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Why ODF and not OOXML - TDF Community Blog
blog.documentfoundation.orgMany interpreted the last article in this series as an attack on Microsoft for using the OOXML format against users’ interests. However, this was only one of my objectives, as I also wanted to raise users’ awareness of fake open-source software, such as OnlyOffice, which partners with Microsoft in a strategy to lock users in. Users are already aware of the advantages of standard, open formats because they access sites every day whose content is accessible thanks to the HTML format. This is a standard, open format that was first developed and then defended by its inventor, Tim Berners-Lee. He prevented Microsoft from transforming it into a proprietary format with Internet Explorer 6. This forced users to have two versions of a site: one in a standard format and one in a proprietary format. Fortunately, Microsoft’s strategy failed in the case of HTML because the W3C – unlike the ISO – never recognised the changes to the format “forced” by Internet Explorer as valid. This was because Internet Explorer did not display sites in the standard format correctly. Ultimately, this forced the company to develop a browser that complies with all standards, thus allowing users to choose their preferred browser


The financial incentive would be open and standard document format to ease development and provide reliability
What they have is already done developing and they are flush in cash. A company that creates an ERP for a specialized industry does not care, unless a huge chunk of their customers demand a change all at once AND are ready to pay for it. I mean, I understand the idealism but this is just one of those “if everybody just…” situations that, imho, holds back open source solutions because their defendants look a bit excentric from established businesses’ points of view.