Graham Perrin's Library tagged OpenOffice.org →  View Popular

One Thousand Islands

At the start of the 1990s, the document landscape looked a
little like this:

In the above diagram, each of the bubbles represents
numerous formats

One Thousand Islands

At the start of the 1990s, the document landscape looked a
little like this:

In the above diagram, each of the bubbles represents
numerous formats

Consolidation

By the mid 1990s, this had changed, in a period of massive
consolidation as the web, Microsoft and Adobe starved rivals of oxygen

Consolidation

By the mid 1990s, this had changed, in a period of massive
consolidation as the web, Microsoft and Adobe starved rivals of oxygen

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One fairly unheralded aspect of this was the rise in the publishing
community, including high-end vendors, of an awareness of the benefits of
co-operation and standardization of different kinds. SGML was born out of such
cooperation at ISO

• 




One fairly unheralded aspect of this was the rise in the publishing
community, including high-end vendors, of an awareness of the benefits of
co-operation and standardization of different kinds.

Realignment

By the end of the 1990s, there had been a realignment of the
rationales for the formats: in particular, HTML had moved from the dumb end of
town into having its own compelling rationale

Realignment

By the end of the 1990s, there had been a realignment of the
rationales for the formats: in particular, HTML had moved from the dumb end of
town into having its own compelling rationale

Of these formats, Microsoft controlled .DOC, .RTF, and was
actively involved at W3C in XML and HTML development. PDF was controlled by
Adobe.

Of these formats, Microsoft controlled .DOC, .RTF, and was
actively involved at W3C in XML and HTML development. PDF was controlled by
Adobe.

Digestion/Stagnation

The early part of the 2000s was a period of extraordinary
growth for applications of XML, matched by stagnation in the other areas.

Digestion/Stagnation

The early part of the 2000s was a period of extraordinary
growth for applications of XML, matched by stagnation in the other areas.

The dynamism of the open standards was in marked contrast to
the stagnation of the corporate-controlled formats.

Standardization

In the late noughties, a period of standardization broke
through, with all the major formats being taken by their stakeholders through
industry consortia and on to ISO.

Standardization

In the late noughties, a period of standardization broke
through, with all the major formats being taken by their stakeholders through
industry consortia and on to ISO.

The enormous controversy over the standardization of OOXML
comes largely down to, in my opinion, two different views of the emerging
landscape.

The enormous controversy over the standardization of OOXML
comes largely down to, in my opinion, two different views of the emerging
landscape.

Business as Usual

The first landscape (lets call it business as usual)
sees ODF as superseding RTF

The Bermuda Triangle

The second landscape (lets call it the Bermuda triangle)
sees ODF as replacing .DOC, with RTF becoming swallowed by both ODF and HTML. I
think this is the landscape anticipated by people who don't see much value in
IS29500 or multiple targeted fornats.

Getting There

My own view is that the Bermuda triangle would be preferable,
and it may be where we end up,

Towards Web-able Document Formats

So what is there that we can do to nudge us in the direction
of this large-scale interoperability?