distribute the code and have all the same rights applied to it as the original code. The OSP licensing extends downstream as well. hAl (talk) 08:31, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

To actually claim that the "GPL requires reuse of the code for other purposes" you need to provide an exact quote of the GPL that directly states this. Any vague interpretations of the GPL are not sufficient for this kind of far-reaching claim. Ghettoblaster (talk) 21:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Sure, if you insist, its easy to find. [13] "that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs, and that you know you can do these things." That is directly from the GPL. But the SFLC article is sufficient to fulfill the requirements of WP:VER. In fact the 3rd party nature of the SFLC article is what WP:VER requires, not direct quotes from the GPL. AlbinoFerret (talk) 22:13, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Just as I said, reusing the code is optional, it is NOT required. Ghettoblaster (talk) 22:33, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The freedom to reuse code is not optional in the GPL, it is required of GPL code. AlbinoFerret (talk) 02:23, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The freedom is to reuse code is not changed by OSP. The OSP license applies the same to everybody. hAl (talk) 18:58, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

But the OSP does not cover code except in covered implementations. That is why, since the GPL requires the freedom to reuse code, the GPL developers can not rely on the OSP to protect them. That it may not cover under any license is not discussed in the SFLC article. But I will start looking for a reference now so more criticism can be added about other licenses in relation to the OSP. AlbinoFerret (talk) 19:48, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The OSP does not limit any freedom to reuse code. It does not interfere in that freedom. It is a seperate entity. The OSP might not extend to any reuse of code but it does not in anyway limit the reuse of code. GPL itself is the relvant license about the code. Only GPL can limit reuse of GPL licensed code. That however is not relevant to this article as it does not apply to implementations of Office Open XML under OSP licensing. hAl (talk) 12:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

If the critisism remains I feel it is only correct to add to all article that use OSP licensed technologies in GPL implementations that they can not longer be GPL licensed. A few of the included technologies in the OSP licensing are HTML, FTP, Appletalk, USB, UPnP and SOAP. hAl (talk) 15:12, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I have not edited those articles. neither is this a discussion of them. This is the talk page for Office Open XML. The SFLC document does not address them specifically you would need specific 3rd party references that say the OSP can be applied to those specifications in that manner. AlbinoFerret (talk) 17:39, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about all technologies included in OSP, but there is a big difference between say OOXML / Windows Metafile / USB etc.. types of format, that were truly formats created by Microsoft and/or associated companies, and FTP, IPV4, etc... The first FTP standard was published in 1971, some years before Microsoft ever existed. IPV4 is coming from DARPA, not Microsoft, etc... And HTML is not part of OSP, or so it seems. It would be funny, considering it originated from Tim Berners Lee works, and later the W3C, not Microsoft. Not all OSP is dealing with true Microsoft property !! Hervegirod (talk) 21:37, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it doesn't matter who created the technologies. They might be created by organizations like the W3C or any random company, but can still be based on patents owned by Microsoft. You can for sure reuse GPL code for any software, but you have to respect patent laws. This is similar to a picture that is licensed under Creative Commons, but contains a trademark. You can still use and copy the picture, but you have to respect trademark laws. Ghettoblaster (talk) 22:27, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, it was actually HTTP in stead of HTML. Same problem though. The OSP applies to many of the most common protocols currently in use on the internet. Micrsoft is allso probably the single most active company in standardization participation meaning that their technology contributions extend to nearly all know standards currently in use.

what manner can they be applied to  ?? What are you suggesting ? that SLFC does applies the OSP specifically different to OOXML ? hAl (talk) 08:09, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

This is a failed tactic, the SFLC article only discusses Office Open XML, the OSP and the GPL. It does not discuss any other specification. Please read it before going off on some tangent. You can not discredit it by trying to read into it, or apply to it more than it contains. AlbinoFerret (talk) 13:31, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

It is evident the SFLC analysis was only ment to try and confuse ISO members as it was specifcally target at the BRM meeting for Office open XML. It does not contains any definity conclusions but only some kind of vague statements about inconsistency with GPL and that it the OSP cannot be relied upon by GPL developers. It does nowhere in any kind of explicit way state that the GPL licensing does not allow the use of OSP licensed formats. hAl (talk) 08:42, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

That is incorrect and you are just looking for any excuse to remove it. It is a valid reference. The OSP on the other hand is full of vague statements. Perhaps the entire OSP section should be removed? AlbinoFerret (talk) 13:28, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

No that is correct. The analysis does not state anywhere that GPL developers can't use OSP licensed formats. And for this article it is of little relevance that the licensing does not extend to implementations that are not Office Open XML. hAl (talk) 18:56, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The reference says that GPL developers cant rely on the OSP protections, it only deals with Office Open XML. The GPL requires the freedom to reuse code. If other specifications are of no relevance, stop trying to bring them in. Put it 10000 different ways its still the same. The criticism is referenced and valid. There is no consensus to remove it. AlbinoFerret (talk) 19:56, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

In fact this wording even supports that the OSP can be used by GPL developers for Office Open XML implementation. hAl (talk) 08:14, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

The SFLC article says. The OSP does not give the freedom the GPL requires. GPL developers can not rely on the OSP. AlbinoFerret (talk) 12:13, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

@Ghettoblaster: based on patents owned by Microsoft is sort of funny for FTP, which first publication is anterior to Microsoft creation. And actually, it's the same for HTTP as it was for HTML. We have to credit Tim Berners Lee for that too. @hAl: Microsoft is also probably the single most active company in standardization participation meaning that their technology contributions extend to nearly all know standards currently in use: hmm, I would not say for example that Microsoft is the sole or even the major contributor to all W3C, or ECMA, or ISO, or IEEE, or OASIS standards, etc... But I digress. Hervegirod (talk) 20:54, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

You might not say that they are an major contributor but it is rather true anyways. For example Microsoft is currently leading the HTML workgroup in W3C and is or has been the lead in several OASIS workgroup that deal with webservices. That you are unaware of Microsofts extensive involvement in ICT standards this does not make it less important. hAl (talk) 08:21, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, please be neutral once. It seems to me that you see all of the tech world through Microsoft glasses. They are at the basis of some advances in this area, but not all. The HTML WG has 73 participants from 23 organizations, not counting experts, it seems unfair to dismiss them (and also the fact that HTML did not originated from Microsoft at all). About the WG, first, it is a dual-head Chair, and the editors of the HTML 5 draft are from Google and Apple, not Microsoft. Please note that I'm not saying that Microsoft is not participating actively in the next versions of HTML standards here, but they are not tech-gods from where all the world originated. Also I did not write I would not say for example that Microsoft is the sole or even the major contributor to W3C, or ECMA, or ISO, or IEEE, or OASIS standards, but I would not say for example that Microsoft is the sole or even the major contributor to all W3C, or ECMA, or ISO, or IEEE, or OASIS standards, but this bring us back to the beginning of my sentence. Hervegirod (talk) 12:38, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

your suggesting things I'm not stating. I am stating that they are a major contributor in ICT standards and overall probably the most actuive contibutor. So their IP licensing is relavant to those standards and the OSP licnesing is actually a very free license compared to what is required from most standardization organisations. It is form instance a lot more free than the IBM Interoperability Specifications Pledge which applies to OpenDocument and which license only applies to fully complient implementations whereas Micrsofts OSP also applies to partial implementations. So actually Micrsofts OSP licnesing on Office Open XML is less demanding/strict than IBM'sd ISP licnesing on Opendocument. It is just anti-OOXML activists here trying to suggest that OSP is not a good licensing. You asked me to be neutral. Do that yourself and compare IBM's ISP licensing on OpenDocument that only applies on fully compliant implementation with the OSP licensing for Office Open XML and consider what would be better for developers. hAl (talk) 12:42, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Under what basis do you write that they are overall probably the most active contributor ? I'm not comparing here the merits of OSP compared with IBM's. Furthermore, OSP and their equivalents (Sun's, IBMs) were not designed to imply that they (IBM, Sun, or Microsoft) were at the basis of the specifications covered by the patents (although it is obviously the case for some of the specs covered by OSP, or IBMs, or Sun's equivalent), but just (note that this just is not derogatory in my point of view) that they will not sue implementors on the basis of patents that may be detained concerning the aforementioned technology. Hervegirod (talk) 13:09, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Which is exactly my point as the OSP license provides that patented technology licensing for Office open XML which is even less strict in it's application that IBM's ISP and as such are the challeges to this OSP just effort to try and spread misinformation. How can a even less strict licensing than IBM's licensing for OpenDocument in any way pose a problem for OSS developers. this effort is a pure anti-OOXML effort spearheaded by a well-known sockpuppeteer who added the info to the articel in the first place and revert any edits on it. hAl (talk) 14:55, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Your attempts to remove this criticism is an example of war editing, of which you have been found guilty on more than one occasion. AlbinoFerret (talk) 15:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

It was hard to edit against the vandalism by you and your sockpuppets. hAl (talk) 15:21, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

There are no sockpuppets, its just an excuse to war edit on your part. AlbinoFerret (talk) 15:26, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Are your serious ?? ALL 6 or 7 normal articles you have editted in the last two weeks were on articles I had made a prior edit on in the days before and on most you either removed my edit / place a fact tag. You are a known sockpuppetteer and the king of edittwarring and your following of my edits and trying to revert the edit behaviour is just ridiculous but also pathetic. Get a life of your own. hAl (talk) 14:44, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey,hAl, why not argue the OSP on it's merits instead of resorting to ad hominem attacks? ... or is that all you've got left for this issue?Jonathan888 (talk) 17:54, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The merits of the OSP are clear but that person tries to obfucate them. It is a irrevocalble free patentlicense to be used by anybody for implementations and use of OOXML. And it is obviously a more relaxed license then for instance the licensing that IBM has given for OpenDocument which is almost identical but not valid for partial implementations. hAl (talk) 21:16, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

As someone that actually implements ECMA376 and in the future, ISO29500, I can attest to the fact that it is open and unencumbered enough to work with from a risk management point of view. The fact that partial implementations are covered (we only support spreadsheets - by design) makes it more clear cut than the IBM analog for ODF. I even went as far as asking Microsoft's Gray Knowlton outright regarding the OSP on his blog. I would contend that criticism should probably be limited to the fact that it has not yet been tested in a court of law, however private and public corporations have implemented support in their commercial software products. One might say that this is probably indicative that it is not likely to happen, given the long history of Office binary format reverse engineering that has not caused Microsoft to pursue anyone, even their biggest? competitor - OpenOffice, who even publish the results of their reverse engineering. I have not made any edits in the main entry, as I think there may be a conflict of interest - I am responsible for the Monarch product, which supports ECMA376 AKA Open XML. Any guidance on whether this is the case?Gareth Horton (talk) 10:03, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that you have a conflict of interest when editing the Office Open XML article as long as you're not on the payroll of Microsoft or have been directly involved in standardization of the file format or something like that. The Datawatch Technology Alliance seems to include Sun Microsystems and IBM and not only Microsoft - therefore it seems to be unbiased in this regard. IMHO, having first-hand experience in implementing an existing Ecma International standard actually makes you an expert in this area - just like a physician or microbiologist editing the vaccination article. Ghettoblaster (talk) 18:57, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

IT Pro

This article from IT Pro is a good reference:
http://www.itpro.co.uk/605142/ms-ooxml-a-format-without-a-future
It sums up the situation. It's amazing how different the Wikipedia article tells the story. --Lester 07:55, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

That is because it is not a very balanced article. It states: Microsoft has no date for implementing OOXML. If a journalist is so ignorant that he did not follow that Microsoft has already implemented Office Open XML as it default format for MS Office 2007 since december 2006 you should not be writing articles about the subject at all. The writer probably means the future ISO version but since that is not a published standard yet it is hardly surprusing that it is not yet implemented and he probably has not seen that Microsoft has already commited to supporting that future version in their next Office 14 version. hAl (talk) 14:39, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

IT Pro is a major publication. One of the world's most known and respected technology magazines. It is also yet another of a long list of major publications that says that OOXML is not an open format. So what's it doing in our intro?--Lester 12:49, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

@HAl Microsoft has never implemented Office Open XML (and will never), if you are referring to the ISO "standard" version of it.--Celtic hackr (talk) 17:49, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The ISO version is not yet published as an international standard so noone has ever implemented it yet. Why you think Microsoft never will is unclear. They already announced they would. And they would be foolish not to. It is unlikely that any competing office product will support an official ISO standard as their default format any time soon.

The reason competing office product won't support an official ISO standard any time soon is because it's not an open format. The general tech media speculate Microsoft won't either.--Lester 11:42, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. You seem to have forgotten that for instance Wordperfect is already supporting OOXML, Apple's iWriter has OOXML support and OpenOffice.org will be supporting OOXML within de upcoming months. hAl (talk) 12:06, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

What is this "Apple's iWriter"? . . dave souza, talk 14:46, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I think he meant Pages from the iWork suite. But TextEdit also has Office Open XML support. Ghettoblaster (talk) 14:57, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, TextEdit seems to have "Word 2007 Format (docx)" which I suppose is the same thing without the confusing name. No sign of this famous ISO version. Chap doesn't seem to be very well informed. . dave souza, talk 19:48, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Revert to target text.

when I look at the history of the Wikipedia text I get the impression that there is a kind of "target text" and any corrections of false statements are reversed over time to get back to the "target text" through biased editing.

"In May 2004, governments and the European Union recommended to Microsoft that they publish and standardize their XML Office formats through a standardization organization."

As we already discussed before the remark is factually false. The "European Union" is no institution which makes recommendations. In fact the word relates to a committee of government officials organised under the umbrella of the European Commissions IDABC. Neither do representatives there speak for their government nor the European Commission. Further the recommendation was not specific to the vendor Microsoft.--Arebenti (talk) 13:38, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

One or two concerns

I still have a few (!!) concerns about this article:

• I think the application support part should be in a separate article, there are two many references now, plus I think that some of them are not clear or even dubious. For example, some apps only support a subset of OOXML, some of them only read it, etc (and I'm sure some of them support the whole ECMA format, of course)... These should be separated, else it is no more than a link farm, but to do this requires to have a specific article for that.
• The criticism section is ridiculous. I think this is because a LOT of critics which appeared before it was "officially" an ISO standard were deleted (by pro-OOXML people, I think, but this is a POV I agree). Looking at OpenDocument, I see that this other format has much more technical criticisms than OOXML, which is clearly not the truth. I agree that putting all detailed critics in the main article is often not very good, especially when there's a lot of them and people want to explain, put counter-arguments, etc... Again I think that a specific article should be created.
• The fact that the ISO version seems to be not supported (for the moment) by any tool, and the fate of the ISO version in the future (what will be the future of the OOXML ecosystem when Office will implement the ISO version of the standard, and how the user will be able to work his way through the two versions ?), has been voiced as a critic (some went as far as saying that the ISO version as it is may never be implemented at all), but this problem is nowhere to be seen in the article.

Hervegirod (talk) 10:02, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Some thoughts:

• First, I agree that we need a separate article (like: OpenDocument software) when the list of supporting applications becomes to long. I don't think it is that urgent right now.
• Second, I think from all ODF applications out there only OpenOffice (including direct code base forks like StarOffice etc.) (fully) supports that standard. Afaik, there have been some round-trip conversion test with OpenOffice, Abiword, Gnumeric and some other apps that claim to support ODF - the results were all pretty disillusioning.

Ghettoblaster (talk) 16:49, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Why is the same Office Open XML Software list on two places

Why is Office Open XML Software list on two places - OOXML and Office_Open_XML_software ? Is someone, who will do all changes created in one article to the another ? For what is this useful ?? I suggest to remove Office Open XML software from article OOXML and let only separate article Office_Open_XML_software. In ODF article is also OpenDocument_software list separated and main article contains only base and very short list of "basic applications". Why is OOXML list of software different ? --213.151.217.130 (talk) 15:33, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I noticed that the list here was now big enough to warrant a separate article (see discussion above). This article should highlight the most important/notable applications while the new article Office Open XML software should try to list all supporting applications. I already removed most of the minor applications that don't have a Wikipedia article. The remaining applications should give the reader a concise overview. Ghettoblaster (talk) 19:02, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

ECMA "approved as free and open" tag part ad infinitum

The article currently says:

"The Office Open XML format specification has been approved as a free and open Ecma International standard.", with the words "free" and "open" linked to Free file format and Open format respectively. The implication is that the approval by ECMA makes it free and open.

Well, it ain't that simple...

ECMA publication makes the specification freely available. But both the linked-to pages say "there are no restrictions (e.g. legal or technical) on its use" or equivalent. ECMA publication doesn't do that. It does not give anyone a right to practice the standard. Only the Microsoft open specification promise (if believed) and the theory that no other company has a patent that would restrict practice of the standard does that.

I tried to disentangle the two statements by moving "free and open" to a separate paragraph, and modifying the text to say that "many people claim that it's free and open" (given the considerable controversy reflected further down in the article). But I was reverted by User:HAl [14].

I think the statement that is currently in the intro is clearly false. Either the statement about ECMA has to be reworded to "freely available", or the statement about "free and open" has to be moved as I did. But I don't like edit warring. What do others think? --Alvestrand (talk) 15:23, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

and before anyone makes claims about ECMA: the ECMA patent policy is at [15]. It's RAND, not Royalty-Free. --Alvestrand (talk) 15:32, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

You state: It does not give anyone a right to practice the standard. Only the Microsoft open specification promise (if believed) and the theory that no other company has a patent that would restrict practice of the standard does that.. That already is totally incorrect. Ecma is the standasrds owener and it has all the IP rights to it. Micrsoft has no IP rights on the Ecma 376 standard AT ALL. The OSP licensing is additional licensing for technology (so it is not licensing for OOXML itself because MS does not own any rights to it) that applies to any possible technolies from MS required to implement OOXML or parts of OOXML. So Ecma allows full use off the standard in any way you like. MS allows that if you need their patentented technology to implment the format that you are allowed to used that free. I am also not sure what you are trying to suggest with OSP being RAND licensing. Actaully the OSP is both RAND and Royalty FREE. Ig you had ever bothered to look up the W3C licensing it clearly states that their Royalty free licensing is the same as RAND licenisng but then added that no rayalties of fees are to be paid. As is very evident that for Ecma standard nor for the additional tech license from MS no payment of rayalties or fess is required the OOXML licensing is infact RAND, FRAND and Royalty free alltogether. In addition to that MS has alreeady put OSP licensing to many W#C standards as well. You stated that OOXML licensing is not rayalty free. So to Who do you have to pay royalties/fees ? It is really terible and unfounded info you puuting up here. I sugest you place a source of information of people that have actually payed for Ecma 376 OOXML licensing or the additional MS patent rights licensing. for OOXML technology un der OSP. That would be rather interesting hAl (talk) 06:29, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. Can you please respond to what I wrote instead of what you imagine that I wrote?

Remember the difference between a patent and a copyright? In order to practice a standard covered by patent rights, you have to have licenses to those patent rights - either in a promise of non-prosecution like the Open Specification Promise, or as a license with the patent owner. ECMA has been given enough license under copyright to publish the document with their copyright on it (and has passed that on to ISO); it has not been given any patent licenses from Microsoft; publication of the specification does not make it freely practicable.

The combination of the OSP and ECMA's freely available publication is enough that many people think that it's a free and open specification according to the linked definitions (although many people disagree, too) - but one of them is not enough. That's all I'm trying to say; can you please read what I wrote?

BTW, the W3C licensing is totally different from ECMA licensing, and W3C has nothing to do with OOXML.

For an amusing discussion of patents as they relate to practicing of a standard (H.264 in this case), please check out this recent court case: [16] - it makes it pretty clear that even without involving copyright issues at all, a patent can be brought to bear upon the practice of a standard (but if companies attempt to cheat, the results might not be good for them). --Alvestrand (talk) 07:34, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

sigh, I reacted to your words in that I stated that your assesment that OSP is RAND but not royalty free is incorrect. Actually OSP license is both RAND (Satisfying Ecma requirements) AND royalty free (satisfying W3C requiremnts and certain open standards definitions). I asked you for any indication that anybody is reuired to pay royalties/fees to implement or use OOXML and you haven ot provided any. And to add to that I also suggest you read up about what royalty free licensing actuallly is ([http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/#def-RF example). Your statement that Ecma has not been given a license is laughable and shows a total lack in understanding standards licensing. OSP does not apply to Ecma but applies to everybody worldwide. hAl (talk) 09:10, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

But I didn't say that. I said that *ECMA POLICY* is RAND not RF. I *agree* that OSP is royalty free, but OSP is *NOT* ECMA policy - it's an unilateral Microsoft action. (BTW, being chair of the IETF's IPR working group for 3 years gave me *some* insight into what royalty free licensing is.) --Alvestrand (talk) 09:43, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

So you agree that the OSP licensing exceedes Ecma requirements. Ecma's free copy right licensing and requirements of RAND licensing for any required technology are already in itself enough to satisfy certain definitions of open standards but MS OSP licensing provides even royalty free licensing above those requirement to satisfy most other definitions of open standards (Like the EU definition that requires standards to be free). I am unsure why you are the still removing the words free and open from the article ??? The text actually does not state that de standard is free and open is purely related to the Ecma approval itself but states that the approved Ecma standard is both free and open which is correct. hAl (talk) 10:27, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Again, please read what I wrote. I did not remove the words "free and open" from the article. I moved them from seeming to imply that ECMA publication *by itself* made the standard free and open according to the linked-to words. The ECMA requirements themselves (which are disclosure and RAND) do not make the standards free and open, because there can still be patents that apply where only RAND licensing is available. I believe that you can make an argument that ECMA publication + OSP is sufficient to make the standard free and open (even if some other people don't believe it; the article text later on makes that reasonably clear). --Alvestrand (talk) 11:30, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I reviewed your edit again but removing such an implication is not just what you did. You moved the open and free text away from the Ecma standard which the current text correctly states to be an open standard but not only that you also started to change the free and open statement with weazel wording. To add to that I do object to your statement about what constitutes an open standard because Ecma requirements in itself DO make it an open standard according te several of the openstandards definitions listed on Wikipedia (even under RAND licensing). The existing wording does not so much imply that the Ecma approval made it free and open but only it from that moment became a free and open standard. It does not say free and open because it is an approved Ecma standard. Before that approval it was merely a free format but it at that moment became a free and open standard. That seems correctly reflected in the text. However in an effort of mine to accomodate your concerns I altered the text slightly. This should adress you concerns and put more emphasis on it being the moment when it became a free and open standard. hAl (talk) 12:37, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Is the VML an ISO/IEC standard now?

I wonder if it is correct to say that the Vector Markup Language is an ISO/IEC standard, now that it is specified in Part 4 of the Office Open XML standard ISO/IEC 29500:2008 (and also ECMA-376 which should make it an Ecma International standard?). What do you think? Ghettoblaster (talk) 16:28, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

It is only a part of the transitional elements in the ISO/IEC standard. I would not call it an ISO/IEC standard on itself. Same as that ZIP is not an ISO/IEC standard even though the OOXML spec now contains spec on how ZIP files are made up. hAl (talk) 21:39, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

What about it being an Ecma International standard? Afaik, it is not transitional in ECMA-376. Ghettoblaster (talk) 22:06, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

It is still only a part of. I would personally only refer to it something like "the VML format is also defined in the Ecma 376 standard". hAl (talk) 22:14, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

VML is "transitional" in Ecma 376 since Ecma 376 is now identical to ISO/IEC 29500. On the wider question, VML is not an ISO/IEC standard. ISO/IEC standards have distinct numbers, and VML has no number. Alexbrn (talk) 20:08, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm still not sure about this. ISO/IEC 29500 is a four part standard. AFAIK each of the four parts is an ISO/IEC standard: "ISO/IEC 29500-1:2008", "ISO/IEC 29500-2:2008" etc. Even if ISO/IEC 29500-4:2008 (VML) is just an international standard for transitional migration features, it is still a standard. The Open Packaging Conventions (OPC) are specified in ISO/IEC 29500-2:2008. Is it correct to say that the OPC is an ISO/IEC standard then? Ghettoblaster (talk) 11:35, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Part 4 is more than VML (it defines a complete alternative set of schemas for example), so VML is only contained in an IS. It is not, in itself, an IS. The JTC 1 Directives do not define whether a part of a multipart standard is considered as an IS (formally it is only part of a multi-part standard) - though such things are standalone specifications which have the force of an IS. RELAX NG, for example, is ISO/IEC 19757-2. So i nformally speaking, OPC is "a" standard - one that could (should?) certainly be reused in other standards inside and outside JTC 1. Alexbrn (talk) 16:36, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

National bodies adoption and Application support paragraphs

This article has become huge IMHO. To reduce its size without deleting interesting content from wikipedia, I propose to spawn a new article for the two "National bodies adoption" and "Application support" paragraphs, which could be named "OOXML adoption". Hervegirod (talk) 12:27, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

WorldWide adoption paragraph title

This title is misleading. Using this title, I expect to find statistics about market share of OOXML, whereas it deals with national / official bodies adoption of he standard. Please note that I think that title of the same paragraph in the OpenDocument article is equally misleading IMHO. Hervegirod (talk) 13:34, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

The document referenced for Belgium ["note 64"] does NOT allow interchange of Office Open XML, it selects ODF as the sole interchange format:

4.3 De federale overheidsbesturen hebben volgend(e) documentforma(a)t(en) voor het uitwisselen van kantoordocumenten vastgelegd op de aangegeven data

• “OpenDocument Format” (ODF) (vastgelegd op 1 september 2006, op voorwaarde dat, zoals

voorzien in de impactanalyse, uit de testen van de ODF-plug in blijkt dat uiterlijk op 1 maart 2007

leesfunctionaliteit en op 1 maart 2008 schrijffunctionaliteit gegarandeerd wordt in een Microsoft

Office omgeving, met behoud van de benodigde metadata en functionaliteiten).

This translates roughly as "The federal governing bodies have selected the following document format(s) for exchanging office document formats as of the indicated dates" followed by the the sole mention of ODF. I will adapt the Belgian entry accordingly. --Promethean promise (talk) 14:26, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

If I understand the roadmap on page 11 correctly then current users of Microsoft Office in the federal administrations may use the Office Open XML format for office documents. Ghettoblaster (talk) 19:51, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

No criticism of Office Open XML?

I'm wary of getting mixed up in this obviously heated topic, but I am *very* surprised to see hardly any mention of criticism of this standard here. The editors involved may not agree with the criticism, but it would be difficult to claim that there is little of it, and it surely doesn't deserve being buried in a few lines in section 6.1.1 of such a document! Just look at all the discussion on this talk page, the least it deserves is a full section heading "Criticism", with an outline of the major points against it. Put the counterpoints as well in there to balance it out, but at least MENTION the fact that this standard has stirred up a lot of controversy! Thrapper (talk) 20:43, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, given the large number of comments in this page and the frequent edits and reverts, would the marker "Template:Unbalanced" be appropriate here? 78.43.107.185 (talk) 22:10, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, of course it's not balanced. But in the past, it's been in the news that Microsoft has paid people to edit this and other Microsoft related articles, to slant the view in favor of Microsoft. Sad, really.--Lester 03:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Interesting tip, I wasn't aware of that. But I'd like to assume that just because it happened in the past doesn't *necessarily* mean that it's happening now. In the absence of any information either way I'll assume that the repeated, persistent reverts are more the result of high personal enthusiasm rather than financial incentives. I do find it surprising though that just one or two people can exert such control over this (and other) articles, with repeated reverts without (imho) responding appropriately to the discussions here. I find the other languages' articles on this subject in wikipedia far more neutral than this one. Do you agree with putting some kind of "disputed" tag on this article? Thrapper (talk) 12:07, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

As long as one can "properly" cite a published source of criticism, Microsoft or whoever shouldn't be permitted to delete it just because they don't agree with it or have vested interests. If they wish to add counter-claims and cite that also, that should also be permitted. --66.120.226.81 (talk) 20:43, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Removing the label above the background paragraph

I'm going to once more remove the recently added label that some user keeps adding to the background section. Wikipedia guidelines clearly state that editors should "resist the temptation to apply labels". The reader should not be told what to think or what to do when reading the article. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia where we just state the facts and "let the facts speak for themselves". Other reasons for removing the text include that it contains weasel words and unreferenced statements ("a lot of discord surrounding allegations that Microsoft hijacked or rigged the voting process in ECMA"). Also please keep in mind that this article deals with the Office Open XML file format and contains a whole paragraph of referenced crtiticism thereof. It also contains several links to the article dealing with its standardization process and the criticism of this process. Ghettoblaster (talk) 09:45, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the removal of this tag, but the fact that the article contains almost nothing about the huge criticism of the voting process is a problem for me. It's OK not to devote a big section on this matter, but the Standardization section should contain something about it. Even the (very small, compared to OpenDocument) Criticism section does not contain anything about it. Some of the facts are not there. :: And for something completely unrelated, almost half the article length is used for the "Worldwide adoption" (hmm you know what I think of this title, in this article or the OpenDocument article), and the "Application support" sections. My crappy PC has problems to open this already huge page, I really think we should create a new article for these two sections, I really prefer to have more information about the file format here (if necessary) than endless lists about what application support what. Hervegirod (talk) 10:16, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this article is already quite long. Therefore we have to be careful not to mix up the criticism of the file format itself and the criticism of its standardization process. Otherwise we will end up mirroring all the criticism on both articles (which seems to be the aim of some editors), which will make it even longer for no apparent reason.

As you know, I don't think that the "Worldwide adoption" headline is wrong or misleading. The content in the section clearly states where in the world the file formats have been adopted so far (or are in the process of being adopted). However, we might use a different headline as long as we use the same for the Office Open XML article and the OpenDocument article since both paragraphs deal with the same thing. I agree that additional adoption or usage statistics as we have them for webbrowsers would be nice, but I'm not aware of any reliable sources for this kind of data. Also, I don't think that we need a seperate article for Office Open XML adoption right now since it really hasn't been adopted that much in the world so far. I think it is better to have it here until it is big enough to stand on its own.

The content in the "Application support" section is — for the most part — already included in the article Office Open XML software. I didn't have time yet to make sure that all applications in this section are listed in that article. However, I think once that this has been done we can safely remove some of the less important apps from this section and only list the important ones here similar to the "Application support" paragraph in the OpenDocument article. Ghettoblaster (talk) 11:12, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Hello, I agree that if we (ever) change the title of the "Worldwide adoption" paragraph, we would have to do the same change with the OpenDocument article. As for the application support / Worlswide adoption, it's OK to remove only the bulk of the "application support" paragraph, as the other is maybe not still not big enough to be worth a separate article. It would be great for readers to have only the more important apps here !! Hervegirod (talk) 11:18, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the text which keeps getting removed is not worded perfectly, but the sentiment should be represented in this article - there *is* substantial disagreement about the balance of this article. There *are* many people who believe it does not give enough weight to the controversy and criticism surrounding the subject. Therefore I don't agree with this text being arbitrarily and repeatedly removed just on one person's say-so without it being replaced with something more suitable. Thrapper (talk) 15:13, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

It's 2 people (HAl and Ghettoblaster), so saying that it's just one person is unfair. Myself, I'd like to see the link to the standardization process called out in a way that makes it more obvious that there's a story there - I agree that the controversy doesn't really belong in this article. (The technical weaknesses of the format identified in the standardization process do, IMHO, belong in the article - different topic.) --Alvestrand (talk) 10:29, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

You're right, but "repeatedly and arbitrarily just on two people's say-so" isn't much better. Can we at least have consensus that this article deserves a "neutrality disputed" tag, to reflect the concerns about its imbalance? Note that doesn't mean that *everyone* disputes the neutrality, just that everyone agrees that the neutrality *is* disputed by a number of people greater than 2? Is that possible here? Thrapper (talk) 12:01, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

OpenDocument (the XML document format used by OpenOffice.org)

Im going to revert the recent changes to the distinguish2 template at the top of the article once again. Obviously someone is misunderstanding the purpose of this template. It should not be used to promote your favourite office suite. When looking at the article OpenDocument software, you'll see that there are dozens of applications that use the OpenDocument format. There is no reason to mention a particular one in this context. Ghettoblaster (talk) 19:51, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Another revert, great. I think you misunderstand the purpose of the clarifications made by several people here. Please don't assume it's because of a "favourite" office suite, that's unfair. The office suite "OpenOffice.org" is popularly known as "Open office" and not everyone knows that the format it uses is called OpenDocument. Therefore, making this clear in the beginning of the "Office Open XML" page is relevant and *useful*, to avoid confusion. I'm surprised you don't understand this (or don't want to). Thrapper (talk) 20:22, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Relative relevance of criticism and subtle advertising.

I do not understand why it is that anything even remotely critical of Microsoft and their behavior during the ECMA and ISO voting process is systematically deleted from this article while sections like the "covenant not to sue" which is marginally relevant to an article about an office document standard is allowed to remain. I can only draw one conclusion and that is that this article has become a vehicle for promoting Microsoft's agenda and a blatant attempt at rewriting history. For posterity, here is the paragraph that keeps getting deleted. Quote: When reading this article, please be aware that there is a lot of discord surrounding allegations that Microsoft hijacked or rigged the voting process in ECMA and/or ISO. The reader should keep this in mind when considering the merits of this particular document format. Unquote. I am re-inserting this paragraph in the article, with the hope that it is allowed to remain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.177.111.68 (talk) 02:42, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Microsoft's behaviour in the standardization process is not strictly necessary to describing Office Open XML as a file format, so there is little detail about it in this article. There is an entire separate article on the topic: Standardization of Office Open XML. Warren -talk- 05:18, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe, but listing each country which adopted OOXML is also not necessary to describing Office Open XML as a file format. Hervegirod (talk) 12:49, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

On a related note I'd like to see that example pie-chart updated to 2009 browser figures :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adamish1980 (talk • contribs) 21:28, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

There is scope for far more material about the controversy regarding the 'standardisation' of Office Open XML

The article as it stands, even with the - relatively short - paragraph about the controversy, reads like promotional material for Microsoft. Maybe that is the intent?

No mention of the several very small countries, who joined ISO during the year prior to the vote, whose ISO representatives, as if by magic, all voted in favour, tipping the vote in Microsoft's favour.

Is it really necessary to include countries in the section on countries which have 'adopted' the standard, when at least some of the countries listed haven't actually adopted it at all, but are considering it, or merely adding it to other standards already used. That section makes it appear that Office Open XML was adopted to the exclusion of everything else in those countries.

Even the name of this 'standard' seems intended to confuse rather than enlighten the ordinary user: 'Open Office', 'Office Open'... I would laugh if it wasn't so obviously underhand in intent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.187.233.172 (talk) 14:15, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

There is actually an entire article about the subject. hAl (talk) 16:13, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and it's very existence is probably a classic example of WP:POVFORK. Let me quote that guideline: "The generally accepted policy is that all facts and major points of view on a certain subject should be treated in one article." No one stumbles upon this other article; it's not linked near the top of the article as several other related articles are; it's not even linked here while we talk about it. It serves to get all the inconvenient facts squirrelled away where hardly anybody will ever read them, while being a stick to use to stop anyone adding balance to this one. It's frustrating as several editors have been trying to get this article balanced for some time now, with little effect. Meanwhile this article gets longer and longer, with lists of obscure technical details (complete with XML code samples, like we need help designing our own parsers), lists of the parts of each standardisation editions (copied from the contents pages?), even a growing list of each country in the world whose civil servants have ever mentioned OOXML in print: So, of course, there's no room here for a proper balanced discussion of the main issues. --Nigelj (talk) 16:56, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

So, anyone up for the humongous task of merging these two articles together? I'd do it myself but I'm a newbie, lol :) 91.153.107.4 (talk) 21:45, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

The issues surrounding the standardization of the format have little to no barings on the format itself. They are almost entirely made up of POV references and have little encyclopic information to give on information on the format. The standardization article is more about an event in time that has passed while the format still remains. The only remaining impact on the format itself is actual changes created in standardization proces leading to ISO/IEC 29500 leading to improvements in the specification. Many of the issues surrounding the standardization where about either Microsoft vs other office suite vendors or about ISO/IEC and its procedures and often only remotly related to the document file format itself. This is not an article to put in complaints about ISO/IEC procedures or the politics of office vendors but an article about a fileformat and as such should focues on the fileformat. The standardization of Office Open XML article is a good place to keep issues around the standardization but is dated and deals with more than just fileformats. hAl (talk) 09:58, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Don't be such a stick-in-the-mud hAl! Surely you agree this article lacks much needed criticism, despite there being another article about it? Merge I say! 91.153.107.4 (talk) 20:30, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

For once, I agree with hAl. The technological mess that is the file format and the procedural/political mess that is the standardization process are both large subjects, and heavily interlinked (lots of political capital was expended on not fixing certain of the technical issues, for instance), but it is right to have two articles about the two subjects. --Alvestrand (talk) 10:56, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

People getting paid to remove criticism and maintain 'fluff'?

While, obviously, we always continue to assume that every individual editor is acting in good faith and for the good of Wikipedia, none-the-less, we also know without doubt that there are allegations of people being offered money to keep criticism of Microsoft out of WP articles, and that this one is at the core of the area where these allegations arose. See MyWikiBiz, Rick Jelliffe, List of The Colbert Report episodes (2007), History of Wikipedia#Controversies, Criticism of Wikipedia etc for such allegations, just within WP - there are many more on the big wide web.

Therefore, without entering into a detailed debate with any individual editor(s) who doggedly want to keep this article's positive spin intact (as that may risk losing that essential assumption of good faith wrt individuals), I think the consensus of this discussion page, going back right through its archives, is that the majority (of unpaid) editors want more criticism and less 'fluff' in this article.

So, we should just go it, and police our edits, and not be intimidated. Isn't that right? --Nigelj (talk) 09:44, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I have no real opinion on changing the overall focus of the article. However, I strongly believe that an unsourced sentence inserted into the lead along the lines of "When reading this, bear in mind that Microsoft has been accused of lying and cheating to push this standard through" is unencyclopedic in tone and in nature, and blatantly pushes a particular POV. That is why I have removed this addition twice. Stannered (talk) 09:52, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. I don't think that's the reason you've removed it. Not at all. It is historical fact that Microsoft have lied and cheated and especially in regard to this standard. And it is also historic fact that they've been accused of it. Disallowing these facts is sabotaging the article. It may not be proper to phrase it as "while reading this..." but it is more than proper to detail Microsoft's behaviour in another context. And it is anything but proper to not attempt to modify the presentation but to remove the truth altogether. To every rule there is an exception. And you and the other Microsoft goons here are the exception to the 'good faith' rule.

That was just trolling/uninformed editing of wikipedia. But in other news, I think most people have given up editing this article regarding criticism 91.153.107.4 (talk) 12:11, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I couldn't say whether individual editors are being paid or not, but there is little question that there's a small number of editors of this article who are _very_ persistent on removing criticism and maintaining fluff (as you call it). Quite sad. But any attempts to rectify it get met with extremely arrogant accusations of "warring", which puts people off. Thrapper (talk) 13:41, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

http://openxmldeveloper.org/

Statement in article is: The Open XML Developer site was launched to promote these formats and to support developers impementing the specification This seem very plain info. Someone suggest this need to be sourced. Why. Is this contested/challenged ? Is someone suggesting the site not for promoting these formats en supporting developers implementing the specification. What is next ? Do we need to source that ISO is a standard organisation ?

As you can see in Wikipedia:Verifiability:

"Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or the material may be removed."

please edit according to Wikipedia's policies.

ISO is no longer a neutral/trustable organization anymore. The fairness of the votes on OOXML are doubtable (see Complaints about the national bodies process). If such an organization like ISO can't be trusted, what we can? Don't we need to source third-party material when mention ISO?

This article has been severely disputed and biased, don't we need to improve the citations in order to raise its reliability? Requesting sources is no harm if you can justify and confident of your edit. - Justin545 (talk) 23:39, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

You do not seem to ask citations to improve reliability. There is no challenges that the openxmldevelopers.org site does not promote Office Open XML. You seem to add request for citations for no apparant reasons. You asked for a citation on a on statement of support by de Icaza allthough this was obviously cited in the article already by Slashdot and asked for citations on a stament that opendevelopers.org site is a site supporting OOXML which is actually as obvious as amazon wikipedia being an on line encyclopedia site. hAl (talk) 06:38, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

You should probably justify a sentence first than you can use it:

"There is no challenges that the openxmldevelopers.org site does not promote Office Open XML."

You didn't explain why the above sentence is true. Even ISO is doubtable, how can opendevelopers.org be trustworthy? - Justin545 (talk) 08:43, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

So how can you justify: "You do not seem to ask citations to improve reliability"? If you can't, you was probably FUD. - Justin545 (talk) 08:59, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

"You asked for a citation on a on": that is usual. Likewise, you reverted editors' work (not just mine) on and on if they tried to improve the reliability of the citations or tried improve the neutral point of view of the article. - Justin545 (talk) 08:59, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

By the way, remember to sign your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~) after you finish editing, as you can see in Wikipedia:Signatures#When_signatures_should_and_should_not_be_used:

"Any posts made to the user talk pages, article talk pages and any other discussion pages should be signed."

- Justin545 (talk) 01:37, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I changed the statement from a third party claim on what the site supports to a 1st party statement what the states that it does that is readable on the site so it is 100% verifiable. Do not ask for references on somehting you can readitself again. hAl (talk) 06:22, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Verifiability#Burden_of_evidence:

"The source should be cited clearly and precisely to enable readers to find the text that supports the article content in question."

The citation is not clear enough to support that Intel is one of those companies. There's nothing related to Intel can be found in the given two sources. Do not remove citation request about unrefered text (Intel) again. - Justin545 (talk) 07:15, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Anything violate Wikipedia's policies would be challenged. - Justin545 (talk) 07:25, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

You seem to be referring to a different part of the article. Please do no mix your citation requests. This section was about your unnescesary request on a citation about the site Openxmldevloper.org site being launched to promote the office open XML format. Nothing to do with Intel. hAl (talk) 07:43, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

A bit off-topic is normal in regular discussion. Besides, I strike out the Intel part before you response, so what I meant is just to remind you don't violate Wikipedia's policies. - Justin545 (talk) 08:50, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Your Point of View (Blog comments) is duly noted. hAl (talk) 21:29, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the advertisement for my user page. So what's the relationship between this talk and my user page? You didn't make any sense. By the way, don't judge the content merely by the title, unless you understand Traditional Chinese. - Justin545 (talk) 03:31, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Company's blog might not be a reliable source!

HAl said that Google docs has support for OOXML and added "Google" to the first item of the Response section:

"Major information technology companies like Adobe, Apple, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Novell, Sun Microsystems, Google and Toshiba offer products with full or partial support for Office Open XML and/or participated in the development of the Office Open XML formats[54], as well as other companies who may or may not be working inside the Ecma International Office Open XML technical committee (TC45)."

However, the verification of sources was failed so I requested the source for Google[17]. Later, Alexbrn added a new source, however it was a blog of Google[18]. Alexbrn said that:

"Google's blog is an official organ of the corporation, and a good source"

and he removed my citation request again. However, after I consulted the help desk, this is what I got:

Verifiability is one of the nutshells of Wikipedia. Each article should be sourced by several reliable sources for verification purpose. According to Wikipedia:SPS#Self-published_sources_.28online_and_paper.29:

"Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason self-published media, whether books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, Internet forum postings, tweets etc., are largely not acceptable."

Therefore, I have some question regarding to the above:

1. Can an official blog of a company be a reliable source?
2. How to identify whether a given website is a reliable source or not?

Thanks. - Justin545 (talk) 09:08, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not have firm rules; policies and guidelines can and do change. There is little point in looking at the exact policy wording, as a degree of common sense is required - and that's where consensus comes in.

My own common sense tells me that it is very unlikely that a company blog would constitute a reliable source. Opinions, however, may vary. If you are ever in doubt, then ask on the Reliable sources/Noticeboard.  Chzz  ►  10:00, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

So if a teamblog of a company described a featured on the product that you would consider unreliable ? For instance Micrsoft IE team explaining what in IE8 webslices and/or acceleraters are or how InPrivate browsing in IE8 is implemented ? Is that unreliable information because it is provided trough a comnpany blog ??hAl (talk) 13:44, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I would use a company blog only to support facts (IE8 dispenses skittles or IE8 surfs the web at 10 terabits a second, etc.). I would not use it for any sort of review of the company's products. Those sort of statements need to be sourced to independent authors. TNXMan 14:52, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

the reply from help desk tends to support that:

Company's blog is NOT a reliable source!

so how can we resolve the conflicts between Alexbrn and the Help desk? - Justin545 (talk) 18:45, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Read it again. It specifically states you can use blogs to support factual claims. So there is no conflict. Google has stated on a blog that Google docs supports Office Open XML files and that is actually factual information about a Google product. Not opinion. hAl (talk) 19:48, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

That "Google support OOXML" is a fact or is a fake has not yet been justified/confirmed. Which means basically "Google support OOXML is a fact" itself is questionable. Wikipedia is a free platform that everyone with different degree of background may join. You shouldn't expect everyone has consensus it is a fact. So the material in question is questionable, it may be freely challenged by every person who doubts it. - Justin545 (talk) 05:06, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

A Fake ? Are you serious ? I can't take you serious if you suggest that. hAl (talk) 14:19, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say it is a fack. I said "is a fact or is a fake"

which is pretty much like:

Major information technology companies like Adobe, Apple, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Novell, Sun Microsystems, Google and Toshiba offer products with full or partial support for Office Open XML and/or participated in the development of the Office Open XML formats[55], as well as other companies who may or may not be working inside the Ecma International Office Open XML technical committee (TC45).

filled with weasel words - Justin545 (talk) 17:02, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Could you please explain your tenacity in requesting sourcing for the obvious fact that google docs supports Office Open XML. There is no obvious reason to challenge the claim however you even go to length at finding support at the helpdesk for your queeste. It is pathetic. You could have just googled and find at least a dozen articles stating this as well. So even if your pathetic queeste to get the Google blog dismissed succeeded there would be planety of other sources. I think however the specific Google blog is actually a very good source for feature announcements by google on Google doc. Probably the best possible source linkable on the internet. You must of course also understand that the support by Google for the Office Open XML format is factual but go at lengths to still challenge the claims in the article. Why ? hAl (talk) 20:04, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

>> "Could you please explain your tenacity in requesting sourcing for..."

Just like what I said above "You should probably justify a sentence first than you can use it". Basically, your claim above (Google support OOXML is a fact) has a logic flaw. Therefore, I can continuously request the source until it becomes reliable.

>> "...your tenacity in requesting sourcing for the obvious fact that google docs supports Office Open XML. There is no obvious reason to challenge the claim"

"google docs supports OOXML" is obvious to you, however it is not necessarily so obvious to everyone.

>> "You could have just googled and find at least a dozen articles stating this as well."

I believe all of the existing sources in this article can be found by Googling. So does it means we should remove all of the existing sources and ask all reader to find all of sources by themselves? It seems not to be a right way to do that, dose it?

>>"So even if your pathetic queeste to get the Google blog dismissed succeeded there would be planety of other sources."

You were absolutely right. But why didn't you add the source directly instead of arguing with me? The other reliable sources is what I was asking for. Just add it to the article then I will immediately stop challenging it. - Justin545 (talk) 05:06, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

>>"You must of course also understand that the support by Google for the Office Open XML format is factual but go at lengths to still challenge the claims in the article. Why ?"

Honestly, I didn't know anything about the relation between Google and OOXML until you point out the Google docs blog. I'm not an OOXML expert like you. (actually, I'm learning while editing) And you have said that you find my behaviour is ridiculous and childish, so please don't make any assumption of what I've already known. - Justin545 (talk) 05:26, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

This is a silly discussion, Google - of all companies - will make official announcements through blogs rather than habitually using stuffy old news releases. If it surely common sense that this official blog posting from them is an authoritative source for this piece of technical information. Mind you if we're going to be strict about blog and self-publications as sources, then a large portion of this article could be consigned to the dustbin. That would be no bad thing IMO. Alexbrn (talk) 14:52, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Google (the company) does not support (as in "actively promotes") OOXML; in fact, it devoted resources to fighting its adoption as a standard. Anyone who has an OOXML document can find out whether or not Googe Docs (the software product) supports OOXML (as in "can import and/or export it"); simply try to import it. Google Docs can be accessed through any Google account, and Google accounts are free. --Alvestrand (talk) 06:29, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

The article just states support and does not say (activly) promote. So that seems a correct representation. And as for Google, their support in Google docs is not their first support. Actually the Google search engine has had an OOXML document to HTML translator for several years now whilst Microsofts engine does not. In fact Microsofts Bing.com search engine does not even support OOXML filetypes. So no filetype:docx but only the old filetype:doc. hAl (talk) 07:26, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I split the bullet to make this distinction clearer. --Alvestrand (talk) 08:08, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I moved company support references by Intel and Toshiba with your split to avoid prior discusions hAl (talk) 09:27, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Microsoft hijacked or rigged the voting process in ECMA and/or ISO

Just to quote[19] some text to remind the readers of this article:

Needs balance.

When considering the content of this article, please be aware that there is significant discord surrounding allegations that Microsoft hijacked or rigged the voting process in ECMA and/or ISO. The reader should keep this in mind when considering the use of this particular document format.

The Neutral point of view of this article has been disputed. Need more work on this. - Justin545 (talk) 16:50, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Just because some idiot drops by and inserts (completely inappropriate) instructions to readers on HOW THEY MUST THINK, does not necessarily mean more work needs to be done. More information and factual accuracy is always beneficial, of course, but we don't need POV crusades -- I thought in this article we'd actually started to move away from those ... Alexbrn (talk) 18:18, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Inserting the text is completely inappropriate, so how about the filthy words in the following sentances:

• This is a silly discussion, Google - of all companies - will make official announcements ...
• Just because some idiot drops by and inserts (completely inappropriate) instructions ...

That silly and idiot are "appropriate" words to be used extensively in the talk?

That silly and idiot is a "civil" way and is not an "emotional" way in interaction?

Justin545 (talk) 03:15, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

perhaps 'idiot' was a bit strong - this article however suffers from anonymous vandalism: the continued re-insertion of the text you quote, which is purely an instruction to readers on how they should read the article. The way to improve the article is by improving its factual content. It does not benefit from anonymous drive-by-edits that are pure POV.Alexbrn (talk) 06:21, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

What is the standpoint of "Open XML Developer" as a "Microsoft-run" site ??

According to this revision[20]:

"The Open XML Developer site is a Microsoft-run site (see copyright statement, privacy statement) launched to promote these (OOXML) formats and to support developers impementing the specification."

So what are the standpoint and the Point Of View of "Open XML Developer" ?? - Justin545 (talk) 03:43, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure what you mean. It is in a section about supporting Office Open XML. What point of view are you expecting in that section. The Open XML Developers group is a group of companies supporting Office open XML. MS is a prominent Office Open XML supporter and probable founder of the Open XML Developers group. So what new point of view are you talking about. Btw, could you please refrain from using colouring on your comments. No need to emphisize your comment above others here. hAl (talk) 05:35, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

But could you please explain why I cannot color my own comments here? Was I wrong? Or no opposite opinions are allowed on this talk page? - Justin545 (talk) 10:27, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

You didnt answer the queston hAl.

The Open XML Developer site is a Microsoft-run site (see copyright statement, privacy statement) (along with others on the page)

as such

Including a Microsoft-run site under "response" to OOXML, while hiding these site's identity as such, is promoting Microsoft sockpuppetry.

Scientus (talk) 15:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what hAl is meant to have done here. The site in question is quite transparently a Microsoft-sponsored site (it has a Microsoft copyright at the bottom of each page). And their running the site is a "response" to the format, so it is mentioned at the right place in the article. What's not to like? Alexbrn (talk) 16:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The provided references do not back the claim that the websites/organizations in question are "Microsoft-run". Microsoft is just one of several organizations that support and/or sponsor these websites/organizations. It is entirely possible that Microsoft just happens to provide the webspace and owns the copyrights. This however does not necessarily mean that it is all run by Microsoft. To prove this claim we need independent 3rd party references. Ghettoblaster (talk) 18:26, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, statements need 3rd party sources. I removed those sections at issue as there are no reliable, 3rd party sources, without a conflict of interest, showing that these sites are relevant.Scientus (talk) 19:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Err what? "not relevant"?! This is a site set up by the main sponsor of the format described in the article, containing resources directly applicable to the format. Or are you advocating (say) ripping out all the Adobe developer site references in the PDF article? The very idea is absurd 86.26.1.10 (talk) 20:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The point is not whether you think these websites are relevant or not. The point is that they promote and support the standard which is what this section is all about. Do we need 3rd party references that confirm that the ODF Alliance is supporting ODF? I don't think so. Ghettoblaster (talk) 20:17, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

"Open XML community" is really a reliable source ????

After verified one of the sources of this article, I have found two interesting Community Quotes from Open XML community: (It doesn't matter if you understand simplified Chinese or not)

Beijing iSoftStone Information Service Corporation

"我们全力支持Ecma’s Open XML开放标准。在文档格式开放标准上拥有更多的选择和灵活性，再加上微软赞助的Open XML/ODF转化器项目，和在不同的办公系统中的协同工作中可以帮助我们的政府扩展我们在技术上的投资,并通过基于不同XML文件格式的办公软件之间的互操作性和解决方案的竞争.提高我们向客户提供服务的质量。"

- 梅开, IBM Service BU

 

DGT Information System Ltd.

"我们全力支持Ecma Open XML开放标准。在文档格式开放标准上拥有更多的选择和灵活性，再加上微软赞助的Open XML/ODF/UOF转化器项目，和在不同的办公系统中的协同工作中可以帮助我们的政府扩展我们在技术上的投资,并通过基于不同XML文件格式的办公软件之间的互操作性和解决方案的竞争.提高我们向客户提供服务的质量。”"

- Jomy sun, Tester

The quotes above are basically saying how they support Ecma Open XML open standard, which is usual in a website like Open XML community. However, it's not the point to put the quotes here. The strangest thing happens when you carefully compare the two quotes above. Just compare the two quotes above literally, we can find the quotes are essentially "identical" except the company names, the author names and a few minor changes.

So here comes the questions:

• What is the probability that two different authors from two different companies write almost the same quote?
• Is "Open XML community" really a reliable source ????
• If it is confirmed, may we say that Open XML community was cheating? - Justin545 (talk) 05:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Or is it just a simple copy paste error. There might be hundreds of different quotes from companies on that page. Quite a few chinese as well. You found two to be identical ? Wow. hAl (talk) 08:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Not likely, I strongly suspect they are Microsoft's sock puppets. Based on the past reputation Microsoft have built, it is reasonable to infer the quotes are another crafted result made by Microsoft in order to promote their own OOXML standard. On the other hand, there is no any reason why they need to copy each other's quote, which is meaningless and pretty bizarre. - Justin545 (talk) 05:06, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Complience

The article now states:

However, due to the changes introduced between the versions, this does not mean that it has demonstrated compliance with ISO/IEC IS 29500.

This a weasel claim as there is no existing way to show complience with ISO/IEC 29500 Office Open XML. This is exactly the same for any Opendocument implementation which cannot prove that is 100% complient to ISO ODF either as there is no such complience test for it. It seems rather different standards are applied in document formats here. Also it is a superfluous claim as MS Office has stated their aim is support for MS Office 2010.

And btw, the current version of Office 2007 is already very close to the ISO standard in prodcuing documents. In a test using the 6000 plus pages Ecma Office Open XML specification which was created with Office Word 2007 it nearly validated against the ISO/IEC 29500 schema's. Only 1 XML element failed to validate. A result that if you were looking at bugs in a 6000 page document conforming to a spec would actually be very good. So a lot of smaller and much simpler files produced by Word 2007 will easily conform to the ISO standard and most implementation only creating such files will automatically be complient.

The fraunhofer institute in Germany is actually developing test and validating tools foor the ISO/IEC 29500 but even if such test exist they will only be indicative for indivdual produced tested document and not for all possible document an entire suite could possible produce.

You state that it is impossible to show compliance, and yet a few sentences later you point out that in your own tests you noted a failure to validate. It is quite possible to show that an implementation is not compliant: you just have to show one document that the implementation generates which does not obey the specification. Whether other documents that it generates are in compliance are beside the point, as are promises of future compliance.

I agree that the statement is unclear. Since the current implementation of Office is not compliant as you yourself point out, it should be changed to: However, due to the changes introduced between the versions, Office 2007 is not in full compliance with ISO/IEC IS 29500. (We don't have to rely on your own evidence, of course; the cited documents show that Microsoft itself admits that Office 2007 is not fully compliant.) —Steven G. Johnson (talk) 23:53, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

You state: you just have to show one document that the implementation generates which does not obey the specification. That however is a question on how complience is defined. Must comlplience be 100% complience or 99% complience in which Minor flaws can be accpetable. If 1005 complience is the only benchmark that than no document producing Office suite will be 100% complient for any standard format in the next decade or so. For example recently was shown that both OpenOffice and Symphony are not valid producers of ODF (same test passed by MS Office). This however was removed from the Opendocument article. Different standards apply for these articles ? hAl (talk) 09:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

This talk page is not about the OpenDocument article; go argue that article over there. Alleged deficiencies in that article are not an excuse for deficiencies in this article.

If you say that MS Office is compliant with the standard, then that implies (as a matter of standard English) that it produces compliant documents all of the time, not just some of the time, i.e. 100% compliance. (To make an analogy, if you say that a person is a "law-abiding citizen", that implies that the person obeys the law all of the time, not just some of the time.) The present article says that Office 2007 is not fully compliant with the ISO version of the standard, while Microsoft has promised greater support for the ISO version in Office 14. This is factually accurate and seems unobjectionable.

PS. It's spelled "compliance." —Steven G. Johnson (talk) 19:14, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Stop vandalising the Office Open XML and Microsoft articles

You have been repeatedly removing information from the Office open XML article about community sites that support Office open XML

It is obvious these sites support Office Open XML even in the names of the sites themselves:

http://openxmldeveloper.org/ http://www.openxmlcommunity.org

Added to that the sites themselves provide statements that the sites support Office Open XML which is exactly as the Office Open XML wikipedia article states they do.

You claim false reasons for removal of the information. For instance a conflict of interest where of course there is non, as the sites stating they support Office Open XML and the article also stating that the sites are there for supporting Office Open XML is for all to see easily. Also false claims on verifiabilty as the sites are very obvious in their info about providing support for Office open XML and the provided info can be used as verifiable sources as described in WP:SELFPUB where it is clearly confirmed that self publicated references can be used as verifiable sources.

As is discussed and agreed to at Talk:Office_Open_XML#MS self-published, you have attempted to hide the identities of these sites as Microsoft-run promotional sites. You have done so to create the illusion that these sites are 3rd-party are are somehow "responses" to OOXML. This idea that they are "responses" is a fase, as they are published by Microsoft, the same company that created the standard, there is a word for this sort of action, and its called sockpuppetry.

Furthurmore you cite WP:SELFPUB, but fail to read it. Notice its rules

1. the material is not unduly self-serving;
2. it does not involve claims about third parties;
3. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject;
4. there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity;
5. the article is not based primarily on such sources.

Scientus (talk) 16:14, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

You have also been repeatedly removing clearly sourced information on the Microsoft article. For instance:

Article: Microsoft has phased out the use of polyvinyl chloride plastic in its packaging material, due to environmental concerns Source: Microsoft, in response to environmental concerns, will phase out all use of polyvinyl chloride plastic by the end of the year, the software giant announced Wednesday

Source: "Microsoft is joining other industry titans such as Apple Computer, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Sony, Sharp and Samsung that have recently taken steps to eliminate their use of polyvinyl chloride plastics, otherwise known as PVC or vinyl, in the packaging of their products."

yet you consistently remove from the Article: "following action by competitors"Scientus (talk) 16:14, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

and

Article: Microsoft's newest building on its campus in Hyderabad, India was built as an environmentally friendly structure Source: Microsoft opened the doors to Building 2 on our new campus in Hyderabad, India. Building 2 is a state-of-the-art building that incorporates sound environmental design and furniture made by local Indian companies

"sound environmental design" != "environmentally friendly". In fact "sound environmental design" could mean almost anything, as is to vague to be citable in any matter-of-fact way. Also, how reliable is http://greencorporateamerica.blogspot.com ? The publisher has no name, no street address, and it is posted in a free blog. Furthurmore, none of the blog posts have any sources, and there are no comments to any posts. This is clearly not a Wikipedia:reliable source, it is a pulp mill.Scientus (talk) 16:14, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Please stop from removing this fully sourced information. hAl (talk) 14:50, 19 June 2009 (UTC

Please stop adding unsourced information, and information from sites with conflicts of interest and hiding their identify, and unverifiable sources.Scientus (talk) 16:14, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Opening section mutilated

In multiple edits the opening section of the article has been mutilated so that it now has become illogical and out of order. This seems part of an effort to mutilate several aprts of this article after recent tidings on anti-MS sites. hAl (talk) 15:42, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

hAl Microsoft Topic Ban

I have proposed that User:hAl be banned from editing this and other Microsoft-related article following a pattern of disruptive and tendentious editing spanning almost a year. The evidence and discussion is at WP:COIN. -- samj _in^out 12:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

That's a good proposal. Can't wait for it to take effect.

So IBM and Groklaw in recent publications object to (fully sourced) wikipedia edits on Office Open XML and OpenDocumentI notice. Anti OOXML blogger IBM's Rob Weir and Groklaw, a site with a entire section dedicated on anti Office open XML information. Very unbiased indeed. Really nbo Conflict of interest there ... Sure.

If this how external blogs want to influence wikipedia could we get a topic ban for all Groklaw readers then as well ? If I was so biased I could have removed all of Rob Weirs blog references on Office Open XML and Opendocument. Those blog citation are definitly not unbiased or objective and reliable in Wikipedia standard. Or what about the recent editors trying to remove sites obviously supporting Office open XML (in a section specifically about support) from this article. Am I trying to remove sites supporting OpenDocument from a similar section in the OpenDocument article ? No, of course not. So who are the biased parties here.

It seem certain people want to hold different Wikipedia standards for OpenDocument (a format pushed by IBM) then for Office open XML (a format supported by Microsoft). I object to such different standards for similar document formats articles. The Office Open XML article is relative to its size one of the most sourced articels on wikipedia. A formidable effort to keep an article sourced so well as this one. I might be an Office 2007 fan but I am not unlike some others here pushed by a IBM and a related blog that have an anti-OOXML agenda. hAl (talk) 19:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

>> one of the most sourced articels on wikipedia

Well, actually it is likely to be poor sourced in some part. Such as the Microsoft-run Open XML Developer and possibly untrustworthy Open XML community above. The sources of this article need to be verified carefully. Just source the article is not enough, we need reliable sources. - Justin545 (talk) 00:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

The info in the article is that those site support Office open XML. In what way is that unreliably sourced. In fact I think it is even evident from the sites names that thay are sites that support Office Open XML. I don't think anybody reading Wikipedia need to be convinced that those sites indeed support Office Open XML. For instance a similar support site named on the OpenDocument article (OpenDocument Fellowship) is completly unsourced. I do se any body asking for sources on that allthough the people asking for sources in this article has also been editing OpenDocument. So you are editing both articles but applying different standards to both. hAl (talk) 05:48, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

A btw Sam, You might have disclosed that you are actually active for the OASIS OpenDocument Interoperability technical committee. OASIS TC mail archive]. You as a person with a vested interest in OpenDocument are trying to remove block edits on a competing document format ? How pathetic is that ? hAl (talk) 20:49, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

hAl, you are speculating on the real life identity of samj, which may be considered as outing here. Don't do that again. You can be blocked for that, I suggest you remove your last paragraph yourself. Hervegirod (talk) 22:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

No need to speculate. His full name and emailadres are on his wikipedia user page already. hAl (talk) 22:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of the merits of this request, the Talk page and COIN seem like the wrong forums for such a request. You really should go to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests. (Feel free to post a notice on this and other relevant Talk pages if you do, however.)

Wikipedia's procedures to ban problematic editors take time and effort, and require substantial patience, I'm afraid, so be prepared.

Also, note that if you have complaints about several editors apparently working in concert on a particular set of articles, you might want to combine them into a single complaint. —Steven G. Johnson (talk) 16:18, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

WP:RFAR is indeed the correct forum to deal with issues like what we're seeing right now. If actions being taken on Wikipedia are being influenced by advocacy groups like Groklaw, and/or by PR firms paid to dispense of negative material (as Microsoft is accused by Rob Weir, Groklaw & others of doing), then the Arbitration Committee is really the only group of people with the research powers and deliberative chops to sort it out. I'm seemingly being drawn into this as well, with comments about by comments on Wikipedia now appearing on multiple web sites, but I'm not here to advocate for anybody: if Microsoft is paying people to remove information negative about Microsoft products & services from Wikipedia, they must be stopped. If advocates of OpenDocument, spurred on by commentary on web sites like Groklaw and Slashdot, take actions to subvert Wikipedia to be unduly favourable to OpenDocument and unduly unfavourable to OOXML, they must be stopped, too.

I've been on Wikipedia for three and a half years now, and I've seen plenty of people from both sides of the pro- and anti-Microsoft debate show up, try to do their damage (while gussying it up as "teh truth!!1"), then run away when they realize it isn't as easy as they think to subvert Wikipedia to their cause or belief. A lot of these people then end up on web sites complaining about how they were mistreated and how Wikipedia is a pile of bullshit, etc.etc... it happens in pretty much every area Wikipedia attempts to cover, even bands. I've seen a guy rage on about how Wikipedia is stupid and worthless because the list of musical genres given for System of a Down doesn't include nu metal. Weird... Warren -talk- 18:00, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I can't find anything about this on the COIN page you linked. Has the discussion been moved somewhere else?

See [21] --Nigelj (talk) 18:18, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Inadequate references

The 'clever' idea of publishing a 6000 page spec and hoping no one will ever read it should not be allowed to triumph here. If we have statements like this-and-that "are fully documented in the ISO/IEC 29500 specifications", then we must have a link to the page of the spec where they are fully documented, so that we can see. A link to [22] is inadequate as, if under WP:BURDEN, the author of such statement can't be bothered to check where this is documented, how can we believe that it adequately is? As it is, we are having to rely on a primary source here - what we really want is a textbook or other independent, reviewed secondary source that says that the documentation is there, is adequate, and is usable. --Nigelj (talk) 20:12, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

The standards specification has been approved by ISO/IEC. The the items mentioned were specifically reviewed and were improved in that proces. That is enough independant review. hAl (talk) 20:31, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

added the speciciation partnumbers the info can be found in. hAl (talk) 21:11, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

You have added a reference to a 50.4 MB zipped folder. That is not adequate. We need a reference to a page that we can read to verify the fact stated. You can't expect reviewers and readers to download a 50 MB archive and search it for verification of your single sentence! At least this time you have specified which zip file, previously you referenced only a listing of 17 such zip files. Is this specification not published in plain text anywhere? If not, I doubt that it is any use as a verifiable reference. --Nigelj (talk) 21:20, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

How difficult is it to find the references to ISO 8601 in a PDF file. Not much more difficult than finding things on the internet of even wikipedia. I could list the page numbers but use of page numbering is more work that using "find". The refs are for verifiability. That is provided with the specification. The information is verifiable if needed. There is no requirement for a cited source to be small. hAl (talk) 21:33, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

> There is no requirement for a cited source to be small.

"The source should be cited clearly and precisely to enable readers to find the text that supports the article content in question." see WP:BURDEN

> use of page numbering is more work that using "find"

It depends on how frequent the target keyword appears in the source. If it's too frequent, "find" will be a tedious work. - Justin545 (talk) 23:54, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Even if the reference was not precise enough it would not be reason for removal of the citation on any other article. Common courtesy would suggest that an editor would ask for the citation to be be improved in stead of removing it shortly after it was added. hAl (talk) 05:43, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree that references are important and that in general the author adding a statement has the burden to provide the references to back up the claims. I try to check all the claims made in this article and add any valid references that I can find, even if someone else added the statement. If a contributor was really interested in improving the article, then why doesn't he just save us all some time and at least do a very quick search on google to try to verify the claim that he is about to cite-tag or remove and then add the found references himself before requesting references or removing whole sections. It's not that these references are that hard to find. Also, I don't think we need a reference for each and every sentence if everybody can verify the sentence in question in like 10 seconds using any search engine available. I wouldn't be surprised if this article had more references than any other computing related article. I can see many signs of disruptive editing here. I also get the impression that some people just want to hide existing positive responses to the Office Open XML standard in order to mislead the reader into thinking that there is nothing else but criticism around these formats. IMHO it speaks volumes that cite-request tags are almost never added to criticism, they are only added to supporting responses. And nobody adds similar tags to almost identical statements on the OpenDocument article. And many of these editors never contribute anything else of significance to this article or to any other article on Wikipedia. This seems like a campaign to drive away productive contributors. Ghettoblaster (talk) 23:03, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

> If a contributor was really interested in improving the article, then why doesn't he just save us all some time and at least do a very quick search on google to try to verify the claim that he is about to cite-tag or remove and then add the found references himself before requesting references or removing whole sections.

The problem is that the one (HAl, for example) who added the content should also provide the citation at the same time. He will do such work more efficiently than anyone else and he don't even have to "google" and "find". - Justin545 (talk) 00:08, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

On this article citations are asked for things that are not asked in any computer related article in wikipedia. Noone would be bothering to require citations for a stamement that the Opendocument fellowship supports opendocument. That kind of request for citations for the obvious and often even removal of the information allthough the remover knows the info to be factually correct is commonplace in this article. hAl (talk) 05:39, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

First, I don't think the following sentences are common sense and so obvious to most of Wikipedian:

• The compatibility settings are fully documented in the ISO/IEC 29500 specifications.
• ECMA-376 2nd edition (ISO/IEC 29500) does use 8601:2004 "Representation of Dates and Times".

At least, they are not for me. Putting contents without any source will make the contents have greater chances to be tagged or removed. And that tagging or removal is actually wasting your time. You are the one added the content so you have the best convenience in adding the sources. Unless you enjoy edit warring, you should add the source whenever you add the content.

Second, verifiability is one of the nutshell of Wikipedia and should be strictly followed in any cases. Despite the content in question is a fact or not. - Justin545 (talk) 02:02, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Even is vwerifiability is important it is however not nescesary to ask for sources for every piece of the article. wikipedia policy states that editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or the material may be removed. It seems that on this article even the most silly items are challenged whereas those identical things are not chaleegend on simlar articles. This cost a lot of unnescesary edits. Espscially bad is the removal of content by certain people editing this article. Why are you challeging every word written here ? I did not add a source for the ISO 8601 being used in the newer version of standard because the specifcation is a free downloadable document used by huindred or even thousands of implementations and reviewed by many standard experts often visting this article. If suh publicly available information was incorrect it would be corrected very fast. This hold true for most in formation in wikipedia. there is no need to challenge things of public record or that are obvious. Behaviour of some users visiting this wikipedia article seems to motivated in disrupting the this article. It seems that user:Justin545 edit almost entirely exist of challenges to such information in this article or removal of information in this article. hAl (talk) 09:02, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

This entire topic is controversial, as should already be obvious. As such, you have to accept that the article is going to be scrutinized in more detail, and require a greater level of referencing, than a typical Wikipedia article. Complaining when other editors, following policy, request a source for a statement in the article is unlikely to earn you much sympathy. Nor is stating that sources are readily available as a free download a valid defense — if a source is so easy to find, why not add it to the article? —Steven G. Johnson (talk) 17:39, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

The topic is not controversial. It is about a file format. The controversy is in the standardization proces that has a seperate article. The format is just that, a format. In the basis the format is a lot less controversial than the binary .doc .xls and .ppt formats which are owned by MS in stead of owned by standardization organisazations Ecma and ISO/IEC, which are not standardised and which have a lost worse documentation available and which have all the same issues that Office Open XML migth have and then some. Hardly anybody is bothering with asking sourcing for the articles on those formats though. hAl (talk) 18:50, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

There has been controversy about the quality of the format, about the extent of its adoption and the degree to which applications fully support it, and numerous other things besides the standardization process per se. Any perusal of the history of this article points to the fact that it has been and continues to be controversial. (You yourself have been arguing with numerous other editors about this article for some time now, so claiming that there is no controversy surrounding this article is a bit surprising and seem disingenuous.) (Why the articles on the MS binary formats are not so controversial is irrelevant here, but let me point out the obvious: people demand a lot more of something proposed as a worldwide standard than they do of a particular vendor's internal proprietary formats.) —Steven G. Johnson (talk) 20:24, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure I've read elsewhere that terms like useWord2002TableStyleRules and useWord97LineBreakRules (i.e. the 'compatibility settings' in the first example above) are still not fully defined in the published standard. Also that, although the standard may use ISO 8601 dates in places, it also uses other date formats, and still requires the use of faulty date arithmetic, in some other places (the second example above). I needed references for the two statements, so that I could begin further research on these specific points. Issues like this are important, because if they are still true, all software that implements this standard is going to have to mimic these behaviours exactly, however illogical they are, forever until the standard is superseded. I'm not sure that these issues still exist, but if they do, they should be reflected in the article. That's why I was asking for detail, but I haven't had time to do any more research yet. --Nigelj (talk) 20:54, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure why you are looking for such things. Decimal dates are still used widely in spreadsheets and for instance opendocument also supports the use of decimal dates. I will show you some ODF XML code to show you how NON-ISO dates are also present in ODF. This is a valid ODF decimal date <table:table-cell office:value-type="date" office:value="42"> but not an ISO date. Why would you look for support of non ISO dates (which OOXML also still does) as critisism if such support is normal for these document formats. Opendocument also contains settings used for compatibility (settings which are application defined and noninteroperable unlike the settings in OOXML). And as for compatibility settings. This is also present in ODF. <config:config-item config:name="UseFormerLineSpacing" config:type="boolean">false</config:config-item>. These ODF settings are completly application defined. Why would having fully defined settings in the OOXML standard be a reason for critisism when the competing format contains fully undefined settings. It seems you suggest that features which are common in document formats are reason for critisim when applied in OOXML but are not reason for critisism when those features are used in other formats. hAl (talk) 13:38, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

This article is about OOXML. If you have criticisms of ODF, take them up on that page. Alleged deficiencies in another article on WP are not an excuse for deflecting criticism here. —Steven G. Johnson (talk) 15:03, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

DateTime formats

The article currently says

ECMA-376 2nd edition (ISO/IEC 29500) does use 8601:2004 "Representation of Dates and Times".<ref>[[http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-376.htm ECMA-376 2nd edition Part 1 (3. Normative references)]]</ref>

As I suspected, the reference given is still seriously inadequate. It takes us to the list of references for a 5,568-page document - like picking one of our citations and saying, "That's what WP says". Sure it's referred to, but in what context?

Digging deeper, I found the following on page 2,301:

18.17.4.1 Date Conversion for Serial Values

All date values stored in cells within a SpreadsheetML file are stored in the ISO 8601 format.

For compatibility, a SpreadsheetML application can interpret serial-number values in cells or in formulas as dates. This subclause describes how serial number values can be converted to date values depending on the compatibility mode.

It goes on to describe what "a SpreadsheetML application can interpret" (i.e. what every conforming SpreadsheetML application can do, or, that this is a requirement of conforming implementations, as I understand English). It can interpret three date systems, the '1900 date base system', the '1900 backward compatibility date-base system' and the '1904 backward compatibility date-base system', each described in detail.

So while it's true to say that 'ECMA-376 2nd edition (ISO/IEC 29500) does use 8601:2004 "Representation of Dates and Times"', that's not the whole story. It also requires conformant applications to be able to read three other date systems with equal alacrity.

As we've often mentioned here, we are not discussing the content of the ODF article here at all, but in answer to Hal's point in the previous discussion, the equivalent Oasis spec[23] does not seem to mention these other formats, except to say under 'Null date' that if zero is found in a date field, it could refer to 12/30/1899, 01/01/1900 or 01/01/1904 (presumably depending on which Microsoft compatibility system was in force at the time it was written).

So, fellow editors, is this kind of detail worth a mention, or shall we leave the bland statement? --Nigelj (talk) 16:26, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Why not writing something like: "ECMA-376 2nd edition (ISO/IEC 29500) require compliant applications to be able to use 8601:2004 "Representation of Dates and Times, but also 3 other legacy date systems for compatibility with Office software." ? Hervegirod (talk) 17:33, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually it is not a requirement for complience applications to support any feature of OOXML. Complience is not related to supporting all features of OOXML. Partial support for OOXML can also be fully complient. So if anything it would be something like: OOXML uses ISO 8601:2004 dates formats but spreadsheet implementations can use a few alternative date formats if needed for compatibility reasons. hAl (talk) 20:24, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Sure, large sections ("legacy" information, VML, etc) of the OOXML standard are marked as "deprecated" IIRC. The problem is that, as long as a significant number of documents are produced using these features, perhaps as a side effect of conversion from legacy formats, competing implementations will have to implement them as a practical matter.

The essential criticism, if I recall correctly, is that a brand-new international standard should not contain deprecated elements of this sort (much less undocumented vendor-specific ones ala "spacelikeword95"). If documents in legacy binary formats contain these things, then they should be converted to the non-deprecated expressions when the document is converted to the new format.

Technical "compliance" or "conformance" is a red herring because it is an incredibly low bar, so low as to be almost meaningless except in the negative sense (i.e. if a program is not conformant that is useful information, but if a program is conformant that tells you almost nothing). A program that reads an OOXML file without generating an error, even if it then does nothing (no display, no editing, nothing) is technically "conformant" as defined by the standard, but that doesn't make it a viable competitor to Microsoft Office or even a usable tool. To quote ECMA-376 (I don't have the ISO version handy, but it was virtually identical in this regard IIRC):

Application conformance is purely syntactic; it also involves only Items 1 and 2 in §2.3 above. A conforming consumer shall not reject any conforming documents of the document type (§4) expected by that application. A conforming producer shall be able to produce conforming documents.

By this definition, the MS-DOS "copy" command is a conforming consumer and producer of OOXML documents. —Steven G. Johnson (talk) 22:19, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

As a practical matter decimal data formats have been used in spreadsheets since forever so it is something ANY decent spreadsheet implementation has been supporting almost since the invention of the spreadsheets. It is actually the ISO 8601 format that is new to spreadsheets. So adapting to use of the ISO format is actually the most work for applications. Spreadsheets internally use liniar date-time formats. For most uses in spreadsheet the spreadheet will need to convert the non-liniar ISO 8601 format (essentially a string date format) to a liniar date-time format (like a decimal format) to recalculate the spreadsheet with and then, on saving the spreadsheet, convert the liniar format back to an ISO 8601 string format. For use is spreadsheet the ISO 8601 format is actually not an improvement because it cannot be used in spreadsheet calculations without conversion. It is incorrect to suggest that decimal data formats require extra support in spreadsheet as those decimal formats are actually formats used intenrally by spreadsheet while the ISO 8601 data format does require extra support as it is a format requiring internal conversion into formats used by spreadsheet for calculation. hAl (talk) 11:18, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

A compatibility feature is only needed for limited number of implementations like large office suites. There might currently be 100.000 or more implementations creating office documents of which only mayby a few dozen wiill convert old office files to newer office formats (which could require compatibility features) and also only mayby a a few dozen interested in supporting those features in reading the format (office suites?). In Office Open XML all compatibility featurees are document so all the major office suites can implement those features if needed. In other formats those features are implemtation specific so converted documents cannot be interoperable by default. As there is potentially a large body of documents which can be converted to Office open XML files this can now be done faithfully and in a way that is fully open to other office markets parties. This does not hold true for Opendocument. If opendocument is used the document settings are NON-interoperable thus not allowing converted document to be interoperable anymore. OpenDocument therefore does not allow for faithfull conversion of existing documents which would a big disadvantage for exisiting office files. (of course as so few of those pre-ODF documents exist noone is really interested in converting them anyways so it is not mentioned as a big disadvantage). hAl (talk) 11:31, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

You're confusing the spreadsheet user interface with the file format, and the needs of conversion software for legacy formats with the needs of a good file format. —Steven G. Johnson (talk) 15:47, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

You are confusing the use of spreadsheet dates and the use of an ISO date format which was created with mostly presentational use in mind. ISO dates are not ment for calculating and spreadsheet dates are. So esentially the use of ISO dates is unnatural for storage of spreadsheet dates requiring constant conversions. However because noone bothered to add a linear date variant to ISO 8601 (which is a terrible mistake because date time is a linear proces) we now have to do with a presentaional date-time standard that is inferior for use in many financial and scientific uses. Even stardates are more usefull for calculations in time. It would haved been ten times better to add a standardized linear date-time format to ISO 8601. hAl (talk) 17:48, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

There are plenty of available subroutines to convert ISO 8601 into linear date-time formats for date calculations. Whatever format is chosen, there is no question that some applications will have to perform conversions for calculation and/or display, but these conversion needs should be dictated by the application, not by gratuitous multiplicity of storage formats. That doesn't change the fact that it is most reasonable for a file format to pick a single canonical format (using the Gregorian calendar) to store, rather than multiple formats forcing every application (in practice) to write multiple conversion routines for reasons having nothing to do with the needs of the application. —Steven G. Johnson (talk) 18:47, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Thousands of other tags

Someone added a critisism suggesting that the compatibility tags could be expanded to thousands for by other applications. However the compatibility tags are in the deprecated items for compatibilty with Office 97-2008 only. This is one of the parts of the Office Open XML standards goals: the goal of ECMA-376 is to represent faithfully the existing corpus of wordprocessing documents, spreadsheets and presentations that have been produced by Microsoft Office applications (from Microsoft Office 97 to Microsoft Office 2008, inclusive(from part 4: Transitional Migration Features). So no other compatibility tags will be needed to suffice the goals of the standard to be fully compatible with the existing corpus of Microsoft Office documents. The compatibility features are a limited and fully defined set in the Ecma 376 2nd editon specifications. The critisism is based on misunderstanding the goals of the standards as there is nothing to suggest the compatibiltiy tags could be expanded as the critisism suggests. hAl (talk) 20:57, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

OOXML has no way to include compatibility settings other than MS-Office suite's ones unless the standard is redefined. The competing ODF standard has no such issue. ODF can include MS-Office's compatibility settings as well as the compatibility settings of other office suites' settings like OpenOffice.org and AbiWord etc. without redefining the standard. The point is OOXML lacks of interoperability to other office suites in terms of compatibility settings.

Interoperability is one of the major goal for making a standard. Without the interoperability, the standard is kind of lame. - Justin545 (talk) 02:42, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Then you should a reference that actually critisises that the compatibility settings are limited to compatibility for Office 97- Offic 2000 because of the goals of the standard and not a critisism suggesting this will lead to thousands of tags needing to be added to the standard because that is just not the case. That ODF has unlimited undefined and non-interoperable application settings is hardly a reason to suggest that OOXML is worse for not having such non-interoparibility. hAl (talk) 05:53, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

A critisism is sufficed to be included in WP as long as it is properly sourced.

WP:V: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth"

Just like what you did in ODF [24]. - Justin545 (talk) 16:10, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

> That ODF has unlimited undefined and non-interoperable application settings is hardly a reason to suggest that OOXML is worse for not having such non-interoparibility.

ODF has clearly defined configuration settings which is extensible to include any office's compatibility settings. Which means ODF has better interoperability then OOXML. - Justin545 (talk) 16:18, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

The lead of this article

A total joke. hAl (talk) 21:58, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

HAl has been blocked temporarily

For other editors used to User:HAl's editing on this page, I should let you know that he has been blocked temporarily from Wikipeda for repeated, long-term, and ongoing violations of the three-revert rule and associated edit-warring.

This is not an excuse to immediately undo all his edits. As always, please strive for a balanced, neutral, and well-sourced presentation of the facts and controversies in this article. Major changes to the article content or structure should normally be discussed on the Talk page before implementing.

—Steven G. Johnson (talk) 15:13, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Please tell this User:Scientus, who is also involved in edit warring this page. It is clear from his edit history, that he does not strive for a balanced and neutral presentation of facts, but is constantly removing any facts that he does not like. Ghettoblaster (talk) 14:07, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism and edit warring by User:Scientus

User:Scientus is repeatingly removing any mention of the Interop Vendor Alliance, the Open XML Community and the Open XML Formats Developer Group although among the members of these organizations are major information technology companies supporting Office Open XML and several independent sources are already given. Apparently this editor is trying to mislead the reader that there is no or very little support for the Office Open XML document standard. I've restored the recent removal a large amount of sourced content and hope that this user will finally start discussing this issue on the talk page or stop vandalizing this page. Ghettoblaster (talk) 14:03, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I had to restore the content in question again since User:Scientus made another attempt to delete any mention of the Interop Vendor Alliance, the Open XML Community and the Open XML Formats Developer Group. He does not appear to be specifically interested in discussing this issue or attempt to work towards a consensus. Ghettoblaster (talk) 21:50, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

These sections only cite from conflicted sources--Microsoft-hosted and copyright-claimed sites, and Microsoft partner press releases. See WP:SELFPUB. There is no 3rd party verification of any claims. According to WP:BURDEN, the burden is upon you to show that these Microsoft-run sites are notable and relevant, and to establish verifiability. Also, all the sources and the text read like a WP:ADVERT and contain no actual content. People come to Wikipedia for content, not manufactured fluff. Scientus (talk) 08:31, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Your behaviour on the Office Open XML aticle qualifies as tendentious and disruptive editing as per WP:Disruptive editing.

You are showing:

Use of disruptive deletions

Use of distruptive cite-tagging

Lack of consensus building

And your personal action against me like accusation on my talk page and edit warring on my talk page are part of

Campaign to drive away prodcutive contributors

I suggest that an admin takes measures against your higly repetative disruptive edits on this Office open XML article. hAl (talk) 11:30, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Look in the mirror.Scientus (talk) 05:27, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

In the mean time a 24h block for Scientus hAl (talk) 11:11, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

And they are up it seems. hAl (talk) 17:15, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

File format and structure

I'm your average Joe and I have no idea what most of the stuff means in this section, especially near the end. I don't mind technical articles with pieces of code implemented as examples, but this whole area feels very confusing and.. unencyclopedic. 91.153.107.4 (talk) 11:18, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree. This is not a WP:HOWTO for implementers of the format. Even CSS, which is a scripting language regularly edited by hand by hundreds of thousands of web users, has had all the techy examples removed from its article. No one who reads this is ever going to use it to write software that implements these standards. We do not need any how-to examples of what the XML looks like. Most MS Office users, their employers and even those who specify one office doc format over another, don't even need to know that you can unzip a docx file and see the XML, let alone be able to understand how to compose that XML in Notepad! --Nigelj (talk) 16:55, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

This article is far from being a WP:HOWTO for implementers of the format. The whole specification contains about 6000 pages. This article does just have a few small examples to help the reader understand the basic concepts of the file format and how these are different from similar file formats. One might argue that average Joe wouldn't even care to read the CSS article at all. A similar document format has a whole article dealing with its technical specification (See: OpenDocument technical specification). Maybe start moving this article to Wikibooks first. Ghettoblaster (talk) 22:02, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Adding the alternative name "Open XML"

I suggest adding the alternative name "Open XML" to the introduction again. This short name seems to be used synonymously quite often in the media and on the web in general. Examples: [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] etc. etc. Ghettoblaster (talk) 22:30, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I do not think the name Open XML should be used. We are talking about a file system that is not really open and exists solely to cement Microsoft's position as a proprietary vendor of software. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.177.111.68 (talk) 12:41, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Need 3rd party sources

The article currently states that "OOXML only received about 5.5% of the review that comparable standards have undergone". It is not clear what these "comparable standards" are. Also, the only source given is Google who does not have a NPOV in this regard. There is currently no reliable information that allows the reader to verify this number. Ghettoblaster (talk) 02:18, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

ISO/IEC standardization proces of for instance Opendocument took 6 months from submission to approval. For Office open XML this proces took 16 months. Almost no review document were submitted for OpenDocument and the ones submitted were ignored. For Office open XML a lot of the ISO national bodies offered review document and many of their submitted review issues were corrected before standardization. The whole critisism is nonsense as a comparable format like opendocument was rubberstamped in record time and the Office Open XML format was actually heavily reviewed and corrected. hAl (talk) 11:50, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

You have Google listed under 'Support for Office Open XML' as supporters of the standard. They are also a third-party, secondary source, unlike the primary-source, Microsoft and the Microsoft-published websites that you depend on as references for significant other material in this article. You can't have it both ways. Also, if the criticism exists in a valid and significant source, it is our duty to report it; it is not in our remit as an encyclopedia to decide (by WP:OR) if it is 'nonsense' or not - it exists, it is significant, so we report it with due WP:WEIGHT and citation. Finally, please get your two heads around the fact that we are not editing the OpenDocument article here, so talking about it in response to these discussions is not really helpful - please help us stick to the issues at hand. --Nigelj (talk) 14:54, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually it should be our duty to put in accurate information. Knowing that the claims by Google on the review time is nonsense is mean we shpuld not allow that. The submissions and approval of the standard date are matter of pulbic record so they are not WP:OR. It is no use adding them to this article but it is fair to remove the information stating thr actual times of the ISO/IEC standardization processes. Especially since the Google information was published before the end of the OOXML standardization proces which means it was not based on factual periods anyways. Also the Google cited info in itself is full of weasel words "comparable standards" it states but all info on it shows the only comparison is OpenDocument which was still lacking a lot of information. Comparing with an incomplete standard is hardly a "Comparable standard". In the basis the whole critisism is dubieus. Why would less pages be any better. Many implementers and standards expert would suggest that more information is better. hAl (talk) 18:13, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

The fact that Google has published this criticism is 'accurate information': they really have published it. Which part of that fact do you have a problem with? --Nigelj (talk) 15:48, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

The part that suggest the different review timeframes for review of the format because the critisism was written wel before OOXML standardization was finished and not based the information we currently have. I already statet the real timeframes that ISO/IEC used for the standaardization of OOXML and a comparable format. (6 months ODF and 16 months for OOXML). So the timeframe part of the critisism has been passed by reality. The part of the critisism about the size of the standard still stands. In fact I think the spec has even grown during the ISO standardization proces to 7000 pages. Allthough I would thus let it stand in the article I am however not sure I would agree it is a fair critisism as actually the bigger the better might apply just as well. Since the Google critisims it has become apperant that the comparable format is quite under specified and incomplete and only implementable using the OOo code and documentation. So allthough the size is now listed as a critisism I would think that people implemnting the format are fairly happy that they have such an amount of specs. hAl (talk) 18:49, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Repeated disruptive editting by user:Scientus

I reverted several edits by user:Scientus as disrutive tendentious edits on this article. user:Scientus disruptive behaviour started with disruptive cite-tagging which saw him do dozens of edits adding fact tags to just about each and every item in the article (even though the article is probably one of the most sourced article in wikipedia already). He has been notoriously been repeately removing fully sourced information in this article. For example the information on the organisation supporting the developement of Office Open XML in the Ecma technical committee and the info supporting community sites of www.openxmldevelopers.com and www.openxmlxcmmunity.com. Sites that show support for Office Open XML in abundance and provide more more information on Open XML for instance for developers. (example removal)

Also I changed the lead and that change did contained a single old citation gone bad and he then removed the entire lead for the citation not supporting that information so I restored it with several new citations fully supporting the informations in it and he subseqeuntly removed the information again twice more.

The most blatant example of his disruptive tententious edit was when he changed the lead of the article to add critisism citations not related to the article. His disruptive edits moved a fairly innocuous and neutral piece of information about the size of the specification in the article lead accompanied by no less than 12 new consecutive and mostly unrelead critisisms citations on Office Office XML which are not to state the size of the spec (which is uncontested anyways) but to add his extrem tendentious POV to the article lead. The lead then looked like:

Microsoft developed the over 6000 page[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] standard.

That text looked somewhat neutral but the 12(!) citations he added to the article lead were pure about slandaring the article content. Subsequently when I removed this ridiculous editsfrom the article lead they were replace by him and strangely by user:Stevenj. Later he moved all of his 12 tendentious links to a critisism line in the article about the size of the article which would only require a single citation. just to add extra critisism link to the article which are not about the lenght of the specification but are in in fact mostly on the Standardization of Office Open XML process and not to support to the actual content of this article but just to try and double up on the POV critisism already in that standardization article.

user:Scientus has also [[WP:Disruptive editing#Signs of disruptive editing|not engaging in support building] tried by for instance user:Ghettoblaster on this talk page and has made efforts in campaigning to drive away productive contributors for instance by trying to start a personal vendetta against me and user:Ghettoblaster on for instance our talk pages. hAl (talk) 07:04, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

user:HAl's edit does far more than it declares, or is spoken of here. That edit it the rehash of the same few edits which user:HAl and user:Ghettoblaster have been pushing for months. user:HAl needs to look in the mirror, to his long history, of documented, disruptive editing, of which almost every edit is of a Microsoft related article.Scientus (talk) 05:33, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Everybody can see for themselved your [[WP:Disruptive editing#Signs of disruptive editing|sign of disruptive editting] with the repeated removels of sites that blatantly support Office Open XML, your overactive fact tagging on one of the most source article on wikipedia and your addition of 12 negative critisism links in the lead of the article hidden behind neutral sounding text. Again you removeed the information I added to the article about support and readded the 12 critisims citastions with most unrelated the the text of the article they should support and again you have tried to introduce some insignificant intermediate ballot results from halfway the standardization proces in the article lead (intermediate results which are possibly only relevant for the Standardization of Office Open XML article) whilst this article is not about the standardization proces (which has a seprate article)and where the really significant ballot result in the ISO standardization proces wpould actually the final ballot result (86% in favor) and the resulting approval of the format. Please stop doing that. hAl (talk) 12:59, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I have asked some assistance from the Wikiproject computing on the above issues. hAl (talk) 21:49, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

RFC: Supporting sites and overcitation

Requesting comments from other users on several edit conflicts in the Office Open XML article

1st conflict issue

Removal of support information. User:Scientus has continuously been removing information from the support section about the sites of supporting groups of companies and organization like www.openxmldevelopers.org and www.openxmlcommunity.org originally added by user:Ghettoblaster. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Office_Open_XML&diff=307843936&oldid=307836735. The organisations have obvious support sites with clear support statements and listing of organisations and people supporting the Office Open XML format and a lot of information for people supporting the format. The sites are hosted by Microsoft (this info awas in the removed content by user:Scientus). The information is similar but more detailed that the information in an OpenDocument support section in wikipedia where similar support groups on OpenDocument like that of the OpenDocument Format Alliance and the Opendocument Fellowship are listed. hAl (talk) 18:20, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

As already discussed months ago, Microsoft (These sites have Microsoft copyright notices and their TOSs specifically state that the sites are being provided by Microsoft) cannot, in any sane definition of the term, be a "response" to a Microsoft-sponsored format. Taking efforts to hide these sites source sure seems to me to be incongruous with building a better encyclopedia. Also, content which comes from self published sources must fallow the guidelines of WP:SELFPUB.Scientus (talk) 23:44, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

You should note that the content you removed in you latest edit spree was not just sourced with the sites from the organisatiosn itself but also with clear 3rd party citations from [netvalley.com], [infoworld.com] and [informationweek.com]. Also the information obtained trough citing the sites of the organazations follows the WP:SELFPUB guidelines. It should not be a problem to obtain information like the size of membership of an organization from the organizations own website. Also you should note that you could have discussed your issues with particular pieces of inrmation in the section on the talk page in stead you continously engaded in either fact tagging and or complete removals of information and did not engage in trying to work towards a proper solution to imporve the information. All your edits on this article are either to add critisism claims or remove support claims. You have not contributed any factual information on the format itself. hAl (talk) 14:09, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

2nd Conflict issue

Hiding pov critisism links that should belong in the Standardization of Office Open XML article (or are already taken from that article) behind other npov comments or unrelated critisisms. user:Scientus has repeatedly been trying to edit in superfluous citation links with critisism on the standardization proces (which has a seprate article) hiding those critisism link behind a innocuous comment or minor critisims on the size for the standard where a single citation would suffice. The most blatant example: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Office_Open_XML&diff=299351160&oldid=299345264 creating this ridiculous text line in the article lead:

Microsoft developed the over 6000 page[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] standard

This is exactly why we need to remove this sentence: "where it was standardized to become a free and open Ecma standard, ECMA-376, in 2006. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] " Which unlike my links, do not actually back up the link they are suppose to be quoting, and to which consensus was largely against the current revision due to the large number of sources which specifically challenge whether OOXML is indeed "free and open". Scientus (talk) 23:44, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

More discussion on this where HAl is highly uncivil. Scientus (talk) 00:01, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

You suggest your ridiculous edit is warrented by some other ridiculous edit in the article. that is a joke I hope. That also was a totally different situation where several editers actually asked for more citations to support the information in the text. I would gladly remove those ridiculous list of 8 citations as well but then other editors (like you) complain they the info is not source enough and remove it altogether. A request for citations is not the case in your edits. The size of the specification is not in dispute yet you chose to add 12 (!) fully unnescesary citations to it just to add extra critisism links about the standardization proces (which is in a different article!!) into the Office Open XML article lead. I consider such an edit vandalism. I suggest you leave out namecalling from this effort to engage in mediation on this article. If you continue to engage in personal attack I will not continue in mediation but in stead will continu to WP:ARBITRATION to resolve the conflict. hAl (talk) 14:27, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

3rd conflict issue

Citations supporting that Microsoft developed the format as a succesor to the binary format from MS Office. Conflict centers on this edits http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Office_Open_XML&diff=next&oldid=307836346 user:Scientus removed the information in the lead on this but the citations however clearly state that the the format submitted to Ecma by Microsoft was originally created to be the default format of Office 12 and ment to faithfully support the existing corpus of binary MS Office files. hAl (talk) 18:22, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

This article details one of the most controversial file formats in history, and the story of how Microsoft sent the format to ECMA and the ISO. Because of its controversial nature, references from those organisations involved should not be used. That is, don't use references from either Microsoft's own website, or ECMA, or the ISO. The technology press around the world has covered the issue in massive detail. There are tens of thousands of independent articles around. A lot of the warring above has been about inserting a version of the story as told by Microsoft or ECMA. A bit more independence is necessary. Google the technology magazines, please.--Lester 08:59, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually the story of how Microsoft sent the format to ECMA and the ISO is detailed already in the Standardization of Office Open XML article. If has only minimal bearing on the format itself but some on the side of a new improved version that was created during that process. As the format is has been developed and most significantly used by Microsoft for use in MS Office and was further developed and is owned (the copyrights rights to Office open XML all belong to standardization organisations Ecma and ISO/IEC) they are invaluable sources in this article. If information provided by the different parties involved in the development of the format and also the by far most significant implementor of Office Open XML are not allowed who has also played an important role in developing the format the article would be almost useless. This article is ment to provide encyclopedic information on a documentformat and if one of the most knowledgeble sources on that format would be excluded it would hardly be encyclopedic anymore. This is also why the seperate article about the standardization proces is actually a good thing. That process is marred by POV and lots of unreliable information by all parties involved in the process. Ridiculous discussions about the number of seats in a standards organization meeting or whatever standards procedures have no place in the article on Office Open XML itself. This article should focus on what the Office Open XML document format actually is, how it came into place, what you could use it for and what the advantages and or disadvantages of the format are. There can be room for critisisms but it should not not about a pissing match between opendocument advocates and office open xml advocates which currentlu is actually visible in both the Office Open XML and the OpenDocument article. hAl (talk) 09:27, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Once again, every aspect of this story has been extensively covered by independent sources. We don't need the Microsoft or ECMA or ISO versions. Everything can and should be sourced independently.--Lester 09:42, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

That is not the unsupported claim you reverted 11 times. per WP:OR "you must cite reliable sources that...directly support the information as it is presented." Your sources are also WP:SELFPUB. These are basic policies, and all editors must fallow them.Scientus (talk) 23:44, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I added citations to supprot all information in that edit. If you thing an is edit is insufficiently sourced you should not remove edit but ask for citations and I gave those citations ading at least 4 new citations to the lead of the article. If you remove an entire reedit of the article lead without discussing on the talk page which matetrial you find unsourced you won't get far. Next time inform ohter editors which EXACT PIECE of information you consider unsourced. Yopur have repeatedly removed sourced information from the article and not engaged in explanations on the talk page. This is not acceptable behaviour. hAl (talk) 00:28, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

August 2009 - Page protected

Following a report at AN3 I have locked this page for a week. The page history suggests that the editors working on this page are working against each other. Please use the hiatus to resolve the dispute through some form of dispute resolution. Remember you can ask for help from a relevant wikiproject, a third opinion or article RFC. If you succeed in resolving this before the end of the week either ask at RFPP for this to be lifted or nudge my talk page. Spartaz ^Humbug! 17:04, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I already sought help with the relevant wikiproject here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Computing#Need_some_neutral_view.2Fintervention_on_Office_Open_XML_article

However as you blocked editting with the most disputed edits in the article people can't really improve on the content hAl (talk) 17:20, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah they can. Reach a consensus and we unlock for the edits to be effected. Admins always lock articles at the The wrong version. It's inevitable if you think about it. Sort out the dispute and all will be well but you won't get much decent editing done anyway while you are fighting over this. Spartaz ^Humbug! 17:47, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

This "seeking" for help was done after I filed my complaint against HAls 11 continuous reverts and efforts to hide the POV of Microsoft-run websites.Scientus (talk) 04:25, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Strange as I only found out about your so called complaint when you replied to my request for help with personal attacks (not addressing the subject) and subsequently removed the information to hide that your were complaining on the ANI board. Your claim that I would be edtting from redmond is laughable to the point of ridiculous. Your mind is probably filled with some kind of anti-MS obsession if you try that kind of desperate claims to prevent people editing the article or it is part of your WP:disruptive editing#Signs of disruptive editing. Reverting is stated as the number one suggestion for dealing with WP:disruptive editing and I will keep doing that on your ridiculously anti-MS edits. hAl (talk) 05:32, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

This article badly needs oversight by Wikipedians not involved in this dispute. The edit warring has been going on for months and months. There have been newspaper reports about Microsoft paying people to edit Wikipedia articles in their favor. As soon as the article is unlocked, the warring will continue. It's all gone too far. Let's get some oversight please.--Lester 08:54, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I have no objection. I see many editors apply very different standards to this article and the article on the very similar subject of opendocument. This however is common amongst many ICT article where certain editors get very overheated if the article involves Microsoft related subjects and they loose all sense of objectivity. hAl (talk) 09:03, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

There have not been newspaper articles about "people" being paid to edit Wikipedia AFAIK, there were articles about me. MS paid me for a couple of days a couple of years ago to work out legitimate ways to improve this entry, which they thought was biased and would be better with a NPOV: note that this was all out in the open, there was no attempt to subvert the system, there was no effort to weaken NPOV but to strengthen it and add more technical information, MS was grappling how to to address their perceived problem 'the right way' by getting a recognized expert (both as an XML & standards guy and a technical writer) from outside the MS camp to look at it and to find out the best approach (they gave no instructions on particular issues and didn't vet the changes I suggested), the Wikipedia editors were very helpful about the allowed way to do this (transparency, submit issues to the Talk pages, let other editors make the changes.) So it wasn't "editing" but "contributing" to, and in fact so much of my time was taken up with the ridiculous personal attacks afterwards, as the story was blown out of recognition, I didn't even have much time to make as many suggestions as I'd like to have.Rick Jelliffe (talk) 13:32, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

My general comment is this: the technical information should not be controversial, why not stick to that and move sensational material (the standards process, criticisms, benefits) strictly to another article on the "format war" which can then have links to partisan material? The partisan material is certainly of interest, and obviously there are people motivated to make sure it is kept on the radar through Wikipedia, so a separate page for that and a strict "technical issues only" policy for this page might be the best way to resolve conflict. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 13:32, 1 September 2009 (UTC)