| Microsoft's Open XML newspeak |
Jul. 02, 2007
Opinion -- One of the most chilling concepts of George Orwell's 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." It's 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 didn't have open standards, we'd still be stuck with half-a-dozen incompatible versions of the C programming language, we wouldn't have universal 802.11g WiFi, and so on. Of course, reaching though standards can be a long, painful experience, as anyone who has followed the 802.11n WiFi standard wars knows.
Microsoft, however, isn't 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, it's appearing to be willing to compromise and to make it easy to translate from the two formats.
In fact, it's even working with rivals like Novell and Xandros to make it easier to translate from the two formats.
To read the rest of this article by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols at eWEEK.com article, go here.
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