This is a presentation I gave in 2007 arguing against adoption of Office Open XML as a document standard.

1. Document
Formats
What is “open”?
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2. Office Open XML
• Developed by Microsoft
• XML based
• Published specifications
• Vendor specific
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3. Open Document Format
• Developed by OASIS
• XML based
• Published specifications
• Open source
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4. What is the real issue?
(It isn’t really a technical issue)
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5. It is a policy issue
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6. It is about open Photo titled “Open Access” by Shooting the
breeze licensed under Creative Commons
access Attribution-NonCommercial ShareAlike license
on Flickr.
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7. Open access to human knowledge
and information is facilitated by
truly open document formats.
Information must be made available
to the broadest possible cross-
section of the population.
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8. It is about software too
• Document formats require applications
to read and create them
• Applications require an operating
system to run them
• What does the whole package cost?
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9. Office Open XML
• Works with Microsoft Office (Standard
edition costs roughly R4 400 off the
shelf)
• Requires Microsoft Windows (Vista costs
roughly R2 250 off the shelf)
• Bulk licensing still has a price
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10. Open Document Format
• Works with a number of office suites
including OpenOffice and NeoOffice
(free)
• Versions for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS
and Linux (Ubuntu Linux, for one, is free
and comes with OpenOffice)
• As many copies as you want (free)
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11. “Free” as in everyone Photo titled “Villager in a hut window” by Hot
Foot licensed under Creative Commons
has access Attribution NonCommercial No Derivatives
license on Flickr.
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12. Two standards?
• Two standards means no standards
• Users still forced to choose between
competing and incompatible formats
• A successful standard should have
multiple implementations
• No open access means the people are
prejudiced
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13. “The goal of the Technical Committee is to produce
a formal standard for office productivity
applications within the Ecma International
standards process which is fully compatible with the
Office Open XML Formats.”
- Scope of the Open XML format of the ECMA
programme of work (emphasis added)
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14. Should a document format be certified
as a standard based on the
applications intended to support it?
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15. Or should a standard be platform agnostic?
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16. “Proprietaryfile formats are worse than
proprietary software because they
leave you with no ability to switch at a
later time”
- Jimmy Wales speaking at Wikimania 2005
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17. Who controls the document format?
Photo titled “Engine Controls” by Nick Blaire
licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-
No Derivatives license on Flickr.
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18. Office Open XML
• Development controlled by Microsoft
and a vendor specific community
• Linked to Microsoft Office
• Version dependent? Probably
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19. Open Document Format
• Development by an open source
community
• Application neutral
• Version dependent? Arguably not
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20. What does this have to do with anything?
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21. For one thing it means users have a
real choice ...
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22. ... and let’s not forget the cost
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23. Thank you!
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24. Paul Jacobson
The African Commons Project
The Open Law Project
Jacobson Attorneys
pejrm1@gmail.com
083 444 8260
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