ISO Takes Control Of OOXML

mikkl666 writes "Alex Brown, head of the ISO work group responsible for OOXML, has posted a summary of their latest meeting, and he also comments on the resolutions discussed there. The basic message is that ISO now has 'full responsibility for the standard,' and that several workgroups will be established to work on OOXML. An interesting point here is that 'setting up a maintance[sic] procedure for ODF, and then working on cross-standard initiatives' is one of the explicit goals. On a side note, they also reacted to the very emotional discussion on OOXML by posting an open letter: 'We the undersigned participants ... wish to make it clear that we deplore the personal attacks that have been made ... in recent months. We believe standards debate should always be carried out with respect for all parties, even when they strongly disagree.' As Brown correctly points out, 'This content speaks for itself.' We discussed the approval of OOXML earlier this month."

What do they expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

After all the backroom dealing that was involved in getting OOXML standardized, a lot of people are going to be bitter.

Personal Attacks?

[mazarin5]

So is evidence of bribery, corruption, and other underhanded tactics considered personal attacks? It looks like they've decided to go ahead and accept it as a de facto standard; I thought they hadn't finished voting yet.

This open letter assures me though - the $y$tem works.

Re:Here's a message for ISO and the letter...

[Planesdragon]

How do they reason that there needs to be 2

Neither the F/OSS folks nor the Microsoft folks will abandon their established format. There will be two formats, no matter what the ISO does.

So, the best thing the ISO can do is formalize each "standard", and get each party used to listening to it and using it as the reference.

The future

[Random BedHead Ed]

The real test is the future. If Microsoft works through ISO to improve the standard, and ODF and OOXML are gradually harmonized, then all our complaining is moot. If other companies and projects implement OOXML and have no trouble doing it, and Microsoft doesn't sue them for infringement of some obscure patent, that's fine. We get what we want.

Consider this silver lining: without ODF, under what other circumstances would Microsoft have turned their new document file format over to a standards body? This whole scenario would have been an open source advocate's wet dream in the 1990s. Sure, what happened with the ISO vote was deplorable and calls the standards body's process and impartiality into question, but things are a lot better than they would have been without ODF.

The process spoke for itself

[stox]

ISO, the best standards money can buy.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Doc Ruby]

"Personal attacks" has increasingly been the whine of people trying to cover up actions and speech that they personally did wrong, when the attacks are on those acts and speech, not the "person" themself. It's a perversion of invoking the "ad hominem" [wikipedia.org] fallacy accusation when all they're really entitled to claim is "don't look at me" (because they don't want to be accountable for their actions).

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Rogerborg]

I doubt that the working group itself has been bribed. After all, they just held ISO down: it was Microsoft's paid catspaws who did the actual gang rape.

Re:The future

[Samari711]

Of course, that assumes that Microsoft actually implements any of the changes that ISO makes to the standard. I wouldn't put it past them to not follow their own standard if it stops suiting their need.

Re:The future

[Danse]

If Microsoft works through ISO to improve the standard, and ODF and OOXML are gradually harmonized, then all our complaining is moot

Given Microsoft's past actions regarding ODF, what do you think the chances are that they will allow them to be harmonized?

Consider this silver lining: without ODF, under what other circumstances would Microsoft have turned their new document file format over to a standards body?

Turned it over? They rammed it through the process using every dirty tactic they could come up with. Somehow I'm thinking that Microsoft hasn't really lost control of anything. They seem to have plenty of control over the ISO.

What exactly has changed here?

[Lknight]

There were a number of defects in the OOXML 'standard' and there is yet another working group charged with rationalizing the issues who (because of the vagueness of the 'standard') need to get the ECMA people in to 'advise' them if they could change something or not. That does not sound like they're in control.

One has to wonder who they think they're fooling. Microsoft has no obligation to implement any changes the ISO group may advise, but through the ECMA, the ISO would have no real choice.

To add further insult to injury, they're setting up yet another group to work on 'cross standard initiatives' - i.e. let's try to make ODF as useless as OOXML as a standard.

The ISO didn't have control of OOXML from the beginning. If they believe anything they do will give them control, they are sadly mistaken.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Antique Geekmeister]

This seems sadly true. It's easy for a group that believes in an ethical standard to be misled by people who pretend to it publicly: it's like a spouse with an abusive partner. They hope for the best, and want the partner to improve and hope that they will, but their support of the partner actually prolongs the abusive relationship.

ISO needs to go to a family shelter, change their address, get a restraining order, and make sure that Microsoft's visitation rights with the children are supervised for safety.

Personal attacks...

[krazytekn0]

are only uncalled for when there is no clear evidence of personal misconduct.

Re:Here's a message for ISO and the letter...

[Anonymous Coward]

Private business (ie Microsoft) has always been free to deviate from ISO standards in products they create. This is technique is generally referred to as "proprietary." The fault here is that Microsoft is has decided they don't want their format to be considered "proprietary" because of the competition the open source standard presents one of their flagship products. Thus, they have subverted the system with $ and corruption to force it to adopt their proprietary format as a "standard." This, in itself, perverts the organization of ISO, rendering it little more than a corporate puppet.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Locutus]

ISO is a worthless org now that it has become obvious they not only allow corruption and deception but they also have refused to do anything about it. They knew months ago that Microsoft was paying business partners to join ISO and instructing them on what to say at the MSOOXML voting meetins. They/ISO have known that these fraudulent new members were not acting as concerned ISO members and voting on other ISO projects as is required and they/ISO continued to let another vote go through on MSOOXML months later.

ISO is worthless and should be disregarded until they fix what is wrong and repair the damage done in the exploitation of their poorly designed voting process by Microsoft.

As far as MSOOXML and ODF goes, it is over and Microsoft destroyed ODF just as they have done to so many public use standards in the past. Destroyed may be too harsh but they have basically diminished its value by about 90% because of the perceived openness of MSOOXML will trump choices to use ODF. MSOOXML will be viewed as some kind of vague standard and Microsoft will continue using proprietary versions in their MS Office products with mostly poor implementations of the "official" MSOOXML standard. IMO

LoB

Re:Here's a message for ISO and the letter...

[peragrin]

it does speak volumes. with the EU investigating several countries for massive amounts of corruption, Norway voted against adopting it, yet the technical committee of MSFT friends passed it anyways. a 19 to 6 vote against does speak volumes.

There are currently enough voting irregularities that which if half of them switch to abstain OOXML is no longer a standard. OOXML is a piece of shit. no one and that's including MSFT can ever implement it as it is so complicated and relies on knowing undocumented features of word 95, 97, and 2000.

MSFT just killed the ISO as they can no longer be taken seriously. With enough bribes you can buy what ever standard you want.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[hey!]

Well said.

In matters of logic, it is critical to be clear about what questions are being addressed by which evidence.

The first question is the worthiness of OOXML to be an international standard. The second question is the integrity of the process under which ISO approved OOXML.

Nobody is arguing that OOXML is a bad standard because the process that approved it was corrupted. They are arguing that OOXML is a bad standard AND the process that approved it was corrupted. These questions are not unrelated; one could argue that assuming the badness of the OOXML process is evidence of the corruption of the process. However it isn't strictly necessary for one question to beg the other. There is sufficient independent evidence to consider each question separately.

It is really proponents that are confusing the two issues, and have an interest in doing so.

If the standard is bad, then the process that approved it must be questionable. Therefore, if the process that approved the proposal is above reproach, then the standard cannot be bad. We can't say, however, that because the process was bad, the proposal was bad, although it is not inconsistent to believe this.

Future relevance of ISO given their OOXML debacle

[r7]

The first question is the worthiness of OOXML to be an international standard

That would be my second question. The first would be regarding ISO itself. Clearly this brings down ISO's stature as a standards setting organization by several notches. I mean how seriously can you take a standard that was adopted not on its technical merit, not because it was better than competing proposals, but because the voting members could be bought?

Re:What exactly has changed here?

[Anonymous Coward]

What changed is an admission by ISO that OOXML needs some work, i.e. that they made it a standard before it is ready.

It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all.

[FireAtWill]

XAML will replace HTML (as well as Flash, PDF, Postscript, etc.)

Under the guise of security, Microsoft has quietly been making Windows applications difficult to deploy within corporations, and have been luring corporate developers towards ASP DotNet. With the release of The latest DotNet development tools and Expression Blend, the strategy is nearing fulfillment.

It has been a master stroke, I must admit. I've long thought that HTML was a poor foundation for what we're trying to do on the web these days. I spent all of yesterday putting the pieces together and am well impressed. And afraid.

Microsoft's strategy appears to be to drive internal corporate developent, then B2B, along with governments (Library of Congress), etc. and by eventually it will surely gain ubiquity. It will raise the bar for internet applications. Anybody switching between Expression Blend and, say, Dreamweaver will quickly see the folly of stretching pixels to make boxes. Vector graphics makes much more sense for the web. Along with a rich set of controls.

Why would you need OOXML, when you've got XPS (a subset of XAML)? It can replace ))XML, PDF and Postscript.

Of course, this is all an open standard right? And Microsoft has released the specs and is working with Mono on Moonlight, right? Well, yes, just when they're launching all of their tools that utilize it.

I imagine that's what will happen with each future version of the standard.

Re:The future

[shutdown -p now]

It is not worth for Microsoft to improve standard, if they won't make their Office releases _fully_ OOXML standard compliant.

They have already made an official commitment to do just that, both for their next Office release, and for the final version of the OOXML SDK.

In two years ODF will have additional stuff to support flowchart apps, and other stuff.

As you sure well know, the issue with ODF is the lack of support for it in the most widespread Office suite out there. This isn't going to get any better, either. Meanwhile, the number of applications with OOXML support grows steadily [wikipedia.org]. Apple's commitment to OOXML (apparently they even support reading it on the iPhone) and not to ODF is the final nail in the coffin - it pretty much only leaves Linux as the only "ODF by default" platform out there; and even there Novell is muddying the waters now with its plugin, and OpenOffice 3.0 is going to support OOXML out of the box...

Look, we may like it or not, but it has pretty much been decided now. OOXML is going to be the standard for exchanging office documents. Ugly as it may be (I admit I haven't read the specs, but I've read the introductory booklets by MS covering the basics - and it looks rather messy even there), it's still better than no standard at all.

Re:Damage control done too late

[Pecisk]

They wanted to get OOXML ISO standardized purerly because of marketing and PR stuff, so they can continue to brainwash governments and orgs into using Microsoft Office. As simple as that.

If you really think they care about full compliance, well, they never cared, they never will care.

MS OOXML and ISO OXML are now different

[caseih]

Now that OOXML has been made an ISO standard (called now OXML I think), we can differentiate between MS's bastardized implementation of this format and the ISO standard. If anyone thinks that now third parties can freely implement OXML and be able to read and write with 100% accuracy formats created in MS Office, they are sadly mistaken. Sure OXML file should be able to be read and written by any applications that implement the ISO format just fine (provided they can implement every detail of the hundreds of pages of specifications), but MS Office will always be able to produce files that don't quite look right everywhere else because of the way MS interprets/wrote the specification, or deliberately left out some important little detail. This will create a second-class landscape of OXML users, which will always be minor plays and insignificant next to the continuing Office hegemony. This is a fantastic move on MS's part. They've managed to totally play the part and even go through the motions without giving up a single thing! The ultimate deception. In the meantime a bunch of us rag-tag Linux hippies will continue to promote a standard that's truly open in the ways that count (ODF), and hopefully have some success in certain circles. The rest of the clueless masses seem preoccupied with other things to care, sadly. Anyway, it will be interesting to see exactly how this situation plays out. The EU, at least, has the guts to stand up to MS (sort of anyway), so hopefully they will slap MS hard if things do go the way I predict they will.

Re:What do they expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

That Microsoft needed to stack the deck is all-telling, OOXML is unimplementable, has no place as an approved standard and Microsoft and the NB's full-well know it.

You're attempting to conflate the issue, there is ample evidence of irregularities in the OOXML fast track process without considering the backroom deal. The question why so many NB's did an about face requires further exploration and action, if not a backroom deal then something was responsible and it sure as hell wasn't improvements to the "standard"!

Re:What do they expect?

[Lknight]

It's amusing to see that because of the actions of a single software company, money that could have been spent on something like finding cleaner sources of energy or battling rising food prices, will now be spent on trying to support OOXML.

ODF is a standard, implementable by any third party and independent of the implementor's software. OOXML's inclusion as a 'standard' now also has the effect of influencing ODF's openness via 'cross-standard initiatives'.

The ISO process was abused, clearly. OOXML does not meet the minimum definition of an open standard and that is enough to show the process was abused.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[rabtech]

Except OOXML already is the standard, or at least the spiritual successor to it. Microsoft Word is how 90% of the world creates their documents.

Here we have the company responsible for that 90% (if not more!) wanting to open up their file format and make it an ISO standard, giving the wider global community some sort of say in the process, for the first time ever. There is absolutely no reason to oppose OOXML's adoption as a standard. It already *IS* the standard and any attempts to block it are just idiots sticking their head in the sand.

Let me repeat that: the vast majority of human beings on this planet that need to create a document in a word processor do it with some version of Microsoft Word. Period. This is *FACT*. Any move toward putting that file format into an open standard is a good move.

Complaining that the first version has technical flaws is just as useless. The ISO can address that with revisions. Some of those "flaws" are directly related to preserving the ability of a word processor to open older documents and render them properly (think un-translatable languages. will archaeologists be able to open a 100-yr old Word document in the future? 500 year old? I hope so, because that will be a regular part of the job...). If you've ever read Joel's article about the file formats, you'd understand that there are some behaviors that simply can't be described other than to say "here is the piece of code that produces that output". Microsoft didn't care back then - I doubt you would have given a rat's ass in the 80s either under the same circumstances and with the same disk and memory limits. We know a lot more about software development now.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who opposes the adoption of OOXML can go piss up a rope. As a developer I'm more than happy to have, for the first time ever, some readily available documentation on the file format and a standards body that will at least try to take care of the standard, whether they ever succeed or not.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Maxo-Texas]

It's my understanding that OOXML isn't even a standard that microsoft uses or can implement and microsoft intends to replace it in the very near future. So what was the point of this exercize? To make sure that a true open standard has a harder time getting a foothold until microsoft brings out their "real" open standard.

Now-- there is another issue... OOXML is not a true open standard-- it is patent encumbered for one thing, and can't be implemented for another.

Openoffice does a better job of opening my older word files than Word does at this point (in fact, at least a couple times a year I use it to FIX MSword documents at work that get corrupted section headers and crash Word). The thing that started this entire mess is that some governments noticed this fact with regard to their documents (i.e. Microsoft making not just the word processor you are using obsolete but making your *data* obsolete-- and in under 10 years) and passed laws saying documents were required to be in an open format so they could be read 50 years from now.

Microsoft word format is a standard-- its just not a very stable standard (changing substantially every few years) and it is not an OPEN standard. If ISO wanted to vote OOXML "the standard way one version of Word stores data" it might have been true. But they didn't-- they voted it an "Open" standard which has legal meaning to all those governments passing laws that their documents must be stored in an open format. It was a huge-- corrupt- scam job where Microsoft essentially got a standards body to label a white flour roll an apple so it would be immune to new laws saying kids had to have fruit instead of rolls with their school lunches.

Re:What do they expect?

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Despite the bevy of rational explanations, with official bodies denying, often with proof, that no 'backroom dealing' occurred, it's still not enough for people to realise that the ISO process may actually be working fine

Have you actually looked at the OOXML spec? It doesn't matter if "backroom dealing" occurred. If that trainwreck is approved as an ISO standard, then the ISO process is broken. Full stop.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Repossessed]

If Microsoft had opened up the specs for the docx and other new file formats for ISO approval, and documented them in an implementable fashion, then I (and I think, pretty much anybody who wants an office suite that can compete with Microsoft), would be thrilled. Hell, I *was* thrilled when I first heard about it.

Microsoft did not do this though, Microsoft gave us 6000 pages of an unimplementable spec, which refers to information that is not publicly available. There are serious legal questions as to whether the 'patent promise' holds any water as well, meaning that implementing the spec could cause problems for open source products. On top of it all the flagship OOXML product, Microsoft Office, does not currently appear to be following the OOXML spec properly. This is only going to get worse as ISO working committees refine the spec to fix the implementation problems Microsoft put into it.

The end result of this is that we are left with a ISO spec that has no real world implementation at all. The only thing I can really hope comes out of this is Microsoft gets hit with a fraud charge for claiming office is ISO compliant when is truth it is not.

submit defect reports

[Anonymous Coward]

If OOXML has been approved then people should submit defect reports. The purpose of a spec is to allow a person to read it and implement it. Since OOXML doesn't allow that, it should get buried with requests for clarifications. They'll still be writing defect reports, errata, and addendums by the time ODF gets ratified.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Lknight]

Except OOXML already is the standard, or at least the spiritual successor to it. Microsoft Word is how 90% of the world creates their documents.

And that's right where we want to be 20, 30 or even 50 years from now.

Here we have the company responsible for that 90% (if not more!) wanting to open up their file format and make it an ISO standard, giving the wider global community some sort of say in the process, for the first time ever.

Not quite. They didn't want to open their file format, but they wanted to make it an ISO standard. They also wanted to give the global community a pat on the head to let them think that they had some sort of say in the process.

There is absolutely no reason to oppose OOXML's adoption as a standard. It already *IS* the standard and any attempts to block it are just idiots sticking their head in the sand.

There is absolutely no reason to oppose ODF's adoption as a standard. It already *IS* the standard and any attempts to block it are just idiots sticking their head in the sand.

Let me repeat that: the vast majority of human beings on this planet that need to create a document in a word processor do it with some version of Microsoft Word. Period. This is *FACT*. Any move toward putting that file format into an open standard is a good move.

You seem to be confused. There is a difference between a de facto standard (in this case due to a monopoly) and a derived standard (usually created and documented from technical input from known experts).

Complaining that the first version has technical flaws is just as useless. The ISO can address that with revisions.

I would agree with you if it wasn't already a 'standard'. Think of other standards that you use which, if they were adopted before they addressed technical flaws, would have disastrous impacts. Want to play with the standard for electrical transmission? How about the standards that even let you use the Internet?

Some of those "flaws" are directly related to preserving the ability of a word processor to open older documents and render them properly (think un-translatable languages. will archaeologists be able to open a 100-yr old Word document in the future? 500 year old? I hope so, because that will be a regular part of the job...).

So our brand new standard has to cater for the current de facto format's ability to be backward compatible with a monopolist's software package?

What would have been really great is if we had a whole bunch of other standards and incorporated them into a brand new standard! Too bad we didn't think of it before OOXML.

If you've ever read Joel's article about the file formats, you'd understand that there are some behaviors that simply can't be described other than to say "here is the piece of code that produces that output".

No, still don't understand. And by the way, can you show me where Microsoft said 'here is the piece of code that produces that output' for all the binary blobs they're spewing out? Thanks!

Microsoft didn't care back then - I doubt you would have given a rat's ass in the 80s either under the same circumstances and with the same disk and memory limits. We know a lot more about software development now.

Including not to tie ourselves to 80's file formats. Oops. Seems not.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who opposes the adoption of OOXML can go piss up a rope. As a developer I'm more than happy to have, for the first time ever, some readily available documentation on the file format and a standards body that will at least try to take care of the standard, whether they ever succeed or not.

Well, I'm glad one of us is happy. Actually, no I'm not. If you think the OOXML file format documentation will actually help you, go read it and come back.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Maxo-Texas]

There is a way the governments can recover this...

Instead of using a title "Open", they list the characteristics they require.

* Not encumbered by patents in anyway (all involved patents must be released into the public domain immediately)
* Completely specified (nothing defined in terms of how another program works-- specify the desired behavior)
* I'm sure there are a few others but these two alone would kill OOXML from being relabeled an apple.

spacelikeword95

[hey]

For starters this new committee can specify what spacelikeword95 means. Its kinda funny that its does not say spaceExactlyTheSameAsWord95 but just "like".

Re:It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all

[jo42]

A pile of cr*p shaped like a brick and painted gold does not make it a gold brick - even if it has 'Microsoft' stamped on it.

Microsofts aim: destroy open standards

[amck]

If Microsoft wanted the Office 20xx standard to be an open standard, it could have joined the ODF forum, when everyone wanted it to, and pushed the DOC format into ODF. As OpenOffice, etc. currently read .doc files, etc. anyway, it would have been easier for everyone, rather than make a new standard. Along the way, problems with the Office (OOXML) standard would have been sorted out by all.

Instead, MS didn't join OASIS / ODF. It pushed forward a standard that even it doesn't adhere to, why?

Because MS only makes money if people buy new software. It needs to keep changing the format, as it has done continuously, to make everyone buy the new code. MS loses if any open standard is used; both because they could buy non-MS software, and because there is little need to but new software in the first place, if you have an old version of Office around.

We need to understand this, and avoid infighting with the ISO. ISO is the target that MS is trying to corrupt and destroy. We need to help root out the corruption, but strengthen, not destroy, ISO in the process.

Corrupt or incompetent? Take your pick

[vidarh]

Alex Brown may complain all he wants, but after the way he managed the ballot resolution meeting, either he doesn't know or understand the rules all that well, or he ignored them on purpose. I HOPE he just didn't know what he was doing, and I can see why he wants people to stop focusing on how he did his job, but that doesn't make it any less appalling.

Open Letter to ISO

[Anonymous Coward]

After calming down I looked at the following letter and decided it was inappropriate. Instead of sending it I'm posting it so everyone can get a laugh.

Dear ISO,

We, here at Slashdot, received your letter and felt it necessary to respond in kind.

It is amazing how quickly 'personal attacks' arise. However, what we interpret as the 'personal attacks' you refer to (convenient how that's ambiguous) were not personal attacks at all: they were facts and we have evidence to back it up.

The fact of the matter is, it couldn't of been a personal attack anyway because it wasn't ad hominem, but a statement on the process, validity of the standard, and how that effects ISO's authority as a standard body. A better word would have been slander or libel. Not only would it have been more technically accurate but you could have tried to sue us. Now, while we hope that you lining your pockets with our money would allow you to be honest in the next standard, we find this unlikely and thus point out that it can't be slander or libel because we have evidence. This said, you could probably bribe a judge to sue us for slander or libel... (hence why I'm posting anonymously)

Sincerely,

A concerned Slashdot reader

Re:It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all

[edalytical]

It matters because Microsoft is not going to control the web...all those technologies you mention are pointless in light of:

• HTML5/XHTML2
• CSS 3
• SVG
• H.264
• JavaScript
• PDF

Microsoft's track record for cross platform web support just plain sucks. Internet Explorer for the Mac is abandonware! Microsoft quit supporting WM Player for Mac, they now distribute a third-party application. Do you think well ever see IE for Linux or WM Player for Linux? No we won't. Microsoft may be working with Mono on Moonlight, but what will happen when they abandon the project like they did with IE on Mac?

ODF/OOXML is about creating a desktop office suite interchange format to make sharing documents easier...that's all, that's what it's made for...that's not what XPS is made for. XPS is a pointless replacement for something that's not broken...PDF works just fine.

I realize you were probably being sarcastic... :-)

Re:Personal Attacks?

[TheRaven64]

Or just one requirement:

Two or more, complete, independent implementations from different suppliers are available. That should be a requirement if you want good value irrespective of how open the standard is - if your supplier doesn't have to compete, what incentive do they have not to fleece you?

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Xenographic]

Agreed. People aren't arguing that "Microsoft is a doodyhead" they're arguing that specific ISO rules have been broken or ignored and that there's a pattern to which rules are violated that suggests this was done to help pass OOXML.

The sad thing is, even if some of the votes get invalidated that allowed OOXML to pass by ONE vote, I bet they'll just throw their hands up and say that they're not going to undo it because it would be too much trouble.

Or something like that.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[woot account]

>I know which I think is more likely....

As do I.

3) "Honey! The new season of American Idol is starting!" "Okay, let me just save this Word document and I'll be right there."

Re:The future

[Pecisk]

They have already made an official commitment to do just that, both for their next Office release, and for the final version of the OOXML SDK.

Next Office release? When? According to pause between XP and Vista releases, it is about 3 - 4 years at least. It is VERY long time. Before that, talking about supporting of OOXML (which is not even cleaned up for now) is just laughing stock and no one will base serious business on that.

As you sure well know, the issue with ODF is the lack of support for it in the most widespread Office suite out there. This isn't going to get any better, either. Meanwhile, the number of applications with OOXML support grows steadily.

Most of apps comes from Apple (which, I guess, has agreement with Microsoft), Microsoft (well, duh), and OpenOffice and it's derratives (like NeoOffice). Some small online apps and that's it. OpenOffice.org 3 is due to be released not so soon and current OOXML support in NeoOffice and OpenOffice.org is not serous to talk about (tried to use it, nightmare).

Apple's commitment to OOXML (apparently they even support reading it on the iPhone) and not to ODF is the final nail in the coffin - it pretty much only leaves Linux as the only "ODF by default" platform out there; and even there Novell is muddying the waters now with its plugin, and OpenOffice 3.0 is going to support OOXML out of the box...

Apple support to OOXML in iWorks haven't been surprise. However you have missed something, Apple supports ODF in DEFAULT text editor TextEdit in Leopard http://www.solidoffice.com/archives/657 [solidoffice.com] (when iWorks is trial and actually costs nice bunch of bucks) and as it is also available in iPhone. So it makes even, doesn't it?

ook, we may like it or not, but it has pretty much been decided now. OOXML is going to be the standard for exchanging office documents. Ugly as it may be (I admit I haven't read the specs, but I've read the introductory booklets by MS covering the basics - and it looks rather messy even there), it's still better than no standard at all.

Nope, I don't like it and it won't be. I also turned 20 people against OOXML, switiching their default saves to DOC and/or starting to migrate to OpenOffice.org and even Linux.

So, ODF will be standard and OOXML will be mockery of the standard which will be left to death my Microsoft itself - as history repeats itself. Apple even supports ODF now, and lot of other companies, including big ones like IBM, HP actively addopts ODF for various goverment projects. Don't forget, people actually can view docs trough other means, usually HTML or PDF is used.

Of course, claiming that "OMG we are doomed, Microsoft will win this one" will always win insightful mod, because ignorance is the bliss (and hey Microsoft always wins, according to their PR). Truth is much much more difficult.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[RelaxedTension]

All I can say to rabtech is please tell me your views like this when you come in for an interview with me for a development job, so I can send you on your way quickly.

You're the kind of developer that convinces his bosses that ooxml is the standard they HAVE to use because it is the future and using it will future-proof them. 5 years down the road, after spending tremendous time and money to try to implement it, and long after you've been fired, the enormity of the mistake the cost to fix it will be realized.

Read the spec so you can make an informed comment, and just for kicks read about the abortion of a process that they called ratification of a standard.

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Re:Personal Attacks?

[LordVader717]

By far the most concise and thought provoking comment I've seen today, I wish I had Mod points.

The Question is though, where does it go from here? Will other companies follow lead and attempt to get "ISO approval" by flooding standards organisations, or will this just be a one-off?
It's not exactly as if we can just boycott ISO by ignoring all of the other standards they sell their documentations for. And hurting ISO would probably just make matters worse for interoperability and industrial cooperation.

Re:MS OOXML and ISO OXML are now different

[caseih]

And I'd bet you a twinkie that nearly all (and possibly ALL) of the 4-star apps aren't independently developed from the spec, but are using rebranded versiond of OO.o's code.

At least it's possible and legal to do this, though. OO.org as a reference implementation with source code can at least make it possible to get 100% compatibility. That's the main difference here.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Jesus_666]

I'd go with the following:

1. Available for implementation by everyone: Everyone can acquire the standard (an optional fee might be collected by the standards body) and it's unencumbered by patents or similar constructs
2. Completely specified within the standards framework: All behavior has to be defined either within the spec or within a different spec meeting these requirements already published by the same standards body
3. As concise as possible: Unneccessary complexity is to be avoided - OOXML's numerous date formats are a good counter-example
4. Based on other open standards meeting the requirements of requirement 2: If there's already a standard defining date representation then the new standard should use it or provide a sound reason against using it
5. Already implemented: At least one, preferably two implementations need to be in the wild

OOXML would fail requirements 2 (AutoSpaceLikeWord97, VML etc.), 3 (date representations), 4 (VML vs. SVG) and 5 (the OOXML spec has no implementations in the wild; the Office 2007 format does not match the spec). I'm not sure about requirement 1, but it's possible that OOXML fail that as well.

Re:It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all

[EvilRyry]

Have you noticed how Microsoft still has the majority share of web browsers and that they drag their feet on every standard that isn't theirs?

As long as Microsoft doesn't fully implement those technologies, they don't exist. There's not too many people out there who will make a website that doesn't work with 70% of internet users no matter how much better it may make web development.

Now, Microsoft comes out with XAML, rolls it out with Vista, waits a few years and suddenly 90% of the internet has XAML support. Thats good enough for many people to start using it to replace the portion of "normal" technologies people are stuck with because its all IE supports.

This is the danger of a monopoly. They already showed a very similar story with ODF vs OOXML. ODF doesn't exist in the minds of many because Microsoft doesn't support it. It doesn't matter how many entities are in OASIS and worked very hard to create a document format that was vendor neutral. Microsoft has a monopoly and abused its power yet again to disadvantage its competitors and screw consumers.

With the current direction things are headed, OOXML will be what most people use. OOXML will continue to evolve and non-MS products will always be two steps behind. Microsoft is trying very hard to repeat this "success" with XAML. Fortunately there's still time to change how this one ends...

Re:What do they expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

As always, a post that goes counter to the "M$ is teh evil" groupthink gets modded into oblivion.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Rennt]

I think that the free/open software communities opened the door for MS on this one a little.

We tried to frame the debate by using the words "free" or "open" as labels (just as you say) instead of discussing what the software actually lets you do, and hoped that OUR meaning of these admittedly vague words caught on. This is a common tactic in debate.

Unfortunately, it made it too easy for MS to use these words in their products and dilute the message. I'm surprised it took them so long.