Groklaw: Format Comparison Between ODF and MS XML

“There has been a lot of attention to the legal encumbrances in
Microsoft’s new MS XML format. In this article we’ll look at the
technical side, and try to show you how the design of these formats
affect interoperability. After all, that is the purpose of open
standards.

“OpenDocument benefits from 5 years of development involving
many experts from diverse backgrounds (Boeing, National Archives of
Australia, Society for Biblical literature, etc.). It was written
with the explicit purpose of being interoperable across different
platforms. In contrast, MS XML has not gone through a peer-review
process, and was written with only one product in mind. This
difference shows in the design of the formats…”

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