“Microsoft files are still based on the proprietary format deprecated by ISO in 2008, and not on the ISO approved standard, so they hide a large amount of artificial complexity,” the blog post states. “This causes handling issues with LibreOffice, which defaults to a true open standard format (the OpenDocument Format).”
Given the popularity of Office, and the sheer number of documents in circulation, LibreOffice needs to deliver comprehensive compatibility in order to attract users away from Microsoft. The team says users can expect multiple updates in quick succession, with this goal in mind.
Closed source software slows down innovation. We’re doing duplicate work that way. open-source allows us to build upon the work from others and let others return the favor. While open standards allow compatibility between different solutions.