Microsoft Votes to Add ODF to ANSI Standards List

RzUpAnmsCwrds writes "In a puzzling move, Microsoft today voted to support the addition of the OpenDocument file formats to the American National Standards List. OpenDocument is used by many free-software office suites, including OpenOffice.org. Microsoft is still pushing its own Office Open XML format, which it hopes will also become an ANSI standard. Is Microsoft serious about supporting ODF, or is this a merely a PR stunt to make Office Open XML look more like a legitimate standard?"

Comments

My Name Is Bill

[gbulmash]

In an epiphany, Bill Gates realized that the lackluster sales of Vista were due to all the bad things he's done in his life. So now he's got a list of them on a sheet of yellow paper and he's going around making up for them. Having Microsoft back ODF is helping him make up for #38 on his list: "Screwed over consumers with proprietary formats."

Come on, couldn't you see Ballmer playing Randy? :-)

--Greg

Probably wouldn't have happended if it was close

[SmackedFly]

Not that strange, when you think about Microsofts "it's good to have more standards" argument. Knowing that the standard would be added anyway, they probably voted for it, to make that argument more credible, when OOXML is up for the ISO vote, besides ANSI is more or less irrelevant when ODF is already ISO certified. I would be very surprised if Microsoft doesn't later use this as part of an argument for accepting OOXML, directly or as a response to critics.

PR stunt.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I am more likely to think of it as a PR stunt. If anyone votes against OOXML, they would issue press releases saying, "We voted for their standard, and they are voting against our standard". Lost in the argument would be the basic need to have just one standard.

But still, as long as customers dont know the difference between interoperability and "microsoft compatibility" they win these games. Sad.

MS Open XML is NOT a standard....

[Fallen Kell]

If you can't read the "standard" documentation and develop a program that properly works for that standard, then it is not a standard. The "standard" still has things like "will support rendering of Office97 table format", and never define what the "Office97 table format" exactly is and how it works.

Until each and every thing in the standard is properly defined and explained, it is not a standard.

This vote is good for Microsoft

[Skapare]

This vote is good for Microsoft. It can work this way. With ODF on the list, and later with others like PDF on the list, plus their own OOXML added to the list, it can make the list itself look legitimate. Then they will argue that governments can meet their obligations for open documents by choosing any one format from the list, making it seem that OOXML will be at least as good a choice as ODF.

Re:Why would it be puzzling?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Microsoft hasn't stood in the way of ODF at all. They just think there's room for more than one standard.

Actually, Microsoft does stand in the way of ODF adoption, just not of it becoming a recognized and official standard. I can see some good reasons from a PR standpoint to go this route. With Microsoft, you have to be very careful with the word "standard." MS is all in favor of standardization. They fight tooth and nail against anything that gives users most the benefits of open standards. When most people think of a standard, they think of something like SAE bolt specifications; something anyone can make standardized for the purpose of allowing interoperability. Everyone can see the benefit of such a standard for the construction industries, manufacturers, and end users.

When MS talks about standards, however, they are more commonly referring to something where they are the sole gatekeeper, and often the sole creator of items that follow said "standard." OpenXML, for example, is not a "standard" in the same way ODF is and it sure doesn't bring end users the lion's share of the benefits normally associated with what we call an open standard. This is because of the application of patents, the ties to secret information, because it is copyrighted, and because MS has a monopoly in the desktop OS space, a "standard" from MS is not just a "standard" as it would be referred to in most other industries. You could call ISO 898, industry members believing there is room for more than one bolt standard, because that is what ISO 898 is, another standard equivalent to SAE. Saying, however, that OpenXML, is just another standard is misleading to the majority of people, because openXML and ODF are not equal, in terms of what sort of standardization benefits they bring to the industry.

Re:Why would it be puzzling?

[Colin Smith]

Um, you've completely misunderstood the network effect. Deliberately? None of the things you have mentioned are specifically meant to be used as a communication medium to transport information.

Instead examples should be networking protocols, spoken/written language, mobile phone protocols, DVD formats etc. Things which are designed to convey information. These are all highly standardised.

Re:Why would it be puzzling?

[JohnFluxx]

You're missing the point of a standard. There can be multiple implementations of a single standard. There is a standard for a webserver (which, funnily enough, MS also break). It should speak the standard HTTP, and mostly likely that's layered on the standard TCP, and so on.

Same with the OS. The OS should follow the standard POSIX calls (which Windows sorta manages to do), and so on.

As for programming languages.. well that's too broad. For particular languages, there are standards. There is a standard for C, there is a standard for C++, and so on.

Red herring

[Actually, I do RTFA]

The problem isn't whether M$ supports a standard's adoption. They supported HTML but...

1. IE renders differntly than many other browsers, which all look more similar to each other than IE (thinking FF, Opera and Safari here).
2. IE supported non-standard tags (like, say ActiveX)
3. Because of IE's automatic market penetration, their extensions (no doubt patented) and misrepresntations of the standard (maybe patented) became standard on the web.

Remember: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

Plus, then they will "comply to open standards" removing a EU/Mass./Whoever-else objection to using their software.

Microsoft hasn't stood in the way of ODF at all???

[mpapet]

Really???

Then what the hell happened in Massachusetts wanted to switch to ODF?? Here's a long-winded citation: http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/origin alContent/0,289142,sid39_gci1144104,00.html

No, they'll do what they already do with everything that's not a .doc (or whatever extension is next) make it _really_ hard to use anything but .whatever.