28 years ago no one asked me for file in OpenDocument format either. ;)
Prior to 11 years ago no one asked be about web documents. ;)
That article was not as bad as others, but there is a general problem of
trying to conflate the diverse and incompatible zoo of MS formats into the
illusion of a single, unified, interoperable format. That simply is not
the case.
Anything not in MOOX, assuming it ever gets into production, or
OpenDocument is a legacy file. Period. Even the Microsoft ones will have
to be converted. So it is very misleading to imply that they are somehow
compatible by virtue of their provenance, especially since OpenOffice does
a much better job of opening legacy formats than MS Office does.
That's also looking at the past. Remember WordStar, WordPerfect, Visicalc
and Lotus 1-2-3 used to be dominant programs at one time, too, each with
more than one format.
The near future shows us new 3 incompatible MS formats, two of which are
available now and the one (MOOX) being touted as a competitor to
OpenDocument is not even available yet. MOOX, not the other MS XML
formats, not the other binary formats, is the only one relevant if we are
going to talk about OpenDocument.
The diverse legacy formats cannot be conflated into a single format, that
is incorrect. Wishful thinking won't make it true, this is technology not
business.
-Lars
Lars Nooden ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Software patents endanger the legal certainty of software.
Keep them out of the EU by writing your MEP, keep the market open.
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