this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2024
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Lots of problems that used to exist in this area no longer do.
Used to be that the de facto standard office format was doc/xls/ppt, now both MS Office and LibreOffice support both ODF and OOXML both of which are open standards.
Used to be that internal software was mostly written for the Windows API, now it is mostly written for web browsers (between which there are no longer any significant differences in terms of standards compatibility).
The world really is slowly getting better. I would like to help accelerate this, but don't really have any ideas where to start.
There are standards and then there are "standards." ODF was designed to be usable and implementable from the spec. Meanwhile, OOXML is just a glorified XML serialization of Word's internal memory structures that Microsoft bribed ECMA to rubber-stamp.
Of course they are not equally good, no question about it. They are still both (technically) open standards and the main point is that they are both supported by both pieces of software, i.e. the practical difference between them is mainly in the UI, you don't need to get the other one just to read files created by one of them.
ODF is an open standard, OOXML is designed to pretend it is one, only one just can't make a compliant implementation and MS doesn't follow what they've published anyway.
Yeah, it's open as it's human readable..
Hex dumps are kinda human readable too. You see human readable values of every byte.
The sheer size of OOXML prevents it from being normally implemented by most people, and then there is the issue of what's made by actual MS Word not following it.
At this point I think it is just a matter of time until Google (most likely due to their near monopoly with Chrome), will push for some new standard that they own and control and must be used everywhere. For some handwaving combination of security and protect the kids, etc. And google are in a great position to make it happen, don't support it? Oh noes, your site is no longer listed in google searches.
And that will be the end of the open web, you can only use one browser that totally controls what you can and cannot do. Ad blocking is just the start, saving websites or images? Nah. We don't allow that. Copy the url? No, you need to use this share button that has embedded tracking links in it, etc.
Chrome has 65% market share (according to Statcounter), far from a near monopoly. Even if you add Edge (which you shouldn't because Microsoft could fork Blink at any time), you only get 70% for their web engine. Around 2003 or 2004, IE had like 95% market share (and many websites required Flash Player) and we now know that that was eventually defeated.
I am all for worrying about the decline of good things, but your scenario isn't something I'm worrying that much about.
I don't know where you are getting those numbers from. Most put chrome in around 78%, edge at 10% and then everything else. And all chrome re-skins are just that, google still controls it. There is a reason one of the biggest software companies in the world just gave up their own browser engine and runs a competitor's with some face paint.
Google are in a far better position to push something like this through than Microsoft ever where, due to their near monopoly on searches. Any site not using it would be more or less dead. Just going from number 1 to 2 on a google search can mean a huge drop in traffic, and then imagine not even being on it at all.
As I said I got these numbers from https://gs.statcounter.com/
Ever tried using Microsoft online crap in a non windows browser?
Hell, Outlook doesn't work reliably anymore on chrome for crap sake, and I know this because at my work we're stuck with that crap. I use Firefox for Outlook, and Chrome for teams because teams doesn't work on firefox because of course and because fuck you we're Microsoft and how dare you not use edge on windows?
I'd love to switch us over but that is a project years away.
Maybe spoofing chrome on windows on firefox would work?