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ISO Approves OOXML
sTeF writes in, with the hope that this is an April Fools joke. Doesn't look like it though. An article up at Intellectual Property Watch claims they have obtained a document (PDF) enumerating the vote after Microsoft's OOXML won ISO standard status.
However, how valid are those votes? For example, the ISO/IEC JTC1 directives seem to pretty explicitly forbid changing the vote from "disapprove" to "abstain" like AFNOR (the French standardization organization) did (under the influence of heavy lobbying from Microsoft and HP).
I agree. We're back to where we were a year ago only now with a lot more awareness of the office monopoly and how much money is wasted.
Here are two reports on OOXML that I recently released, one (PDF, 0.9MB) and two (PDF, 0.8MB).
-Docvert converts MSWord to OpenDocument, clean HTML
From user's point of view, this rushed standardisation means that the whole point of the standardisation has been defeated in OOXML's case. It also means that we now have two standards that solve the exact same problem, and thanks to the Marketing, the technically far worse format has a chance at winning: If OOXML becomes the dominant format, the promising future from OpenDocument may not be realised. It can be a major setback.
And what was the point of the standardisation? What was the golden promise of OpenDocument? Interoperability, plain and simple.
Simply put: In the current state of affairs, OpenDocument is implementable by third parties. OOXML is not. There can and will be many OpenDocument applications. If OOXML won't get fixed, there will be one and only one application with anywhere near compliant OOXML support.
With OpenDocument, you can edit the documents in any ODF-compliant application - or process them with any external tool, or generate them from scratch programmatically - and there's no problems because the standards is complete, well specified, and not hopelessly tied to one application. OOXML, in comparison, has nothing of this: There's a bunch of nasty features that make writing completely compliant applications difficult, if not impossible. The end result will be that there's one application that processes OOXML "perfectly" (MSOffice) and the rest work when they work (and since consumers expect perfect behaviour, it means they aren't used very much, no?)...
Sure, the interoperability dream is still very much there, because ODF is still out there. It's just that now we have a completely redundant standard that is a) technically inferior but b) Microsoft will make you either use it, or cry and use it.
Sorry, but every article I read about OOXML is about the voting and standardization irregularities, and nothing I've found reviews OOXML from the users standpoint...
That's pretty much because:
a) the voting irregularities are IMMENSE
and
b) there is no review on OOXML from the user's standpoint, because there is NO implementation (ZIP, ZERO, NONE) of the ISO candidate version of OOXML to review. Not even from Microsoft, who are using a different version now, and (IIRC) have stated that they WILL NOT be using the ISO version in the future, if it is approved. AND it is likely that there will never be a complete 3rd party implementation of the ISO OOXML standard because it is so long, complex and dependent on patents and references to legacy closed source software. MS happens to own that source and those patents and aren't about to give them away. So basically it's a dead end mockery of the ISO process.
If that's not enough to answer your questions AND piss you off, do some more reading on the topic.
Try reading up on how and for what the Fast-track process has been used in the past: Mature, complete and currently implemented industry standards that are just being formalized; Not slap-dick, fly-by-night, throw-in-kitchen-sink 6000 page cluster-f*ks like OOXML.
"Cheeze it!" - Bender
According to ISO press release , "Subject to there being no formal appeals from ISO/IEC national bodies in the next two months, the International Standard will accordingly proceed to publication". So there's still 2 months for appeals from NB's.