MS XML (was Re: Maricopa County mtg report)

Tue, 9 Jul 2002 08:02:52 -0400 (EDT)

On Tue, 9 Jul 2002, der.hans wrote:

> der.hans asked about saving data in XML format, even when using m$
> office. They were not aware that spreadsheet data could also be saved as
> XML. der.hans mentioned that gnumeric uses compressed ( using an open
> compression mechanism ) XML by default. He also mentioned he thought m$
> excel could save as XML. This was all in reference to having data in open
> formats, rather than proprietary binary formats.
>
> Paul mentioned that updating from m$ office 97 might allow them to
> standardize on XML as a data-storage format for internal use. Archive is
> paper. Public use is currently PDF.

I haven't actually seen them, but I'd lay heavy odds
Microsoft's XML formats are not open, they are just
as hard to interpret as .doc. Many organizations use
XML to allow human readability. Microsoft is using
it to for interop with other Microsoft products.

<document>
  <body ignoreBlocks="37">
    <proprietaryFormatting value="q4vah9vra302pal;q-14">
      Welcome to a Brave New World
    </proprietaryFormatting>
    <block id="37">
      Microsoft is good. Microsoft is nice.
    </block>
  </body>
</document>

Or better yet
<document>
  <body armor="Palladium-ASCII"
        authorizedAccess="Microsoft"
        accessRestriction="Default Deny">
    av093h2q44vh939v4h9w3ah4gvha8fgv4h38y908hg49y8w34gy
    a0v9uiahv98wherf9h22984h29h492yhgf8924hg82h4g02h4g4
    d98gh8hg02h82084h0g82h4084y6t8y02t08hhg024hg084hg0h
  </body>
</document>

This is for the same reason that US military rifles
don't use NATO rounds - if you are well supplied and
your enemy is poorly supplied, use incompatible supplies.