OpenDocument Format 1.3 Approved As OASIS Standard

[tildearrow]

I believe ODF is XML. Likewise Microsoft has that "Open"XML format. http://officeopenxml.com/

If they can agree on something and that something isn't a binary format, then we might stand a chance of actually preserving documents. Emulators to run the old software is not sustainable. For example a complete lack of SGI IRIX emulators is a good example of lost software technology, very difficult to emulate.

Open XML, the format that pretends to be open while being controlled exclusively by Microsoft.

The only thing it has achieved is a broad improvement of Microsoft Office compatibility and allowing competition to exist...

[tildearrow]

tildearrow Seems like you forgot Calligra.

Thanks

[tildearrow]

Non default format is fine as long as compatibility is a good state. Microsoft Office is a much less stronger player in the market in general than it used to be, in part because of LibreOffice but also because of heavy adoption of things like Google Docs.

The governments of developing countries still use Microsoft Office, and heavily rely on Microsoft technology.

[ferry]

Preservation of data isn't really my area but I imagine some plain text format, possibly XML is the better option here. Don't both Microsoft and Libre have their own standards of this but as a secondary option? If the standards body had any sway, they would enforce this as a requirement compared to the binary offerings.

How do you think plain text == XML == easier? Have you tried to read XML? An odt file is just a zipped directory including xml files. Does zipping it make it a binary? I invite you to unzip one and try to read it. Or better, try to manually create a pdf from it.

And if you like a "simple" text format so much, MS Word has always been able to export rtf (rich text format). No doubt a text version of their (binary) doc format. In the old days MS's recommended way to fix a broken doc was to export to rtf and then import again. Hint, even though it's text doesn't mean it doesn't have a format. rtf is humanly unreadable and can be easily messed up. Which is probably why the rtf import filter was more robust then doc.

Even LaTeX (text files for type setting) will be broken, unprintable, unviewable if you don't follow syntax.

The only way to make sure Preservation of data happens is to standardize the format like OASIS does and make multiple tools (Libreoffice, Openoffice, Microsoft Office, Google Docs) for multiple platforms (Windows, Linux, Macos) that can process it. We have been using Open Document since 2006 and files are still much readable / printable. Al least better then Microsoft doc. Did I mention Wordperfect wp5?

[Artim]

Perfect. So I am fairly certain that future standards committees will choose Microsoft's OOXML as the preservation standard going forward then

Wouldn't be surprised. They where able to convince pretty much every government and their public organs to really solely on Windows and MS Office, they shouldn't have that much trouble paying the right people to get this too.

[kpedersen]

ODF and OOXML both are zip encapsuled xml combined with all the files that make up the document too like images and fonts. The difference: LO sticks to it's standards and is open source, so no problem figuring out how to implement it yourself. MS made a convoluted 5000+ pages mess of a "standard" approved only by means of corruption and it doesn't look like they ever stuck to it. Besides the 1500+ pages for some "transitional" format, if MS would actually just do what the standard says and if the standard was actually complete there is just no way over 10 years after Standardization no company es able to build a suite that's 100 % compatible with it, especially given that those are the most used office formats in the world. MS can not claim a lack of interested like the Document Foundation has to. Not to mention the little things like the Default Font only being available with MS Office or Fonts being embedded in a strange overly complicated way.

Perfect. So I am fairly certain that future standards committees will choose Microsoft's OOXML as the preservation standard going forward then

[Artim]

Preservation of data isn't really my area but I imagine some plain text format, possibly XML is the better option here.

ODF and OOXML both are zip encapsuled xml combined with all the files that make up the document too like images and fonts. The difference: LO sticks to it's standards and is open source, so no problem figuring out how to implement it yourself. MS made a convoluted 5000+ pages mess of a "standard" approved only by means of corruption and it doesn't look like they ever stuck to it. Besides the 1500+ pages for some "transitional" format, if MS would actually just do what the standard says and if the standard was actually complete there is just no way over 10 years after Standardization no company es able to build a suite that's 100 % compatible with it, especially given that those are the most used office formats in the world. MS can not claim a lack of interested like the Document Foundation has to. Not to mention the little things like the Default Font only being available with MS Office or Fonts being embedded in a strange overly complicated way.

[Artim]

Whether it is the default file format or not is irrelevant, what matters is the number of applications that support it natively, without having to go through a lot of file import gyrations. By that metric, ODF is far and away the most supported office file format with the largest group of applications supporting it natively.

Only on theory. If you look at how good the support actually is, then it looks just bad. OOXML is obviously supported only on a mediocre level, but the only office suite besides OOo/LO (or based on either) I could find that could at least read ODF pretty much error free was Google Docs. And it wasn't even able to write it error free.

And that's simply to the fact that everyone is busy crawling up Microsofts asshole. Pretty much nobody uses ODF so even if you can get the whole standard for free from OASIS plus up to ODF v1.2 have two (or one and a half) open source reference implementations, most Suites just don't care about it. They might promise ODF compatibility, but it's just bad.

[Vistaus]

tildearrow Seems like you forgot Calligra.

And seems like *you* forgot Calligra is made with evil (at least according to you) Qt.

[kpedersen]

Excuse my ignorance but isn't ODF based (an extension of) XML?

I believe ODF is XML. Likewise Microsoft has that "Open"XML format. http://officeopenxml.com/

If they can agree on something and that something isn't a binary format, then we might stand a chance of actually preserving documents. Emulators to run the old software is not sustainable. For example a complete lack of SGI IRIX emulators is a good example of lost software technology, very difficult to emulate.