Frameworks
File-Format Fistfight
The OpenDocument Format (ODF) versus Microsoft Office Open XML (OOXML) debate -- it's a brawl.
I went to a fight the other day and a hockey game broke out.
The classic joke about the pugilistic tendencies of hockey players sums up my feelings on the heated OpenDocument Format (ODF) versus Microsoft Office Open XML (OOXML) debate. With so much impassioned invective around the competing XML-based file formats, I'm left to hope that a reasoned debate might somehow emerge from this industry brawl.
Nearly three years ago, the state of Massachusetts proposed a mandate that all state documents be saved in open, standards-based file formats. The goal: to ensure the state could, 50 years from now, still access, open and manipulate the documents it had created, without being tied to a specific product or vendor. Seems reasonable to me.
The only available standards-based file format at the time was the XML-based OpenDocument Format (ODF), which the state moved to approve for use in August 2005. The problem for Microsoft was that thousands of copies of Microsoft Office were installed in Massachusetts. If the state jumped to the open source OpenOffice suite to comply, how soon before governments across the country and the world started doing the same?
So Microsoft fought the Massachusetts initiative tooth and nail. There was intense lobbying, brilliant obfuscation and a few Escher-esque contortions (at one point, Microsoft brazenly asserted that requiring standards-based formats hurts competition). Then, in a classic "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" gambit, Microsoft moved to get the XML-based file format in Office approved as an industry standard.
It's been an epic shouting match ever since.
One e-mail response I received started like this: "I don't know how anyone else feels about Microsoft, but let's all get our hands together and PUSH WINDOWS AND MS INTO THE OCEAN!!!"
Gary Edwards, president of the OpenDocument Foundation, flatly stated to me that any effort to "peel away the politics" in this debate was doomed to fail. Another very prominent member of the open source development community refused to comment on the record due to the sheer acrimony he's faced in this debate. And my newsletter articles, which have been generally critical of Microsoft's stance in this area, have drawn a significant amount of ire.
Part of the problem, of course, is Microsoft. Few companies incite the kind of passionate opposition that Redmond inspires on a routine basis. By the time Microsoft came around to producing an XML-based specification for review by standards-making bodies, the makings of an epic industry battle were in place.
Could Microsoft have defused matters by promoting an XML spec that was less tied to the Office franchise? Certainly. But the company would be nuts to do so, because it would evaporate some of the key advantages Microsoft Office enjoys over its competition.
So Microsoft is doing what it does best: leveraging the platform. And that means this fist fight is nowhere close to being finished.
About the Author
Michael Desmond is editor in chief of Visual Studio Magazine and former editor in chief of Redmond Developer News. He has served
as senior editor of news at PC World and executive editor at Multimedia
World magazine, and has written for dozens of publications and Web sites.
Desmond has also written four computing books, including Microsoft
Office 2003 in 10 Simple Steps or Less.