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Standards committees being completely divorced from reality of software engineering is why most of the standards are useless.

So the question is whether it was actually a loss.



Like POSIX, OpenGL, OpenCL, Vulkan, C, C++, JavaScript, TCP/IP,....


Is there any example on your list where the standard came before the implementation?


Yes, Vulkan (Mantle was the idea), C (since C89), C++ (since C++89), OpenCL (after Apple gave it to Khronos).


So, no. None of your examples are equivalent to OOXML. The implementations were first opened up and then standardized.

OOXML was the other way around: Microsoft had a standard and tried to enshrine into a standard and force others to waste time and resources to be compatible.


Only if you ignore what was standardised in PDF form and only later made available on existing implementations.

That is why I explicitly made references to specific versions as turning points, as I expected the usual FOSS advocacy replies.




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