December 16, 2005

OpenDocument and Open XML

So, Microsoft thinks that having two standards to the same thing is better than having one. Sorry, but I totally disagree.

Having choice on implementations is good. But having more standards doesn't give you more choices nor competition: as a matter of fact it will only create "bad competition": you'll put competition between implementations, and the best implementation will choose the standard, which may not be the best implementation at all.

As denmarkw00t said, "what happens when two companies develope two pieces of software with identical functionality but one supports OpenStandardA and the other OpenStandardB? To the user, it appears to work and function the same, but then when said user moves from ProductA to ProductB or, lets say, sends a co-worker who uses ProductB an OpenStandardA document, what happens?"...

You should have several companies working on standards, yes, but have all them working for the same standard. And when one standard is considered a standard de facto, then everyone should be free to develop their implementation of that standard, and/or contribute for further versions of the standard. Now, that's valuable competition.

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