This myth is rather silly if you think about it. Here is why…
When people talk about interoperability and Open XML they do so primarily in the context of ODF. The story goes something like this:
1. Open XML is not interoperable with ODF
2. Open XML should be interoperable with ODF because ODF is already an ISO standard!
3. Hence: Open XML is no good, because it is not interoperable with ODF and therefore Open XML should not be an ISO standard!!!
Q.E.D
This three step tale has become sort of an urban legend for some; where 1 and 2 almost routinely leads to 3. This can be exemplified in the following quote from John Gøtze’s blog post “Good Enough Standards? No Way”, where he starts off by quoting me for writing about the differences between ODF and Open XML:
…yesterday [Jasper] wrote (in Danish) about myths about Microsoft and ODF. He argues that there are differences between ODF and OpenXML, and that both standards should be ISO approved so that ISO can take charge of making them more interoperable.
Hmmm. That almost makes sense. No, wait, it doesn’t. It’s not ISO’s job to make standards interoperable. To become an ISO standard in the first place, a standard must be “a good citizen” which includes being interoperable.
Well urban legends are not necessary true and in this case the truth is actually being hurt much more than interoperability. Let’s look at the “logic”, or rather the lack hereof behind this urban legend.
Step 1: Open XML is not interoperable with ODF.
Well this is the only part of the urban legend that is partially true – every urban legend usually has such a part.
While there is interoperability to a certain extend between ODF and Open XML, the interoperability is indeed not absolute. In practical use the interoperability experience is likely to improve as converters between the two formats improve, but there will be parts that are very difficult or even imposible to convert with exact fidelity. The reality behind this limit comes down to the fact that ODF and Open XML are fundamentally different and designed differently. The differences can broadly be put into two categories Semantics and Capabilities.
Semantics
The semantics of ODF and Open XML are different. This does not mean that one is necessary better than the other (any such qualitative comparison is by the way outside the scope and relevance of this post). Open XML and ODF are different in sort of the same way that English and Danish is different and that C# and Java is different. Translation is possible but requires some work. By the way, although complex, the translation between Open XML and ODF is after all less complex than translation between full human languages such as Danish and English.
Capabilities
The capabilities of ODF and Open are also different and this is in fact probably more difficult to deal with than the semantics. A common example is the lack of ability to define rich formulas in ODF spreadsheets. This capability is very well defined in the Open XML specification. Saying that Open XML is not a good citizen because it contains capabilities that are not in ODF does not make a lot of sense to me.
Another area where Open XML has capabilities that ODF has not is in regards to compatibility with the existing binary de facto formats. This capability is super relevant in regards to the billions of binary documents that already exist. It is also an interoperability capability by its own right by providing interoperability with existing documents and thus our common past. Providing such interoperability is most definitely an example of being a good citizen of the real world! (Sometimes I wonder, that maybe citizens of the real world are not welcome in realm of the ideal world? )
I do not want this to sound like I am picking on ODF and I am also confident that someone else will be able to identify some capability that is in ODF but not in Open XML. However, the point that I am making here, is that discharging Open XML because it is semantically different from ODF or because it has capabilities that are not in ODF or because it was not the first document format specification for mankind for office productivity applications to get an ISO approval; well that just simply does not make a lot of sense. Last of which leads me to step 2 of the urban legend.
Step 2: Open XML should be interoperable with ODF because ODF is already an ISO standard!
I don’t get it. The anti-Open XML camp have been, wrongfully, blaming Microsoft to race Open XML through standardization and now they implicitly claim that it is all about being the first one across the finishing line to lay out the semantics and capabilities etc. that everybody else must follow but not exceed nor challenge? Is this what we want of IT standardization in the future? I.e. that standards, are to being rushed into ISO etc., in order to block the way for different approaches, innovation and dynamics? I definitely hope not!
In other comparable areas, multiple standards are already interacting dynamically. Consider Image File formats or digital media where multiple formats are playing together and more are continuingly being developed. This leads me to think (like The British Library) that only fictional characters would suggest that: “There can be only one”, when we are talking digital immaterial formats (not immortals) such as documents format, digital image formats etc:
I am of course aware that other more real-life, but nevertheless, inventive characters are trying hard to mix up everything in order to create confusion or plainly FUD. They are doing so by, for example, equating immaterial specifications for document formats with physical form factors such as rail-road tracks or other entities that share very few if any actual properties in common with the context we are examining here:
The year was 1853 and the place was Erie, Pennsylvania, a town at the junction of two incompatible rail gauges. This gauge incompatibility was inefficient and frustrating, but the citizens of Erie loved it…
Nice story Rob. I am aware that IBM was established in the haze of the industrial age but most of us are now living in the information age and things such as document formats and document standards are much better understood in that context.
Step 3: Hence, Open XML is no good, since it is not interoperable with ODF and therefore it should not be an ISO standard!!!
Oops. This last step was a consequence of the two preceding steps leading up to it. Those two steps turned out not to be bullet proof and rather misguding. What to do? I guess this means that the third and step and its grand conclusion is wrong? That the urban legend is false after all? It sure does.
Approving Open XML for ISO is without a doubt the best way forward in terms of moving interoperability ahead. There are few guarantees in life, but approving Open XML for ISO is definitely a much better bet than not ratifying Open XML for ISO. Arguing that Open XML is not a good citizen because of its current interoperability with ODF is therefore a contradiction at best.
Q.E.D
By the way. People are already working to look into mapping out the differences between Open XML and ODF. I am here thinking on the work initiated by Fraunhofer to describe Translation of Document Formates. This work, which is set out to become an ISO technical paper, will become benefitial for interoperability going forward. Again this is especially true with both standards approved in an ISO context.