Showing posts with label XPS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label XPS. Show all posts

April 04, 2008

After OOXML, XPS

When you thought that OOXML was enough trouble, XPS comes to be talked about. Many people just ask why Microsoft decided to create a "standard" (OOXML) to something that already had one (ODF). My answer is: "why should they use what everyone uses, when they can make anyone use what they're using?". Sucks, I know. But OOXML was just a start: now I start to understand why Marcos Santos (from Microsoft) kept saying "we should look into the future". Is the future "let's replace every standard with a Microsoft format"? Seems so, considering they're now trying to make XPS an ISO standard.

Here's a nice looking table where you can easily understand what am I talking about (shamelessly copied from this post):

Feature OOXML XPS
Origin Microsoft Microsoft
Editor Microsoft via Rex Jaeschke Microsoft via Rex Jaeschke
Standards Body Microsoft via MS-ECMA Microsoft via MS-ECMA
Patents Microsoft promise OSP Microsoft promise CP
Duplication ODF ISO26300 PDF ISO32000
ISO Liaisons ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34 ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34
ISO plans in progress will be submitted to ISO
Restricted technologies WMA, WMV, MP3, OLE, Binary space, Macros HD-Photo


So, it seems that after forcing their own replacement for ODF, they're now trying to do the same for PDF. What will come next? HTML? Place your bets...