Another Reason To Use ODF

Brad R Tuesday 18 August 2009 - 08:44:02  

If you've used computers for any length of time, you've probably had to deal with a document in an incompatible format. Maybe someone sent you a .DOCX file, and your word processor can only read .DOC format. Or maybe you need to read a document you wrote ten years ago, with a program that has disappared, and whose proprietary format is unknown.

Your life would be easier if there were a document format that all word processors could use freely, that was created in open debate, publicly documented, and widely accepted as a standard. That's what a group called OASIS set out to create, and in 2006 their "Open Document Format" (ODF) was adopted as an international standard. Lots of word processors, free and commercial, adopted ODF and pledged to support it.

Except one. Microsoft, of course. Rather than make it easier for you to share your documents with others, Microsoft would prefer that everyone buy their office suite. So they took their own, specific document format, and rammed it through another international standards committee as "Office Open XML" (OOXML). Though (in my opinion) it was technically inferior, overly complex, and too strongly tied to Microsoft Office, Microsoft insisted it was better than ODF.

Fast forward to today, and we learn that a company called i4i has won a lawsuit against Microsoft because Microsoft's use of XML -- including OOXML -- infringes an i4i patent. Microsoft has to pay i4i $290 million, and stop selling Word 2003 and Word 2007. Presumably, any product supporting OOXML will need to pay royalties to i4i.

Meanwhile, ODF does not violate the i4i patent. (i4i has "looked at OpenOffice and found it doesn't infringe on its patents." OpenOffice uses ODF.)

If you want your documents to be widely accessible, and remain accessible, you should use Open Document Format.
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