[LINK] Uniform Office Format from China

jim birch planetjim at gmail.com
Mon Jul 9 11:09:13 AEST 2007


On 06/07/07, Tom Worthington <Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au> wrote:
>
> One I just noticed is that China developed an XML based "Uniform
> Office Format" (UOF)


There's a good short blog piece on OUF here (via wikipedia):

http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=2006110806164573

The Chinese have a massive historical imbalance in standards and patents.
This means that they are able to manufacture goods for the West but cannot
create their own for the domestic market because of the crippling cost of
patents.  Standards, even open standards, can actually work in similar way
where they are written around patented technologies or a forest of patents
has grown around their implementation.  So the Chinese are out to produce
their own standards that that will allow them to develop their own products
in green (unencumbered) fields.

I could say draw your own conclusions but around here that's a bit stupid.
:-)

Jim



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