Rob Weir's last three posts to his blog, each concerning his reading of Microsoft's file format activities, bear wide attention.
Much is hidden. Because Microsoft legacy file format specs remain undocumented the ECMA spec, which claims "backward compatibility" as a goal and points into private documentation, cannot be verified to be faithfully compatible. We'll never know.
Rob asks, is this for the benefit of Office 2007 developers only? If so, it suggests that the MSECMAXML standardization process does not satisfy the requirements of a standard because it is not a collaborative process, driven by public consensus, but a consultative process that's been driven by legacy technology that's tied to single-vendor functionality.
Looking at spec documentation and performing file operations, Rob finds the ODF Translator project to be lacking some key ingredients in file conversion and having an underwhelming set of goals.
If Microsoft is "supporting" this project, why are the usual ODF dark-spots (bullets, numbered lists) still dark? It suggests that objectives for the Translator are low-fi.
"Traduttore, Traditore (Translator, Traitor)"
Rob looks at the interface design of the suggested ODF Translator and finds that the format is not given fair billing. When using the Translator for which Microsoft claims "support", ODF a) cannot be made the default format; b) documents can not be round-tripped; c) documents are not accessible via the familiar keyboard shortcuts for opening and saving files (Control-O and Control-S); d) documents pay a performance penalty for having to be indirectly converted via Draft Office Open XML rather than via native support.
Close inspection indicates Microsoft's messaging does not match their plans & actions.
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