Policy diff illegible

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https://letsencrypt.org/documents/LE-SA-v1.2-v1.3-diff.docx is in a proprietary format. Please also offer a PDF version or something.

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Is it? According to Wikipedia, the .docx files are in the Office Open XML - Wikipedia format, which, well, according to the name, are "open".

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Yes.

Lots of things are called “open” that aren’t.

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Could you enlighten me what isn't open about the Office Open XML standard? I'm not an IT guru I'm afraid, nor a legal guru.

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On BSD commandline, you can use catdoc and pandoc ; possibly others

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I'm familiar with Libre Office and Open Office @jvanasco. Not sure what your point here is.

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@mirabilos, Is "the problem" that "policy diff" (comparing files to highlight their differences) can't be done between ".docx" type files?

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@rg305 I think OP is complaining about the fact the Office Open XML standard isn't, allegedly, really an open standard.

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Whether the format is "open" or "proprietary" purely depends on the definition of these terms.

There is an entire Wikipedia article dedicated to how Microsoft's format became a standard. It is currently standardized as ISO/IEC 29500-1:2016. This standard is openly available, without a fee. Free download is however governed by the ISO Customer Licence Agreement which does not fullfill the standards of an open license. It also does not appear that "anyone can participate in the development" and thus may not meet Wikipedia's definition of an open standard:

An open standard is a standard that is openly accessible and usable by anyone. It is also a prerequisite to use open license, non-discrimination and extensibility. Typically, anybody can participate in the development. There is no single definition, and interpretations vary with usage.

(Note that many standards you likely use in your daily life are not open standards according to this definition. For example, I recall that the X.509 certificates issued by Let's Encrypt are not open standards according to this strict definition and in fact the ITU even charges a fee for obtaining a copy of the document (apparently there is a free download version now))

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That is my confusion on this.

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I'm confused about what you're confused about.

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The topic title doesn't claim the ".docx" type as a non-standard.
It claims "Policy diff illegible".
What does that mean exactly?
I suppose we need more words OR pictures to explain this to us - LOL

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I'm sure @mirabilos would be able to enlighten us :slight_smile:

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I reinforced your answer with several Free Open Source Software applications that read those files, two of which are available on the BSD commandline (the OP's avatar is the BSD mascot).

Both PDF and DOCX are standardized as ISO specifications and consequently fall under the same exact constraints and complaints as one another, so I don't understand the criticisms by the OP and @Nummer378.

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Ah, I see, that was your point :stuck_out_tongue:

I agree, the Wikipedia page Open standard - Wikipedia lists PDF as wel as the Office Open XML standard as examples of an open standard. Which kinda contradicts the part of the Wikipedia definition mentioned by @Nummer378 (I don't think @Nummer378 was criticising anything though..)

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Exactly, just stating things I found.

It does say "contested " there. That page also mentions multiple times that the definition of open standard varies by definition and each instituation uses their own definition. I guess the example page follows what their corresponding governing bodies consider to be "open".

I personally would say that every standard for which I don't...

  • have to pay for, and can read for myself
  • get sued when I publish my own implementation

is an open standard in my definition, but that doesn't mean anything. I guess this applies to the ISO/IEC standards, though I haven't read their patent policies in greater detail.

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It's not like Adobe has a flawless history with PDF being "open", either. To some extent, preferring PDF vs. DOCX is just a matter of whether one prefers Adobe or Microsoft.

Even HTML, the most universal standard that there is for formatting content for "the web", has had its share of controversy, where W3C "lost" control of it to industry group WHATWG, and there are fewer and fewer companies actually making their own rendering engines as Chromium has taken over almost everything to the extent that Google may be the de-facto standard owner at this point in some ways.

For whatever it's worth, I managed to open the diff DOCX file in LibreOffice Writer just fine. I agree that it might have been nice to provide the document in multiple formats to let people use the one they each prefer, but since there was a plain-text summary available in the email that went out, it's really far down on my list of things that would be nice if Let's Encrypt improved upon.

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For the simple minded people (like me) who don't ever deal with doc diffs...
Is there a simple way to convert the provided .docx file to another format [that can be diffed easier]?

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What woukd you want as a result? Only the diff without the unchanged stuff? I don't fully understand what you mean by "that can be diffed easier".

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Well, I just opened the docx in LibreOffice Writer and clicked Export as PDF, and it worked fine. I was going to try attaching it here but it looks like the forum only accepts certain extensions, and while I can attach an image or a Javascript file it doesn't want me to attach a PDF.

In terms of what might be easier to diff, it looks like LE uses Github to manage their CP and CPS, with all the diff/pull-request/etc. functionality that provides; I'm not sure why they seem to maintain this subscriber agreement in a rather different way. My wild guess would be lawyers involved somehow, but the CP/CPS are also pretty "official" and "binding" in my limited understanding.

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