[open-government] [School-of-data] question city council data (Diane Mercier)

Fri Jun 28 19:18:24 UTC 2013

Hello James,

Here are two references that discuss the defects of OOXML which stands for
Office Open XML, a Microsoft-backed XML format.
It is single-vendor.

In french:
http://librefan.eu.org/node/92

In english:
http://brattahlid.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/is-docx-really-an-open-standard/

And from ZDNet, an article that gives an overview of the battle between
these two formats.

I bring these references to your attention so that you and others
understand why it is important to push for ODF as the open standard.
OOXML is single-vendor, read: Microsoft and not truly opened. ECMA is made
of private companies. ISO is made of countries.
OOXML was rejected by ISO the first time, and only because of heavy
lobbying from Microsoft did it pass.

For those who support the open source and open data movements, the only
truly open standard remains the OpenDocument Format ODF.
The latest version 1.2 and it is developed by OASIS, where committees are
public.

You can read more here:
http://www.opendocumentformat.org/

"ODF is the current best practise for sharing and storing office documents
across the industry, which is proven by the fact that many governments
around the world have already adopted it."

Cheers!

Immanuel

On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 5:00 PM, James McKinney <james at opennorth.ca> wrote:

>
> On 2013-06-21, at 4:19 PM, Immanuel Giulea wrote:
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 3:42 PM, James McKinney <james at opennorth.ca>wrote:
>
>>
>> On 2013-06-21, at 2:49 PM, Immanuel Giulea wrote:
>>
>> Also to be noted is that XLS is not an open format. It's proprietary.
>>
>>
>> Old versions of Excel were proprietary, but since 2006 the Microsoft
>> Office suite uses Office Open XML, which is an open standard, and includes
>> .xlsx, .docx and .pptx files http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML
>>
>>
> Sure, we can play on words.
> XLS is proprietary. XLSX uses XML.
>
> The only open format is ODF as introduced by OASIS.
>
>
> ?? ODF is not the only open format. Office Open XML (.xlsx etc.) is also
> an open format standardized by Ecma, ISO and IEC. Not saying one is better
> than the other, just saying they are both open. (Now, you can argue whether
> one is "more" open than another...)
>
>
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