Interoperability in the real world

gallery

1900 was a leap year?

Interoperability is not just about how computers talk to each other over the network, but also their ability to access and share documents, irrespective of the origin of those documents. It has long been recognised that an open standard was desirable for the storage and sharing of office documents to provide continuity, interoperability, choice, access and control for end users. In December 2002, an industry-wide Technical Committee of the OASIS industry consortium was convened to "create an open, XML-based file format specification for office applications." The resulting specification, the OpenDocument format, is cross-platform, 600 pages long, clear and comprehensive, and was submitted to the ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC1) in November 2005. The specification was approved for "release as an ISO and IEC International Standard" in May 2006, and published as an ISO standard in November 2006.

Already, the OpenDocument format has been widely implemented and accepted as the standard format for storing and sharing documents by more than a dozen governments, and has been recommended for adoption by a number of American states. The problem for Microsoft is that the adoption of an open format as a standard threatens Microsoft's grip on the office market. Hence Microsoft has pushed for the adoption of a counter standard, confusingly called Office Open XML (OOXML).

Earlier this year, Microsoft asked for fast track adoption by ISO of the 6000 page OOXML specification. The objections to this procedure can be summarised in a statement from FFII, the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure: "OpenXML relies on undisclosed patents, and undisclosed or incomplete licensing terms that make any independent reimplementation impossible or heavily risky. It obliges implementers to reverse-engineer the behaviour of old closed Microsoft applications and formats. It uses non-standard formats for languages and dates, and specifies known bugs, such as treating 1900 as a leap year." So far, fourteen national standards bodies have voiced direct objections to the fast track adoption of what has been described as a "single vendor standard", and others have voiced concerns.

Most office suites will implement OpenDocument as their default format, enabling free and easy exchange of documents. Microsoft Office, which currently dominates the market, can be made compliant via an OpenDocument plugin which may be downloaded from Microsoft's website, but this only partially satisfies the demands of governments and industry for the OpenDocument format to be adopted as an open and ubiquitous format for the storage, retrieval and sharing of documents.

An open standard that enables users to share documents on any operating system on any device, unencumbered by patents and trade secrets, is a necessity for the office of the future. OOXML requires "bug for bug compatibility" with all the past implementations of Microsoft Office and does not fulfil the primary objectives of transparency and portability.

In a polyglot world, where people exchange information in many different languages and dialects, it is important that there are common reference points that make interaction possible. Standards give us the means to talk to one another in a heterogeneous environment, whatever applications, operating systems or computer language we use. "If I can't talk the language of your proprietary format, I can't hear what you say", and conversation becomes impossible.

Email to a friend

Print this page