OpenDocument and OOXML

If there’s one word that’s running through my head, it’s “sneaky”. I’m one of the most open-minded people I know, but arguing that the world needs two document standards that do exactly the same thing because they “can and do co-exist” is just moronic.

The standardisation format war between OpenDocument (sponsored by a consortium of people and businesses), and Office Open XML (Sponsored by Microsoft, for Microsoft) has just started to heat up. The Microsoft document format is undergoing a vote to fast-track it to ISO standardisation. This will benefit nobody, except nobody since there are already a number of formats that can be used to do what Microsoft is arguing OOXML is unique for. Still, the fact that the standard hasn’t been shot down from the start means that there’s trouble a-brewing.

Some preliminary points about Office Open XML:

• What’s with the confusing name? OpenDocument used to be called “Open Office XML”. Now the Microsoft format is named “Office Open XML”. Is that deliberately confusing, or just a by-product of a confusing spec?
• The OOXML format spec itself is lengthy, cryptic, contradictory, and contains numerous inadequately documented and Microsoft Office specific quirks that serve no real purpose other than to be backward compatible with older versions of non-standard file formats.
• The format itself is tied in with Microsoft patents, and the disclaimer that Microsoft provided, doesn’t adequately protect end users and developers against patent litigation.

So now that we’ve got that out of the way, what exactly am I on about?

Recently a number of members of the ISO responded to the OOXML submission with the issues they found with the spec, and the EMCA (another standard body that Microsoft initially submitted the “standard” to) responded to that. A few of the responses were good, but a number of them amounted to nothing more than “we can work that out later”.

One of the biggest cop-outs I’ve heard for a long time is in response to the issue of “overlap in scope” between OpenDocument and OOXML. The ECMA argues that OOXML is significantly different from OpenDocument because instead of just being any old document format, it includes a way to preserve the formatting of legacy document formats.

Whoop-de-doo.

I don’t need to buy a three-hundred dollar application to convert my old documents into a new format. I especially don’t need a completely new and incompatible standard to do so. There’s absolutely nothing stopping someone writing an application clever enough to convert, for example, Word Perfect 6 documents losslessly to OpenDocument as the ECMA responses are implying can’t be done. The major selling factor for standardising OOXML is that it has a load of additional cruft to support upgrading from legacy document formats, and that makes it “practical” they both be standards.

It’s a very clever card, considering a big driving factor behind standardised document formats is that they guarantee archived data can be read in the future. Up-selling the “compatible with old document formats” aspect of the spec is bound to rouse the interest of many organisations looking to standardise and preserve their old documents. Even if it means a grubby, six-thousand page specification that nobody in their right mind would bother to implement.

So it will be interesting to see what happens. Either way, I can’t see Microsoft adopting OpenDocument. They’ve got way to much riding on the integrity of their office suite, especially considering the dismal adoption of Windows Vista. Microsoft Office is quickly becoming the flagship product from Microsoft, and implementing another new default document format will definitely be an expensive and embarrassing blow to their reputation.

I haven’t studied the specifications, so some of these conclusions have been drawn from extensive research. The ECMA responses are available as a 305kb PDF document.