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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RE[3]: Still the not very open format.
by lemur2 on Wed 5th Sep 2007 00:52
in reply to "RE[2]: Still the not very open format."
Member since:2007-02-17
The fact that it is not a consensus can be seen through other perspectives too. With SVG and MathML being W3C-recommended, widely-accepted and widely-used standards which almost every application in their respective field can use, OOXML uses DrawingML and VML for files converted from older formats. Not to mention the annoying inconsistencies, like the numbering system which is simply unusable in several countries, and contradicts W3C XSLT recommendations.
Agreed. OOXML is clearly the antithesis of "consensus".
It occurs to me that I was not clear in why I mentioned "consensus". Consensus is actually required for OOXML to get past the next stage:
http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1070
Comments that accompanied the votes will be discussed at a ballot resolution meeting (BRM) to be organized by the relevant subcommittee of ISO/IEC JTC 1 (SC 34, Document description and processing languages) in February 2008 in Geneva, Switzerland.
The objective of the meeting will be to review and seek consensus on possible modifications to the document in light of the comments received along with the votes. If the proposed modifications are such that national bodies then wish to withdraw their negative votes, and the above acceptance criteria are then met, the standard may proceed to publication.
The objective of the meeting will be to review and seek consensus on possible modifications to the document in light of the comments received along with the votes. If the proposed modifications are such that national bodies then wish to withdraw their negative votes, and the above acceptance criteria are then met, the standard may proceed to publication.
ISO's own words, my bold.
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Member since:
2007-02-11
> Do we really need to say anything else to emphasise the > point that OOXML is not a consensus in any way, shape
> or form?
Quite really, no, and it's obvious from its sheer god damn size. The ODF documentation has been criticized for being difficult to implement -- but there are already two FOSS applications using it (OpenOffice and KWord). Out of OOXML's 6000 pages, about a fifth are spent on detailing implementation, but I'm yet to see an application that actually implements it.
Judging from the way that documentation looks, I'd offer free beer every day to any developer who would willingly submit himself to actually working by those specifications.
The fact that it is not a consensus can be seen through other perspectives too. With SVG and MathML being W3C-recommended, widely-accepted and widely-used standards which almost every application in their respective field can use, OOXML uses DrawingML and VML for files converted from older formats. Not to mention the annoying inconsistencies, like the numbering system which is simply unusable in several countries, and contradicts W3C XSLT recommendations.
Claiming anything positive related to being consensus in such a context is so Microsoftish. As far as I see it, it's a wonderful vendor locking technique. Continue supporting older, binary, closed formats, make sure they stay binary, closed and unsafe for converting to other formats (ODF included) while babbling something about interoperability. You can't teach an old dog new tricks (or ethics).