Document
Formats
What is “open”?
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Office Open XML
• Developed by Microsoft
• XML based
• Published specifications
• Vendor specific
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Open Document Format
• Developed by OASIS
• XML based
• Published specifications
• Open source
3

What is the real issue?
(It isn’t really a technical issue)
4

It is a policy issue
5

It is about open Photo titled “Open Access” by Shooting the
breeze licensed under Creative Commons
access Attribution-NonCommercial ShareAlike license
on Flickr.
6

Open access to human knowledge
and information is facilitated by
truly open document formats.
Information must be made available
to the broadest possible cross-
section of the population.
7

It is about software too
• Document formats require applications
to read and create them
• Applications require an operating
system to run them
• What does the whole package cost?
8

Office Open XML
• Works with Microsoft Office (Standard
edition costs roughly R4 400 off the
shelf)
• Requires Microsoft Windows (Vista costs
roughly R2 250 off the shelf)
• Bulk licensing still has a price
9

Open Document Format
• Works with a number of office suites
including OpenOffice and NeoOffice
(free)
• Versions for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS
and Linux (Ubuntu Linux, for one, is free
and comes with OpenOffice)
• As many copies as you want (free)
10

“Free” as in everyone Photo titled “Villager in a hut window” by Hot
Foot licensed under Creative Commons
has access Attribution NonCommercial No Derivatives
license on Flickr.
11

Two standards?
• Two standards means no standards
• Users still forced to choose between
competing and incompatible formats
• A successful standard should have
multiple implementations
• No open access means the people are
prejudiced
12

“The goal of the Technical Committee is to produce
a formal standard for office productivity
applications within the Ecma International
standards process which is fully compatible with the
Office Open XML Formats.”
- Scope of the Open XML format of the ECMA
programme of work (emphasis added)
13

Should a document format be certified
as a standard based on the
applications intended to support it?
14

Or should a standard be platform agnostic?
15

“Proprietaryfile formats are worse than
proprietary software because they
leave you with no ability to switch at a
later time”
- Jimmy Wales speaking at Wikimania 2005
16

Who controls the document format?
Photo titled “Engine Controls” by Nick Blaire
licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-
No Derivatives license on Flickr.
17

Office Open XML
• Development controlled by Microsoft
and a vendor specific community
• Linked to Microsoft Office
• Version dependent? Probably
18

Open Document Format
• Development by an open source
community
• Application neutral
• Version dependent? Arguably not
19

What does this have to do with anything?
20

For one thing it means users have a
real choice ...
21

... and let’s not forget the cost
22

Thank you!
23

Paul Jacobson
The African Commons Project
The Open Law Project
Jacobson Attorneys
pejrm1@gmail.com
083 444 8260
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