By: Jon Collins, Service Director, Freeform Dynamics Published: 6th August 2007 Copyright Freeform Dynamics © 2007

The technology business can be frustrating sometimes. I like to call a spade a spade—and its always worth remembering what it's for (digging holes, which is potentially what I'm doing in writing this article). So, when faced with a new situation I know less about, call me old fashioned but I try to find out the facts.

Which leads me to ODF and OOXML. I recently wrote a post about the pair, wondering just who cared about whether one or the other was important. It was honestly, genuinely an honest, genuine question—I really don't know the answer! And yet, rebuked in some of the comments, I thought I should really find out more about the debate, particularly in the light of the State of Massachusetts decision to include both ODF and OOXML in its plans.

Where better to start than Google, I thought. Typing "odf ooxml" into the search engine yielded 963,000 entries—in fact, Google kindly stripped out the duplicates and left me with only 402. So I started to wade through them.

The question is, how many can be seen as independent? The very first kicks off, "I was asked by the UK Action Group of the Open Document Format Alliance to write..." Hmmm, I thought. Not that likely to over-sell OOXML, that one. The next was a blog by Mary Jane Foley—I have a great deal of time and respect for M-J's commentary, but this was an interview with Tom Robertson, GM of interop and standards—for Microsoft. Okay, that's one-all, I thought.

The third was a list of other articles. And so it goes on:

Number 4 was written by Sam Hiser, a member of the Free Software Foundation

Number 5 is the paper by the ODF Alliance UK Action Group (again)

Number 6 is a hopeful request for information from a student

Number 7 is on the O'Reilly web site by Kurt Kagle, who is "very much in favor of seeing ODF’s acceptance as an ISO standard."

Number 8—the Free Software Foundation Europe

Number 9—by Rob Weir of the OASIS ODF Adoption TC, amongst others

Number 10—from Linux Today

You get the picture? 12 and 13 are BBS discussions, 14's another list of articles, 15 is from Free Software daily, 16's a discussion, 17's a mate of Rob Weir, 18's an eWeek news story, 19's a search string, and 20's a link back to the very first article in the list.

It's in the mid-30's that I find something that's not been written by someone in the pro-Open community (whatever that means—I made it up). It's by a chap called Jerry Fishenden who... wait... "is Microsoft UK's lead technology advisor and spokesman on..." Noooooooo...

It is one of the articles that follows Jerry F's that finally seems to have less of an axe to grind. Indeed it offers one of the sagest statements I've read so far: "it seems clear that rational technical discussion is out the windows and the parties involved are in full mud slinging mode."

Yes, I noticed! And yet, as I scan the lists of blogs and articles, I find little reference to (and this was back to my original question) views from the end-user community, or indeed independent commentators. Gartner makes one mention of the Novell translator, but that's about it from the larger analyst community. (/me is also guilty as charged.../)

So, what I have gleaned from my researches (though that is probably too strong a word) so far is that while there are some valid discussions to be had, the majority of participants are either staunchly pro-ODF, or they are working for Microsoft. I do know that, were I an end-user, I would remain ignorant—but given the mud flying around, perhaps ignorance is bliss.

Next step: lets try to consider what are the real benefits to end-user organisations!

Reader Comments

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7th August 2007: 'Cyrus Mack' said:

I would suggest you start from a 2-pronged premise: A.) Everyone has the right to freely access information in their possession, and...
B.) Everyone has the right to create a tool to freely access said information When you start from that premise, you can really only come to one conclusion. The reason the "mud" is flying around, as you say, is because on one hand, you have those who fervently believe in the above premise, and on the other hand, you have an entrenched player that is determined to keep the status quo. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader as to which is which :) The confusing part of this debate is not which side is more "open" - that part is clear. What confuses pretty much everyone that tries to get to the bottom of this is the fact that the various players are long-time competitors. It's because of this fact that many media types are skeptical of claims on either side. This is unfortunate, because it's symptomatic of the "equality" disease - the belief that all ideas are equally valid. You are correct that there are no good papers from a non-partisan source, and there are reasons for that: 1. Both sides of this issue care very deeply about winning
2. Analysts and the tech media have simply not done a good job. At all. -Cyrus

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7th August 2007: 'Odf Smith' said:

ODF gives users a choice of supplier, reduces cost and increases equality. (See the 90% cost saving by the French tax office) The British Standards Institute has done a detailed non-emotional technical review of ooxml which they had done previously for odf. It shows using ooxml in its current state would be like using a dictionary where over 10% of the examples are wrong. (The BSI has commented on the poor quality) If I was creating a document I would prefer to use a dictionary with fewer mistakes. I don't know how fuel for cars work but I expect to use any supplier when filling my car. I know enough about ICT to know that using ODF gives me a similar choice now. Using ooxml would force you and me to choose the same supplier for both the car and fuel. For a fuller explanations read the "Roadmap for an open ict ecosystem" From a political viewpoint ODF represents the freedom of choice democracy gives you whilst currently ooxml represents a single party state. I suspect if I was a member or friend of that single state party with lots of power I would resist change. This could explain why at least 6 countries have adobted ODF for storing documents.

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7th August 2007: 'Jon Collins' (Author) said:

To quote from the BSI page, "The panellist views expressed here are not the settled views of BSI." A scan through the comments shows a large proportion being made by IBM and ODF alliance members, a ccertain number by Microsoft and a handful by other parties. Not trying to diss the comments but I wouldn't assume it to be unbiased without knowing more.

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8th August 2007: 'Gerd' said:

And of course you did not find the OOXML petitition? http://www.noooxml.org/petition

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9th August 2007: 'Jon Collins' (Author) said:

Hehe - perhaps that was further down the list :)) I am about to go on hols but I do intend to investigate this further. Key questions I have are: - what are the business benefits of ODF over OOXML, and vice versa? These could be considered in terms of cost efficiency/effectiveness, risk reduction, governance - what are the benefits to individuals of the two formats? More to do with application access, ease of collaboration, finding information consistently etc - what are the strengths/weaknesses of the two formats? E.g. layout consistency, interoperability, completeness - what challenges need to be overcome in their adoption? Data migration, application upgrades etc - last but not least, what is the appetite for change? Are people pressed to move to new versions of apps that use the formats, or indeed, do they desire to switch for the formats' sake alone? What other pressures (internal, regulatory) are causing any moves? This last point is crucial gven what has already been discussed - as we have seen in the past, standards wars come and go (remember COSE?) but it is adoption that really counts in this industry. Cheers, Jon

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