False dichotomy [LWN.net]

False dichotomy

Posted Oct 31, 2007 0:48 UTC (Wed) by drag (guest, #31333)
In reply to: False dichotomy by man_ls
Parent article: GNOME and OOXML

The money is all over the place, definately. 

I'd have to agree with both of you guys. Very smart stuff.


Now the fundamental problem is.. OOXML is going to win. More then likely. Everybody already
uses Microsoft Desktop, Microsoft Server, and Microsoft Office.  Even if, through a work of
nature, all of the standardization folks just stand up and turn their backs completely on
Microsoft and OOXML then it's still going to be much cheaper and easier for 80-90% of the
market to just keep on using the same software they are using right now.

Trying to stop OOXML is going to be something like standing in front of a 500 pound wrecking
ball hurtling towards a building. Your probably not going to have much luck stopping it.
However if you time it right you might have a pretty good chance of steering it.. 


Is this  container format anything like media container formats? Like with Quicktime or Ogg
you can have all sorts of different types ecodings inside them; Mpeg4 variations, Vorbis,
Flac, Speex, AAC, etc etc

I don't understand all of this, but if it's like media stuff... if you have all sorts of
software on the server side to handle OOXML then would it be easier to just swap out the
internal format for a more favorable one rather then try to replace OOXML entirely? (assuming
that OOXML gets widely established)

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False dichotomy

Posted Nov 2, 2007 13:35 UTC (Fri) by vonbrand (guest, #4458) [Link]

Now the fundamental problem is.. OOXML is going to win. More then likely. Everybody already uses Microsoft Desktop, Microsoft Server, and Microsoft Office. Even if, through a work of nature, all of the standardization folks just stand up and turn their backs completely on Microsoft and OOXML then it's still going to be much cheaper and easier for 80-90% of the market to just keep on using the same software they are using right now.

But this isn't the same software, it is a whole new set of formats! Sure, MSFT has a grip over (and includes) the legacy formats in OOXML, but this is more a battle for establishing the new format from both sides.