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Story: What's Up With the ODF Alliance?Total Replies: 0
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grouch

Mar 20, 2006
12:15 PM EST 		I'm as bad as Mr. Updegrove -- impatient for world domination. We'll have to remember that it's hard to extract a tick after it buries its suckers in you.

Weird, secret, changing file formats have been the way MS has held customers' data hostage and would-be competitors at bay. If the CEO sends out memos in the latest, non-standard, non-compatible format, then everyone else has to have the latest version of the parasite, too. Once the company's documents are safely(?) tucked away in one of these weird formats, it becomes expensive to convert the bulk over to something open, readable, and archive-worthy.

An agreed-upon open standard for documents, along with multiple implementations of the standard by a wide range of vendors, is the best way to break that lock-in. Companies, like individuals, should control their own data. The ODF Alliance seems to be educating people of that fact.

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