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2008-03-10

nfoWorks: In Search of
Initiative

Technorati
Tags: Ecma International, BRM, DIS 29500, ECMA-376, Document Interoperability Initiative, ODF-OOXML Harmonization, nfoWorks, Harmony
Principles, Alex Brown, Jan van
den Beld

I've been waiting to see more about the Microsoft Document
Interoperability Initiative so that I can assess its value in the context
of the Harmony Principles.  I'm wondering what
nfoWorks might provide by way of resources, and
vice versa.  The potential changes to
ECMA-379 ECMA-376
that will be part of an approved ISO/IEC DIS 29500 also need keeping an
eye on.  Here's the interim situation.

Unfolding
Document Interoperability

Format
Plug-and-Play

Waiting
for BRM Closure

1. Unfolding Document Interoperability

The first actions under the Document Interoperability Initiative were
announced in a March 6 press release [1].
The release reported that day's event in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with
additional events to follow around the world.  There was not much
meat in the announcement.  I found the approach to be slanted in an
odd way:

"The Document Interoperability Initiative focuses on bringing vendors
together to promote interoperability between document format
implementations through testing and refining those implementations,
creation of format implementation test suites, and the creation of
templates designed for optimal interoperability between different
formats."

This fits with having plug-fests to test interchange and also having
round tables to learn the concerns of the vendors who ask to
participate.  It seems straightforward enough.  Yet I find an
odd disharmony in the statement from Jean Paoli,

"“Microsoft believes that the industry has a responsibility to come
together to address the interests of users in achieving greater
interoperability and effective data exchange between widely deployed
document format implementations.”

The notion that putting vendors together addresses user needs occurs in
the statements of other participants as well.  Somehow, I thought we
had reached the point where we know to engage users and representatives of
significant user communities to find out what their interoperability needs
are.   I guess I think I know what users want too.  Don't
you?  Out of fairness, commercial firms may have a good sense of what
customers are telling them.  I suspect we will see more about that as
the Document Interoperability Initiative continues.  Still, I
think the notion of "industry" here is too narrow.

Meanwhile, the press release led Mike Gunderloy to question the focus
on commercial vendors with closed-source products [2]:

"So far, though, participation in this new initiative seems to be
limited.  Perhaps Microsoft rushed to get this together to prove
that they mean open business, but the only open source company involved
in the first round of meetings is Novell.  Other participants
(DataViz, Mark Logic, Nuance and QuickOffice) all produce closed-source
products that work with one or another open format.

"If the idea here is to prove that Microsoft gets along with and
wants to support the entire document-based community, they're going to
have to do better than that. Until fully open-source projects such as
OpenOfice and NeoOffice sit down at the table, suspicions will remain
that Microsoft continues to guide the interoperability testing for their
own benefit."

It is difficult to say what went into the initial selection and what
the invitation process might have been.  Sometimes the most difficult
part of having multiple vendors in the same room testing their wares is
arriving at acceptable mutual NDA agreements.  Even if there is no
need to share or discuss their code, there is information that can be
taken away concerning product directions, product readiness, and also
defects exposed during any lab exercises.  With regard to "fully"
open-source projects, I suspect it depends on whether those projects are
interested and organized to participate.  I would hope so.

The Microsoft agent-in-charge is Interoperability Evangelist Craig
Kitterman, whose blog has interesting photographs and event details.
Kitterman ends his summary with an open invitation [3]:

"I want to call out here that this is open to any vendors who are
implementing open standards based document formats and are interested in
working with a broader set of folks with common goals. If you are
interested in participating, please feel free to contact me directly
([email-masked]) and we can work together to see how to integrate
your company, product and ideas into the next session.

"If you cannot participate directly in one of the events but would
like to add your comments as to what kinds of things we can and should
do as a community in the interest of document interoperability, please
feel free to comment or shoot me email."

We're still in vendor church, but now there's a person who stands up
for the activity.  Also, there are interesting notes on the round
table held during the event.

I assume that the Microsoft-Novell joint laboratory provided the
setting for the Massachusetts event [4].
Craig Kitterman's blog has a slide show that provides clues.  Craig
reports that the next events will be in Korea and Germany.  I can't
tell whether permanent facilities are available for periodic events and
plug-fests, such as Port 25 and Building 20 in Redmond.

2. Format Plug-and-Play

The press release on the Document Interoperability Initiative also
invokes the Interoperability
Principles as part of announcing a new drop of the open-source
OpenXML-ODF Translator software.  The tie-in:

"Microsoft has committed to support future releases of the translator
taking advantage of the improvements in Microsoft Office converter APIs
announced as part of the interoperability principles on Feb. 21 to
provide a better integrated experience for customers to open and save
ODF files. These APIs and the guidance provided by the OpenXML-ODF
Translator project will also make it easier for users to take advantage
of other document formats, such as UOF and DAISY."

The OpenXML-ODF
Translator project (well, that is what it is called) will eventually
be a demonstration of the use of the new Microsoft Office interfaces for
smooth integration of new formats.

[Note to self. At some point, it would be interesting to see
if it ever makes sense that there be a separate conversion interface for
back-and-forth with particular harmonization
levels/profiles, even of OOXML format.  I have no idea at this
point.]

3. Waiting for BRM Closure

At the moment, it is not possible to do anything concrete and detailed
with Office Open XML harmonization until it is known what the final
ISO/IEC status of DIS 29500 becomes and what the final edited
specification is.

For now, the only stable specification for working with Office Open XML
is ECMA-376.  There's plenty to deal with there.  At the same
time, I want to anticipate how an approved ISO/IEC DIS 29500 might
impose the need for some introduce adjustments
(with accompanying transition provisions).  The March 29 closure of
the DIS 29500 ballot process will certainly be soon enough to intercept
anything that happens with nfoWorks and the Harmony
Principles in the meantime.

I have obtained the information that Alan Brown has made public so far
[5].
I've found useful guidance on how ZIP usage and Open Packaging Conventions
(OPC) will be adjusted.  I also searched out some items that address
conformance and levels of application.  There was a proposal to
provide for application descriptions that may be a future opening for what
I have been vaguely referring to as interchange profiles.

My attention was drawn to Alan Brown's material by hints in a post from
Jan van den Beld [6].
That post appears to have been withdrawn was withdrawn
and replaced by a stronger, more-complete version.  I am
hopeful that Van den Beld will provide a replacement
that shares his valuable perspective on the history of Fast Track
submissions.

[1] Microsoft: Microsoft
Launches Document Interoperability Initiative.  (press release)
PressPass - Information for Journalists, microsoft.com,
2008-03-06 (updated 2008-03-10).

This release confirms that something is happening.  I was left
with many unanswered questions about the actual structure of the
initiative and whether the labs were definite facilities or ephemeral
events (at definite facilities).
The humor of the press
release update is that an occurrence of "Microsoft Office Open XML" was
replaced with "Office Open XML," reflecting the separation of OOXML from
Microsoft's possession.  And while one can't rewrite Jean Paoli's
predilection for unqualified use of "Open XML," it is unfortunate that
this off-putting contraction is used throughout the press
release.

[2] Mike Gunderloy: Document
Interop from Microsoft.  (web log entry), OStatic,
2008-03-07.

I'm not sure ...

[3] Craig Kitterman: Document
Interoperability Roundtables & Labs - Take 1: Cambridge,
MA.  Craig Kitterman's Interoperability Community Blog,
msdn.com, 2008-03-07.

The slide-show and description of the event provide the most
visibility on this activity so far.

[4] Tom Hanrahan: Microsoft
and Novell Interoperability Lab Announcement.  Blogs, Port25,
technet.com, 2007-09-12.

Although focused on the server farm, Hanrahan mentions the areas of
interoperability that this joint operation supports: virtualization,
web-services management, and identity federation.  In the November
2006 announcement of this activity, document-format compatibility
was also part of the charter.  That still seems to be the
case.
I had bet myself that this lab would end up in San
Jose or maybe Idaho.  Instead, Microsoft and Novell found a
more-interesting way to require comparable travel distance from Redmond
and Provo.  I keep forgetting that Novell is already in Cambridge,
MA.  Microsoft is expanding its own presence with a Microsoft
Research operation (not to be confused with the one at the original
Cambridge).

[5] Alex Brown: BRM
Documents.  There is no end, but addition (web log),
2008-03-06 (updated 2008-03-10).

The four downloads provide for ample reference until the post-BRM
ballot closure period ends.  The original ballot comments and the
ECMA TC45 proposed responses are not included.  We'll have to wait
for all of that to be sorted out.

[6] Jan van den Beld: The BRM for DIS 29500: Open
XML, a last-but-one, normal climax in FT!  Jan van den Beld (web
log), 2008-03-09.  Replaced 2008-03-11 as "A
new view of the BRM for DIS 29500 has emerged: Consensus
prevailed."

This post has been deleted from the blog and from the blog's
RSS feed.  It's conceivable that van den Beld reconsidered how much
information to provide about aspects of the Ballot Resolution
Meeting.  I don't know.
The value of this post to me is
the great historical perspective on the ECMA-ISO relationship and how
often the Fast Track (FT) process has been used with success.
I look forward to that portion being reposted in some
form.  I am grateful to see that this useful and
informative post has been re-issued with additional material.

This post brought my attention to some of the
resolutions that might impact the nfoWorks effort.
Fortunately, These are all available
locatable in the Alex Brown materials; the original version
of this post inspired me to look for them.  Now you can
too.

I received my third Waggener Engstrom e-mail last week.  It
pointed me to the Document Interoperability Initiative press
release.  There was nothing there to talk about, with all links being
to materials already covered about the Microsoft Interoperability
Principles.  Later, it seemed that the OStatic folks could find some
value in Craig Kitterman's more-substantial report and contact.
Since I did not want to go through the pain of registering at yet one more
site in order to comment at OStatic, I chose to make the introductions
here.

The ultimate trigger for this post is the BRM information from Alex
Brown and the (currently-unavailable) background from Jan van den
Beld.

The nfoWorks site is
bootstrapping along.  The goal is to having enough structure in place
that I can start compiling notes on available materials.  My first
interest is identifying what is needed to build up some
document-processing infrastructure with progressive layers of abstraction
for processing of open-standard document formats under the Harmony
Principles.  The first clue that the site is becoming something
humans can use will be appearance of a genuine home page.  This will
have the first links to content other than site masonry and plumbing.

[update 2008-03-11T17:14Z: I don't know how long it
will take me to stop missremembering the number of ECMA-376, especially
since all I have to do is look down at my computer desktop and the folder
that is named for the specification it contains.  Since I needed to
correct one designation at the top of this post, I added a link to the
Ecma International source of the specifications and adjusted other
statements in the body of this article.  I also checked Jan van den
Beld's blog and am happy to report that he has put up a refined version of
the deleted post that I found so valuable.]

posted by orcmid at 3/10/2008
01:37:00 PM, rating

data by NewsGator Online

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