For free software to succeed it doesn’t need any kind of document standard whatsoever.

It’s wonderful that ODF is adopted, but it’s just the first step.

There’s nothing wrong with implementing new features that standards bodies are working on (vendor extensions in CSS spring immediately to mind), so long as they are clearly marked as such. But to claim you implement a standard which isn’t ratified: that’s a huge problem. Standards have to mean something. If you start causing interop problems because you can’t accept docs from other apps, that will cause people to doubt the standard.

Personally, I feel if Microsoft get “complete” ODF 1.1 support, that will be a hugh triumph for the standard. It won’t be absolutely perfect by any means, and I’m sure people will poke holes in it, but I will bet significant amounts of money that by the time they ship they are the #2 ODF vendor behind OOo in terms of quality of implementation.

If you have a standard version of something, I’d prefer they implement the standard. 1.1 is forward compatible with 1.2 anyway, so it’s not like the rest of us lose out.

“With its move, “if a government says ODF is our standard, then Microsoft can say, ‘It’s our standard, too,’ ” Creese said. But why isn’t Microsoft committing to ODF 1.2? It’s supposed to have better accessibility and spreadsheet features than ODF 1.1.”

Either way, I think saying you implement a standard before (*well before*) it’s even feature complete is a very dangerous game indeed. I don’t think I need to explain further why; it’s pretty obvious.