Software Soapbox

SourceForge.net: OpenXML Translator (ODF Add-in for Word)

via  SourceForge.net

Open XML Translator provides tools to build a technical bridge between the Open XML Formats and Open Document Format(ODF). As the first component of this initiative, the ODF Add-in for Microsoft Word 2007 allows to Open & Save ODF documents in Word.

Woohoo! Altova and DB2

I've been waiting for this announcement for a while....next, IMHO, it woud be great if IBM just BOUGHT Altova....

Work is already underway on the announced deep integration of Altova’s XML, data management, and Web services tools with the IBM DB2 9 pureXML data server, and the first related product enhancements are expected to emerge from Altova product development and quality assurance in early 2007. Even now, Altova XMLSpy, MapForce, StyleVision, and DatabaseSpy currently provide a myriad of capabilities beneficial to data-oriented technology professionals.

New XML!

Big day for XML Geeks.....via the World Wide Web Consortium.

The World Wide Web Consortium today published new editions of four core XML standards: the fourth edition of Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 and second editions of Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.1, Namespaces in XML 1.0 and Namespaces in XML 1.1.

Proceedings of an International IBM SOA Workshop

Via Greg Pavlik's Weblog: Surprising, and great info! urprising because I haven't heard about it from IBM....Lots and lots of info....
Proceedings of the first international workshop on design of Service Oriented Applications (WSDOA '05)

Tim Bray - Don’t Invent XML Languages

Huh.  Actually, I'm working on a data-only format for Lotus Notes Databases.  And it's pretty good.  Anyway, here's the article....

Link: ongoing - Don’t Invent XML Languages.

The X in XML stands for “Extensible”; one big selling point is that you can invent your own XML languages to help you solve your own problems. But I’ve become convinced, over the last couple of years, that you shouldn’t. Unless you really have to. This piece explains why.

MS Office XML Formats Not OK with GNU

via Yahoo

"The freedom to modify the software for private use, and the freedom to publish modified versions, are two of the essential components in the definition of free software. If these freedoms are lacking, the program is not free software," he said.

As the GPL is a "copyleft" license (a license that makes programs free and requires that all the modifications and extensions of the program also be free), applying Microsoft's restrictive license to a GPL-covered program would violate the GPL, he said.

Taking Stock of Web Service Description

via Dion Hinchcliffe's Blog

To make a real world evaluation, and for folks to follow along, I'm going host all the work online here at hinchcliffe.org. The web service(s) used for the survey will be running here and I'll post the schemas and the clients that are built along the way. Hopefully this will offer transparency and make the results more authoritative since more eyes will be on the work as it goes along.

JAX-RPC 2.0 now JAX-WS

via Yahoo

JAX-RPC 2.0, a planned upgrade to a Java specification for use in Web services and remote procedure calls in Java, is getting a name change to JAX-WS, Sun Microsystems acknowledged on Wednesday.