Re: Open doc format
The Word document format (.doc) is a good example: It structural
shortcomings have long since greatly reduced its reliability and
stability.
...and that does not seem to be bothering the market. .doc is phenomenally
successful as a format. When the markets are left to do their job, people
choose what they want.
That is at least debatable. Word is very successful as a product, yes. But is .doc used for anything except data exchange with Word? I don't believe so, and therefore I would not call it a successful format. Were word to disappear, .doc would go with it. By contrast, other formats discussed, such as MP3 or Tiff, are not tied to a single application and can therefore be called successful in their own right.
Market-driven standards are always the best because they respond to the actual
want of the market. Committees are notorious at producing tepid standards that
include too many compromises.
So they are, although it seems wrong to automatically condemn a standard just because it has been created by a committee. One could argue that all the classic Internet standards were created by committee (in the RFC process), and many of them certainly have been successful.
At the same time 'market-driven' does not equal 'corporate'. MP3 is an excellent example: It is exactly what the market wanted, yet no company created it or made it a success by adopting it.
It does not seem possible to judge a standard - file format or otherwise - by its creation process or creating entity.
Regards
Jan Henning
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Re: Open doc format: From: Andrew Plato
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