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RTF Vs. OOXML
Rob Weir has an interesting essay comparing the viciousness of RTF and OOXML: "The [document format standard] concerns of 2004 (or 1995 even) are very similar to the concerns of 2007... 'RTF is defined as whatever Word saves when you ask it to save as RTF.' This should sound familiar. OOXML is nothing more than the preferences of Microsoft Office. Whenever Word changes, OOXML will change. And if you are a user or competitor of Word, you will be the last one to hear about these changes. The coding of Office 14 a.k.a. Office 2009 is well underway. Beta releases are expected in early 2008. But are file format changes needed to accommodate the new features being discussed in Ecma? No. Are they being discussed in ISO? No. Are they being discussed anywhere publicly? No. By owning the 'standard' and developing it in secret, in an Ecma rubber-stamp process, Microsoft rigs the system so they can author an ISO standard with which they are effortlessly compatible, while at the same time ensuring that their products maintain an insurmountable head start in implementing these same standards. Is this how an open standard is developed?"
High on some illegal substance you might think:
Raid The Fucking Vorgon[s] Or Orangutan Xylophones Might Laugh!
Or when you go to start one of them high end raids and you see it it means:
Raiding The Fridge, Voices Off, Oreo Kisses My Lovely.
Slashdot browsing:
Really Taco, Fucking View Stories Or Old Xerces Maky Love
I had another one, but it was really cruel, began with Rape, the V was well related to that and it ended disturbingly.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
AVI is a just as proprietary as rm if not more so.
With Helix you can have an FOSS program that can read rm files.
Yes Mpeg would be more open.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I think if Microsoft really wanted to promote interoperabillity they should standardize RTF first and then OOXML.
After all, RTF is here since Word '95 (and maybe even before), and as far as I can tell, it hasn't changed since. It's a stable format (which OOXML isn't at all). It's already supported by virtually all products on the market. It's text based, it's simple (contrary to the binary formats).
If Microsoft is really concerned about interoperabillity, they should have published the full specs of RTF and pushed for standardization a long time ago.
However, as they're pushing for the standardization of OOXML, an unstable format that even they don't implement, with dubious IP concerns, with unspecified features, I think that says a lot about what they're trying to accomplish, and interoperabillity it certainly isn't.