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OOXML Rumored to be Approved, Announcement Wednesday
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Apr 01, 2008 08:18 AM
from the long-hard-slog dept.
from the long-hard-slog dept.
dominux writes "Rumors are already circulating that Microsoft's OOXML has been voted in by the standards board. The Open Sourcerer claims to have results of the ballot on dis29500. According to the site Microsoft managed to flip enough countries to make it stick. 75% of the P members who didn't abstain voted for Microsoft (That is 58% of all the P members). 14% of all the P and O members voted to disapprove it, this includes all the new O members that joined just in time to cast their vote. Norway has asked that their vote be suspended due to voting irregularities, but it would take more than that to make a difference to the result. ZDNet is still playing it cautious, noting that an announcement either way is set to be made on Wednesday."
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April Fools? (Score:3, Funny)
announcement tomorrow (Score:5, Funny)
Seems to be true though... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, it seems to be true.
I've been tracking this for the last few months, and it's clear that this was essentially a victory of corruption over merits.
What's being said now is that this will be a pyrrhic victory [wikipedia.org] for Microsoft. Many will discredit this standard (even with the ISO stamp on it) because of the history of corruption that lead to its approval. Those who already disliked Microsoft will only hate it even more and become more vocal.
I hope this whole process served to show the world (once again) what "business as usual" means for Microsoft.
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Re:Seems to be true though... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is the goal.
Microsoft does not like being held to standards. The devaluation of ISO is as big a win for them as the acceptance of MSOOXML.
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Basically... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Basically... (Score:5, Interesting)
With dozens of countries reporting massive voting problems they had better not pass it, or at least switch those countries from yes to abstain until future reference. Norway had the majority vote againist the standard but still voted yes, Poland, germany, France all had voting irregularities. I hope the EU launches an Anti-trust investigation into MSFT's business practices on it. that would be so much fun to watch.
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Re:Basically... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Basically... (Score:4, Insightful)
The real issue is that the "leaders" of the Norwegian standards organization have interests in promoting Microsoft technology, and have apparently swallowed the largely incorrect arguments from that camp. (For instance, OOXML does not automagically transform older Office documents, they are just "swept under the rug" inside the new file format, still as unparseable by non-Microsoft tools as before.)
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Unfortunately (Score:5, Insightful)
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ISO dead, blog at 11 (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks MS.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You think the opinions of mainstream people matter where ISO is concerned? It's the opinion of the propellerheads that work with the technology that matters. If it's not the propellerheads opin
Re:ISO dead, blog at 11 (Score:5, Informative)
In Germany, for example, DIN used to be very highly respected. In fact, this whole mess is the first time ever that I heard people say that DIN should fuck itself, be dissolved, is corrupt, etc.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That argument is void. It's like "let's kill this guy, cause there are more of them killed anyway".
The problem with it being approved is... well, look at what happened in India - they took the ISO procedure to the point. After they found first bug in the specification, their NB voted no. The 1.1.1900 bug is widely known, as well as 12345.12345 in spreadsheets. That means the NB's either didn't have enough time to review the specs (which would lead to NO to fast-trackin
Re:ISO dead, blog at 11 (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:ISO dead, blog at 11 (Score:4, Insightful)
No one, not even MS can implement it because they haven't published a version that makes the required changes, it is ambiguous, it references other formats that are not published, and it contradicts itself. Basically, it is just like the existing MS Office formats. You can't follow a standard. You just have to try to reverse engineer what MS did for the common cases in the most popular version of MSOffice and ignore the uncommon cases.
In the Office suite industry two of the four biggest competitors are OSS projects. Creating standards that for legal reasons are not implementable by such a huge portion of the market, undermines the standards process. This is MS's normal tactic, copy a feature of other software, but at the same time undermine the benefits that feature brings to users. It is creating a hollow bullet point for salespeople while not benefiting users in a way that might allow them to choose anything other than MS.
I have. I've even been involved in writing some of them. I dare you to go look at ODF and then look at OOXML. The difference is night and day, even for a layperson.
No it wouldn't. Some committee rubber stamping something does not make it a standard. ISO's purpose is not to make an existing format a standard, but to help create and certify that formats are standards. By them certifying OOXML as a standard does not make it one; it just fools people who have relied upon ISO's reputation into thinking it is one. OOXML will not be any more usable or implementable by others or clearer next week after ISO announces they have approved it than it is today. It is just false advertising bought by Microsoft. Strangely some people here object to false advertising, especially when MS has destroyed the credibility and integrity of a standards body to get said advertising. It is also, probably, criminal.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It contains passages like "Treat the binary contents of this section the way that Word 97 would have treated them" without specifying with any precision how Word 97 would have treated them.
These passages make the spec impossible to implement as it is written. Not hard, flat out impossible.
You're an ignorant lout. Shut the fuck up already.
With thanks (Score:5, Interesting)
By demonstrating once and for all how embarassingly corruptible the ISO is, it calls into doubt the validity of many past and future ISO standards, and will force us into a proper re-evaluation of self-appointed standards bodies and the standards they whore around.
For too long we've taken the rather naive view that being an 'open standard' is enough. At last we see the foolishness of that view.
And in this case, I think it's somewhat unfair to judge Microsoft too harshly for wanting to game the system any way they could- what company wouldn't have done in their position?
But it is to ISO's massive, disgusting and probably reputation-destroying shame they they simply laid back and allowed themselves to be corrupted, defiled and sodomised by a large multinational. And they didn't even get a kiss afterwards.
I hope everyone who played their part in this sordid venture has plenty of time to repent at leisure when they realise that the ISO can never, WILL never, be trusted again.
Re:With thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
But it is to ISO's massive, disgusting and probably reputation-destroying shame they they simply laid back and allowed themselves to be corrupted, defiled and sodomised by a large multinational. And they didn't even get a kiss afterwards.
Now seriously, ISO is fucked (even if this is an April Fools news), but MS is still the party that did it. The blame should be on them.
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Re:With thanks (Score:5, Funny)
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Bad analogy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Can you please point me to an institution that is not corruptible?
For too long we've taken the rather naive view that being an 'open standard' is enough. At last we see the foolishness of that view.
What does that mean? Being an open standard has n
Re:With thanks (Score:4, Insightful)
Any countries found to have broken the rules should have their vote changed to abstain and possibly have their status within the organization demoted.
If there's sufficient evidence of corruption to call the result in to question (ie if all the countries forced to abstain were changed to yes or no it would change the result) then the process should be restarted, or dropped from the fast track.
The entire process should be opened up, each voting country should be required to document in detail why they voted yes or no (explanation shouldn't be necessary for abstentions), and in the case of a second vote should be required to address all of the comments submitted at the first vote, and explain why/how they have been addressed or aren't relevant to that country.
Those who vote on the issue should also be able to demonstrate a competent understanding of the proposal in question, and have done a sufficient level of research into the proposed standard and the issues surrounding it. It is entirely unreasonable for people with little or no understanding in particular fields to have any say in their standardization, for instance many people on slashdot will be qualified to discuss a standard for a computer document format, but considerably fewer will be qualified to help define a standard for fixings used to connect water pipes together etc.
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Sounds to me like... (Score:5, Funny)
(tho' rather funny)
Seems here to stay;
Redmond has money!
Burma Shave
Looks like a forgery (Score:5, Insightful)
ISO = I Sold Out (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah right! (Score:4, Insightful)
So can we hope to see Microsoft dismantling it's various monopolistic positions in the near future (voluntarily). I look forward to it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft wins (Score:3, Insightful)
If OOpsyXML is approved, then the ISO credibility will actually mean nothing, because the standards is, by all accounts I have seen, utter garbage.
Microsoft has proven, once and for all, that democracy is a failure, even if it is the best failure to date.
--
Toro
Waiting until the 2nd (Score:5, Insightful)
If this is an April fools joke it isn't funny.
If this is real and the (gasp) "standard" was approved, we should all start calling it the "Fools Standard" in everything we write, thus putting the proper "spin" on it.
Why the hell did they abstain? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not just those who voted for the standard that should be admonished, but thsoe coutnries who knew it was a wrong and corrupt process and yet still abstained!
To extend the oft-used rape analogy in the discussions on this topic, these are the bystanders who stood and watched while the rape occured.
I think we need a new icon for ISO stories...a spineless jelly fish might be appropriate...
Re:Why the hell did they abstain? (Score:4, Insightful)
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OpenDoc Announces Official Results (Score:4, Informative)
as you all may be aware we are involved with the ISO/JTC1 SC34 work.
Please find the official results for the ISO vote for OOXML (DIS 29500).
Probably the impact on the adoption of ODF of the OOXML process will be
minimal, but surely there will be some interest from the public around this.
OOXML which was submitted by Microsoft to ECMA, and by ECMA to ISO, has
literally crawled through the needles eye. After a year of discussion
and repairs it still receives the very minimum of support. The BRM
convinced some yet unconvinced others, and counter votes from large
countries like China, India, Brazil, Canada, South Africa and Iran speak
volumes. This must be one of the worst results ever for a standard to
pass within ISO/JTC1 in years.
Appartently the chair from the Norwegian committe has filed a protest
against the national outcome. Although one vote would not make much
difference, others may follow.
Kind regards,
Michiel Leenaars
NLnet foundation
OpenDoc Society board
http://lists.opendocsociety.org/pipermail/members.announce/2008-April/000002.html [opendocsociety.org]
Now I get it! (Score:5, Funny)
not Gnome's fault, blame KDE (Score:3, Funny)
Penalty for cheating == break even? (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't really seem fair to me. It seems like, if you cheat, then you either win, or at least break even. It's like saying that the penalty for shop-lifting is that you have to put the stuff you stold back.
In fact, it seems like, in the case of Norway, msft did better than break even. Instead of a "yes" msft rigged a "nothing" which is better for msft than a "no."
Considering the massive number of irregularities in the OOXML approval process, I think OOXML approval should be put on hold, until an investigation can be completed.
Not all bad (Score:3, Funny)
YEs it is (Score:5, Insightful)
All they have to do is implement more than everyone else, then change the "standard" so that others are not compatible.
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Re:Not all bad (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Microsoft's implementation of other standards is often [intentionally] broken. One needs to look no further than HTML for evidence of that.
2. As you pointed out, the Office 2007 documents do not comply with the OOXML spec, so currently, no one supports a rigidly defined implementation of OOXML. But it's rather telling that many "yes" voters are discussing "changes" "growth" or "evolution" of the standard. ISO does not support this notion. Standards are rigidly defined and adhered to. If there is a change that needs to be adopted, a new standard is created. But as evidenced by all prior Microsoft behaviors and methods, they can't leave a file format alone for 5 minutes, let alone 'forever.' For Microsoft and ISO to be compatible, they'd have to have a new standard adopted with every new service release of their office and Windows products. (Either that, or ISO will have to change everything it stands for... which has arguably happened already)
3. One of Microsoft's most identified behaviors has been to keep changing standards, methods, procedures and behaviors of its products and protocols. Some would suggest that is to prevent people from being "too compatible" and for the longest time, the Samba project, for example, was having a difficult time keeping up with the changes. (They did, and it would seem Microsoft ran out of ways to break SMB/CIFS to thwart Samba as that doesn't appear to have been an issue lately) Microsoft is more inclined to move the mountain closer to them than they would be to move closer to the mountain.
"Hope" and Microsoft have been words that rarely connect. I have hoped Microsoft would behave better than it does for quite a long time. they simply won't. The tragedy is that they have the resources to make really good stuff. They don't want to do it that way. Instead, they'd rather use tricks and tactics to get their way about things. It's really unfortunate that they'd take the less honorable approach, but clearly by keeping the competition suppressed, they have been far more successful which is good for share holders... just not so good for the rest of "technology" and the world that uses it.
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Looking at it objectively... (Score:4, Interesting)
I know next to nothing about how iso standards go, and I suspect there are many people out there making comment (the vast majority) that know about as much as I do.
In all likely hood the guys at ISO central are sitting there laughing at each other going "hahahha, the IT crowd really got their knickers in a knot over this? they think this one was irregular, they should have seen ISO9004!". But they most likely have their hands fairly well tied too, the votes are in and they probably cant do much about the (supposedly) obvious corruption of the process.. or can they? What power do they have? I certainly don't know myself...
But look at it from another angle, what does it really mean? The whole purpose of standardizing the format (as i understand it) was so that documents could be accessed at any point in the future (and by other applications) without loosing their content and formatting. How does OOXML achieve this in reality? how do you test that theory? With ODF at least you can say, "ok, i just saved a document in ODF from MS word using sun's plugin and opened it up in Sun Star office - wow it prints and looks the same", but thats not case closed because you need to try that again in 10 years and confirm the theory. Try that again with OOXML - "ok, i just saved an OOXML from ms word, now lets open it up in
In a way, MS could very well shoot themselves in the foot if they have 10 other office product vendors with the same ooxml implementation that looks wrong only in MS office...
Another thing to consider - Would OOXML being a standard kill ODF? No, ODF still exists and in reality alot of people round the world are already using it - ironically they're probably mostly using it from MS Office anyway because of Sun's ODF plugin. Which brings me to the next point, if OOXML wasn't a standard does it release the strangehold of MS office? no, Sun did all the dirty work providing ODF import/export for MS office already.
The only real problem that exists is when governments of the world (who fell into the trap of ooxml) realize that the MS Office written OOXML documents will only ever open again in MS office properly (hi, welcome to vendor lock-in, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride - oh and by the way, office 2010's OOXML implementation will be slighly different, so hang onto the old hardware cause your going to need it so you can keep office 2007 around). At the end of the day it just gives various bodies the world over a comfy feeling they can stick with MS office anyway and save in its native format (and perhaps point fingers at someone else when it goes wrong). When it comes to "oh, KOffice cant open OOXML the same way MS can", KOffice will get blamed but thats why MS have tonnes of money for pulling off stunts like this no?
Obviously im ignoring things like third party applications that dont open documents for word processing, but things like Google Search appliance wont record documents with a proper formatting and thus MS search will look "right" - and again, this will benefit MS (and there will be many applications in many field that will probably suffer something because of it).
Maybe the EU should have taken MS's 3.1bil and bought their own votes on the ISO committee's just for a bit of poetic justice (or
Tonight we're gonna party... (Score:5, Funny)
/.ers needed to help HP develop ethics leadership (Score:3, Informative)
On Groklaw we learned today [groklaw.net] that Hewlett Packard participated in overt political interference along side Microsoft
"Here's the scoop from Les Echos.fr on France's sudden change from its No vote to Abstain. Microsoft France's President Eric Boustouller sent AFNOR a letter [PDF] in French, of course. He tells a tale about OOXML and ODF progressing side by side and how if OOXML is approved, a group will be working hard to make the two more interoperable. Attached was a HP statement of support for OOXML [hp.com]. HP sings the same song. And AFNOR?"
Take a look at HP's Ethics and Compliance Page [hp.com] and you will see how concerned HP is of public perceptions after recent events connected with HP's investigation into leaks of confidential information from the Board of Directors tarnished HP's reputation in this area.
HP tells us they have a long-standing commitment to conducting business with uncompromising integrity, which is core to everything they stand for as a company. I am sure that if they really understood that by supporting MSOOXML they are headed for another scandal, they would distance themselves from OOXML. Even more, since their ambition is to provide a leadership role in corporate ethics, they would help to turn the tide against OOXML.
In light of this, you may wish to help them understand the errors presented by the "HP Position Statement on Standardization of Office Document Formats" and you may comment directly to their Board of Ethics on the Comments page [hp.com]. That is where I just posted the following letter...
Dear members of the Board of Ethics and Compliance at HP
It is clear that your company is deeply concerned about conducting business with uncompromising integrity. In light of your commitment to being a leader in global citizenship and corporate ethics, I wish to direct your attention to a serious error in judgment by somebody there at HP who formulated the "HP Position Statement on Standardization of Office Document Formats".
I refer to the following statements...
"HP believes that the international standardization process is working."
It is now blatantly obvious that quite the contrary is true, specifically, that the standardization process was seriously flawed. Please see the current discussion on Groklaw about this at http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080331212042460#c684749 [groklaw.net] and you will quickly realize that your statement is a serious error.
"additional evolution of it will take place under control of the global community"
...another error - in no way whatsoever could we conclude that the decision for MSOOXML to become an ISO standard was made by the "global community". I believe that decision was made by Microsoft and its partners who overwhelmed the ISO voting process, and AFAIK, additional evolution will be done by ECMA, who is controlled by Microsoft.
"Hewlett-Packard Company ...believe[s] that the two standards will co-exist interoperably, and that customers should have the opportunity to select the standards which best fit their needs."
The phrase boggles the mind when you try to parse it. Let us imagine that the two standards, MSOOXML and ODF are interoperable - then why would we need both? Why would the end user choose one over the other if they both do the same job? Interoperability implies that we could easily convert from one to the other. If this were possible, than that in itself is a demonstration that MSOOXML is a duplication of an existing standard - ODF - and therefore should not be/have been approved.
...and if they do
pause for thought (Score:3, Insightful)
there will be appeals.
and like a jumper that has been badly washed, the ISO system will never be the same. trust takes a long time to build, but can be destroyed in an instant.
groklaw did a superb (as normal) run down on the appeals process, and this will be so inevitably roundly condemned that an appeal will almost certainly happen.
but really I'm quite OK about this being voted in, I always predicted a Pyhrric victory for MS. Here's my logic - if they did not manage to force this through then they lost. But they did manage to force it through and in the process created such scrutiny, condemnation, criticisms of OOXML and contempt from the industry that they still lost. OOXML is widely regarded as a flawed, massive, unimplementable standard, an evolved jumble of legacy components with little clarity. It will be fascinating to see if any other implementation will ever be implemented. Already moves are underway to specify cross platform implementations as required for many, many governments - and I think we can all see where that leaves MS.
Even if another portable implementation is ever implemented, then once again MS loses as their cash cow is no longer required on the corporate desktop.
I mourn for a once respected standards body, of course. But I think ISO has allowed this to happen to itself - it has lost its impartiality and technical clarity and I do not know where the future lies for it. In in ideal world only technical merit should of won out, and only one standard should ever of been introduced to meet a this requirement. If OOXML was demonstrably better then ODF should of been deprecated.
Just my 2 cents.
Re:Let's see (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, wait... democracy doesn't override cold hard reality, does it. My bad.
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Re: (Score:2)
It's almost like watching the Democratic primary season in a tiny microcosm."
I"m treating both issues as cruel April Fool's Jokes myself.....
Re:Let's see (Score:5, Interesting)
At least one memeber of the P group did not vote at all, so the 58% is not completely accurate.
>New O members who voted all joined specifically to vote against it.
The only O members that voted "Not Approved" were Brazil and Cuba. Were they both new? In any case, they were hardly that many. There were on the other hand 37 O members that voted "Approve". Are you saying none of them joined recently?
Parent
Re:"Slashdot is a useless pile of crap" day. (Score:5, Funny)
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which numbers don't add up? (Score:3, Informative)