Open source impeded by incompatibilities and inconsistencies in the Office Open XML document format
▻https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/elibrary/case/complex-singularity-versus-openness
When it comes to office documents, public administrations can choose from two ISO/IEC standards. Only one of these, ODF (ISO/IEC 26300), is vendor-neutral, open and reliable across a span of years and software versions, and supported by a variety of software products.
The later OOXML standard (ISO/IEC 29500), originally developed by a single proprietary software vendor, is implemented in three different versions (‘ECMA’, ‘Transitional’ and ‘Strict’) that are not compatible with each other. Although the ‘ECMA’ and ‘Transitional’ versions are outdated – ‘Transitional’ had only been accepted as a temporary solution to give the software vendor time to implement ‘Strict’ in its products – they both continue to be used in practice. This is because older versions of the vendor’s office suite (MS Office) cannot read or write OOXML Strict and are unlikely ever to gain such abilities.