Burton Group report on ODF/OOXML will "ruffle some feathers"
Earlier today the Burton Group released a free (registration required) report authored by Guy Creese (bio) and Peter O'Kelly (bio) and titled
"What’s Up, .DOC? ODF, OOXML, and the Revolutionary Implications of XML in Productivity Applications"
Guy has posted on Burton Group's Collaboration and Content Strategies Blog and Peter has posted here about the report.
Guy's post quickly points out
...that this overview, like all Burton Group research, is a completely vendor-independent perspective; Burton Group does not engage in vendor “white papers” or other vendor-paid writing projects. This is another way to say we'll probably ruffle some vendor feathers on this one, but we've tried hard to look into this objectively and in some detail (the report is 37 pages long).
I'm going to make a few observations below, but I'd strongly encourage you to download a copy for yourself if you're interested in document formats and the ODF/OpenXML debate - this is a great contribution to that debate because it calls things out plainly and clearly.
For example, encouragingly, the report notes that
"Despite all of the debate and controversy surrounding ODF and OOXML, it's important to recognize that the standards organizations are working as designed, and that both the standards and the organizations are constructively evolving as a result."
The report pulls no punches either on some things that I think largely escape many "OpenXML detractors" (which is a phrase that is, in my experience, all too often synonymous with "ODF proponents"):-
- Form follows function - "The utility of a model is assessed relative to stated objectives in a given domain; a modeling endeavor never has a simple right or wrong answer."
- [OpenXML is] "a better form-follows-function fit for most productivity application usage patterns and, much to the chagrin of Microsoft competitors, Microsoft appears to be sincere in its efforts to make OOXML a meaningful and global industry standard."
- The exabytes of files captured in earlier Microsoft Office file formats are important and do matter.
- The acme of productivity application evolution wasn't in 1997, and productivity application vendors have continued to deliver a wide range of innovation.
- OpenXML is not unnecessarily complex for the contexts it was designed to address.
I guess some feathers will be ruffled by some of the comments on ODF, and also on Sun Microsystems' role. I am pleased that the authors think that ODF will continue, and I agree with some of the observations they make about adoption. The authors note that
"ODF's evolution will likely be slow and complex, in part because of the fact that OpenOffice.org, the primary implementation of ODF, is arguably still, in some respects, controlled by Sun Microsystems."
It is already, and the complexity is already causing confusion for governments, the Norwegian government for example, which included "ODF 1.0 v2, ISO/IEC 26300:2006" in a list of standards despite the fact that there is no such standard.
There are also some observations that should cause policy makers promoting Open Standards some pause,
"Although Sun could considerably simplify ODF-related processes by yielding full control of both ODF and OpenOffice.org to standards bodies and open source initiatives, it's probably already too late for such a move to make a significant difference to ODF's trajectory."
with some interesting observations on Sun's [apparent] motivations
"Sun appears to have placed strategic bets that (1) it could continue to control ODF (through OpenOffice.org), under the auspices of international standards, without thwarting industry support for the standards, and that (2) Microsoft would seek to subvert standards procedures in order to inappropriately gain competitive advantage with OOXML. If Sun implicitly or explicitly placed these bets, it appears to have lost both."
I've written before that there was always a harsh real-politik behind the standardisation of ODF that brings credit to neither Sun nor OASIS.
There's an interesting data-point about the real-world demand for ODF - Altova's CEO, Alexander Falk, is quoted reporting that Altova has not received a *single* request for ODF support. (I am sure that the astroturfing will commence asap now though!) This highlights another point I've made before - that many of those arguing passionately that the world doesn't need OpenXML and that ODF is good enough simply don't understand the revolutionary aspect that xml-based document formats will have on the end to end nature of information systems. I suspect if they did then Altova could have expected to see some demand at least.
In closing the report advises to use ODF by exception rather than default stating directly that
"ODF is insufficient for complex real-world enterprise requirements, and it is indirectly controlled by Sun Microsystems, despite also being an ISO standard."
I'm less hopeful than the authors that
"other vendors may be able to put ODF on a more customer-oriented trajectory in the future".
Finally, I've said over and over that standardising both OpenXML and ODF was fine because it wasn't a zero sum game. Sadly IBM have preferred to characterize this as a war. The unnecessary and regrettable consequence of this is reflected in the authors' comment that
".. for now ODF should be seen as more of an anti-Microsoft political statement than an objective technology selection."
It didn't need to be this way.