How did this make the HN homepage? There isn't even any news here. It is an argument about ~20-year-old XML file formats, at a time when file formats couldn't matter less?
On top of that, Office supports OpenDocument formats, just like LibreOffice supports Office formats.
Also, IME the Office XML file format is far better supported by third parties - countless apps read/write them. I have multiple apps installed that can read/write an Office file, but MS Office is the only app on my machine that opens OpenDocument.
This is an old problem that is still harming the user freedom and hinders the adoption of LibreOffice today, due to Microsoft's anti-competitive practices. Are you saying it's not worth discussing?
As a user, I'd make that argument for sure. The casual user simply wants the least friction, Microsoft doesn't care, and the FOSS developer space just has to live in this environment. As part of a broader argument to develop for and use FOSS, there's maybe something worth thinking about here, but Microsoft's not going to change its ways on this even if a dozen of us complain.
I was annoyed about the Chrome/FF thing recently (well, annoyed by Chrome, and annoyed as a casual user by Firefox's relative inabilities), so thought about what it'd take to make a new web browser. It's FAR too complicated; there is way too much to implement. HTML/JS/CSS are excessively complex, made for use cases ~nobody will run into, and you pretty much are required to implement everything Chrome does for compatibility. It's crazy Firefox even exists.
I decided instead, as an exercise, to implement an entirely new Internet built on CrypticWeb running the Mystic Beaver Protocol (MBP); surely you've heard of these, they are very big in my household. It's very simple; instead of forking the Internet to add even more garbage, we start from scratch. Instead of JS, we use waterwheel (.ww) files which patch the python script running on the stateful lodge server. I even ported the server to Micropython and can run it on a tiny ESP32C6 that fits on my pinky. The client's written in Python and interprets the simple JSON payloads the server sends over, to render it and interact with the server as needed.
It all works fine, but people are locked into this overcomplicated Bad/Legacy/Corporate/Devil Internet. big smh; wake up, sheeple!
Microsoft Office isn't even compatible with itself, deapite its bespoke file format. For example formulas in Excel not being portable between different languages.
On top of that, Office supports OpenDocument formats, just like LibreOffice supports Office formats.
Also, IME the Office XML file format is far better supported by third parties - countless apps read/write them. I have multiple apps installed that can read/write an Office file, but MS Office is the only app on my machine that opens OpenDocument.