Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 4th Sep 2007 21:40 UTC, submitted by archiesteel
Microsoft has failed in its attempt to have its Office Open XML document format fast-tracked straight to the status of an international standard by the International Organization for Standardization. The proposal must now be revised to take into account the negative comments made during the voting process. Microsoft expects that a second vote early next year will result in approval, it said Tuesday. That is by no means certain, however, given the objections raised by some national standards bodies.
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Member since:
2005-10-02
A format doesn't have to have all kind of functionality. A standard will always have weaknesses. And that's okay. That's why standards are updated from time to time.
What an open standard cannot have is dependencies on proprietary technologies. Especially unspecified proprietary technologies.
The fact that a standard have technical issues is not a reason to disapprove the standard - as long as the format is fully specified. A fully specified format doesn't have to have all kind of functionality. What functionality it DOES have MUST however be documented. ODF is fully documented, but have some weaknesses. OOXML is not fully documented, since parts of it is unspecified. Therefore it has been rejected.