[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: Common Word Processing Format
>From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <len.bullard@i...> > >We are caught on the horns of just-in-time bundling that server side >content is supposed to solve. It doesn't seem to me we really need >ODF or Office for much longer and that anyone buying the argument >that openness of either of these creates a market may just be buying >a file cabinet startup. Well, "openness" is clearly a necessary condition for success going forward -- that has to be the reason the MS Office people have moved from making XML an optional format, to making it the default format, and now announcing the intention of turning control of that format over to a standards body. I agree it's not a sufficient condition, and certainly wouldn't invest in a company whose business model was predicated on splitting a hair to argue that Open Office XML is more truly open than Office Open XML. <duck> I agree with what I think is the thrust of Len's point in this thread: If you are writing an RFP or a government regulation and need to specify a document format that is really and truly open, undeniably a standard, and good enough for the vast majority of real-world static "office" documents, specify (X)HTML. Beyond that ... If you need more richness, there are a lot of options: MS Office XML formats have a lot of momentum and have a lot of advantages when the document contains live data; ODF is a cleaner XML format and more easily edited with generic XML tools and processed by people who understand the subtleties of things like mixed content; DocBook is going to work well for huge technical documents, and custom or vertical-industry schemas are likely to be important in some niches. I can't imagine why anyone thinks they know enough now to write a policy that accurately predicts which of these will get the most real-world traction and de-facto standardization, which will work best for which scenarios, which of those scenarios will be important to a particular organization, and which will have adequate third party tool support. We can just throw them all into the meme pool and let Father Darwin sort it out in the messy way that He does so well :-) _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
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