Practical Technology

Congratulations, Microsoft; you’ve got everyone believing the big lie that Open XML is an open standard.One of the most chilling concepts of George Orwells novel “1984″ is “Newspeak.” In Newspeak, the language is constantly being cropped of words that might lead to “thoughtcrimes.” If you control the language, the logic goes, you control what people think.

Microsoft is doing exactly this with its “Open XML.” Its meant to remind you of open source—a term which is now fighting to maintain its integrity—and, in particular, of open standards.

Open standards, most of us in the IT business agree, are good things. If we didnt have open standards, wed still be stuck with half-a-dozen incompatible versions of the C programming language, we wouldnt have universal 802.11g Wi-Fi, and so on. Of course, reaching though standards can be a long, painful experience, as anyone who has followed the 802.11n Wi-Fi standard wars knows.

Microsoft, however, isnt really trying to win the open-standard wars in document formats between its own Open XML and the truly open ODF (Open Document Format). Instead, its appearing to be willing to compromise and to make it easy to translate from the two formats.

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