The ODF TC was chartered in 2002 to create a standard for a set of formats for the interoperable interchange of documents among competing applications. Sun’s OpenOffice.org XML format was chosen as the beginning point and Sun staffers were made the chairman and secretary. But Sun steadfastly shot down nearly all proposals over the years directed toward making the formats vendor-neutral.

OpenDocument interoperability is a complete and utter myth constructed on the widespread misconception that an open format is necessarily an interoperable format. The situation is only slightly better than with MS Office because OOo is distributed under an open source license that allows other developers to clone its code base. But it is necessary to achieve non-lossy interoperability that everyone exchanging documents be using the same version number of the code base. With other ODF implementations, you may achieve non-lossy interoperability if everyone involved is using the same application and version of it.

Whether you experience data loss when there is a mismatch in applications or version numbers in the exchange depends on what ODF functionality is invoked at each end of the round trip with a particular document. If an OpenOffice.org ODF document uses an ODF feature that has no counterpart in KOffice, opening it in the latter will will not result in the same processing of the document because there is no corresponding feature in KOffice to map to. The same issue exists when going between earlier and later versions of OOo or its clones.

There are many other interoperability issues in ODF. Here is my current list of interoperability check points that both ODF and OOXML fail except as noted in the list. If you need assistance with vocabulary, you will find a helpful glossary at http://www.universal-interop-council.org/glossary

* Full-featured editors available that do not generate vendor-specific extensions?
* Interoperability of implementations mandatory?
* Interoperability between different IT systems demonstrated?
* Profiles developed and required for interoperability?
* Methodology specified for interoperability between less and more featureful applications?
* Specifies conformity requirements essential to achieve interoperability?
* Interoperability conformity assessment procedure(s) formally established and validated?
* Document validation procedures valid?
* Fully specified interoperability framework?
* Vendor-specific extensions classified as non-conformant?
* Preservation of markup necessary for interoperability mandatory?
* XML namespaces for incorporated standards properly implemented? (ODF-only failure because Microsoft incorporated only one relevant standard, XML 1.0)
* Optional feature interop breakpoints eliminated?
* Scripting language specified for embedded scripts?
* Hooks fully specified for use by embedded scripts?
* Portable cross-platform? (OOXML-only failure)
* Adequate cultural and linguistic adaptability?
* IPR restrictions absent?
* Vendor- and application-neutral?
* Capable of converging desktop, server, Web, and mobile device editors and viewers? (ODF-only failure but OOXML only within the context of the Microsoft stack)
* Responsiveness to market requirements for interoperability?

If anyone should tell you that ODF is designed for interoperability or is an interoperable set of formats, they are either ignorant, deliberately disseminating disinformation, or both. I will close with the words of Thomas Zander, a member of the ODF Technical Committee and lead developer of the KOffice KWord application:

“One thing I have always dreamed to be possible is that when I write a doc in KOffice I can then open it in OOo to use that one feature that’s useful to me and then save it and continue in KOffice without loosing lots of data.

“Its still a dream, of course. Most features are lost on opening and saving it in OOo, but its a nice goal[.]”

http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/odf-adoption/200709/msg00032.html

Installed AbiWord on Ubuntu and tried it on a test doc. Indenting OK but does not respect ODT ‘restart numbering’ on lists. Some styles have come through OK but all list styles are in Standard style. Embedded photos not working. Document outline numbering attached to numbered heading style not showing.

Not suitable for use on ICE documents - clearly has shall we say ‘different’ ODF support from Writer.

I’d be interested to hear what kinds of documents work for you, but I can tell you that that for the documents I use which conform to a template that uses styles, including list styles (which is the only way in OOo to get consistent formatting for our purposes) KOffice does not work. Try it. KOffice does not support list styles at all so they get lost.

If you read the post I’m talking about degrees of support any data you could help out with would be very useful.

So I get the impression that you don’t have a clue, since KOffice, TextEdit, and AbiWord don’t share the OOO code base.

The people who have glanced at the OOXML standard and have said how bad it is for interop as well as how broken it is are standards experts, not members of the public of laymen like yourself.

As far as interop is concerned the problem with OOXML is that nobody other than Microsoft can implement it properly because of its broken and incomplete nature. On top of that, its brokenness means that even Microsoft hasn’t been able to implement it - the OOXML produced by the latest versions of MS Office are incompatible with the OOXML standard Microsoft submitted to ISO.

ZZ.