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Who forced them? I can't find it on wikipedia, in a google search or microsoft's site all I found was

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Open_Specification_Pr...

I even checked the references, the MS page adds nothing to wikipedia's info in this matter

http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/en/us/programs/o...

This was a result of the antitrust case sun and novell brought before the EU comission. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_compet...

It got us windows without media player (which nobody used), the browser ballot (which everyone endured) and a requirement that all their server protocols be documented sufficiently for competitors to implement the same service (which we all benefited from to a large degree). http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-04-70_en.htm?local...

But they were only required to incorporate support for ODF in office[1], and it seems like they have complied[2]. is there any relationship between ODF and DOC?

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/05/22/us-eu-microsoft-id...

[2] http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsof...

The EU pressured Microsoft into documenting various parts relevant for interoperability. One of them is the whole stack revolving around AD, which resulted in Samba 4. I don't know if this includes Office formats.

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