The Foundation sees this as a contradiction to the EU’s own interoperability goals. Although XLSX is standardized as OOXML according to ISO/IEC 29500, Microsoft’s implementations often deviate from the specifications. Furthermore, features often change undocumented, which complicates compatibility with open-source software such as LibreOffice.
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I fully support this. This is a very easy to implement. 99% of the documents don’t require specific msoffice undocumented features that odf format doesn’t support
Yes, it would probably force microsoft to adhere to the specs if their files didn’t work more users.
or you know you could require them to comply
The right wing is in charge of the EU now – they’re not going to require companies to do anything
“OOXML” is literally just an XML serialization of MS Office internal data structures that Microsoft bribed the standards body to push through.
“bribed” is a gross simplifiction of the almost hilariously evil plot they pulled to get OOXML certified. They actually bribed a couple of smaller nation states to become IETF members and vote for Microsoft’s standard. It was a major scandal back in the day but formally legal.
It’s like noticing a car crash and looking back… you know you shouldn’t and yet it’s somehow mesmerizing. So… where can I actually read about this please?
Wikipedia for a beginning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open_XML I remember The Register having a more detailed (and pretty snarky) article about it back then, but I didn’t search for it yet.
Ah, so niche but of course there is a great Wikipedia article for this, thank you!
I was listening to the podcase episode 318 “Bill Gates and Jeffrey Epstein w/ Tim Schwab” of Tech Won’t Save Us thinking that honestly I had such a low esteem for Gates surely it couldn’t get worst. Well, I was clearly very wrong.
Now to read this after listening to the podcast is a great example showcasing how dearly Microsoft KEEPS on fighting for its monopolistic position. It’s not a “oh it just happen” kind of situation. It’s a constant investment of resources in the worst kind of ways, not into making the product better, but rather this. Again, unsurprising but whenever people argue about Gates being a “good” person or how Microsoft “changed” and isn’t what it was in the 2000s they are unfortunately very naive.
Anyway, digging into this, thanks again.
You’re welcome. It was a pleasure to set someomes ideas about Mr Gates right.
I remember that plot also gumming up IETF business because the bribed nations just stopped participating after voting for Microsoft.
I remember, only trouble is a lot of people at the time didn’t care or were paid loads of money to not care.
Also the name Office Open XML right at the time OpenOffice was the only one about before oracle came in and fucked it over
FYI: it wasn’t a bribe. It was a temporary takeover of the standards body. They paid for memberships of a bunch of new people on the board for the critical vote.
So, a bribe with the proper bureaucratic steps?
I think saying that they “bribed the standards body” suggests the body was in on it. The actual allegation (I don’t know any facts, just these comments) seems to be that the body was subverted by other countries that were bribed by Microsoft. Being someone who doesn’t know the details there’s a worthwhile distinction there. Though that still opens questions about the board’s reaction, and I might read up on it all later.
Let me assure you that the original board that was voting for Open Office’s proposal was absolutely pissed off, short of dissolving but eventually unable to revert the decision because of it’s formal correctness.
…and bribed the represenatives of the “new” IETF members as well as their governments to vote for Microsoft’s standard. The latter was, of course, a matter strictly between “business partners” and probably barred behind NDAs, so “legal” as long as nobody would blow the wistle.
which complicates compatibility with open-source software such as LibreOffice.
Or any competitor. Which is why this “standard” should be declared anticompetitive.
I kinda get it though. I think every single time in my life I’ve sent a document in the non-Microsoft format I’ve got a reply saying they couldn’t open it. That’s from LibreOffice and from Mac.
Trying to get tech illiterate people to use LibreOffice and to export their documents as PDF but they just keep sending the original files every single time… nightmare material
In college my professor wouldn’t accept pdfs for assignments because I guess he couldn’t check the metadata or make comments or something.
So I literally had to download MS office just to submit assignments in their format…
There are some people who míght learn from a ransomware attack. Only if it personally hits them, of course.
I don’t know enough to understand the connection. Can you please explain?
Ransomware attack are successful mostly against MS Active Directory and Ourlook based setups.
That’s hilarious. Big corporation apparently can’t afford basic cybersecurity. Always pinching pennies.
Anyway, any big organization should encrypt their core systems to prevent ransomware attacks. Individuals should too. It’s just good practice.
Encryption alone won’t prevent ransomware to encrypt it again. The original files need to be readable after all, so they are either unencrypted at boot or appear unencrypted to the (infected) client by machine/session key management. Nevertheless, adding an addittional, "“hostile” encryption layer will make them unreadable. The reasonable thing would be not to use a monocultural, standard setup that is known to be vulnerable to that kind of attack and first of all to get rid of fucking Outlook which has always been a dumpster fire.
And everytime I get a document in a Microsoft format I send a reply asking if this or that is supposed to look that way or be that value. Yet it’s the open format and tools that’s an issue somehow.
That is supposed to be even with Microsoft office, because it changes the fonts without warning and adjusts the margins according to the default printer. It’s not a format designed to be shared with other people
One thing I do like from LibreOffice is the ability to save to PDF but also embed the original document inside it.
That way almost anyone can see it as intended, and the original is still there for editing.
Whoa I didn’t know that was an option, is it part of the export menu? That would make some of my - we needed to change something after all - situations much easier at work.
Either the person is lying, because MS Office claims compatibility with OpenDocument files, or it isn’t actually compatible and Microsoft itself is lying.
Give me CSV or give me death
Death it is, CSV is horrible effectively unstandardized trash that has led to uncountable hours of efforts wasted due to subtly corrupted data through incompatible serialization settings.
It actively makes the world a worse place by existing.
No, you
CSV does not allow storing formulas, just results. It is a good format to share data, but it is not a good format to store spreadsheets which very often contain such formulas.
Formulas are just strings, no reason you couldn’t store over in a CSV.
Maybe your software doesn’t want you to do that, but that’s a problem with that specific software.
Do you know of any software which stores formulas in CSV?
It’s an option when saving in LibreOffice Calc.
Would be a pretty straightforward macro to (un)quote the formulas in Excel or Google Sheets etc.
I didn’t know calc could do that, cool!
you can store anything in CSV, it’s just not always very practical ;)
I don’t think you can have spreadsheets with multiple “sub sheets” (can’t think of an unambiguous name for them - basically the equivalent of browser tabs)
Pretty sure there’s no way to have graphical charts either.
technically you could do both, it’s just not practical at all :)
Just like opening a .doc file in notepad, technically all the information is there
