At Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:17:13 -0800 CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> wrote: > > m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote: > > Yep, as well as .xlsx > > > > But, I mean, you know all the *pressing* and Important reasons that M$ had > > to change the file format.... > > > > FWIW, the new formats are XML based, albeit compressed. in most > theories, this is a good idea for portability. > > the old file formats were proprietary, complex and full of ugliness from > 20 years of extensions and variations (.DOC was used by MS Word for > MSDOS circa 1985). Yes, I know, MS did their own XML 'open' document > format, not the one everyone else is using, but at least being XML, its > readily decodable. The new format is still semi-proprietary. Using XML and ZIP does not automagically make the format open. If the *meaning* of the XML tags are not documented, it is not possible to decode the XML file: <f><g q="t">Hello</g><r x="96"/><g q="t">World</g><y z="3.14159"/></f> > > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > > -- Robert Heller -- Get the Deepwoods Software FireFox Toolbar! Deepwoods Software -- Linux Installation and Administration http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Web Hosting, with CGI and Database heller at deepsoft.com -- Contract Programming: C/C++, Tcl/Tk