[open-government] More than eightly formats for open government data

Sun Sep 9 19:39:19 UTC 2012

Citát "Jose M. Alonso" <josema at webfoundation.org>:

> El 08/09/2012, a las 15:11, stef escribió:
>> On Sat, Sep 08, 2012 at 01:35:08PM +0530, neeta wrote:
>>> I have done a small study to understand the kind of data formats acceptable
>>> by different govt  data portals worldwide..
>>> and was surprised to find that there are more than 80  
>>> formats..(excel sheet enclosed for details)
>>
>> talking about formats, can anyone please liberate the data from  
>> excel to some less closed format.
>
> and can we stop calling xlsx a closed format, please?
> Not that I'm a big fan of how OOXML [1] was standardized but it's an  
> ECMA and ISO standard, i.e. open enough.

Hi,

I suggest this source:
http://www.odfalliance.org/resources/OOXML_GovsNeedKnow_Oct2010.pdf

There are different versions of OOXML and some of them are  
proprietary. Unfortunately, these proprietary versions are mostly used  
(AFAIK).

Citation:

"- The Ecma 376 version of OOXML, the version that ISO rejected. This  
somewhat matches what Office 2007 writes out, but lacks definitions  
for scripts, macros, DRM, connections to SharePoint, etc. This version  
also contains many Windows-platform dependencies. The use of Ecma-376  
essentially ties the adopter to Microsoft Office.
- The ISO/IEC 29500 “Strict” version. This is the version that ISO  
said should be used for new documents. But neither Office 2007 nor  
Office 2010 are capable of writing OOXML “Strict.” Microsoft has made  
no public commitment on when they will fully implement OOXML “Strict.”
- The ISO/IEC 29500 “Transitional,” the version that ISO stated should  
not be used for new documents. Neither Microsoft Office 2007 nor  
Office 2010 implement this version precisely. Further, Office 2010  
writes out a non-standard form of OOXML “Transitional” which includes  
many proprietary extensions. These extensions have not been  
contributed back to ISO for standardization.

The fact that Microsoft is not implementing “Strict” while privately  
extending “Transitional” means that the improvements required to make  
OOXML acceptable to ISO are now being ignored. This divergence between  
the ISO standard and the Microsoft implementation has lead the  
Convenor of the OOXML Ballot Resolution Meeting to declare recently  
that, “[T]he entire OOXML project is now surely heading for failure”.
http://www.adjb.net/post/Microsoft-Fails-the-Standards-Test.aspx
"

I also suggest these citation from ISO/IEC 29500-4:

"The intent of this Part of ISO/IEC 29500 is to enable a transitional  
period during which existing binary documents being migrated to  
ISO/IEC 29500 can make use of legacy features to preserve their  
fidelity, while noting that new documents should not use them."

Stefan Szilva

>
> Josema
>
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML
>
> --
>
> Jose M. Alonso
> Program Manager, Open Data
> World Wide Web Foundation
> email: josema at webfoundation.org
> twitter: @josemalonso
> skype: josema.alonso
> http://www.webfoundation.org
>
>
>>
>> --
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>> gpg fp: F617 AC77 6E86 5830 08B8  BB96 E7A4 C6CF A84A 7140
>> otr fp: https://www.ctrlc.hu/~stef/otr.txt
>>
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