Talk:Office Open XML/Archive 11

This is an archive of past discussions about Office Open XML. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 5

←

Archive 9

→

Vandalism of the page

Certain editor(s) have made changes to the article, claiming in the edit summaries that there was vandalism, and they are removing vandalism. I read through the article 3 times looking for this supposed vandalism of the page. I could find none. I'm suspecting the "vandalism removal" claim is used to make other changes to the article. Claims of vandalism are time-wasting for other editors. If there really is vandalism, it should be taken up and the Administrators Noticeboard. However, I'm getting wary of edit summaries proclaiming vandalism, and then making other changes. Valid reasons must be given for large-scale changes to the article.--Lester 14:36, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Whatever happens, the edit warring has to stop immediately; that applies to both sides of the debate. Those arguing with HAl's tendicious edits are not covering themselves in glory by edit warring with him over them. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:49, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Reply to Chris: Apologies if I should not have reverted it. In hindsight, it may not have been the best response. However, when no valid edit summary is given (ie, edit summary claims vandalism), then no other editors can track or follow what changes are being made to the article. I will refrain from reverting such edits while the community decides what to do. The article has descended into chaos, as it's not easy to see the changes being made.--Lester 21:37, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

"In hindsight"? This has been going on for months. If either side were capable of behaving themselves then administrative action to block the transgressors would have been straightforward. If this is ever going to move beyond a permanent edit war then people need to start paying attention to our edit warring policy. Having the article reflect the POV of one side or the other on a temporary basis is not the end of the world. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:48, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Any suggestion for alternate moves? I've got only one edit I'm seriously contesting at the moment - I will not let hAl's claim (based on OR and using Wikipedia as a source) that OOXML is a "free and open" format stand; we've debated this ad nauseam, without any position change. I could block hAl for edit warring, but since I am a party to the dispute, I am not using anything but editor powers on this article. --Alvestrand (talk) 16:59, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

An RfC might work (at least for the sake of getting more eyes on the issue); that said, it might be worth just pinging an uninvolved admin to take a quick look, as the root cause of the current disruption seems obvious. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:02, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I actually tried a request for comment. I also tried a request for mediation and I also tried to get help from the wikiproject computing. hAl (talk) 21:52, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Are you referring to Talk:Office Open XML/Archive 7#RFC: Supporting sites and overcitation? That it failed to attract attention is probably because you discarded the clear instructions on how to raise and word an RfC and instead simply stuck an RfC tag on yet another rant at another user. What is needed is probably another round like Talk:Office Open XML/Archive 6#RfC: Is OOXML a free and open format?, which may attract new voices this time. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:48, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I tried setting up another RfC (below). Let's see if I managed to make it specific enough that we can get some useful information from it. --Alvestrand (talk) 12:33, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that we have a disagreement on that free and open claim but as this is supported by by other wikipedia sources and you do not show any sourcing related to the ISO/IEC 29500 not beeing a free and open standard I wonder why you keep removing it. If wikipedia list OOXML amonst open standards than why should the article on OOXML not state the same. And evn tholugh you have a possible conflict of interest I feel you are open to discussion. The repetetive edits by user:Scientus are of a totally different caliber and only ment as WP:Disruptive_editing and he refuses to discuss them on the talk page. I have asked around at half a dozen places for mediation but this has led to nothing. hAl (talk) 17:29, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

The disruptive edits by user:Scientus have been discussed many times. The edits made have been discusses to death. For instance:

Here: Talk:Office Open XML/Archive 7#Stop vandalising the Office Open XML and Microsoft articles

Here: Talk:Office Open XML/Archive 7#Repeated disruptive editting by user:Scientus

Here: Talk:Office Open XML/Archive 7#Vandalism and edit warring by User:Scientus

Here: Talk:Office Open XML/Archive 7#Opening section mutilated

Here: Talk:Office Open XML#Continuous removal of support organization

Here: Talk:Office Open XML/Archive 7#http://openxmldeveloper.org/

Here: Talk:Office Open XML/Archive 7#"Open XML community" is really a reliable source ????

Here: Talk:Office Open XML/Archive 7#What is the standpoint of "Open XML Developer" as a "Microsoft-run" site ??

On the issue of the fully cited information on organizations supporting Office Open XML and the related sites user:Scientus has now removed that infor about 50 times agianst multiple other editors. It is a total disgrace.

Here: Talk:Office Open XML/Archive 7#The lead of this article

Here: Talk:Office Open XML#'Support' by Microsoft-run websites

Here: Talk:Office Open XML#Suggested incompatiblity MS Office 2007and ISO/IEC 29500

Actually user:Alvestrand put this information that was in the lead into another section after discussion between him and me on the talk page but apperantly both you and user:Scientus ignore the discussions on this talk page.

Here: Talk:Office Open XML/Archive 8#Patent infringement issue

And in addition to that there was a recnet request not to do wholesale revisions here (something you have now done three times): Talk:Office Open XML/Archive 8#Please try to avoid wholesale revisions

So that does not help either. hAl (talk) 17:21, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Continuing to make this personal does absolutely no good. As it is so unconductive to proper discussion of the issue, I'm considering removing such rants on sight in future. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:48, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if you guys want to 'ping' Carl (CBM · talk) again. We had a very kind offer of help from him back in August when one of hAl's comments led me to question the wording of the WP:NOR policy on its talk page, here. --Nigelj (talk) 14:51, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I asked him on that offer to mediate on his talk page twice, but no reactions. hAl (talk) 14:54, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Userfied

For the time being I've userfied the last good revision of the page at user:thumperward/Office Open XML for work to continue. Once protection expires I'll merge it back here if there's consensus. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:33, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi Chris. While I'm not entirely convinced yet, that we'll get broad consensus this way, I like to say that I appreciate your initiative. Aside from the fact that I don't fully agree that you userfied "the last good revision", I'd like to point out that (from what I can tell) there seems to be just a very limited number of aspects in dispute in this article. These should be discussed on this talk page. As I have mentioned above, I (and other editors) fail to see why several organizations supporting Office Open XML have been removed although there are valid sources confirming that these supporting organizations do exist. What is your standpoint on this issue? Also, your current version includes User:Scientus twelve (12!) "references" in the criticism section that support the single undisputed fact that "the need and appropriateness of such length has been questioned" in the past. IMHO one or two notable references should be enough to support this claim. However, User:Scientus keeps on adding gazillions of mostly unrelated "references" from blogs and other questionable sources in order to push his point of view via an excessive number of links to opposers of the standardization process. What is your standpoint on this issue? The third issue seem to be the words "free and open". I have not seen any argument so far as to why ISO standards like ISO 15948, ISO/IEC 10646:2003, ISO/IEC 26300:2006, and ISO 32000-1:2008 which are all on the List of free file formats are somehow "more free" than ISO/IEC 29500:2008. To me, this does not seem evenhanded. Also, from what I can tell the definitions in the articles Open standard/Open format seem to apply to ISO/IEC standards as well. What is your standpoint on this issue? Again, thanks for joining the discussion. I hope that we are able to create an unbiased version of this article that does not apply double standards and that will finally get broad consensus. Ghettoblaster (talk) 19:34, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that the various dubious critiques (especially the lawsuit, which is only tangentially related to the standard) are unconstructive as well; I'd be happy to see them go. I agree that this is the right page to discuss those edits, even if they're being made in my userspace. As for the free formats thing, as I've said several times the issue is that we have reliable sources which have questioned the freeness of the first standard of the draft and none AFAIK which have then interpreted the second draft as having resolved this. To my knowledge, this is not the case for the various other standards you've pointed out. It's a matter of us not including personal interpretation of primary sources, and nothing to do with the content of the draft as such. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:59, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually I agree with user:Ghettoblaster that we had consensus a few months using reliable sources that the Ecma standard was actually free and open. I do not see any reliable source now claiming this free and open status has degraded for the combined new ISO/IEC and Ecma 2nd edition standard. In fact I do not see any sourcing on claims that the publicly avaialable free ISO/IEC standard might not be open. hAl (talk) 20:15, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Chris, I agree with you that the patent lawsuit is only tangentially related to the standard since it not only affects Microsoft Word editing OOXML files, but also opening .XML files containing custom XML. This is why I changed the section headline in this edit [1]. This was of course again reverted by User:Scientus without stating a clear reason in the edit summary ([2]). Why he also changed the reference used in this section is beyond my comprehension. I think the current headline of this section on your userfied version of the article is misleading since the standard itself does not seem to infringe any patent. Also, I don't consider the Word lawsuit as either support or criticism of the standard itself which is why I think it does not belong into this paragraph. Ghettoblaster (talk) 21:17, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The subsection should probably just be deleted, then. My edits were purely from a copyediting perspective, as the old title was needlessly long and Improperly Capitalised. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:38, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

A standard can't infringe a patent; a standard is just a document. Practice of a standard can infringe a patent; if it's not possible to practice a standard without infringing the patent, the patent and its licensing conditions matter to the standard. That said, I've seen articles claiming that the specific patent case is not relevant to OOXML, because it refers specifically to "non-standard XML" or something like that (don't have the cite). (note - I think I've said enough on the "free" issue. We definitely disagree.) --Alvestrand (talk) 21:39, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't actually think we do disagree with "the free issue", at least to the extent that I would agree with the general sentiment - however, without a reliable secondary source we are doing our readers an injustice by making a personal interpretation of primary material. That's been my position from the beginning here, and part of the problem has been that the editor pushing for this change has completely ignored this argument in favour of rhetoric. I've removed the patent vio subection from the draft again, per this discussion. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:03, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I should be more precise - hAl and I disagree on the "free" issue; I think using the word "free" instead of "freely available" is OR, unsupported and controversial. Thanks for reminding me to be precise! --Alvestrand (talk) 17:42, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

That the Office Open XML is free is fairly uncontroversion as it is used in all kind of free and open software. You cannot seem to come up with arguments why Office Open XML is not free to use or implement. hAl (talk) 23:20, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Suggested incompatiblity MS Office 2007and ISO/IEC 29500

The article suggested that MS Office 2007 documetn and the ISO/IEC standard are incompatible because of changes in later version. This however is based on a mistake that is being corrected. The Britisch Standards Institute already submitted a defect for that 5 or 6 months ago. The defect lists as follows:

Nature of the Defect: As a result of changes made at the BRM, a number of existing Ecma-376 documents were unintentionally made invalid against the IS29500 transitional schema. It was strongly expressed as an opinion at the BRM by many countries that the transitional schema should accurately reflect the existing Ecma-376 documents.

However, at the BRM, the ST_OnOff type was changed from supporting 0, 1, On, Off, True, False to supporting only 0, 1, True, False (i.e. the xs:boolean type). Although this fits with the detail of the amendments made at the BRM, it is against the spirit of the desired changes for many countries, and we believe that due to time limitations at the BRM, this change was made without sufficient examination of the consequences, was made in error by the BRM (in which error the UK played a part), and should be fixed. '

Solution Proposed by the Submitter: Change the ST_OnOff type to support 0, 1, On, Off, True and False in the Transitional schemas only

This minor glitch has already been discussed within ISO/IEC JCT1 and will just be part of errata (or is already so) and has no place in the article lead suggesting version incompatiblity was intentional while it is actully just an error that was overlooked and has been taken care of. Compatiblity with the Office 2007 document was what the transitional schema in the ISO/IEC standard was ment for. hAl (talk) 16:05, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

As it was widely trumpeted at the time, I suggest that, like for the information on Microsoft-supported OOXML-promoting organizations, the information be kept in the article. If you can offer WP:RS links to the discussion of the fix, that would make such a section more informative. I think it would belong under "Structure of the standard", since that talks about the versions. At least in April 2008, the ISO TC chairman didn't dismiss the incompatibility as cavalierly. --Alvestrand (talk) 00:29, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I haven no objection to it being readded to the article but than in a more netral tone and also showing that this is considered by ISO members to be a mistake/error/flaw/oversight in the specification. However such an oversight should not be in the lead suggesting that is is an intentionally created version issue. The info should be listed in the public JCT1 archive. I'll look it up later and provide you a link. hAl (talk) 09:53, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

The links I promised: [3] (look for defect report DR-09-0159) and [4] for some related disscusion on the topic. hAl (talk) 12:51, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I added a completely new formulation of the section. Let's see if that passes muster. I agree that this does not belong in the lede. (BTW, we need a better description of what the "transitional" features are intended for - this is wholly unclear from the current article.) --Alvestrand (talk) 14:55, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Your going well I notice, so see if you can find a better description of transitional or any description even as it seems to be completly lacking. hAl (talk) 17:48, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Despite our consensus user:Scientus again placed the incorrect information back in the lead of the article. hAl (talk) 17:44, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

what HAl removed is supported by the Microsoft source, as well as other sources given, (as well as above discussion) contrary to HAl's claims. I reverted HAls edit because it was a lie. Scientus (talk) 11:11, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Nop, what I removed was not supported by any of your sources. It was your interpretation of the situation incorrectly suggesting some intentional veriosn changes created incompatiblity. There was an actual issue regarding the incompatibility but this was due to an error in the Office Open XML specification which has already been dealt with and will appear in the amendments published by ISO/IEC next year. Information that was supported by very reliable sources. That information has been places in the article by user:Alvestrand (with sources). So actually your information was not correct and was outdated as well. This issue was discussed here, but again you ignored the discussion on the talk page and revert anyways to replace your interpretation back in. hAl (talk) 15:31, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

My sources? I was not the one to put those sources there, and one of them comes straight from a Microsoft Press release. Scientus (talk) 00:43, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Anti Microsoft sentiment edits by user:Scientus

Again user:Scientus has gone about with his anti-Microsoft edits:

This new addition in the lead of the article:

Microsoft may have patents necessary for implementing the Office Open XML format, which can be used or implemented by anyone who does not deviate from the ISO/IEC 29500:2008

is not very constructive at best. If you deviate from the standard in some unknown way than those deviations are not Office Open XML but something else. Why state here in the lead of the article about Office Open XML something about ,not using OOXML, but something else. In essense it also confimrs that Office Open XML can be used without any MS patent restriction but rewritten with weasel words and trying suggest a non-existing patent threat. Of course the info as usual is not correct either as Microsofts licensing applies to much broader list of formats and anyone can easiliy use elements from all kinds of office file format that Micrsoft has created or has particpated in.

Also again user:Scientus tries to reintroduce the incorrect information about incompatiblity of Microsoft Office 2007 and Office Open XML standard in the lead of the article which was discusessed and dealt with in consensus by me and user:Alvestrand in this sectionTalk:Office_Open_XML#Suggested_incompatiblity_MS_Office_2007and_ISO.2FIEC_29500 (where user:Scientus did not participate)

Also for the fifthieft time user:Scientus has removed fully cited information on sites by organizations that support Office Open XML as he takes issue apperantly with sites of those organization being hosted by Microsoft. The information on those sites was also discussed by me, user:Ghettoblaster, user:Nigelj and user:Alvestrand and reorganised in consensus in this section Talk:Office_Open_XML#.27Support.27_by_Microsoft-run_websites (where user:Scientus again did not participate).

Here is a incomplete selection of recent edits by User:Scientus where he tries to get any mention of support for Office Open XML removed from this article:

This consistent pattern of repeated destructive, and what seems anti-Microsoft sentiment based, should stop. This is an article about a file format and should not be about someone having a grudge against a company going on a rampage. hAl (talk) 06:18, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

If you insert material about the controversy, it should be from reliable sources, and that means third-party published sources. References from the corporate websites of Microsoft, the ISO and ECMA are not reliable sources. HAl, if you want to insert controversial information, go find some references from the New York Times, The Washington Post or The Times of London. All of which covered the story. You can't expect your information to be kept when the sources are corporate websites. Also, it would be worthwhile to read Wikipedia:No personal attacks. --Lester 06:28, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

The controversy surrounding the standardization is in the Standardization of Office Open XML article. It is related to a process. You seem intent on bringing controversy here. This however is the article about a the file format and not about the controversy from 2007 and the first half of 2008 that was described in the Standardization of Office Open XML article. You object to factual information form Micrsoft, Ecma and ISO/IEC as sources allthough those parties have the most information about the format. Those sources do not describe anything controversial. They do not state that Office Open XML is better than another format or worse than another format. For example the direct links to the locations where the free downloads of the Office Open XML specificATION can be done are excellent sources for supporting a statement that the Specification can be freely downloaded. It is very questionable that you object to that. hAl (talk) 06:56, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

And as for personal attacks. user:Scientus does not make it a secret that his edits are against Microsoft. In his edit summeries he already called Office Open XML a "Microsoft standard". hAl (talk) 10:17, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

While Microsoft may be a legal person under US law, I don't think attacks on Microsoft constitute personal attacks in the context of WP:NPA. --Alvestrand (talk) 10:21, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

That is not what I mean. If user:Scientus himself publicly motivates his edits with negative comments on Microsoft or Microsoft related subject matters then I do not consider it a personal attack to call him on those motivations. hAl (talk) 12:00, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

user:HAl: "user:Scientus does not make it a secret that his edits are against Microsoft.", stop putting words in my mouth. You have continually tried to put misleading information into this article, such as hiding origins of Microsoft-run sites, and just recently giving bad advice about a legal matter. Note, Wikipedia:Legal disclaimer, Do not give unqualified, incomplete, and inaccurate legal advice on Wikipedia, as you did here, here, here, and reverted to here. Note below that user:Alvestrand see's the same glaring problem with the unsupported legal advice added by user:HAl.Scientus (talk) 10:52, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, look, in the, mirror.Scientus (talk) 10:53, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think hAi's report at WP:AN3 was justified as there has been no recent edit warring here, and I actually prefer Scientus's version as being more encyclopaedic. The above list off diffs that don't show anything should be removed or collapsed. Verbal chat 12:24, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Alex Brown Conflict of Interest

user:Alexbrn, Alex Brown, is deeply involved in OOXML and sits in on the ISO/IEC meetings. Also see above “who fancy their job as Wikipedia editor is to champion some cause” in his comment above.Scientus (talk) 19:09, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

This article discussion page is not the place to have an attack on someone else's credentials.-Lester 20:34, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's against his credentials, just a warning that he might edit the page in a biased way. --h2g2bob (talk)

WP:COI covers this. Editors should be aware of this conflict of interest (and any others), and this doesn't look like a PA to me. Verbal chat 21:32, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Of course I am very aware of WP:COI and my role is well publicised; I am also aware that (for my sins) I know a lot about this topic. As to any specific conflict of interest I am not an "interested party" in the progress of OOXML other than that my working life is concerned with handling XML formats of all kinds. I happen to be an expert who often attends the working group meetings, but such experts contribute to all kinds of actions (including e.g. decisions on whether to withdraw the standard) -- this is not a promotional role. I take heart from the fact that I seem to have disagreements with both "sides" of the edit-warring factions here. If anybody thinks a particular edit is controversial and/or not in sympathy with good practice or the discussion on this page, then please raise it in the normal way. Alexbrn (talk) 11:46, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Application Support

This section seems to be obsessed with Microsoft to the exclusion of other application developers, and in any case overlaps with another article, Office Open XML software. Does anybody else think (like me) somemajor cleanup is needed here? Alexbrn (talk) 11:02, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has argued that this doesn't still need major cleanup. FWIW the list article (now retitled appropriately) is a complete train wreck right now, but I'd rather have a good article and a bad list than a mediocre article and a bad list. Feel free to punt anything dubious or trivial to the list for now. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:13, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I have cleaned up the section quite a bit now. Halved the info about MS. Added some short info on application support on other well know office document application by other verdors.