Ideal Document Format

There was a lot of discussion about OpenDocument and Open XML formats in the Czech Republic. You can find some on blogs of Pavel Janík and Jirka Kosek.

I still think that none of them is really necessary, because I have created my own format, which is 100% better. Its documentation is very short to prevent Linux fans from criticism of its size.

Documentation of my Ideal Document Format (IDF) consists of five rules:

1. Document content is in plaintext and in the most suitable encoding of your OS. This has to satisfy everyone.
2. The whole document content is inserted as Base64 inside a <document> </document> element, so it becomes XML. And XML is a buzzworld, XML is cool, so it MUST be XML.
3. Don't forget to pack it as a ZIP file. It becomes small even for slow networks.
4. Concerning special formats: Dates in the document are in the format which is used on the noticeboard by Mrs. Kotas from our 1st floor. If you are not familiar with it, you should come and find out yourself.
5. The file suffix is *.ibm. No, it doesn't mean ANY company name (we would be accused of being financially influenced if it does). It stands for Ideal Buzzword Metaformat.

Well, this is IDF. Let's vote for it as an international standard. It's said even stupid format could be proposed as a standard this year. Why not this one?

This is translation of my original Czech post Ideální nový formát pro kancelářské aplikace.