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If This Was a Month Ago, OOXML Would Be Over
Andy Updegrove writes "Public announcements of how Participating members of ISO have voted on OOXML are now rolling in one at a time, and the trend thus far is meaningfully weighted towards 'No with comments.' By my count, there are now four announced Yes votes, with comments, two abstentions, and seven public No with comments votes for OOXML in ISO/IEC JT1. Korea has reportedly voted no as well, and I expect at least Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom to announce 'No with comments' today or tomorrow. There will be more no votes on the roster when the final results are announced in a day or two. But even if the 11 votes I know of now were the only votes, the vote would now have failed — but for the 11 countries that upgraded their status from Observer to Participating member status in the last few weeks. Without those extra 11 'P' countries, it would only require 10 votes to block OOXML from immediate approval. If most or all of those additional 'P' members vote 'yes' as expected, it will confirm suspicions that Microsoft has promoted extra votes in favor of OOXML not only within National Bodies, but within ISO itself."
Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Hell yes!
Utterly ignoring the actual standard being discussed, I have to say that my respect for and general goodwill toward the ISO process has been fairly well shaken. Its a shame really because standardisation (if not of spelling) is one of those things that has driven innovation and allowed our society to progress enormously. Having now seen the process involved in deciding on a new standard, and more importantly how it can or may be manipulated is frankly disturbing.
Well I guess its a good thing to have your faith in something shaken, doubly if it means that from here on in the respect and admiration that I had for international standards bodies must now be earned. (Not that my opinion will matter, but I am sure other more influential voices have also taken note.)
Seriously, what's the point of "yes, with comments"? I mean, if the standard is endorsed, what are the odds that the comments will be addressed? It's a completely toothless vote, and it might as well be a straight-up "Yes" vote. Whoever sold those countries the idea that "Yes, with comments" is different from "Yes" sold them a bill of goods.
Without being able to know exactly what happens internally at Microsoft, the feeling I get is that someone actually got the good idea and enough power at MS to try and get MS to make something that would actually be standard, and it got approved. Architects, developers and co went ahead and started something that would have had the stuff to be approved by ISO. However, time ran short, and some bozo project manager and such at the top rushed the people to get something out of the door.
Those people then complained "But boss! Its not ready yet!", and said project manager (or whatever) said "Well, you can't have everything in life, thats how we're gonna present it. Your job is on the line, is it ready enough or not?", "Well sir...I.....guess...maybe....". And it was pushed to ISO. Most people who ever worked for a large company probably had to deal with a similar situation at least once.
Now that its getting rejected, maybe said person at the top will see more clearly and actually let em fix it. So this version isn't good enough, but after some fixes and cleanups, and removing the legacy crap, it might be ok in the end.
Most of the comments will never be resolved. Microsoft has no intention of re-writing their format specification. There has been much discussion about what is "wrong" with their format and many of the comments spell them out clearly. Some comments have to do with some things that are fixable, but those that are described as part of the Win32 or Office software behavior will not be defined in a way that is both accurate and unlinked to Win32 or Office. Their links to Windows and Office is what will help keep their monopoly rolling. (That, and patent encumbered 'standards' that only Microsoft can implement.)
And to offer a clue to other products that parallel this situation, one only needs to investigate MSIE's broken implementation of CSS. Invariably, web designers have to create their pages around MSIE's broken CSS implementation if they want the majority of viewers to see their page correctly. The public's perception of anything else is that the web site is broken or poorly designed in some way. This broken majority keeps development for MSIE active.
I'm hopeful that the 2/3 majority issue is already defeated. I'm also hopeful that every other participating body has also heard about Microsoft's goof in trying to buy the "yes" vote by stuffing the votes. (And there is NO way that happened at the direction of a mere 'underling.' Someone with real decision-making power and responsibility must have directed the "program." This sort of activity may easily be considered lobbying... but I consider a lot of 'lobbying' activity rather subversive to a democratic process as well.)
Again, I can't overemphasize that this kind of hardball, take-no-prisoners approach is very much the exception and that ISO (and the national bodies) simply aren't prepared to deal with it. Have a look at the comments of, for instance, the Hungarian government for a taste of how "enlightening" this has all been.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Seriously, what's the point of "yes, with comments"? I mean, if the standard is endorsed, what are the odds that the comments will be addressed?
It means the standard is workable but could be improved the way you noticed. Outside of Redmond, people engage in constructive criticism and mean mostly mean well.
The adversarial tone above is the worst damage that M$ has done to ISO. Standards are agreements meant to reduce duplication of work and friction between people, not a way to lock people into buying your crap. Real standards, like ODF are created by groups representing many interested parties. They are complete and easily implemented by others, and exceptions are always documented. OOXML, on the other hand, is incomplete, contradictory, patent protected and will remain single vendor. It's presentation was an affront. The gamesmenship was worse. If it that kind behavior is tollerated and encouraged, there will be no standards for anything. But this attack has been coming for ten years. As they put it themselves,
M$'s true intentions and use of standards is everything standards are supposed to avoid. This fact has been drug up in court several times.
ISO should punish those who took bribe as well as those who offered them. M$ should be banned from participation for a good long time or they will succeed in their destruction of real standards.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
The only reason that Microsoft's power is temporary is because concerned people are spending large amounts of time obsessing about it. You get what you inspect, not necessarily what you expect.
-=Geoskd
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
That would be because these antitrust lawsuits have cost them so much in the past? So far the cost for microsoft to change its long standing behavioral model would be far greater than the costs associated with loosing these antitrust lawsuits at the current rate. Corporations are inherently a-moral and absolutely logical. The only thing a corporation undertsands is a cost statement. If a decision is to be made, then all of the relevant factors and probabilities are weighed and the resulting cost
You want companies to behave with more concern for long term stability as well as good corporate citizenship, you have to make the stockholders care about more than just the P/E ratio and the ROI. There is only one way I know of to accomplish that... Eliminate Limited Liability. If you want stockholders to pay attention to how their companies are being run, then make then unlimitedly responsible for the companies actions. You better bet that things like the Enron scandal, and the various examples of public polutuion by industry would become a very rare critter. Make it so that people stand to loose a lot more than just their initial investment if the company they invest in is doing Evil, and they will become your much needed public watchdog. They would be able to access all company records without a court order, because they own the company, and they would have the best reason in the world to do so. To those people who sa y that this will destroy the economy, that simply is not true. People will always be trying to invest money for a return. People aren't suddenly going to stop investing, they'll just become a lot more carefull about it, especially those with deep pockets. Those who are currently the most likely to enable the current destructive behavior would now be the strongest force preventing the bad behaviors.
-=Geoskd
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
This is now getting off of topic, as I don't believe that OOXML has anything to do with their submissions to the OSI.
While it is easy to want to discriminate against Microsoft for their (many) questionable practices, the only way that we can hold our ideals is to be the better party. Let us not hurl insults (especially personal) at the "other side", let us not "game the process".
If the license is good, then it should be accepted. If Microsoft's practices with the ISO are bad, then let us denounce them. If we stick to the facts, not the emotion, then we lead by example. The more we rant about how they did something bad to us, so we must do it to them, the more childish and unprofessional we look. This is a product of our openness - everybody can see every disagreement. If a metaphorical chair gets thrown across a mailing list, the press can (and will) report it, but is is much harder to see into similar behaviour inside a private company.
This has nothing to do with Open Source.
This has to do with Microsoft v ANY competitor.
This has to do with Microsoft v ANY computer user who wants seamless exchange of information.
This has to do with Microsoft's willingness to destroy faith in a process which has made cooperation between nations and business across thousands of fields possible. Construction, manufacturing, medicine, transport. Almost all of human enterprise benefits from standards.
Microsoft is prepared to subvert all that just to grab a bit more money.
That's what's so contemptible about their latest efforts.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Pursuant to this precedent, can Microsoft be hauled back into court for violating their anti-trust restrictions following their conviction if their clear violation happened outside of the U.S.? It is the same company though operating in another jurisdiction.
However, it could be argued that these are (foreign) subisidiaries of Microsoft acting to help Microsoft (US) maintain their monopoly in the US. As such, because they are minions of a US corporation acting to protect a US monopoly, it might be appropriate to US antitrust action. (I am not a lawyer -- much less a judge).
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
The whole thing should simply be tossed out as it is clear that M$ never intended to and never will produce a workable open standard, for them it is just a cynically corrupt exercise in marketing. Governments should really be taking a long hard look at this type of behaviour and regardless of the temporary inconvenience exclude them from government contracts for at least 10 years.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
That didn't stop Microsoft from suing Lindows.... For the record, Microsoft won. If "Office Open" doesn't infringe on "Open Office" I don't know what does...
And what if they implement ODF in a way which conforms to the standard, but is incompatible with OpenOffice?
Microsoft had the same choice everyone else did, you mean? To adopt ODF in their next version of Office?
And you call that "no choice" why? Because you're used to them doing blatantly illegal things such as faking evidence in trials to protect that monopoly. That document may be a decade old, but Microsoft's practices ala funding SCO, alleging hundreds of misused patents, etc, prove that it's business as usual.
Besides, if anyone, business or person, is allowed to profit from the results of crime it will only breed more crime. We need to level the field for honest businesses, ones who are forced out of the market by crooks who undercut them.
OOXML, to put it mildly, is an extremely messy format.
Mildly indeed. Aside from it being a 6000 page steaming pile of shite, it is loaded with all sorts of wonderful nuggets such as *REQUIRING* applications to deliberately report the wrong day of the week for certain dates. To quote the lovely specification:
" shall treat 1900 as though it was a leap year... A consequence of this is that for dates between January 1 and February 28, WEEKDAY shall return a value for the day immediately prior to the correct day"
So if a certain date was a Monday, Microsoft's specification requires that software must deliberately and incorrectly tell you it was a Sunday.
Why would Microsoft put insane requirements like deliberate date errors into an international standard? Simple. Once upon a time sold some software that didn't know how the fuck(*) to calculate leap years, and OOXML really isn't intended as any sort of legitimate interoperable international standard. OOML is really just a fancy way of saying "use Microsoft's software". Sending OOXML through the standards process is really just a way of slapping a BOGUS "open standard" label onto Microsoft monopoly lock in software and formats. Microsoft does not want politicians and corporate managers to be lured away by the actual International Standard and actual Open Format - the already existing ODF Open Document Format.
(*) footnote: Yes, it crossed my mind that maybe I shouldn't gratuitously drop "fuck" in there. I thought about changing it. I tried to change it. Really I did. But come on! It's a major software vendor producing a major business application.... and they can't get leap years right? W...T...F!
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