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Microsoft Votes to Add ODF to ANSI Standards List

Posted by Zonk on from the curiouser-and-curiouser dept.

RzUpAnmsCwrds writes "In a puzzling move, Microsoft today voted to support the addition of the OpenDocument file formats to the American National Standards List. OpenDocument is used by many free-software office suites, including OpenOffice.org. Microsoft is still pushing its own Office Open XML format, which it hopes will also become an ANSI standard. Is Microsoft serious about supporting ODF, or is this a merely a PR stunt to make Office Open XML look more like a legitimate standard?"

6 of 231 comments (clear)

  1. Why would it be puzzling? by man_of_mr_e · · Score: 0, Troll

    Microsoft hasn't stood in the way of ODF at all. They just think there's room for more than one standard.

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    1. Re:Why would it be puzzling? by giorgiofr · · Score: 0, Troll

      What's "the" standard programming language?
      What's "the" standard webserver?
      What's "the" standard OS?

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    2. Re:Why would it be puzzling? by giorgiofr · · Score: 0, Troll

      Lots of sarcasm and no point. Hmm... Fanboi much?
      PP asked what point there is in having multiple standards; I exemplified the first 3 things that came to my mind as "stuff" that comes in varying shapes and forms and whose availability in said different forms is a good thing.

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  2. itsatrap by tttonyyy · · Score: 0, Troll

    Is the wolf being friendly to the sheep?

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  3. Does it really matter? by GroundBounce · · Score: 1, Troll

    The end result is that ODF becomes a standard. MS maybe gets a few brownie points in the public eye for supporting it, so good for them, but is this really an issue?

  4. Re:Examples? by KingMotley · · Score: 0, Troll

    No offense, but google is your friend. ODF is a very simplistic document format. Which is great for simple documents, but there a lot of things that it doesn't handle. OOXML isn't simple, but it does a lot more.