Star ISO Rejects OOXML for 'Fast-Track Procedure'
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 4th Sep 2007 21:40 UTC, submitted by archiesteel
Features, Office 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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lemur2
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.


ISO's own words, my bold.

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