.doc anyone?

Why was no one every quite this pissy about MS's old formats: .doc, .xls, and .ppt. All these formats are ACTUALLY closed formats. OOXML may not be perfect, but it's better than the old closed ones.

I just can't understand why everyone is all upset over these questionably open formats and ignoring the UNquestionably closed ones.

Oh well. Let's just keep poking the bear...

Poking the bear

The answer is people don't want just another 'UNquestionably closed' format... It's good to see people don't forget so easy ;)

@Dan

Dan,
perhaps we aren't getting pissy about the old closed formats because, if memory serves, NONE of them were ever put forth as INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS. They were merely the data output files of a set of proprietary programs, and were only guaranteed to work with the same version of that proprietary program that they were written with (and at times, even that compatibility was questionable). There was no guarantee that they would or should work with any non-MS software. However, as part of being a STANDARD, OOXML should work with any software for which the software producer cares to write import and export utilities, and the specifications of the OOXML standard detail the manner in which OOXML is to be used.
But at its heart, the OOXML debate is not about data file formats or standards. It is about money. Specifically, the money that Microsoft would lose by having their old, closed, proprietary formats excluded from large and lucrative government contracts. OOXML is Microsoft's half-hearted attempt at being "open"-enough that they can scream loudly when government bodies (ie - Massachusetts) declare MSOffice to be unfit for public use.