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The Latest of 'Open' XML is Another Scam

It's not a viewer, it's a translator

OOXML translation



THIS subject, which we covered very briefly yesterday, attracted a lot of Microsoft apologists, Novell boosters, Mono enthusiasts, and revisionists of sorts. A careful look at some more articles reveals an even uglier picture than we first saw (with greater effects than initially imagined).

Microsoft's media mole is mentioned in this IDG article, which improperly characterises another push around Microsoft's proprietary formats, which ruined ISO.

The new tools were outlined in a blog posting by Peter Galli, a Microsoft senior open source community manager.

Open XML Document Viewer translates Open XML documents to an HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) Web page, allowing readability of those documents on Web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, he wrote. A Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the tool is available on Microsoft's Codeplex site.


Got that? Microsoft terms and licences. Moreover, there is lots of deception in the media, e.g.:

Even The Register covers the story:

Microsoft has today released a plug-in for Firefox that allows Open XML documents to be viewed within the popular open source browser. The software giant said that its new Open XML Document Viewer works within Firefox and can be used on Windows and Linux platforms without needing a local installation of MS Office. .. So today’s announcement will be seen – by MS at least – as going some way to placate the firm’s naysayers.

Let's check the source.

Interoperability solutions announced today translate Open XML documents to a Web page (HTML) allowing readability on Web-friendly browsers such as Firefox,…


Get it? It's not a viewer? It's a translator to HTML and there is no word on the quality of this.

OOXML is bad

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