[odf-discuss] Microsoft wins prize for "Best Campaigner against OOXML Standardization"

[Daniel Carrera]

marbux wrote:
> This would necessitate that vendors remain free to extend the 
> specification, but files containing any such extensions would need to 
> contain a flag so the user can be alerted to a file that may contain 
> formatting that cannot be rendered by the application in use.

A flag is not needed. Just check to see if there are any namespaces 
other than those defined in the spec. Any extensions must be in a 
non-ODF namespace.


> I haven't checked, but my suspicion is that Sun has not decoded the 
> Microsoft native file support APIs sufficiently to allow a compatibility 
> mode to be set within the Office apps. They certainly have not decoded 
> the Word API to the extent we have or there would be no conversion 
> artifacts in the ODF their plug-in generates.

That is not necessarily true. They might have decoded them just as well 
and better than you, but have chosen not insert "dark matter" in ODF. 
Not everyone feels that inserting non-ODF "dark matter" elements is the 
way to go.

Daniel.