[COLUG] OpenXML

[Dave Maxwell]

On Tue April 8 2008, Mark Erbaugh wrote:
> I just received an email from Microsoft that Office OpenXML (ISO/IEC DIS
> 29500) will be approved as an international standard.  Is this a good
> thing for Linux?
>
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I won't recount the whole story but MS severely gamed the process and pretty 
much used every dirty trick to get this sorry excuse for a standard approved.  
lwn.net is as good a place as any to start getting the backstory on that. 

In a word, no this is not good for Linux.  A number of governments and 
corporations finally got wise to the fact that archiving data in a format 
that MS controls is less than wise so significant numbers of large 
organizations were beginning to standardize on ODF.  MS essentially dumped 
the binary structure of Office documents to XML and most infamously added 
things like RenderLikeWord95 to the standard without actually filling in how 
one decodes such legacy cruft.  Incomplete as it is, the OOXML spec runs to 
over 6,000 pages and doesn't appear to be clear enough to actually implement 
even if it wasn't gargantuan.  Furthermore, no version of Office actually 
implements it as written and MS has stated they won't be bound by their own 
standard.  Lastly, parts of the OOXML are patent encumbered. The "pledge" 
from MS not to sue over them is in no way binding.

Basically, MS Marketing needed to ability to say "See!  We have an open 
standard too! There's no need to consider competing products...."

Dave
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