Well this war of words on document standards is almost over (Yay!). With all this scrutiny of OpenXML, I wonder what sort of scrutiny will be placed on ODF in the future. But anyway, lets take a look at the issues of standards (meta-standards?).

Why are standards so difficult? Should standards reflect the ideal or the reality of usage. Should we all be using Kelvin, or is Celsius good enough for temperature?

Joel Spolsky has the answers:

Martian Headsets - Joel on Software

Me? I am a realist. If it works and it is stupid, it is not stupid. I don't believe in zen-code that can attain a state of pure perfection that it transcends operating systems, hardware, race, colour and creed. Software is not the outcome, the solution is the outcome. Imperfect people writing imperfect code solving imperfect problems for other imperfect people is going to be the reality of software for quite some time. And while it might not ever reach perfection, Software gets better and better every day/month/year.