ISO Says No To Microsoft's OOXML Standard

qcomp writes "The votes are in and Microsoft has lost for now, reports the FFII's campaign website OOXML. The 2/3 majority needed to proceed with the fast-track standardization has not been achieved. Now the standard will head to the ballot resolution meeting to address the hundreds of technical comments submitted along with the votes." Here is yesterday's speculation as to how the vote would turn out.

Comments

Can a committee stop the rotation of the Earth?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

This move is a non-story because regardless of what the ISO approves or disapproves, Microsoft will continue to go the way they want to go and the 90% of the Office customer base will follow them, just as will the pre-install bundled customers. Other office suites are advised to ignore the upcoming de facto standard at their own peril.

Re:Can a committee stop the rotation of the Earth?

[MightyMartian]

Where it may (if Microsoft ultimately fails) effect their business is when governments and organizations began demanding things be stored in open formats. If OOXML isn't recognized by bodies like the ISO as an open format, it could be the first very big chink in Microsoft's armor.

Hurrah!

[crush]

A small victory, but an important one. Maybe Massachusetts can now be persuaded to move to an actual open, easy-to-implement and reliable standard to preserve government records. It can join Russia and Norway in using ODF.

Not likely

[WindBourne]

The first time they chose ODF, that was about doing a standard. Now the OOXML is about buyouts, and has nothing to do with standards.

Lessons learned - the job isn't over

[btarval]

All the people involved in shutting down this attempt at extending a monopoly by hacking the voting system through bribery deserve a hearty congratulations in stopping this for now.

I submit though, that the job isn't over, but incomplete. The ISO seriously needs to look at fixing how Microsoft attempted to hijack the process to suit their own gain, and ignore the real purpose of International Standards.

Until this fixed, we'll see more of the same, on a greater scale. And not just by Microsoft. The end result would be the weakening of the usefulness of real standards, if the current system is left as it is.

Good luck to the ISO.

But now...

[AltGrendel]

...Microsoft doesn't have the air of legitimacy that ISO approval would have brought.

Re:System continues to work

[MightyMartian]

Of course, Microsoft will address the changes and probably buy a few more votes. Their timetable is probably still not in jeopardy.

If Microsoft addressed all the concerns, then they would likely have an open standard. Microsoft won't do that, because within a few months of them having an open standard, OpenOffice and KOffice will have OOXML support.

Re:It ain't over yet...

[Proteus]

Go ahead and accuse Microsoft of bribing the electorate, but FFII gets to offer a 'prize' to people who lobby against OOXML and nobody bats an eyelid.

You do realize that there is a difference between paying people to lobby and paying people to vote a certain way, right?

By your logic, bribing a Senator is no worse than giving money to the AARP.

Re:Good

[nine-times]

As a disgruntled Microsoft customer, I'd like to ask "WTF?!"

Seriously, I don't believe the devs working within the company are bad, but you guys need to stage an uprising or something. The people running your company seem to be total dicks.

Re:I have an idea!

[MightyMartian]

The minute that Microsoft accepts ODF, particularly through easy integration via "Save As..." and allowing it to be set as the default document format, they have started down the path to the ending of their monopoly. At some point, some manager is going to ask "Why are we paying $xxx,xxx in licensing to Microsoft when this OpenOffice my brother-in-law installed on my computer can save in this OpenDocument format costs nothing?"

Once you break the Office lock-in, the potential for Windows itself to be compromised, because moving away from Office means having the capacity to move away from the entire Windows platform. For Microsoft, ODF is an enormous threat. Not today, not tomorrow, but within the next five to ten years, particularly if the trend of various governments and other groups to push for documents being stored in open formats continues. Microsoft has to find a way to get OOXML defined as an open format, and now it has made it clear that it is willing to pay to make sure that standards body are undermined so that it can do so.

It has failed in the fast-track, which, I'd say, reduces the possibility of OOXML as it now stands ever getting an ISO stamp. However, it has sent the message to its business partners throughout the world, and likely to a many nations themselves, that if they are willing to be bribed, it's willing to put money in their hands.

It's shown a rather ugly side of ISO, and international standards in general, but here's the real problem. No one cares. Where is the BBC, CNN or any major news site picking up on the story of a major corporation attempting to undermine the ISO to get a standard which even the most generous experts are calling flawed passed? Where are the investigative reporters looking into attempts to undermine open document adoption in places like Massachussetts? Where are the editorials condemning Microsoft for undue influence over public policy? I mean, every time Sony so much as appears that it's going to do something nasty, the BBC tech site has a writeup on it. When some director at AT&T burps, it's over the financial pages?

Is it just that open document concerns aren't as sexy as network neutrality or rootkits?

Re:Pursuit

[IWannaBeAnAC]

You are an American, I guess, by your immediate recourse to legal action as the solution to every problem? That may well be the best way to solve the problems with the ANSI committee, I honestly wouldn't know, but I can certainly say that in most other parts of the world, legal action would be about the last thing that is needed (except in cases where there was provable fraud, or some other illegal occurrence, but I suspect the number of such cases where it could be proven in a court of law is approximately zero). International standards work because of goodwill and cooperation between interested parties. Without this, there is no point having a standard in the first place. Microsoft (or at least some sections of Microsoft) clearly has a different view of how standards work, and also they clearly have no shame. IMHO they are beyond redemption, but they are just one company, and only plays a small part of the overall ISO organization. The committees responsible for the future progress of OOXML need to get back to focussing on technical issues, how to best proceed to come up with a workable standard, and get rid of the politics. (My personal feeling is that there is no way to achieve a workable ISO standard out of the current OOXML spec, but who knows, stranger things have happened.) A lot of things about the OOXML vote have no precedent in ISO history, and probably some ISO and/or National Body procedures will be changed as a result. Forcing these changes by legal action would be expensive and counterproductive, and in the process surely lose the goodwill of the member nations.

WTF? This is insightful?

[Colin Smith]

As a disgruntled Microsoft customer, I'd like to ask "WTF?!"

Seriously, I don't believe the devs working within the company are bad, but you guys need to stage an uprising or something. YOU are the customer! You are paying Microsoft to continue with their existing tactics. YOU are the cause!

FFS! Take some responsibility for your actions people.

Re:WTF? This is insightful?

[808140]

This "vote with your feet" bs needs to stop, seriously. It takes an overly simplistic look at the way a market actually functions in the real world -- which is not the same as the way it functions in this libertarian day dream. The fundamental problem with libertarianism is that it treats all markets as if they were perfectly competitive markets with low barriers to entry, when in reality, the vast majority of them are not.

If you seriously believe that substituting away from Windows, or from Word, is something that the vast majority of people here can actually do, then you're absolutely wrong. Listen, I don't own a Windows system -- I use Debian GNU/Linux exclusively. But Word and Windows are the defacto standard and living outside of that standard is impossible. Let's look at the facts:

1. Windows comes pre-installed on most any computer you buy. Microsoft does not give this away for free, the OEM pays for it, and so everytime you purchase a computer, regardless of what OS you install, you give MS income. This may be changing, but it hasn't yet. Laptops in particular are still basically impossible to buy without paying the Microsoft tax.
2. Windows is by far and away the most common corporate desktop, and for 99% of us, we have no choice whatsoever in what gets installed on our computers at work. Since this is also where MS makes the bulk of its money, how do you propose that we vote with our feet, exactly?
3. Even for those of us that are in the position to make corporate desktop installation decisions, there are many secondary factors that we need to consider when we decide what sort of machine to purchase. Like, does it run the software that we need to use? If it's not Windows, probably not. There's more than just Office you know. What about all the Windows-only corporate internal stuff produced by braindead MSCEs over the last ten years that the entire company now depends on? Do you think replacing it, doing it all over, is easy or cost-effective? How do you justify a switch to Linux or Mac to the bean counters when all that stuff needs to be dealt with?

Whether you want to admit it or not, there is massive inertia in the industry. Everyone runs Windows, and that keeps everyone else running Windows. "Just don't buy MS" is the most ridiculous statement in the world. Sure, if everyone stopped, then that would hurt their bottom-line. But even if every Slashdotter ever stopped buying Windows, MS would still be making billions. Every time a court slaps a fine of a hundred million dollars on MS, everyone on Slashdot whines about how it's a slap on the wrist and nothing more, because the company makes so much money it's sick. The exact same logic applies here.

What you're suggesting would only work if a large percentage of MS's clients all defected. It's like saying, "Big Oil acting badly? Just don't buy oil! That'll teach 'em!"

Come on, this isn't a perfectly competitive market. It's a monopoly. There's a reason economists think that those are bad.

Re:I wonder?

[808140]

OOXML will be what people use if they must interact with Microsoft office.

In other words, OOXML will be what everyone uses?

Great.

Re:Good

[Bert64]

The "backwards compatibility" talk is all FUD really...
Backwards compatibility should be handled by the converter, and shouldn't pollute the format itself.

Re:Good

[fritsd]

If you're a Microsoft dev, you might know: have they already sacked your colleague, the (i'm making this up)

"single disgruntled employee who singlehandedly and without authorization from his/her manager bribed the national bureaux of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Congo, Costa Rica, Côte-d'Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba (Cuba? they're not even allowed to buy Microsoft products!), Cyprus, Egypt, Fiji, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Morocco, Kuwait, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tanzania, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan,

(take deep breath)

Austria, Bulgaria, Colombia, Germany (shame on you, DIN), Ghana, Greece, Kenya, Malta, Poland (only half of the committee(s)), Portugal, Singapore, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, Uruguay, USA, Venezuela (wait 'till someone tells Chávez this),

(remember to breathe)

and thwarted into abstinence the votes of a.o. Malaysia, the Netherlands and Sweden",

yet? (verb at beginning of sentence)

Let's all thank the 1 country above quotum that voted no, otherwise this would have destroyed the credibility of ISO, IMHO.

Thank you VERY much, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, India, Iran, Ireland, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, United Kingdom. I don't have money but you have my respect.