The Document Foundation says Microsoft's file formats keep users on a short leash

Summary

APPLICATIONS The Document Foundation says Microsoft's file formats keep users on a short leash OOXML may carry an ISO certificate, but only Office can be trusted to render it properly The Document Foundation (TDF) has criticized proprietary file formats and the lock-in they create, with Microsoft's ubiquitous Office formats drawing particular scrutiny.TDF would doubtless welcome a world where everyone used LibreOffice or another open equivalent, yet the reality is that Microsoft's productivity tools still dominate the office software market. However that shouldn't be a problem. Files are interchangeable these days, right? Office uses the Office Open XML (OOXML) format, so switching applications and opening .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx files should be straightforward. "The reality is considerably more complicated," TDF says. Setting aside the standardization of OOXML itself, which, TDF states, "was one of the most contested processes in the history" of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the result was OOXML Transitional, which initially coexisted with OOXML Strict.OOXML Strict, according to TDF, eliminated most of the problematic legacy elements, "but not all." Microsoft, on the other hand, defaulted to OOXML Transitional, tucking Strict at the end of the options list."The practical effect is that the format used daily by hundreds of millions of people is the one that only Microsoft's own software implements correctly, whilst the cleaner variant – which other software could actually support – is not used, and has now even disappeared from some versions."TDF acknowledges the counterargument that the "lock-in" claims are exaggerated and that, for all the controversy surrounding its standardization, OOXML is as open a standard as any other.But TDF disagrees: "A standard that only one implementation fully supports is, from a functional point of view, a proprietary format with a standardisation certificate."The OOXML specification, which runs to thousand...