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<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@pwc.ca [mailto:Nadia.Swaby@pwc.ca]
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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