I wonder if the EU is aware that there is no such thing as ODF Interoperability? After more than five years of working side by side with Sun on the OASIS ODF TC, there is zero interop between KOffice ODF and OpenOffice ODF! How is it that Microsoft's joining the ODF TC somehow results in a level of application interop that has eluded and defied the efforts of two supposedly open source applications?

The truth is that OpenOffice-ODF and MSOffice-OOXMl are both based on an XML encoding of the application specific binary dump. The content layers are easily exchanged with other applications, but presentation continues to defy any kind of interop. Especially what the EU expects. Check out the quotes:

" The commission said that as part of its antitrust investigation into interoperability with Microsoft Office it will investigate whether the announced support of ODF in Office leads to better interoperability and allows consumers to process and exchange their documents with the software product of their choice.

"Kroes said on Tuesday that the commission keeps a close eye on interoperability and said the market should have the right balance of non-propriety and propriety standards.

'Standards are the foundation of interoperability'. 'Standards may, of course, be proprietary or non-proprietary. Much excellent technical development has been driven by non-proprietary standards - the internet is awash with acronyms for non-proprietary standards: HTTP, HTML and XML'.

Tags: antitrust eu interop kroes odf ooxml on 06-12-2008 -Cached -About Shared by:Gary Edwards

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