OOXML Rumored to be Approved, Announcement Wednesday

dominux writes "Rumors are already circulating that Microsoft's OOXML has been voted in by the standards board. The Open Sourcerer claims to have results of the ballot on dis29500. According to the site Microsoft managed to flip enough countries to make it stick. 75% of the P members who didn't abstain voted for Microsoft (That is 58% of all the P members). 14% of all the P and O members voted to disapprove it, this includes all the new O members that joined just in time to cast their vote. Norway has asked that their vote be suspended due to voting irregularities, but it would take more than that to make a difference to the result. ZDNet is still playing it cautious, noting that an announcement either way is set to be made on Wednesday."

Comments

Basically...

[behe101]

if this is approved we can safely assume ISO is corrupt.

Re:Basically...

[toriver]

I find their logic to be from Bizarroworld, not Norway: So they appear to claim that by approving the fast-track acceptance of a standard larger than "10 years in the making" SQL, it sets it up for later improvement? Unlike, say, the alternative which is to leave it to a longer and more thorough process in a technical committe?

The real issue is that the "leaders" of the Norwegian standards organization have interests in promoting Microsoft technology, and have apparently swallowed the largely incorrect arguments from that camp. (For instance, OOXML does not automagically transform older Office documents, they are just "swept under the rug" inside the new file format, still as unparseable by non-Microsoft tools as before.)

ISO dead, blog at 11

[ShieldW0lf]

So, ISO got an extremely high profile black eye in the credibility department from which it may never recover. Developers and purchasers who are not able to make their high-level decision makers realize that they shouldn't early-adopt OOXML despite this certification are going to end up being held responsible for the massive clusterfuck that eventuates. Information will become a lot harder to keep organized and accessible in countries that adopt this messy non-spec as a standard, and global productivity will shrink due to the ensuing chaos.

Thanks MS.

Re:ISO dead, blog at 11

[johnw]

Seriously.. what's the problem with it being approved? You mean you haven't been following the story? You should read up on it a bit.

Technical issues? Yes, dozens of them.

Lack of clarity? Yes, in spades.

There are hundreds of other standards that fall into those categories as well, yet they are still standards. Go on - name one that even comes close to Microsoft's pseudo-standard. The OOXML "standard" is so unlike a real ISO standard it's not true.

But no one cried corruption until now.. This looks dangerously like a feeble attempt at astro-turfing.

Re:ISO dead, blog at 11

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Why? Are you saying no one could possibly implement it?

No one, not even MS can implement it because they haven't published a version that makes the required changes, it is ambiguous, it references other formats that are not published, and it contradicts itself. Basically, it is just like the existing MS Office formats. You can't follow a standard. You just have to try to reverse engineer what MS did for the common cases in the most popular version of MSOffice and ignore the uncommon cases.

So what? I don't recall ISO standards as having to be free of patents.

In the Office suite industry two of the four biggest competitors are OSS projects. Creating standards that for legal reasons are not implementable by such a huge portion of the market, undermines the standards process. This is MS's normal tactic, copy a feature of other software, but at the same time undermine the benefits that feature brings to users. It is creating a hollow bullet point for salespeople while not benefiting users in a way that might allow them to choose anything other than MS.

Have you read other ISO standards?

I have. I've even been involved in writing some of them. I dare you to go look at ODF and then look at OOXML. The difference is night and day, even for a layperson.

If it were approved, it would be a standard..

No it wouldn't. Some committee rubber stamping something does not make it a standard. ISO's purpose is not to make an existing format a standard, but to help create and certify that formats are standards. By them certifying OOXML as a standard does not make it one; it just fools people who have relied upon ISO's reputation into thinking it is one. OOXML will not be any more usable or implementable by others or clearer next week after ISO announces they have approved it than it is today. It is just false advertising bought by Microsoft. Strangely some people here object to false advertising, especially when MS has destroyed the credibility and integrity of a standards body to get said advertising. It is also, probably, criminal.

Re:Let's see

[ShieldW0lf]

Lets all vote that it's not fair to need to eat, then we can stop dealing with those messy farms.

Oh, wait... democracy doesn't override cold hard reality, does it. My bad.

Looks like a forgery

[Adaptux]

The claimed results of the ballot on dis29500 document looks like a blatant forgery to me. For example, the implied claim about the process having been managed by ISO/CS ("Central Secretariat") ist wrong; the process is managed by ISO/IEC ITTF ("Information Technology Task Force"). Also, there is no defined "Voting stage" of "enquiry" in the JTC1 directives, etc etc.

Re:With thanks

[Tom]

what company wouldn't have done in their position?

But it is to ISO's massive, disgusting and probably reputation-destroying shame they they simply laid back and allowed themselves to be corrupted, defiled and sodomised by a large multinational. And they didn't even get a kiss afterwards. Yes, I also put all the blame in a rape on the victim, usually. Most of them just don't really struggle, do they?

Now seriously, ISO is fucked (even if this is an April Fools news), but MS is still the party that did it. The blame should be on them.

Yeah right!

[PinkyDead]

"I have repeatedly made the argument that it is bad logic that leads you to the conclusion that there should be only one document format" And this is Microsoft's policy on things, right? That it is bad logic to conclude that there should be only one of something.

So can we hope to see Microsoft dismantling it's various monopolistic positions in the near future (voluntarily). I look forward to it.

Waiting until the 2nd

[mlwmohawk]

Well a few points:

If this is an April fools joke it isn't funny.

If this is real and the (gasp) "standard" was approved, we should all start calling it the "Fools Standard" in everything we write, thus putting the proper "spin" on it.

Seems to be true though...

[filbranden]

Unfortunately, it seems to be true.

I've been tracking this for the last few months, and it's clear that this was essentially a victory of corruption over merits.

What's being said now is that this will be a pyrrhic victory for Microsoft. Many will discredit this standard (even with the ISO stamp on it) because of the history of corruption that lead to its approval. Those who already disliked Microsoft will only hate it even more and become more vocal.

I hope this whole process served to show the world (once again) what "business as usual" means for Microsoft.

Re:Seems to be true though...

[ozmanjusri]

What's being said now is that this will be a pyrrhic victory [wikipedia.org] for Microsoft. Many will discredit this standard (even with the ISO stamp on it)

That is the goal.

Microsoft does not like being held to standards. The devaluation of ISO is as big a win for them as the acceptance of MSOOXML.

Penalty for cheating == break even?

[walterbyrd]

So when msft is caught red-handed, like in Norway, or Sweden, then that one particular vote is not counted. But it is assumed that everything else is just fine, in spite of dozen of irregularities?

That doesn't really seem fair to me. It seems like, if you cheat, then you either win, or at least break even. It's like saying that the penalty for shop-lifting is that you have to put the stuff you stold back.

In fact, it seems like, in the case of Norway, msft did better than break even. Instead of a "yes" msft rigged a "nothing" which is better for msft than a "no."

Considering the massive number of irregularities in the OOXML approval process, I think OOXML approval should be put on hold, until an investigation can be completed.

Unfortunately

[Chrisq]

Unfortunately to Microsoft discrediting ISO would be a bonus. If there are no reliable standards bodies then it just wakens the position of people trying to argue the advantage of standards compliance. For MS the best outcome would be that people would say "standards mean nothing anyway", because the alternative to de facto standards are de jura - and Microsoft sets most of these.

YEs it is

[Chrisq]

Why?
All they have to do is implement more than everyone else, then change the "standard" so that others are not compatible.

Re:Why the hell did they abstain?

[PinkyDead]

I think 'abstain' refers to those who didn't want to offend Microsoft for commercial reasons, but could not in all conscience vote for the pile of shite that OOXML is.

Re:Not all bad

[erroneus]

Here's why that's not very likely:

1. Microsoft's implementation of other standards is often [intentionally] broken. One needs to look no further than HTML for evidence of that.

2. As you pointed out, the Office 2007 documents do not comply with the OOXML spec, so currently, no one supports a rigidly defined implementation of OOXML. But it's rather telling that many "yes" voters are discussing "changes" "growth" or "evolution" of the standard. ISO does not support this notion. Standards are rigidly defined and adhered to. If there is a change that needs to be adopted, a new standard is created. But as evidenced by all prior Microsoft behaviors and methods, they can't leave a file format alone for 5 minutes, let alone 'forever.' For Microsoft and ISO to be compatible, they'd have to have a new standard adopted with every new service release of their office and Windows products. (Either that, or ISO will have to change everything it stands for... which has arguably happened already)

3. One of Microsoft's most identified behaviors has been to keep changing standards, methods, procedures and behaviors of its products and protocols. Some would suggest that is to prevent people from being "too compatible" and for the longest time, the Samba project, for example, was having a difficult time keeping up with the changes. (They did, and it would seem Microsoft ran out of ways to break SMB/CIFS to thwart Samba as that doesn't appear to have been an issue lately) Microsoft is more inclined to move the mountain closer to them than they would be to move closer to the mountain.

"Hope" and Microsoft have been words that rarely connect. I have hoped Microsoft would behave better than it does for quite a long time. they simply won't. The tragedy is that they have the resources to make really good stuff. They don't want to do it that way. Instead, they'd rather use tricks and tactics to get their way about things. It's really unfortunate that they'd take the less honorable approach, but clearly by keeping the competition suppressed, they have been far more successful which is good for share holders... just not so good for the rest of "technology" and the world that uses it.

Re:With thanks

[Bert64]

Actually, i believe they should suspend the process until the allegations of corruption can be thoroughly investigated.
Any countries found to have broken the rules should have their vote changed to abstain and possibly have their status within the organization demoted.
If there's sufficient evidence of corruption to call the result in to question (ie if all the countries forced to abstain were changed to yes or no it would change the result) then the process should be restarted, or dropped from the fast track.

The entire process should be opened up, each voting country should be required to document in detail why they voted yes or no (explanation shouldn't be necessary for abstentions), and in the case of a second vote should be required to address all of the comments submitted at the first vote, and explain why/how they have been addressed or aren't relevant to that country.

Those who vote on the issue should also be able to demonstrate a competent understanding of the proposal in question, and have done a sufficient level of research into the proposed standard and the issues surrounding it. It is entirely unreasonable for people with little or no understanding in particular fields to have any say in their standardization, for instance many people on slashdot will be qualified to discuss a standard for a computer document format, but considerably fewer will be qualified to help define a standard for fixings used to connect water pipes together etc.