MICROSOFT FLIPFLOPS ON ODF SUPPORT

Microsoft flip-flops on ODF support

Sponsorship of open source project seen as a way to salvage government business

By Tom Sanders in California vnunet.com Friday, July 7, 2006

Microsoft had decided to sponsor an open source project that aims to bring support for the Open Document Format file format to its Office productivity suite.

The Open XML Translator project on Wednesday released an early prototype of its tool. The tool is governed by the open source BSD License and is hosted on Sourceforge. It is set to support both past and future version of Microsoft's Office suite.

Microsoft is acting as a 'sponsor', leaving the heavy lifting up to partner companies including Clever Age, Aztecsoft and Dialogika, based in France, India and Germany respectively. Given the open source nature of the project, individual developers will be able to contribute to the project and make alternations.

"By enabling this translator, we will make both choice and interoperability a more practical option for our customers," said Jean Paoli, general manager of interoperability and XML architecture at Microsoft.

"It is very important that customers have the freedom to choose from a range of technologies to meet their diverse needs."

Microsoft however is still dragging its feet, charged Simon Phipps, chief open source officer for Sun Microsystems and a long time supporter of the ODF format. Although the tool allows users to import and export ODF documents in Office 2007, it won't allow users to set ODF as the default file format.

"Microsoft has architected this to make ODF as hard to work with as possible, " Phipps wrote on his blog.

"Nonetheless, it does mean that those who have to stick with Microsoft's product for whatever reason . . . are able to join in with ODF-based workflows. "

ODF is defined by the Oasis standards body and has been ratified by the International Organisation for Standardisation as an official international standard. The format is supported by several applications including OpenOffice.

Microsoft will be using the OpenXML document format in its forthcoming Office 2007 suite.

Although OpenXML has been submitted to ECMA for ratification, critics have argued that it lacks openness. Microsoft could change the standard in the future, making it impossible for users to access their documents.

ODF in the past months has been gaining support, especially among governments. The state of Mbuttachusetts last year unveiled a plan to mandate the format for its agencies and was followed by the Belgium federal government last month.

The momentum building behind ODF is believed to be the main reason for Microsoft to sponsor the Open XML Translator project.

"If we want to see Microsoft behaving in a way that respects customers and standards, they will need to be dragged kicking and screaming and FUDing all the way to that conclusion," noted Sun's Phipps.

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