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When Would You Use OOXML and When ODF? -- What is OOXML For?

By Pamela Jones et al.

Can anyone tell me what OOXML is for, other than for opening legacy Microsoft documents? What else is it for? When would you choose OOXML and when would you choose ODF, if you were, let's say, a government or a government agency?

ISO Directives, Part 2 "Rules for the structure and drafting of International Standards" [PDF], section 6.2.1 reminds us that standards are voluntary, not requirements, for you and me. But governments are in a different category. They can tell their employees what they can and can't use, what the entity will, or will not, use and in what circumstances. So when would you use ODF and when would you use OOXML in that sphere? I figured ISO should know. For ISO/IEC 29500 (formerly known as OOXML) the scope statement reads like this:

ISO/IEC 29500 defines a set of XML vocabularies for representing word-processing documents, spreadsheets and presentations. On the one hand, the goal of ISO/IEC 29500 is to be capable of faithfully representing the preexisting corpus of word-processing documents, spreadsheets and presentations that had been produced by the Microsoft Office applications (from Microsoft Office 97 to Microsoft Office 2008, inclusive) at the date of the creation of ISO/IEC 29500. It also specifies requirements for Office Open XML consumers and producers. On the other hand, the goal is to facilitate extensibility and interoperability by enabling implementations by multiple vendors and on multiple platforms.

So, it's for the legacy documents, but it's also to "facilitate extensibility and interoperability by enabling implementations by multiple vendors and on multiple platforms." If interoperability is the goal, and for governments it is, does extensibility get in your way? What exactly does that last part mean? I understand in the commercial space what it would mean, but what about for governmental entities? When would you use ODF and when OOXML?

Full post as published by Groklaw on April 27, 2009 (boomark / email).