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

Why am I not surprised

[jimmyhat3939]

While I'm not certain this is part of an overarching strategy by Microsoft, it's articles like these that make it hard to take them seriously when they claim to want to standardize. First it was just "embrace & extend," now it's this mess with patents.

In my opinion, the right solution to these patent problems is eliminating software and/or business process patents.

Re:Why am I not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

One another option is -

1. Cost of patenting based on the wealth of the patentee. This should help the small garage inventor + actual real good innovations. Patent trolling will be less effective.
2. Patent to be supported by product within a period of 3 years. It is the responsibility of the patent holder to provide proof that a product that was created by his patent has been made after 3 years. This product has to be a) made by the patent holder or b) the patent holder has given license to the company which creates it. Otherwise the patent lapses. This would again take care of the patent trolls + help actual good inventions
3. The cost of patent to be borne across the years. Every 5 years the patent has be re-issued with quite a high fee (again based on the wealth of patentee). This means that only good useful products are under patent for the complete duration of the patent. This again will support the basic idea of patenting, i.e. really good useful ideas not to be kept under wraps, and not the small ideas.

I guess these ideas should help modify the patent system so that
a) Patent office gets more money which means more people, which means better results
b) Small guy inventor is supported
c) Real good ideas can be patented for the whole duration
d) Company still can work freely without struggling with frivolous patents, while producing real good products under patents themselves.

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

Open standards often are patented

[Sycraft-fu]

MPEG-4 would be an excellent example. It is an open standard, but has a whole lot of patents covering it. Open standard doesn't mean no cost, and it doesn't mean patent free. It means three things:

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

2) It is available under a reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) license. The two subsets of that are:

a) Reasonable. The fees required are in line with whatever it is. It's not a "Oh you want a license for that video codec? Ok $1,000,000 per player, no cap." That's clearly unreasonable and designed to keep people from licensing it.

b) Non-discriminatory. This means that you have to license to all comers. You can't decide you like what this company is doing but not this other company. Anyone who pays the moneys get the licenses.

3) All patent holders have agreed that the format can use their parents and that the only compensation they'll get is from those fees.

That's it. There are plenty of open standards that are indeed not free. Do not confuse open standard and open source. This is where the legal issues relating to MPEG and such with Linux come in to play. MPEG LA allows source only works for no licensing fee, but if you want to actually compile and use that, you need to pay a fee. If you don't, you are technically breaking the law. Thus for a Linux distro to include it without paying a fee could be a problem. The developers of the distro could pay if they wanted, it is about $100,000 for an unlimited license, but if they don't then it is a problem. That money is to pay the patent holders. Despite being an open standard, MPEG-4 is covered by about 28 PAGES of patents.

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

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

ISO makes money by creating standards - the more standards they create; the more money goes into ISO.

But why there are so many there that wants to create an bad standard ?
Dont ask me that.

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.

Re:Open standards often are patented

[mrchaotica]

It is available under a reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) license.

Right, and nowadays, with the existence of Free Software, the only licenses that should qualify as "reasonable and non-discriminatory" are ones that Free Software can use!

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?

Re:Open standards often are patented

[ozmanjusri]

Actually ODF has similar encumberances

No it doesn't. This FUD has been addressed long ago. http://blogs.sun.com/webmink/entry/raising_the_bar _on_patents

Re:Open standards often are patented

[ozmanjusri]

both are covered by an almost identical perpetual promise.

The blog includes a link to the Sun promise http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/ipr.ph p. If you'd read that and TFA, you'd have noticed that Sun give blanket indemnity for any implementation of ODF, while Microsoft only grants indemnity for the specification in the proposed MOOXML standard.

Since the MOOXML format is impossible to fully implement without using external specifications not covered by the covenant, Microsoft can still sue someone who implements MOOXML in their software.

Re: Open standards often are patented

[Dolda2000]

a) Reasonable. The fees required are in line with whatever it is. It's not a "Oh you want a license for that video codec? Ok $1,000,000 per player, no cap." That's clearly unreasonable and designed to keep people from licensing it. One has to wonder what that really does entail. Leaving Free Software aside for a second, what about ordinary people who just like to DIY, such as myself? When licensing patents for a MPEG implementation to a company like Microsoft, Sun or Apple, $1,000,000 doesn't seem at all unreasonable if it is a perpetual license (not a "per player" license). If I want to license it just for my own purposes, however, it is clearly an unreasonable amount that I couldn't afford in a lifetime. Then again, surely they don't have the right to choose a price arbitrarily depending on the licensee, right?

Re:Open standards often are patented

[donaldm]

If something is patented then the description of that patent should enable replication by any third party who then can legally produce and/or use that thing for a "Reasonable" and "Non-discriminatory" payment to the patent holder for the life of that patent. So basically all patents are open, however if the patent is vague or obvious then it should never have been granted in the first place.

Getting back on topic. I think the following from the conclusion of the article says it all: "While Microsoft has granted patent use over the required portions of the specification that are described in detail the numerous undisclosed behaviours and inexplicit definitions are not covered, providing a legal as well as technical barrier to OOXML's implementation". I think we can quite easily arrive at the conclusion that to adopt OOXML is to adopt something that cannot easily be implemented by a third party, so we can assume this is a proprietary format that is dressed up to look like it is an open format.

Re: Open standards often are patented

[Sycraft-fu]

That's the "unlimited" fee, meaning you pay that amount, you can have as many copies as you like. The per player fee is about $5. So if you wanted to compile and use XivD for both encoding and decoding it's be about a $10 fee (separate charges for encoding and decoding). Thus really no matter how you hash it, it's a pretty reasonable fee. I'm not saying a no-fee codec wouldn't be nicer, and there's people who agree. There's a reason Vorbis is getting used in more and more games. Tohmpson charges per title for MP3 decoder support, Xiph doesn't. However really open standards do tend to be fairly reasonable fees and they are certainly non-discriminatory.

As for free software, where it leave it is that it can be free as in speech not free as in beer. One doesn't have to follow the other. In terms of Linux, a solution would be to setup a fund. Have a player (or maybe just libraries that players call) that has purchased the relevant licenses, then people can use them freely. The source can be distributed no problem, everything works.

I'm not saying it is how people would ideally like it, but I keep hearing that the reason for free software is the free speech aspect, the fact that you have the code, that you can alter it yourself. People have explicitly told me it isn't about costing nothing and that indeed you CAN make money with OSS. Ok fine, if that's the case then I don't see this as a big deal. It only really seems like a big deal when in fact the motivation is freeloading and not paying for software.

I'm not at all a fan of patents in their current state, but I don't think it is unreasonable for people to want compensation for their work. Unless we have a communism in our whole society, programmers are going to need a way to make money to eat too. It's not cheap or easy to develop new compression technology, I work at a university that does JPEG 2000 research and there's a lot of time and money spent on it. That's got to come from somewhere, and the people that put it up want a return. You'll find it hard to convince anyone to invest millions in a project if they know that when it is complete they can expect to see zero in return, and you can't expect the workers to do it for free, they've got to eat.

Re:Open standards often are patented

[JohnFluxx]

Not to mention that the MS one doesn't cover any future versions.

If MS add a feature to their 'standard' and release that as a new version, then that new version isn't covered by the protection. Programs would not be allowed to add in those new features.

The ODF one, of course, guarantees any future versions are covered.

Re:Open standards often are patented

[bigpat]

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? There aren't two competing potential ISO standards.

OpenDocument format is already an ISO standard and has been since last year.

I think OOXML has already achieved Microsoft objective of creating confusion and doubt in the marketplace. ISO should swiftly reject OOXML to help eliminate that doubt.

Re: Open standards often are patented

[Sydney Weidman]

I disagree with a couple of the things you've said:

but I don't think it is unreasonable for people to want compensation for their work

The fact that a person wants compensation for work does not make it reasonable for that person to receive it. I may want compensation for writing a novel that no one wants to read. Tough luck. I may want compensation for parenting. Again, tough luck. Having some rights to the fruits of one's labour is different from demanding fruits from that labour. I'm sure you would agree that this scenario (expecting to be paid regardless of the costs to society) is just as problematic as that in which all software is free as in beer. Patents and copyright impose costs on society, and so those costs have to be balanced against the benefit of patent and copyright policy. The benefits must outweigh the costs or the policy must be attenuated. Like you, I'm trying to point out that this issue is not black and white or cut and dried.

It's not cheap or easy to develop new compression technology, I work at a university that does JPEG 2000 research and there's a lot of time and money spent on it. That's got to come from somewhere, and the people that put it up want a return.

Many universities (I would guess most, but I don't have the statistics handy) are funded largely by taxpayers. There's a good reason for that: You can't journey into the unknown on a budget and with a rigid five-year plan. Private industry would be almost entirely economically incapable of advancing human knowledge. If you do research work inside a university, the work has already been compensated. Wanting a cut of the royalties is more than just wanting "compensation for work".

Universities have begun playing the patent game because they are chronically underfunded and they need money desperately. As universities are starved for research money, patents and copyright play a greater role in generating creative output than they used to. In other words, less money for universities means more reliance on patents and copyright as the key policy instruments for advancing human knowledge. I think that is a very unfortunate trend.

I also think that patents in communication and file format standards are very different from other kinds of patents. Patents in communication standards prevent me from participating in culture without a private firm's permission. A communication standard (such as a file format standard) is no different than a language. I shouldn't have to pay a private company to participate in human language. Not only would that be a huge pain in the ass for everyone, it would make it even more difficult for dissenting opinions to be heard than it already is. Would you like to pay a fee to some private company for the right to speak English? Or pay based on the number of people who read your writing? That would be counter-productive from the perspective of encouraging the advancement of human society, which is the reason patents exist in the first place.

This leads, I think, to a homogenization of public discourse and a gradual concentration of power in the hands of fewer voices. That can't be a good thing for a developing a healthy, engaged populace.

Re:Open standards often are patented

[goose-incarnated]

> Clearly the ISO bodies are being corrupted (packed) by MS
> and I really don't understand why.

Actually, as a serving member of sc71l (the technical subcommittee
tasked with providing a recommendation to our ISO representative to
vote on behalf of the country)in South Africa, I object to this blatant
painting of all the committee members with the same brush.

Some of us have worked immensely hard to ensure that the OOXML
'spec' is never a 'standard'. We spent a great deal of time preparing
arguments, presentations and getting people from IBM, SUN and our
local FLOSS businesses to present as well.

We voted against OOXML as a standard 13-2-2 (broken down as
"NoWithComments-YesWithComments-YesWithoutComments ), so the
real vote was more realistically 15-2 against!

You can read one of /my/ preparations at:
            http://www.meraka.csir.co.za/~lmanickum/stansa/

Trust me, we worked very hard, and some of us are
still working on this (cleaning up the comments that
go with a "no" vote, etc ...).

goose

There can be only one

[pwizard2]

There can only be one standard. One will survive and be commonly implemented , and the other won't become widespead and will only be used by fringe elements.

ODF has been gaining ground in the EU and in other parts of the world, whereas OOXML has to start from a dead stop. It's only asset is the marketing power of MSFT behind it, but that may not be enough. It is already clear (from other /. stories) that the OOXML architecture seems rather shoddy and looks like something that was quickly put together. MSFT is trying to force it through iso rather thanb let OOXML succeed through its own merit... that alone draws suspicion to the quality of OOXML.

Re:There can be only one

[Billly Gates]

when peoples bosses email ooxml ms word and ms excel files waiting back for an answer we can find a sure winner. It will be what yoru employer uses and will most likely be microsoft based.

Re:There can be only one

[cp.tar]

ODF has been gaining ground in the EU and in other parts of the world, whereas OOXML has to start from a dead stop. It's only asset is the marketing power of MSFT behind it, but that may not be enough.

However, it is still MS Office that is the most widely used office program, and at least here in Croatia, where nearly all software for private use - barring pre-installed Windows[1] - is still pirated (the businesses feel a moderate fear from the BSA, but that's about it), that means that the bestest and latest version of Office will be adopted, if in no other way, then by school kids, and therefore their parents as well.

Luckily, the fact that the BSA is a real threat means that (small) businesses will be very reluctant to migrate from Office 97 or 2000 to a new version, which costs oh, about the average month's pay. Per computer.

All in all, in order for ODF to become more widely accepted, at least in Croatia, all we FOSSies should do is approach the people we know are pirates and, uh, present OpenOffice.org as a viable alternative to fines and prosecution. It's high time we adopted some of our opponents' methods. </evil>

[1] If I mean a plural, should I say Windowses? ;)

Re:There can be only one

[JohnFluxx]

HAHA! Do you really think Microsoft would let you change the default 'save as' to anything except a microsoft format?

I googled, and found: http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2006/07/06/microsoft-of fice-to-support-odf-the-qa/

Which says that MS themselves said that you cannot change the default 'save as'.

Re:There can be only one

[RobBebop]

When your boss e-mails you ODF files, what are the chances that you won't have the upgraded software needed to read it? Bosses are dumb and will use whatever format the computer uses for them by default. However, the upgrade to MSO '07 will be a large expense for an IT staff to shoulder... and it is needed by everybody and not just the PHB.

Really, to defeat MOOXML, it is important to avoid the upgrade to MSO '07. The slow acceptable rate of Vista in businesses is a boon to this, because it takes away the chance for MS to package the 2-for-1 OS+Office Suite in a reasonably priced "package deal".

The plateau of desktop hardware is another boon. Three years ago, it would have been painful to run a computer purchased in 2001. Today, computers from 2004 run about the same as when they were new. If there is no reason to upgrade... there is no reason to get a new version of Microsoft in the organization.

But Microsoft is patient... and they have until 2009 or so to push Vista and MSO '07 into the market to win the current fight to be the continued "de facto" standard. Does ODF/OO have enough steam to become the standard, preferred Office software when people get their post-XP upgrades?

Netscape 3?

[clarkn0va]

From the white paper:

OOXML allows export of HTML targeted for 3 classes of browsers however these 3 options are at least ten years old (from 1997).

and

[t]he restricted list of values provided in the list of supportable browsers, which only includes IE3, IE4 and Netscape3 and Netscape4.

Wow.

Re:Netscape 3?

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Nice - OOXML is already outdated - even before it becomes a standard!

"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.

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.

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.

Re:Not all standards are equal

[pallmall1]

I'm not saying that is the case, I am not a document expert and I haven't looked at either...

You could have saved an awful lot of electronic ink if you would have just stopped right there. It's readily apparent why you don't think 6000 pages is too long. :)

Microsoft covenant inferior to Sun covenant

[WebMink]

I don't normally respond to trolls, but I want to make sure this is clear. Despite the claims of Microsoft's representatives, their patent covenant is not the same as Sun's. There are several important differences, as I pointed out at the time:

1. Microsoft make their promise contingent on the patents being "essential", at their sole judgement, to the implementation involved. There may be several ways to implement each feature; if you happen to pick the one covered by the patent, you are using one that's not "essential" since you could be implementing one of the alternative ways. You can't know this without extensive research and legal advice.
2. They also make it contingent on "conformance", again at their sole discretion. Partial implementations may be at risk, and since open source development is done in public, so may in-progress full implementations.
3. Thirdly, despite placing these limitations on their outward grant, they expect all recipients of the grants to refrain from all litigation, not just that bounded by either conformance or essential claims.

Items 1 and 2 are especially important. By reserving unaccountable judgement over what is and is not covered, they prevent implementors having certainty they will not face patent issues. This is exactly the way to chill the enthusiasm of open source developers, for whom certainty over their freedoms is the cornerstone of community. It's exactly the reason I made sure Sun's covenant was not crippled in the same way.

I have now had several reports of Microsoft's representatives claiming their covenant is the same as Sun's; it is not, please make sure anyone who says so is challenged.

There's one more issue of note, which the NZ paper makes clear. Microsoft explicitly uses proprietary formats within their MS-OOXML specification (DrawingML for example). If they want to provide comfort to open source developers, they need to go further and cover all referenced formats with their "promise" as well.

Five Letter Acronyms vs. Three Letter Acronyms

[Organic Brain Damage]

Always bet on the Three Letter Acronym. Five Letter Acronyms almost never succeed when faced with a competing Three Letter Acronym. You can ignore OOXML.

Re:Why either or?

[ozmanjusri]

there is nothing preventing the existence of multiple standards for documents.

Apart from common sense, of course.

This is another red herring that has been addressed many times before, including here. http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2007/02/microsofts _defi.html

Microsoft is spinning duplicate standards as "choice" when in fact acceptance of MOOXML as a standard would be a breach of ISO's mandate.

"one standard, one test, and one conformity assessment procedure accepted everywhere." Microsoft is pushing this line heavily in their attempt to subvert the approvals process in Standards Australia.
It's pretty clear proof that they have no intention of allowing interoperability and are simply using MOOXML as a means of spiking ODF.

Misnomer: Open Standards are often patented ....

[OldHawk777]

I agree, the term "Open Standard" is used very inappropriately by RAND, M$ ... and many others.

Correctly stated it is simply a standard, not "OPEN".

If you want to use a two word phrase, then the correct phrase for a few decades now has been and still is an "Industry Standard".

An "Industry Standard" is sometimes called an ANSI, ISO ... "International Standard", but in fact when proprietary content is used in a standard (legally) it is not "OPEN" and/or freely available to anyone, and is anti-competitive and anti-capitalist by making basic (non-creative/non-original) technology requirements private property for more socialist/communist (as in anti-capitalism) corporate-welfare.

By accepted technologist and L/FOSS convention dating back to the 1980's the usage of the term "OPEN" is conceptually reserved to products/ideas... that closely follow the "Public Property" [GPL, "Open Content", "Open Standards" ...] concept/intent.

Just like a public park, which is always paid for by the public or philanthropic individuals/foundations, the property is provided and developed for the public welfare. Software patents and industry standards are an obvious attempt by corporatist and their governments to prevent access [easement] to public property that could/would limit the private property's owners attempts to control public property use by citizens.

I know you see my direction of debate/argument, the word "Open" when capitalized or in all caps (like an acronym) should have as much legal standing as the term "Microsoft", "California", "Navajo" "The United States" "Organic" .... Repeated misuse of the term "Open" by industry, governments, agencies, foundations ... should not be allowed. The term "Open" when used in medicine, science, engineering, communications, literature, music, art, technology ... has a definite (though unregistered) trademark value in business and international economics that is being intentionally misused by industry to financially harm the public good, "Open Economics", and "Open Businesses" globally.

Revisionist-spin is never reality, but can be dogma for fools and "Exploiticians" to use for legal rights to the wind, they may even stupidly try to hold the wind for themselves.

Re:No, sorry doesn't work that way

[Draek]

yeah, but what's "reasonable" for a business may not (and in fact, will probably not) be reasonable for individuals, and I think GP's post is that in the age of the internet and open source, that ought to be a very serious consideration for standards bodies, an opinion I'd completely agree with.

free software may not be "free as in I'm sleeping on your couch", but it certainly is "free as in you're free to use, modify and redistribute it without needing an army of lawyers and negotiating thousands of different licensing agreements", a position to which neither the MPEG standard nor OOXML is helping in any way.

Software Patents are Odious

[twitter]

MPEG-4 would be an excellent example. It is an open standard, but has a whole lot of patents covering it.

That's an example of a scandal, not good practice. You can only believe that it's good practice if you believe in software and business method patents. Both of those things have been discredited as a corruption of the patent process and both are stiflingly anti-competitive. RAND is an obfuscation that reasonable standards bodies reject.

OOXML would be an even bigger scandal because it does not even pass your ludicrously low qualifications.

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

OOXML is neither open nor complete because it contains insane specifications that basically say, "do this exactly like Word for Mac with a HP Laser Jet printer did" without further instructions.

The whole point of OOXML is for M$ to have a "standard" they control. If they wanted an open and reasonable standard, they would be using ODF.

All patent holders have agreed that the format can use their parents and that the only compensation they'll get is from those fees.

M$ always presses their advantage. You may wish they did not, but company history proves otherwise, and people who partner with or trust M$ are always crushed.

Why would they say that?

[WebMink]

Which says that MS themselves said that you cannot change the default 'save as'.

Given that Sun's ODF plug-in for MS Word does exactly that (simply adds ODF to the list of supported formats everywhere they occur in Word, including allowing it to be set as the default), it makes me wonder why Microsoft would say that.

Re:Why would they say that?

[JohnFluxx]

Brian Jones, the Microsoft Office manager, talks about it here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2007/05/ 11/german-standards-body-creates-new-working-group -to-focus-on-interoperability.aspx

It seems pretty awful. The way they've had to do it themselves with OOXML is save as RTF, then in the background load the RTF file and save that as OOXML.

It seems their code base really is not designed for such changes.

Oh come now...

[ColdWetDog]

there is nothing preventing the existence of multiple standards for documents.
Apart from common sense, of course.

I call prior art!

"The best thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from" (unknown, but ancient attribution)

1900 is my personal favourite

[fritsd]

See OOXML part 4 par. 3.17.4.1 , p. 2522.

For legacy reasons, an implementation using the 1900 date base system shall treat 1900 as though it was a leap year.

Legacy reasons?? In a new document format standard?

Basically they are saying that although the Gregorian calendar says 1900 is NOT a leap year, from now on it should be, otherwise a certain program's spreadsheet data wouldn't be correct anymore because one programmer screwed up getting the dates right in said legacy program, many years ago.

Never mind that the world didn't start in 1900 (dates before either 1900 or 1904 are NOT IMPLEMENTED)

Never mind bothering to implement other calendars (Islamic, Chinese etc.) which might be of interest in large parts of the world.

WHY didn't they just use ISO 8601, like ODF did?

Speaking of ODF, this is what they put in par. 14.7.11 (p. 523) if you don't believe me:

The attribute may have the values gregorian, gengou, ROC, hanja_yoil, hanja, hijri, jewish, buddhist or an arbitrary string value. If this attribute is not specified, the default calendar system is used.

So basically, my gripe with OOXML is not that it's legally unclear, or not open enough, it's that it's clearly not written to be A STANDARD. Think with me pls:

If the OASIS people overlooked an important calendar/date problem, and there is consensus, it can be added in the next version of the standard. All existing ODF documents are safe.

vs.

If the ECMA/Microsoft people decide one day to correct this bogus "1900 should from now on be a leap year" feature, all OOXML text documents that contain dates will have to be checked, and the ones that turn out to have dates from 1900 have to be corrected.

See the difference?