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Jeremy Allison On Microsoft, OOXML and Standards
An anonymous reader writes "OOXML is already Microsoft's "de facto" standard as implemented in Office 2007, so when would any changes arising from the Comments Resolution meeting in February 2008 be put in place? According to Jeremy Allison's latest column, when last minute changes were suggested for the CIFS standard, which Samba exists to disentangle, "the response came back from Microsoft that although the fixes were valid, unfortunately the code was already written and was going to be shipped in the next service pack. End of discussion. It wasn't even in a shipping product yet, but the specification was determined to be unchangeable as they didn't want to change their existing code.""
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it that in order for a file format to be accepted as an ISO standard there has to be at least a couple of independent working implementations? If Microsoft's OOXML is amended but the only piece of software which implements OOXML doesn't even follow the standard presented to ISO, where does that leave the OOXML's standardization?
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
"My own favorites were Cuba voting "yes" to the fast-tracking of OOXML, even though Microsoft is prohibited by the US Government from selling any software on the island that might even be able to read and write the new format, and Azerbaijan's "yes" vote, even though OOXML as defined isn't able to express a Web URL address in Azeri, their official language."
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
If this is supposed to be a standard, supposedly in the hands of a standards body, then why would it need Microsoft's permission to change the things that are broken in it. The standards body should change the spec to fix some of the worst deficiencies highlighted by the comments. And then if Microsoft doesn't change their code match, then point out that Microsoft's implementation is in breach of the standard.
Actually I thought so too myself, but apparently this is forbidden by the ISO! However the spec itself must be complete, self-contained and authoritative... this bit I am quoting from a related link from a Groklaw article, in the comments section of Mr. Alex Brown's blog:
http://www.adjb.net/comments.php?y=07&m=09&entry=entry070909-104641
and the Groklaw article is here:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070910110639612
The relevant answer: ISO rules forbid reference implementations. The thinking is that the text must itself by complete, self-contained, and authoritative; a reference implementation opens the possibility of deviation from the text, thereby creating uncertainty about which is "right".
That said, in SC34, we follow the practice of informally requiring that our "home-grown" standards (RELAX NG, NVDL, Schematron etc) are proved efficiently implementable during standardisation. If my time wasn't so taken up with DIS 29500 I would be working on an implementation of DTLL in Java to accompany the draft standard, for example!
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
The number of servers metric is close to useless anyway. We have nearly 500 exchange servers plus another 200 domain controllers (100k employees worldwide) and only one Linux machine... However, the Linux system is on three of the most expensive pieces of hardware you can even imagine, backed up by an immense SAN, and serves apps and data to every user in the company concurrently.
Don't forget bot-nets... Those are servers too.
In other words, to paraphrase Ballmer, Microsoft could submit a ham and cheese sandwich for ratifcation, and it would be approved.
That sounds like a much better standard than OOXML, and it's much easier to implement for everybody. And if Microsoft tries to sneak bits of a 10 year old ham and cheese sandwich in there, like they did with OOXML, people will know the second they bite into it.