Mittwoch Juni 15, 2005

Microsoft trying to defend their XML format
I just found this blog entry by Brian Jones. Apparently Microsoft, or at least Brian Jones, is trying to defend their XML format. I really wanted to comment on this myself, until I realized that about everything has already been said in the comments to Brian's blog. Here are a few extracts:

"as far as I know both OpenOffice and the OpenDocument-Folks are an open group. You could have talked to them about your problems with the format and I suppose the would have helped you. StarOffice/OpenOffice has also many customers that are using all the different versions and features but they've managed to integrate it with the new format. The real problem is NOT the format."

"Please don´t blame OASIS and the OpenDocument file format not to be able to not represent Microsofts features. OASIS welcomed every entity to help in the process of defining what is now know as the OpenDocument file format. [...] OASIS welcomed others to help in defining what is known now as the OpenDocument file format so their features can be represented in this file format."

"Brian, while it's true that MS Office and OpenOffice.org will differ on features, it's also understood that most people only use a small subset of the features available. Does Microsoft have to have 100% feature compatibility before they will support the OpenDocument format? I argue that there is no need. You support the features that you can and you ignore the rest. It's not like these features will make the document not readable."

I would have to study both file formats in detail to provide evidence to my following statements, but I'm personally convinced that Microsoft could adopt the OASIS OpenDocument format if they really wanted to!

As someone else already pointed out, most people do not use every feature that an office suite provides. However, almost all office suites have a common set of features that covers the features most frequently used by users. Since the OASIS OpenDocument will be supported (AFAIK) by OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, KOffice, AbiWord and TextMaker, thus completely different office applications, I do not see a reason why Microsoft could not have used the OASIS OpenDocument file format, at least for the common set of features.

For the remaining Microsoft-only features, which are probably less relevant to most users, Microsoft could have worked with the OASIS OpenDocument technical committee to get the necessary changes added to the OpenDocument format specification. This is exactly what the KOffice folks successfully did!

If I was a Microsoft customer, I would put more pressure on the company to support a truly open format that is supported by multiple vendors, is not controlled by just one entity, and evolves in an open process. Yes, as a Microsoft customer I could simply use the new Microsoft format, but then I'm again stuck with a more or less proprietary format for the next ten to twenty years. Microsoft Office 12 is still about one year out. Thus, now is the time to make sure that Microsoft does the right thing!
( Jun 15 2005, 08:30:02 AM CEST ) Permalink Kommentare [1]