Consider adding support for Open Document Format files

[josb]

Please consider implementing reading and writing of Open Document Format files (with the .ods extension in this case).
This is an open, standardized format not under the control of a single commercial entity and can in fact be read and written by Microsoft Excel.
Support will facilitate the broadest reach of information exchange without relying on proprietary formats with associated network effects and vendor lock-in.

https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/what-is-opendocument/

[nhatcher]

Note that xlsx is an open specification:

https://ecma-international.org/publications-and-standards/standards/ecma-376/

I've looked into ods and it is a substantial amount of work to import/export from ods

[josb]

Hi,

Thanks for your response.

The OOXML standard is apparently described in a much larger document than ODF that received much less scrutiny compared to ODF during the standardization progress, it's unclear how much Microsoft adheres to its own specification in its software because it is much larger, OOXML standardization came in response to the ODF ISO standardization and the standardization process was unusual and contentious, per
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open_XML. My read of the situation is that ODF is easier to implement correctly and fully compared to OOXML.

Here's the LibreOffice take on this:
https://www.libreoffice.org/assets/Conference/LATAM-Conf/Estandares.pdf

The question really is, why didn't Microsoft simply adopt ODF instead of its own standard, and work within the standards bodies to improve it if it believed it to be necessary?
This seems to be a case of using a standards organization to give legitimacy to a competing format while refusing to adopt and improve an existing standard because it would mean loss of control for the company. Then the question becomes, who really owns and manages this "standard"?

I realize this is partly a political argument, but to avoid long-term document interoperability issues it is important for software to properly adhere to standards and not be effectively controlled by a single business entity with its own agenda of using the network effects of its proprietary document formats to capture markets and a history of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

At any rate, this is just a suggestion for your consideration, and as a Rust fan I appreciate the work you are doing! 👍 Thank you.

[nhatcher]

Hi Jos,

This is huge topic, and in a large way, as you say political. One of the most important topics objectives of IronCalc is reach as many people as possible so open standards is a priority for us.

We will try to implement ODF import export once we reach a stable version :)

[josb]

Hi Nicolás,

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you so much for considering this! 🙏