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Two Open Document Standards Better Than One?

Posted by Zonk on from the snarky-lil-megacorp-aren't-they? dept.

tsa writes "Microsoft says that the consumers should have the choice between multiple open standards for documents." From the article: "Microsoft's Yates said that OpenDocument and Open XML come from very different design points. 'In the future at some point there will be convergence,' he said. In the near term, the transition period from proprietary document formats to Open XML-based ones will be 'messy and complex,' he added. 'Competition between standards we believe is a very good thing.'"

3 of 308 comments (clear)

  1. Divide and conquer by timeOday · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We might not be able to beat one good format, but we can easily defeat two.

    1. Re:Divide and conquer by timeOday · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Does anybody have a good handle on whether or not it will be easy to convert between the two formats?
      Sure, just like you can convert back and forth between C code and assembler automatically. Just try editing that C code after one round trip though!

      Complex document format conversion is lossy. Imagine converting a MS Word document to a TIFF image. OK, you'd lose some things (like page breaks) but you could do it. Now imagine trying to convert back to .doc from TIFF. You could sort of do it with OCR, maybe you could automatically recognize noncharacter regions and convert them back to images, but there's no way it would reclaim the structure of the document not to mention change tracking, comments, self-updating cross references, links to embedded spreadsheets, document-specific word lists for the spellchecker...

      Two word processor formats will be much more similar than .doc and TIFF, but the same problem exists to a lesser degree. Document formats are not supersets of each other! At some level there are basic incompatibilities.

  2. For Some Definition of "Open" by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Multiple, competing open standards are fine, and being open it is usually not too difficult to translate between them. Unfortunately MS's "Open XML" standard is not open, so they are not really giving us the choice they are claiming. Open XML is format that is patented and that is licensed with a variety of important restrictions. For example, only the current version is covered by the license, it expires immediately should a new version come out. According to the letter of the license this means the benefits of backwards compatibility and even the ability to distribute a program from one day to the next are subject to MS's whim. Should MS release a new version that is intentionally broken, they could legally restrict competitors from continuing to sell or even give away a word processor.

    Redistribution is completely forbidden by the licensing, leading many to believe that it was specifically designed to exclude GNU licensed applications, like Open Office, their primary competitor. How can anyone call "Open XML" and open format when the license under which that format is offered means it can't be implemented by OpenOffice?

    All of this is MS marketing FUD. Closed is open. Bad is good. Ha ha we made it really hard for you to explain shit to your managers by naming our product the opposite of what it is. This is like GM calling the next iteration of their traditional cargo van "Hybrid Luxury Mobile" despite it not having a hybrid engine or any luxury features. Don't fall for their crap.