WebMink
Simon Phipps's personal commentary

No Mercy [WebTech]

A group of which I am a part (ironically in an organisation with "open" in its name) insists on conducting its discussions as word-processing files attached to e-mail messages, and the consequence is that no-one can readily 'mine' the information in the discussion lists. The solution would be to use XML file formats rather than undocumented binary ones, but you'll recall that was deemed unneccessary by spokepeople and engineers from Microsoft at the formation of the OASIS Open Office XML Format Technical committee because Microsoft were going to support the use of arbitrary schemas in their next version of Office.

Even assuming this self-serving 'defence' was valid, it turns out that the features in question will not be available as a standard part of Office and consequently the binary lock-in continues unabated. I wonder if Tim Bray is still a keen supporter now it's clear the XML feature is not intended for the masses?

In his article "At Microsoft's Mercy", Kendall Grant Clark considers the exclusion from consumer and office editions of Office 2003 of the XML schema feature Microsoft's spokespeople cited as the excuse not to join the OASIS working group. The conclusion he comes to that this exclusion is "likely not to be as harmful to as many relevant parties as it might first appear" may be fair enough for the hard-core XML document community he represents, but for the rest of us the betrayal is huge. We continue to live in a world where all our know-how is locked into binary files in an unknown format. If our documents are our corporate memory, Microsoft still has us all condemned to Altzheimers.

posted at 1:00 PM (UK) | |