To follow up on my previous post on DVDs and ODF, here are a few of the lessons we can draw from the evolution of video recording formats. Perhaps the most important one is that: unlike the Highlander, there CAN be MORE than one.

1. Multiple Standards Can Live Side By Side – This is not the Highlander. As the history of video formats clearly shows, there can be multiple standards living side-by-side. The result is that the needs of niche markets are not ignored and customers have multiple choices to fit their needs. At the same time, developers have the ability to create innovative products that embrace multiple standards or single standards for niche markets. One standard may become dominant through consumer choice, but that does not automatically mean that it should become the ONLY standard for that kind of content.

    2. The Creation of Standards Leads to Flexibility and Competition; Closing the Door on New Standards Stifles Innovation and Choice – The creation of a standard has a lot of benefits and the more people that embrace it, the greater that benefit can become through lower costs, interoperability, etc. However, there is NO benefit to closing off the development of alternatives standards and formats. This is especially true when those standards are software rather than hardware-based, because there is little or no real harm to the existence of multiple standards.

    3. Innovation Happens, Even in Old Formats – Like Yoon, many suggest that office document formats have been around for 20 years and there is ‘no innovation’ left to add to them. Video recording formats have been around at least as long as digital office document formats, and we have seen the incredible amount of innovation in that area. And, I for one love text formatting, picture, video, track changes, scripting, and the hundreds of other innovations that have been added to document formats since the days of text only documents.

    4. Technology is Based on Choices and Compromises – Any technology, any format is the result of the designers making choices based on priorities. Usually, those choices come at the expense of other factors. Speed is exchanged for stability. Security is exchanged for interoperability. Etc. etc. The undeniable reality, however, is that not everyone agrees on what the priorities should be – especially when the uses can vary so greatly. No one technology can be the perfect solution for all potential users in all potential circumstances. That’s why I think those that argue there should ONLY one standard for document formats are not thinking clearly. There are so many different types of users and user scenarios that it is ridiculous to think that ONE format could fill everyone’s needs perfectly. In fact, much like the video formats, document formats also need to evolve to meet the needs of varying screen sizes and capabilities. As the percentage of the population accessing the internet and digital documents through mobile phones increases exponentially, document formats must be tweaked to be optimized for these kinds of displays. In order to create a single format that displays readably on all screens will inevitably mean that the format doesn’t display optimally on any of them.

    5. Unicorns and Perfect Document Formats: Mythical Creatures – Many of the supporters of ODF suggest that is the perfect document format or ‘could be’ if only everyone joined the effort. This utopian vision is laughable on its face. We live in an incredibly rich, dynamic, and diverse world and the idea that one, single document format could perfect for everyone in it is silly. It is just as silly to think that one format could meet the needs of an entire national or state government. Does the person in charge of archiving the state’s existing documents have the same priorities as the woman running the DMV? Probably not. Perhaps the biggest problem is that the idea that we should all compromise around a single format, when we don’t really have to! Even the OpenDocument Foundation guys haven’t woken up to this fact. They may have realized that ODF has limitations, but they are still looking for that panacea in CDF. It may be a more versatile format (I don’t know for sure), but it certainly won’t be the ‘perfect’ format that should end all others.