2014/1/16 frank ernest <do...@mail.com> > >Also, you should warn microsoft before their docx stuff get in the wild > >too, as they also use the zip file format. > > Here I thought that some of the ideas behind opensource was that it would > promote > better/some kind of standards. > > It's ok though. There are greater problems out there then lack of > compression. > > Thanks, as always. >
My phrasing might have been a bit harsh, so I'll reformulate my thoughts on this. One of the key point (in my opinion) when designing file formats is to maximize stability and usability. It is especially true for office files, that might be stored and reused years later. Simply using the ZIP format with plain xml content mean that almost anything can read it without hassle, as both are well established and well supported across a lot of systems. Now, one could argue that we could create a new iteration of the standard, without messing with the existing one (that would become the "old" one). It's true, but maintaining multiple reader/writer for each version of the standard can get tedious, and ultimately lead to dropping support for old files. For example, see the old staroffice and msword file formats, recently dropped from libreoffice (if I'm not mistaken). Ultimately, adding an iteration to an existing standard also open the possibility of changing the interpretation of some features. For more example, see the docx file format :). So, the question: is improving the compression rate (albeit not marginally) worth creating a new version of the standard, with the need to update *all* software to support it (e.g. not only LibreOffice), and bring the risk of progressively reducing support for the "legacy" file format? Again, only my opinion, but no; I'd rather have a file format that don't change too often. Of course, if a large pack of features needed a large overhaul of the file format, then so be it. But improving the file storage efficiency by itself isn't worth it. But knowing that the files are highly compressible (not sure about this word sorry), you could just mount a compressed file system and store your files here :) -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted