Microsoft Standing Firm On OOXML ISO Vote

christian.einfeldt writes "Microsoft has responded via the industry trade group ECMA to some of the thousands of criticisms of its submission of Office Open XML as an ISO standard. Open standards advocate Russell Ossendryver takes a look at those responses to see if Microsoft has made significant changes in either the substance of OOXML or the manner in which the OOXML specification will be maintained going forward. Ossendryver concludes that Microsoft's position has not significantly changed, but only hardened in place in advance of the Ballot Resolution Meeting which is to occur from February 25 through 29 in Geneva. While no one can say for certain whether Microsoft will succeed in having OOXML win the nod from the international community, Ossendryer thinks that Microsoft's firm stance is likely to backfire."

Comments

Whats the problem?

[hlt32]

OOXML has been fully documented for a long time.

It works well and plugins for OO.org already exist for it.

Why not let it be a recognised standard?

Can we get some *new* FUD, please?

[harlows_monkeys]

Can we get some new anti-OOXML FUD, please? The same old, long refuted, FUD is getting boring. My god, he even cites Stéphane Rodriguez, who makes such amazing arguments as OOXML is defective because Microsoft doesn't have a 64-bit version of Office 2007!? Huh?

Take out his points that are wrong, and take out his points that are valid but would also apply as well to ODF, and there isn't much left.

Ozymandias

[Frenchman113]

OZYMANDIAS I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things, The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains: round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away. Kind of fitting actually.

Re:OOXML, ODF, and FUD

[TheSeer2]

Your arguments are pot, and I could easily just flip OOXML and ODF (and the related entities) and they'd still apply.

Re:well...

[MightyMartian]

This isn't about saving documents. Everyone in the office is required to save in Office 2003 formats. It's about incoming documents. I can hardly influence the electronic document policies of outside companies, agencies and individuals, and since my job isn't as Head IT Dictator For Life, I'm bound to make my coworkers' computer experience as easy and trouble-free as possible. If I stand on principle about refusing to install the Compatibility Pack because OOXML is a crappy, proprietary document format that isn't even compliant with horrid ECMA OOXML standard, I'll lose my job. I support Open Source everywhere I can, and as I said in another post, when Evolution reaches a point of interoperability with Exchange that I feel comfortable with, I'll gladly recommend OO.org. I will, however, still have to give some ability for my coworkers to open docx files, because they're out there and getting more common.