Support of Strict nowadays (was: Re: DR-08-0012 Namespace Mapping Table v2)

[Shawn Villaron]

Apologies for the tardiness of my response; we had a holiday in the US on Monday and I spent Tuesday catching up.

This has certainly been a great thread to catch up on.  I think both sides bring up a myriad of excellent points.  Included in the discussion were some questions regarding Microsoft which I thought I'd provide some hopefully helpful information.

Regarding Office 2007 SP2, we did make changes in that patch to improve our file format support.  The most applicable change we made that relates to our work in WG4 is that we built a converter infrastructure that allows us to plug in a strict converter which would have the impact of allowing Office 2007 SP2 to open strict compliant 29500 files.  We, like many folks participating in WG4, are expecting strict adoption in the future and we want our customers to be able to participate in that ecosystem.  The confusion regarding Office 2007 SP2 is that we did not ship a strict converter because, as of yet, none of the major productivity implementers are writing strict compliant 29500 files.  But the plumbing is there and we're ready to engage when the time is right.

Regarding Office 2010 ( aka Office 14 ), it is too early for me to formally talk about the improvements in our file format support.  That said, we are committed to continuing to participate in the standards community/process.  We see this has having three elements: 1) working with the community on improving the standard; 2) documenting our implementation via implementer notes to provide even more information for partners who would like to develop interoperable products; and 3) improving our product's implementation of the evolving standard.  I believe that everyone has visibility into the first two points; as for visibility into the third, it's all about timing, but we have been working on this since the Geneva BRM in February of 2007.  My expectation is that once everyone sees the work we've put into the third, people will agree that we're fully committed.

In the spirit of getting everyone more visibility into Microsoft's products and our decision making processes, I'd like to propose to WG4 two short presentations I'd be willing to give in Copenhagen.  The first would be two short demos: a) Office 2007 SP2 29500 support via a converter, and b) Office 2010 29500 native support.  The Office 2010 demo would be using an internal technical preview build. The second would be a short presentation on ways that we can help implementers improve their 29500 support to help us achieve our goals regarding 29500, based on my decade-plus time at Microsoft working on file formats.  If the WG4 consensus is that this is a good use of time, and Murata-san believes we have time on the schedule for it, I'd be happy to do both.

I'd be happy to address any other Microsoft-related questions that the group may have.

Thanks.

shawn



-----Original Message-----
From: Jirka Kosek [mailto:jirka at kosek.cz] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2009 2:41 AM
To: rjelliffe at allette.com.au
Cc: SC 34 WG4
Subject: Re: Support of Strict nowadays (was: Re: DR-08-0012 Namespace Mapping Table v2)

rjelliffe at allette.com.au wrote:
>> Let's try do digg into this one
>>
>> 2009/5/25 Jirka Kosek <jirka at kosek.cz>:
>>> But to the date I'm not aware of single tool/vendor who is willing 
>>> to support Strict.
>> Is anyone in this group aware of an implementation of strict as 
>> actually stated in the current IS draft ?
> 
> Am I wrong in thinking that part of the Office 2007 SP2 changes were 
> that it can open (more or most) Strict documents? I.e. that it is
> Transitional+Legacy.

Doesn't look like on my computer. For example SP2 doesn't support units of measure. AFAIK those changes will be available in MSO14.

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