Technology News: Applications: What's Holding OpenOffice Back? - The Diigo Meta page

• 06 Jul 08
  

  Paul Merrell

  The myths that ODF is an open standard, that Lotus Symphony is open source, and that Microsoft is the only company that manipulates "open" standards for unlawful competitive advantage continue to propagate.

  ODF OOXML lotus symphony openoffice MSoffice open standards open source myths

  • Most folks see data formats as an inside-baseball issue, because they work in all-Microsoft organizations where incompatibilities are rare. The only hangup, in that case, comes when Microsoft releases new software (Office 2007 being the latest example). Invariably, the data format's been upgraded as well.
  • The data format wars have been going on for years and have provoked a substantial backlash. The anti-Microsoft crowd has an alternate data format, OpenDocument, that anyone can freely incorporate into any program, just as everyone uses the same old free, non-proprietary HTML to build Web sites.
  • Is Open XML an open standard? The arguments are pretty technical but boil down to this: Microsoft says OpenDocument is not good and that anyone will be able to implement its far more enlightened Open Office XML. Opponents say Microsoft has built into Open XML all manner of snares, deadfalls and booby traps to defend its monopoly.
  • And I'm auditioning the latest open source goodie, IBM Lotus Symphony, which looks like a sweet suite. More on that next time.

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