Why OOXML is not a standard format for office documents - TDF Community Blog

Unfortunately, I keep reading about open-source software advocates who happily use Microsoft’s proprietary DOCX, XLSX and PPTX formats for their documents and therefore prefer proprietary software such as OnlyOffice to LibreOffice. Others write outrageous things such as: “OOXML is a standard format, and we have to accept it.” I would therefore like to take this opportunity to clarify, once and for all, why OOXML has never been, is not, and will never be a standard format unless Microsoft decides to completely redesign its office applications. I consider this impossible in light of past decisions, such as Excel’s inability to handle elements of the human genome properly. This forced the scientific community to change the names of these elements due to Microsoft’s refusal to fix an obvious Excel bug. In other words, because of Microsoft, all of us citizens of the world have been affected by the change of the names of some elements of our genome, with all that this entails for scientific research and, consequently, for the treatment of genetic diseases. This is an enormously important fact that has not received sufficient publicity in the media, but it illustrates how willing Microsoft is to overlook everything for its own