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We love standards!

Let's have as many as possible!

Is there any good in having two standards for the same purpose and with the same features?

My answer is NO.

Once upon a time there were VHS and Beta; Beta was technically superior to VHS but VHS won and Beta disappeared and the common user won when Beta disappeared due to several reasons:

• VHS quality was enough for most purposes

• he/she could borrow or lend tapes from or to friends without worrying about what format were they using

• publishing companies had a better offer because they didn't need to fiddle with stocks in one or the other format

• prices lowered

It was bad luck – or whatever – for the companies pushing Beta because they lost money making Beta VCRs and they had to purchase the rigths to make VHS VCRs if they wanted to stay in the market.

I suppose you see the point. Today we have ONE standard and we don't need any extra features in our documents. Or do we? Because if its the case, we should add those extra features to our standard or we should choose a new one (and only ONE). We don't need the nth format war.

That's not a fair comparison; software vendors already have the rights to use ODF without paying anyone for it.

British people drive using the left side lane, and that's fine, continental Europeans drive using the right side lane, and that's fine; there is no significant difference in car accident rates between both, there's no clear reason to choose one or the other. Would you like your country law to let people choose the correct lane that fits better their driving skills?

That's not a fair comparison; the risks of concurrent standards are not so evident for people as traffic risks are.

Consider one more thing: a standard is not only what it is now; if a standard is to be useful it must be a live thing that must evolve. As EU defines it, an open standard is “...maintained by a not-for-profit organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties...”. An open standard is much more reliable than a proprietary one, as you have, at least, the chance to influence its evolution.

As I understand things, the proposal made by Microsoft will not be an open standard as the owner only gives you a promise of freedom to use the would_be_standard. Besides, the term promise is not one that makes me confident if I see it in the text of a contract or a law, and a term that can have very different legal meanings in different places; furthermore, the promise made is not an unconditional promise and end users of the would_be_standard could be affected by the fulfilment (or lack thereof) of the conditions by a software vendor.

The approval of the proposed standard would not make it any easier to exchange documents between different parties – that was one of the main goals, wasn't it? - and would only benefit Microsoft that would have it easier to retain their present customers and would have little or no need of implementing ODF.