Rick Jelliffe: What is This Guy Actually Talking About?

Rick Jellife became somewhat famous in the whole Microsoft paying to make OpenXML look better controversy. I mean, I don't have a problem with that per se, but a lot of language in a lot of his blog entries have been so bizarre to say the least that I find it slightly astonishing he's allowed to post and associate himself with O'Reilly. The first sentence of that blog entry goes like this:

My first computer was a Mac Plus. Loved it. My second computer was an AT&T Unix PC running System V. Loved it long time. My third computer was a Sparc running Solaris or SunOS. Loved it. At work I run Linux, Open Office, Firefox, Eclipse, etc. No drama. For the last six years I have been running a little company making Java programs...The only time I use Microsoft products is on my laptop at home...

I worry about that for one reason. Right from the off he's going out of his way to tell us how favourable he is to non-Microsoft systems and applications, and how little he actually uses Microsoft software. Why? Of what relevance does that have to the subject of him potentially getting paid by Microsoft to try and correct some inaccuracies surrounding OpenXML? Already he's going defensive for reasons that are best know to him.

Since then, there have been a number of blog entries that are quite frankly laughably immature at best regarding why OpenXML should be an ISO standard from someone supposedly quite experienced, why the problems many have pointed out are non-issues, and more worryingly, how everything that goes against this thinking is a personal attack. I'm not entirely sure he understands how ridiculous that makes him look, but there you go. He seems to be carefully vetting comments that are posted to his blog now as well.

The latest blog entry is actually an acknowledgement of the many issues people have raised regarding OpenXML, but he's now unwittingly backtracking on a lot of what he's said previously by moving his own personal goalposts on the criteria for OpenXML making it as an ISO standard and whether many peoples' objections fit those criteria:

When, for example, one side says “Open XML normatively refers to MS’ proprietary WMF” and the other side says “Err, where? Not in the Normative Refences sections”

That's playing fast and loose with what a normative reference is. What on Earth is this? "Oh, it's not really in the standard because it's not in the normative sections?"

If it's in the standard then it's in the standard - no amount of 'Oh, it's not in the normative references section' cuts any kind of ice. It's in the format. ODF allows for all sorts of extensions, which could be proprietary, but they are up to someone to add on - they are not specified in the format itself. They're not even informative references either - ODF just tells you there are certain areas where you can store what you like, but as for whether anyone will be able to do anything with them, you're on your own. It's just a ludicrous hair splitting exercise. I don't know what his definition of a normative reference is either:

Broadly speaking, a normative reference specifies a document that must be read to fully understand or implement the subject matter. An exact and precise definition of what is (and is not) a normative reference has proven challenging in practice, as the details and implications can be subtle. Moreover, whether a reference needs to be normative can depend on the context in which a particular RFC is being published in the first place.

http://rfc.net/rfc3967.html

That's about the most reasonable definition I could find.

impartial reviewers will note that there is some kind of concern but that the actual issue raised does is not a problem.

In what way would an impartial reviewer note that, and back that up?

Do you see the difference between saying “Open XML should be banned because it uses EMU” and “Open XML should be improved to allow more than EMU”

Again, it's hair splitting to try and justify the way Microsoft are doing things. One can reasonably ask why EMU is there in the first place considering that it meets no ISO definition and is used nowhere else, and it's a legitimate question if the major software product using OpenXML doesn't use anything else. Why expand it at all if it's essentially useless? Just use units that are correctly defined and recognised and well used. How hard is that? Afterall, how the standard will be used in practice, as well as fair trade concerns, is a legitimate concern as per the ISO's aims and can't be waved away.

I think Open XML is OK in this regard: it allows Word macros, Java, and other scripts, but these are not required and IIRC partitioned.

Therein lies the paradox. If it allows Word macros, in the absence of anything else (particularly what Microsoft Office uses), then it simply doesn't meet this definition. The standard also references an awful lot of technology that is simply not proven to be implementable outside of Microsoft Office and Windows - it is up to Microsoft to prove that. We also have a lot of extremely amateurish and bogus statements within the format it just isn't believable:

This element specifies that applications shall emulate the behavior of a previously existing word processing application (Microsoft Word 95) when determining the spacing between full-width East Asian characters in a document's content....To faithfully replicate this behavior, applications must imitate the behavior of that application, which involves many possible behaviors and cannot be faithfully placed into narrative for this Office Open XML Standard.

OpenXML quite clearly does not meet this definition, either in the standard itself or in the one implementation we have today, so what he's doing here is stirring. "I think OpenXML is OK in this regard" just isn't good enough. Why is OpenXML OK in this regard, because outside of Microsoft Office OpenXML hasn't been implemented, and certainly not in full? In contrast, ODF was implemented for many years before submission for being an ISO standard was done and is continuing to be so. That's just a fact.

In the absense of these kinds of principles, what we have is a line of argument that reduces to “Microsoft is bad, therefore anything they do or make is bad”

No, because that's just a fanboy, activist comment in itself. Let's just stick to what's actually wrong with OpenXML, OK? Quite frankly, he doesn't sound like an impartial reviewer to me.

in this case, abandoning closed, binary formats. Ten years ago, Bill Gates was saying they would be crazy to open up their file formats, now they are doing it.

Could he quit talking about Microsoft for five seconds? Like I said, he doesn't sound like an impartial reviewer, and the above has nothing whatever to do with what's being discussed. What are we all supposed to do? Say "Oh, silly us, Microsoft has definitely turned over a new leaf" and paint over some of the things we see? That's the argument he's using, even if he maybe doesn't realise it.

They're not opening anything. Their open file format still allows for binary blobs to be dropped into it, specified in the standard no less, that are specific to their own software products - Windows and Office. The difference with ODF is that ODF as a format is reasonably reproducible on every platform by any piece of software, and it has proved it for some time now. That statement also proves that Microsoft has a poor track record for this sort of thing, so quite why we think they've changed I can't fathom. Like it or lump it, that's the way it is. The ball is in Microsoft's court - no one elses'.

The future is mix and match.

The future is standards that guarantee future readability of documents with a standard that is proven to be implementable beyond one piece of office software and beyond one platform. Let's not lose sight of that with the stupid 'mix and match' and 'choice' statements Microsoft, and even Rick, come out with. That is the concern of governments and organisations everywhere now, and it is the concern of the ISO through their aims and objectives, certainly in terms of free trade and interchange between different countries, governments, organisations, systems and applications.

The mix and match approach is something Microsoft consistently comes out with - usually with the word choice (http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39287024,00.htm). This is just front-end backwards. The world does not need multiple standards that essentially reproduce each other, but if they're all proven to be fully implementable, OK. The world wants a choice of systems and applications to use and buy that use common interchange formats, not a choice of formats. As it stands, that is not the case - which is why people have been talking about it. It's no coincidence that Microsoft have been the one obstacle consistently in the way of this.

Why does this matter to the ISO? Because it does the reputation of the ISO no good whatsoever if a standard, like OpenXML, became an ISO standard where it transpired that it just wasn't implementable on different platforms by different applications. In effect, what has happened is that the name of the ISO had been used in order to keep a monopoly in place. This is totally contrary to the ISOs aims and objectives.

There's been more bizarre blog entries than this from Rick, and he always seems to come back to a 'personal attack' argument whenever someone queries anything he's written. Quite why the above is so difficult to understand I don't know, and yet, we always seem to come back to the same arguments.