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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: MS Office XML "Binary Key"
 <note>You herein is universal You, not Nadia.</note> When they are finally able to determine what key is being referred to, that question can be answered. Brian's blog responses indicate it is a namespace declaration for legacy features, internal base64, or as Dare says, a byte order mark. I doubt it *cripples* the XML unless you are relying on those features and don't have sufficient documentation to glean the semantics from that namespace. You can't cripple XML; you may not be able to afford to map to a particular XML application language. Brian is wrong about a namespace conveying a *type*; that is one way to use it, but you still have to go to the documents to find out what that *type* means *operationally*. If along the way, you stumble into the patents, you may want to stay away from this XML but do have a lawyer read the license first. If this were a contracting transaction, you could take exceptions to clauses you don't accept, but it isn't. That is a side argument to point out that Massachusetts is asserting a sovereignty argument over data encumbrance: if you use a given XML application, what are your ownership rights in the fixed form, and if there is any doubt, would you rather use a non-encumbered format given equal operational capability? The position some take is offering richer features is a winning market strategy. It depends. HTML trounced that one last time we had this argument in the markup tribe. Good enough often is, and PDF plays both sides against the middle. Adobe's position on markup from the SGML days has been, 'let the markup guys beat each other up. We'll look neutral, keep out IP, capture content in fixed format, and win by accretion. And that has worked for them. That blinking box in the upper right corner insisting that you upgrade the reader for free tells you the rest. <aside>Sorry MS, but you really need to figure out how to get IP without muscling yourself out of the market. Read the EOLAS decision carefully and think hard about documentation and who should be submitting prior art in your defense.</aside> I repeat what I said to Noring's post about the OpenDoc article. The reason for customer resistance to Office is the same as the resistance to any wall-to-wall proprietary system: the inability of the customer to control costs. XML *interoperability* by transformation given a so-called universal whatsis would float all boats if true, so even with that "binary key*, the universal should work with the OpenDoc OR Office formats. But the real nitty gritty is setting down and writing the XSLT, dealing with the fact of semanticless formats, coping with the varying ways to flag datatypes, and trying to meet the varying fidelity requirements. Not much has changed here since the days of FOSIs AFAIK. To wit: o When there are multiple formats for multiple occurrence types, operation costs go up. Applications operate. Plainly, XML does not interoperate. It is a portable means to label and structure data. Applications provide a means to map that data and transform it just as they have since long before XML existed. The semantic chasms still exist and always will because XML does not and must not define operations and operations are what "interOPERABLE" means. Any business that has to maintain and UPGRADE multiple applications for the SAME information has higher costs. D'oh. The challenge for Open Source, OpenDoc, etc., is to provide enterprise desktop applications that operationally function at the same or better quality of the Microsoft office tools for a better price. It is really that simple. This is application VS application (at the level of functionality) and license VS license + sustaining costs (at the level of costs). This is a fight over reach and scale. That is why the OpenDoc fellow is proseletyzing for replacing HTML with OpenDoc. Anyone who tried that ten years ago was hung with a thick rope spun of FUD. Let's see how well that works this time. len From: Nadia.Swaby@p... [mailto:Nadia.Swaby@p...] I have been reading Brian Jones' blog daily for the past few months, as I am interested in MS' XML support in Office (I work for a large company were Office is the standard and part of my job is looking into XML editing tools for end users). This weeks hot topic has Brian refuting claims of a "binary key" in MS' XML format ( http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2005/10/17/481983.aspx ). I was wondering if anyone here actually seen this key and how it could possibly cripple any XML exported out of Office. 
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