Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

What Happens Next on the US Vote on OOXML

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the playing-with-the-guts dept.

Andy Updegrove writes "As you may know, V1, the INCITS Technical Committee that had charge of the US vote on Microsoft's OOXML, failed to reach consensus on either approving or disapproving the specification. As expected, Microsoft has turned to the full INCITS Executive Board in an effort to salvage the situation. Between now and Labor Day, a complicated series of fall-back ballots and meetings has been scheduled to see whether the Executive Board can agree to approve or disapprove OOXML, in either case "with comments." A vote to approve would mean that addressing the comments would not be required for the US vote to stand, while a vote to disapprove would hold the possibility of US approval if the comments are satisfactorily addressed. The bottom line is that a vote to approve (either in the US or in many other nations around the world) does not appear likely, due to the sheer number of technical issues that have been raised with OOXML, and the expedited schedule upon which Microsoft has insisted throughout the process."

2 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. A friend in need ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    is a friend indeed, as they say.

    Following the report by V1 that it had failed to achieve consensus, Microsoft requested a place on the agenda at the Executive Board meeting held in California on July 18 - 20, in order to make a short presentation on the V1 events. That presentation occurred on Thursday of last week. However, after giving the brief overview, the Microsoft representative made a motion not provided for on the agenda (which was immediately seconded by the Apple representative) that the Executive Board consider a written ballot of "Approval with Comments," with the comments in question being the 96 issues that the V1 members had succeeded in agreeing upon before ending their deliberations. That would have meant that some 400 additional comments (the more difficult ones upon which consensus had not been reached) that V1 had received from various sources would not have been submitted to ISO/IEC JTC1 if the ballot passed.


    Interesting, although unsurprising, to see Apple following the money here.
  2. Re:I, for one, am for choice by Ai+Olor-Wile · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Maybe you should read about the actual OOXML specification before saying that kinda thing.

    http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/07/formula-for-fa ilure.html
    http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2007/07/mathematic ally-.html
    http://www.noooxml.org/
    http://ooxmlhoaxes.blogspot.com/
    http://blog.janik.cz/archives/2007/07/18/T18_02_54 /

    Read these. Then decide if you really, really believe that making this specification a standard will do anything good for the environment. The spec is simply too big and poorly-defined for anyone else to come close to implementing. If it was worth the paper it was printed on (and if you see the last link, that can be quite a lot) Microsoft wouldn't be trying to fast-track it--specifications should speak for themselves in terms of quality. Anything reasonable would have no trouble getting written into an ISO-accepted standard, no matter what company it came from.

    Pop quiz: Why the hell is fast tracking with this kind of system possible? Emergency economic situations?