How should OOo deal with ods-spreadsheets producedby Excel 2010? [Open Office]

Prev: [discuss] How should OOo deal with ods-spreadsheets produced by Excel 2010?
Next: [discuss] suggestion

From: Gordon Burgess-Parker on 15 Apr 2010 15:21

On 15/04/2010 17:02, Regina Henschel wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Gordon Burgess-Parker schrieb:
>> On 14/04/2010 21:44, Regina Henschel wrote:
>>> Hi Lars, hi Jonathon,
>>>
>>> Lars Nooden schrieb:
>>>> On 04/14/2010 08:14 PM, Regina Henschel wrote:
>>>> > not all of you are familiar with the problem.
>>>>
>>>> The fact that MSO intentionally breaks ODF is very familiar to many,
>>>> perhaps everyone. That is not news.
>>>
>>> It does not break ODF. The documents are valid ODF 1.1, at least our
>>> validator [http://tools.services.openoffice.org/odfvalidator/] says
>>> so. The users, who are forced by government or company policy to
>>> produce ODF conform documents, can do this with Excel 2010. Therefore
>>> I guess that there will be an increasing number of Excel-ods documents.
>>>
>>
>> Hmmm. How do you work that one out?
>
> I write an ods-document with Excel 2010 Beta and let the validator
> examine it.
>
> Open an ods file using the Sun ODF
>> plug-in in Excel 2007, everything is OK. Open an ods file natively in
>> Excel 2007 SP2 with it's alleged ODF compatibility and ALL the formulae
>> become values only
>
> The start "Open an ods file" is not exact enough. There are Excel-ods
> and Calc-ods. Both are valid ODF documents. You can work with
> Excel-ods in Excel without problems and you can work with Calc-ods in
> Calc without problems. But you get problems in Calc, when you open a
> Excel-ods document.

I was talking about Calc ods. Calc ods existed long before any attempt
by MS to replicate it in Office. If you open a Calc ods file in Excel
2007 SP2 IT IS BROKEN. The MS implementation of ODF is broken. If you
use the Sun plug in it is NOT broken.
Ergo - MS broke ODF implementation in Office 2007 deliberately, as I
assume that their developers are not so dense that they couldn't
assimilate the Sun code into Office...

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: discuss-unsubscribe(a)openoffice.org
For additional commands, e-mail: discuss-help(a)openoffice.org

From: Peter Junge on 16 Apr 2010 03:44

Gordon,

Gordon Burgess-Parker wrote:
> On 15/04/2010 17:02, Regina Henschel wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Gordon Burgess-Parker schrieb:
>>> On 14/04/2010 21:44, Regina Henschel wrote:
>>>> Hi Lars, hi Jonathon,
>>>>
>>>> Lars Nooden schrieb:
>>>>> On 04/14/2010 08:14 PM, Regina Henschel wrote:
>>>>> > not all of you are familiar with the problem.
>>>>>
>>>>> The fact that MSO intentionally breaks ODF is very familiar to many,
>>>>> perhaps everyone. That is not news.
>>>>
>>>> It does not break ODF. The documents are valid ODF 1.1, at least our
>>>> validator [http://tools.services.openoffice.org/odfvalidator/] says
>>>> so. The users, who are forced by government or company policy to
>>>> produce ODF conform documents, can do this with Excel 2010. Therefore
>>>> I guess that there will be an increasing number of Excel-ods documents.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Hmmm. How do you work that one out?
>>
>> I write an ods-document with Excel 2010 Beta and let the validator
>> examine it.
>>
>> Open an ods file using the Sun ODF
>>> plug-in in Excel 2007, everything is OK. Open an ods file natively in
>>> Excel 2007 SP2 with it's alleged ODF compatibility and ALL the formulae
>>> become values only
>>
>> The start "Open an ods file" is not exact enough. There are Excel-ods
>> and Calc-ods. Both are valid ODF documents. You can work with
>> Excel-ods in Excel without problems and you can work with Calc-ods in
>> Calc without problems. But you get problems in Calc, when you open a
>> Excel-ods document.
>
> I was talking about Calc ods. Calc ods existed long before any attempt
> by MS to replicate it in Office. If you open a Calc ods file in Excel
> 2007 SP2 IT IS BROKEN. The MS implementation of ODF is broken. If you
> use the Sun plug in it is NOT broken.
> Ergo - MS broke ODF implementation in Office 2007 deliberately, as I
> assume that their developers are not so dense that they couldn't
> assimilate the Sun code into Office...

please do not try to indoctrinate Regina because you seem to have some
misunderstandings about standards, let me reiterate a comment I made before:
Conformance = Implementation meets Specification/Standard
Interoperability = Implementation meets Implementation

From a technical standpoint MSO 2007 writes conforming ODF, hence their
implementation is not broken. Indeed the ODF spec an issue regarding
formulas [1] [2], that MS has been using to create marketing buzz. What
they are indeed breaking, likely intentionally, is interoperability with
other ODF implementations. As OOo, Symphony etc. were available at that
time, interoperability could have been easily achieved, of course. This
is just another MS way to create vendor lock-in. Regina describes the
practical symptoms very well.

BTW, to learn about MS Office breaking a standard I would recommend to
review a blog post written by Alex Brown [3]. AND! It's about MS's own
standard OOXML.

Best regards,
Peter

[1] Jim Clark
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clark_%28XML_expert%29> raising this
issue at the ODF comment ML in February 2005:
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/office-comment/200502/msg00000.html

[2] Tim Bray <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Bray> in a blog about the
OOoCon 2005:
http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2005/10/01/Open-Office-Conference
(see section "Bad Formula Trouble")

[3] http://adjb.net/post/Microsoft-Fails-the-Standards-Test.aspx

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: discuss-unsubscribe(a)openoffice.org
For additional commands, e-mail: discuss-help(a)openoffice.org

From: Peter Junge on 15 Apr 2010 23:15

First | Prev |
Pages: 1 2 3
Prev: [discuss] How should OOo deal with ods-spreadsheets produced by Excel 2010?
Next: [discuss] suggestion