Patent Threats In OOXML

An anonymous reader notes an initiative by the New Zealand Open Source Society to weigh in on the question of standardizing Microsoft's OOXML. The organization has authored a white paper (available in several formats, HTML here) laying out the ways in which the OOXML spec falls short of what a standard should be. From the article: "'If OOXML goes through as an ISO standard, the IT industry, government and business will [be] encumbered with a 6,000-page specification peppered with potential patent liabilities' said New Zealand OSS President Don Christie. 'Alarm bells are going off in many parts of the world over OOXML. Normally ISO draft standards would be drawn up by a number of stakeholder organizations, involving an often slow process of consensus building and knowledge sharing. Since many aspects of the office document format remain proprietary, OOXML has not taken this development track.'"

Comments

Re:Open standards often are patented

[killjoe]

Given that there are two competing potential standards and one has patents and the other doesn't then why should ISO choose the one with patents? Of course it also doesn't help that one standard is 600o pages long and can only be 100% implemented by MS.

Clearly the ISO bodies are being corrupted (packed) by MS and I really don't understand why. MS has never obeyed any standard and they will not obey this one either. Why does ISO even pretend that MS has respect for standards? Why do would they ratify a standard which will immediately be extended by MS?

Re:Open standards often are patented

[realdodgeman]

1) The format is open and not subject to change/closure at the whim of a company (generally controlled by a standards body).

Microsoft is going to break this one anyway, and without getting punished for it. They don't need to change the specification, just their own implementation. And then suddenly nobody that actually followed the specification is able to read documents produced in MS office.

"Auto space like Word 95"

[mrchaotica]

'Nuff said.

The existence of shit like that in the spec -- not to mention the obsolete HTML export described in the post below yours -- indicate that the OOXML architecture is just as shoddy as the grandparent post asserts!

In other words, he's right and you're trolling, so STFU and HAND.

Re:Open standards often are patented

[mrchaotica]

Clearly the ISO bodies are being corrupted (packed) by MS and I really don't understand why. MS has never obeyed any standard and they will not obey this one either.

Well, obviously Microsoft doesn't care about standards itself. However, others do, and Microsoft wants to abuse that fact. Understand now?

Oh, please.

[pallmall1]

it was put together over a number of years

That's how long it would take to read the 6000 page spec, let alone to write it out. How is it that Microsoft and the ISO could reasonably expect the spec to be thoroughly examined in the fast-track time period alloted? It's absurd. The sheer size of the spec should have disqualified it for fast-track approval.

Not even Microsoft believes in the technical merit of their own spec, which is why they are resorting to their usual underhanded and corrupt tactics.

Re:Why am I not surprised

[splict]

While you have some interesting ideas, I can't see them working in practice. They generally rely on different charges for patents based on the size of the company. Unfortunately, bypassing this is trivial.

1. Start a new company
2. Patent something
3. License patent to big company

The nice thing about standards

[flyingfsck]

is that there are so many of them.

Microsoft XML standard compliance would be just as useful as their POSIX compliance.