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Ecma Receives 3,522 Comments on Open XML Standards
Bergkamp10 writes "Microsoft's Office Open XML document format attracted 3,522 comments from the national standards bodies that participated last summer in balloting that has so far derailed the effort to certify the format as an ISO standard.
Brian Jones, an Office program manager at Microsoft and the sole Microsoft employee on the Ecma Technical Committee, revealed the total number of comments that had been received in a blog posting this week. Ecma International is a Swiss standards body that already ratified Open XML and is guiding the format through the ISO.
According to Jones many of the 3,500-plus comments, consisting mainly of objections and suggested changes to Ecma's standards proposal, overlap with one another. "When you group them into similar buckets, it narrows down pretty quickly into a more manageable list," he said. Still, he apparently acknowledged that the number of comments was "still pretty impressive."
Open XML just missed out on a fast-track to approval as an ISO standard in the initial balloting that concluded in early September. Ecma's proposal won a majority of the votes that were cast but not enough to meet the requirements for approval.
Ecma has until January 14 to provide responses and rebuttals to the comments submitted by the national standards bodies. The issues raised will then be debated at a so-called ballot resolution meeting that ISO will hold starting February 25, after which the various national standards bodies will have a chance to amend their vote — the last chance for Open XML to be approved."
And the ECMA modded most of the 3522 comments between +1 and +3 interesting.
3521 were malformed, and the other one was empty.
Fixed
Make SELinux enforcing again!
>Ecma International is a Swiss standards body
The E stands for European
European Computer Manufacturers Association, which is in Geneva, CH
Not that my opinion matters, but I think a lot of really talented people are wasting their time getting pulled between OOXML and ODF. Right from Jody Goldberg and a lot of others are spending a lot of time supporting both (and debating why).
And looks like I'm not the only one who thinks that - quoted from Jdub's email to gnome-lists.
I've already shouted down MooXML, but I think I'm done talking about this, if I'm not going to do anything in particular (say, does the Koffice ODF guys need some help?).
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
Many of the common criticisms of Open XML involve internal inconsistencies and breaks from traditional/standard formats (wikipedia). These include currency formats, language issues, etc. Not all of the problems have simple fixes, and for such a complex standard, it may take a lot of work to iron out the issues.
- Demosthenes
cynicsreport.com
How much more will it cost them this time?
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
Perhaps someone can submit it to the Guiness World Records folks? There can't have been too many other standards with as many (or more) comments. It may not end up being a standard, but with a bit of help it can be a really good joke.
Why did Microsoft feel the need to invent, push, and strongarm OOXML when ODF already exists?
Don't answer that, it's a rhetorical question.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Who wants to bet that MS will resubmit the exact same thing without changing a comma, while pretending it addressed all the comments?
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
"Open XML" is that kind of like "Open VMS"? (The funniest oxymoron there ever was...)
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
What happened to that story about how MS had signed up so many voting members to ISO that no quorum could be reached?
I suppose they will crawl out of the woodwork for this vote but one would think there would have to be other votes in the lead up.
evil is as evil does
And how many of that "majority" were only there to vote in support of the open XML proprietary format but in reality have no interest what so ever in standards? Some honesty here would be refreshing considering the suspicion of corruption.
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.17/iso-procedures
"a leaked memo showed that Microsoft asked partners to influence the vote but had also offered to pay them to do so"
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/05/133219&from=rss
"It turns out there's an interesting correlation between Transparency International's 'corruption perceptions index' and voting behavior in ISO's OOXML decision. Countries with a lower score (more corruption) on the 2006 CPI were more likely to vote in favor of OOXML"
http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=7E36CE19-D223-45C2-9704-A2F4B116AA26
"the publication of the voting results brings to a close a hard-fought and often bitter battle to win the approval of national voting bodies that has been tarnished by allegations of corruption, bribery vote stuffing"
*sigh* pathetic
My hand still hurts.
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
"Ecma receives 3,522 Comments on Open XML Satan darts".
:)
There, fixed it for ya.
and 1 FUD letter from Microsoft about infringement on their docx format
How hard would it be to create a xml-schema type system where your document editor of choice could just download the latest "definitions" or "filters" to load from or save to the format of the day? We're connected (to get the updates) from now until we go extinct so an active system could keep moving with the times instead of needing to be redefined every ten years!
Shh.
Really? Ignoring what I see here as irony... Was there any need to add formating to the comments? Why couldn't a plain .txt work?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I think he was implying that he wrote all the comments himself. Or maybe it really was a masturbation reference.
The United States of America: We do what we must because we can.
From the end of the article:
>...the last chance for Open XML to be approved."
Shouldn't this be "...the last chance for Open XML to be approved through the fast track method.". It can then still take the normal, but quite longer and time consuming way .
>"...don't think that there is a reason for anyone else to make it a standard"
Well, there's all those existing documents which would suddenly become "standardized". That would save a lot of upheaval.
The real goal of switching to an open, implementable (which rules out OOXML...) standard is to open up the market for software which can edit/display it.
The current Microsoft lock-in is unpalatable for anybody with long term vision. I doubt if many of today's documents will be usable in 50 years except via special machines - kinda like wanting to listen to a wax cylinder of music. Who has a working Edison phonograph in their house? Anybody...?
No sig today...
22ft of Shelf space. All the API's were fully documented and it included proper examples (not like 'man' pages...)
The source was also on Microfiche as the poster said. There was even a part number in the price book where you could (for lots of $$$$) buy the sources on MagTape.
However,
The 'Open' in Open VMS Came from the inclusion of a full POSIX Interface & API into VMS.
Those were the days...
I used to work for them and wrote the TSU05 Magtape driver. (well, modded the TS11 driver and added code to do 100 inches/sec )
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
and exactly what has ECMA done for javascript?
Hmm,
I read this "Open XML just missed out on a fast-track to approval as an ISO standard in the initial balloting that concluded in early September."
and saw this:
"Open XML just missed out on a fast-track to approval as an ISO standard in the initial bloating that concluded in early September."
I guess I am old and cynical.
Lately, governments tend to notice the problem of "lock-in" formats and demand open standards for government use (remember the Massachussets affair?). Once that attitude becomes mandatory policy, Microsoft has to do one of the following:
;-)
-support ODF or another standard not controlled by them
-drop out of government business
-or have their own format promoted to a standard
Guess what they are trying now?
C - the footgun of programming languages
Why on earth does anyone pay attention to Ecma, anyway? For the last few decades, they've pretty much done nothing but allowed Microsoft to push buggy programming languages onto the world and claim that they were "standardized". We saw this when they pushed JScript (which was just ripped off of Javascript) as ECMAScript. We saw it again when they tried pushing .Net (CLI, C++/CLI, and C# were all pushed through Ecma). Now we're seeing it with "Open" XML.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Stating that "Open XML JUST missed out on a fast-track to approval" is wildly misleading.
More accurate would be "After extensive rigging of the fast track voting process, Open XML STILL failed to gain enough votes to progress into fast track voting".
What Microsoft did to the ISO voting process has damaged this standards setting institute in both credibility and functionality (and has quite nicely identified those participants who can not be trusted to remain with technical merits only, like what happened in Switzerland). The side effects of their ISO vote rigging are still felt because there are now issues with other, non-Microsoft related standards that grind to a halt as the wannabee voters (i.e. the MS paid crowd) are simply not interested or involved in the day-to-day running.
Personally, I think those late members ought to be banned for life from ever going near the process again, but so should be anything introduced by Microsoft if you want to do it right.
It seems anything MS touches turns to lead nowadays, and HP has finally started to reveal the truth about those 'great, "on track" sales of Vista': Yet Another Myth.
Surely Redmond must be able to see the light at some point? It's all good and well running after the innovation train and pick things up later, but it gets difficult when that train accelerates and you're not on board..
Microsoft turned the situation into a complete farce, the narrow miss was in discrediting the ISO entirely. How many other format specifications attract over 3000 comments? Hasn't it dawned on Microsoft that perhaps OOXML is a bad spec that doesn't deserve standardization?
Open XML just missed out on a fast-track to approval as an ISO standard The correct name is Office Open XML or OOXML.
The standard format "Extensible Markup Language" otherwise known as XML, is already "open" and has absolutely nothing to do with XML itself (other than using that particular format for wrapping up its data/contet).
Why is that important? Because Microsoft has a (successful) strategy of sucking up general terms like "XML" and turning them into their own. If the world starts calling their new document format "Open XML" it won't be long before all non-IT people think that XML is either something out of Redmond, or that Microsoft made it "open". This has happened before, and Microsoft are really good at it. My boss and perhaps 80% of our customers insist that an "SQL Server" is a Microsoft product, and they falsely connect "SQL" with something from Microsoft. And I often meet young students (age 16-19) who think Microsoft invented the TCP/IP network protocol, only because Windows calls the protocol "Microsoft TCP/IP" in the Windows operating system.
I am not a Microsoft-flamer. In fact, I work with development of Microsoft-based IT systems. But I still object to the degradation/transformation of general terms or standards, which falsely make them sound like they are from Microsoft.
In short: The new document standard from Microsoft, used by Microsoft Office, is named "Office Open XML", and there is no such thing as "Open XML". The Extensible Markup Language, XML, is published by W3C and is already "open".
- Jesper
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
Microsoft and the ECMA might be posting responses to these questions, but I would like to know is is the standard or the format going to be changed and overhauled as a result of these comments? The responses I've seen on Microsoft's blogs and elsewhere in response to some of the well known objections and problems leads me to believe the answer to that will be 'NO'. The responses also degenerate into general 'This isn't a problem' or 'This is all just an IBM conspiracy in order to attack what we're doing' arguments that are utterly baseless and don't address the actual objections.
Technically they'll have the "be compatible with open standards" feature so that they slip by people's procurement requirements, but they'll make it difficult enough to switch from the default "be compatible with other Microsoft products only" feature that nothing will really change.
Microsoft will not change thier format to conform to EMCA or ISO standards... even if they try, they will fail and will certainly not do it in time. Microsoft does things "their way" (and the way of the companies they bought) and they expect everyone to adopt and use THEIR standards. There are likely to be some exceptions, but not many and not as large as this.
I'm actually rather tickled that the IT market place is maturing the way it is lately and that the ECMA and ISO standards bodies are sticking to their missions on some of these issues.
This is probably my naivety, but what is the matter with TeX or LaTeX? Especially since it is software generated, there shouldn't be anything you can't format, plus the bonus of all the math type built in?
"You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm." - S. G. Colette
I have a serious question. So Microsoft has released Office 2007 already. Our school is already using the application and creating all sorts of OOXML documents.
How can you make 662 responses to an existing file format without burning early adopters? And Microsoft isn't even finished yet!
i thought it was just called XML... and it pretty much allowed anything. It allows binary data to coexist with textual data to coexist with structured data, etc etc.
Now if you're talking about an open document format, that's a whole different beast, but I believe there is already a standard for that as well... ODF right? and it should focus on the things that are needed for documents, which seems to me should only include at most a way to reference binary data and structured data and should mostly be just about formatting textual data and including those references to placed media. Anything more and it's no longer a document, it's an application.
I for one like the method which uses special directories as documents, with any images, media or other non-textual data files included in the directory... along side the textual data and using an xml file to define the structure and a stylesheet to define the styling of the formatted document. An application reads the xml file, which references each of the media assets, and displays all the information per the transformation style sheet. It's all very obvious when you look inside the directory, everything is separate but unified, everything can be repurposed - aliases can be used for references if desired, any application can READ the data as it's all in it's original format.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I imported all the comments from all the word documents in the big zip file and put them into a wordpress blog template at http://dis29500.org/ By my count there are 3489, I guess there could be some late comments I didn't see or perhaps ECMA split some of the narative comments into their individual comments. Either way it is a lot of comments. I am trying to tag and sort them into categories, I need some help. Can anyone reading slashdot spot dupes? :-)
The convenor of the BRM on his blog stated there were only 1030 distinct comments left after checking the comments for duplicates. This is not strange as certain minor editorial comments have up to 100 (nearly) identical instances submitted
http://adjb.net/index.php?entry=entry071024-180256
The large number of identical or near identical duplicates (almost 3000) are caused mostly by for instance IBM creating a large list of comments which was send to a lot of national bodies and by several of those submitted (almost) fully in their ballot response whilst some other national selected only certain comments from them.
Reading Brian Jones blog it also says that Ecma has already responded to 622 of the comments and in most cases altered them according to the suggested comment by the national bodies