While software makers have so far attempted to play fair by supporting a standard, unaltered version of XML, there is controversy over the disclosure of the underlying dialects used.
While XML is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard, companies can still generate tags that are proprietary.
In Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), which is used to define elements of Web pages, all developers use a standard vocabulary to describe tags, or page elements. The HTML tags used to describe a Web page based on a server in Prague, for example, are the same as those used on a server in Detroit.
XML, by contrast, allows developers to define tags themselves. In other words, there is no preset vocabulary--both sides in a transaction need to agree on one. For example, automakers could devise a common language for dealing with parts suppliers. That's both XML's strength and its weakness.
Analysts equate this to two people agreeing to use English as a common language. But if one person uses engineering terms or jargon that the other cannot understand, the agreement on a common language becomes meaningless.
Microsoft, notably, has been at the center of this controversy. The company has made XML the centerpiece of its forthcoming Office 11 desktop application suite and of XDocs--now officially called InfoPath--an XML forms-generation tool set to debut by midyear along with Office 11.
With Office 11, Microsoft is allowing files saved in the XML format to be viewable through any standard Web browser. That's a big change from the company's previous stance of using only proprietary file formats.
Microsoft executives said the company has no tricks up its sleeves: It's using standard, unaltered XML. But, so far anyway, Microsoft has yet to disclose the underlying format of its XML files. Critics--software developers and rival vendors alike--say Microsoft is attempting to lock in users so they must license Office in order to share files.
Lending ammunition to this argument, in November members of the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) established a committee to create that standard for office productivity applications. Microsoft is not among the supporters, which include Corel and Sun Microsystems. OASIS is using the XML specifications developed by the open-source OpenOffice project as a starting point.
Microsoft denies charges that it is trying to put a proprietary spin on XML, and has said it intends to disclose more information.
With InfoPath, Microsoft has chosen to not back a W3C specification for creating XML-based forms, called XForms, that has been promoted by IBM, Adobe Systems, Novell, Oracle and others. Instead, Microsoft is basing its software on a different specification, again leading critics to charge that it is running counter to the market.
