Microsoft delivers open-source OOXML converter

 

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By Matthew Sparkes

Posted on 18 Jan 2008 at 08:18

Microsoft is founding an open-source project to create a binary to OOXML translator. The code will allow users to convert documents in older Office formats into OOXML files.

The move has come as a result of comments sent to Microsoft during its controversial application to ratify OOXML as an ISO standard, which requested easier third-party conversion between documents and better access to binary format documentation.

"The thought here was that the most effective way to help people with this was to create an open-source translation project to allow binary documents (.doc; .xls; .ppt) to be translated into Open XML," says Microsoft Office program manager, Brian Jones, on a Microsoft blog.

The project will begin on 15 February, hosted under a BSD licence on the popular open-source management site, SourceForge.

The company has also announced that it will make it easier for developers to implement previous binary file standards by freely releasing the documentation for the formats.

"The current form of the documentation has been available since 2006, where anyone could get the documentation by sending an email to Microsoft. The new proposal Microsoft made was that it would just get rid of the need to send an e-mail and it would provide it for direct download," says Jones.

Open-source advocates remain sceptical of Microsoft's motives on OOXML, however. The Say No to OOXML website recently published a list of document-related patents that have been published since the rival ODF format was approved as an ISO standard. "Some of these, like the packing ones, seem to apply directly to OOXML," the site claims. "What isn't clear to us is why Microsoft would pursue patent protection for patents rights that their are promising that they won't assert over users of OOXML."

Earlier this month a report was released by the Burton Group, which claimed that OOXML will become more pervasive than its open-source rival ODF, due to limitations in the suitability of ODF in enterprise environments.