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.

Comments

Basically, what they just did

[Anonymous Coward]

was to retroactively standardize 20 years of legacy document formats. All MS-OOXML really is is a forwards-compatible XML serialization of the Microsoft Office 2003 formats.

And yes, many at Microsoft do consider the whole standardization process to be a sham. (I know, because I work there.)

pyhrric

[apodyopsis]

Its the Pyhrric victory to end all.

(1) if they lost the ISO process then they lost

(2) they won the ISO process then they lost as it forced a deep examination of the standard, and raised critical questions and caused them more problems then it solved.

(3) if nobody else implements this flawed standard then they lose as some Goverments are now also specifying cross platform implementation as well as open standard (perhaps in response to this mess)

(4) if (and this is real unlikely) there are other implementations of this standard (eg OO) then they lose as MS Office is no longer required to be ubiquitous on the desktop

This is NOT really a win for MS the way that I see it. They can spin this how they want and surely get away with it for a large amount of the population - but big business and govermental contracts (where the real money is) are already looking for an escape from propietry formats and have been for a while.

I'm really fucked off about the perversion of the ISO system, the bad practice, the lack of any "technology morals" in decisions that needed to be unbiased. But I am not that upset about OOXML being passed - I really do not think MS has won this one.

The important thing to watch now is how MS spins this and where the important money goes (big contracts, goverment).

Good Luck.

[inTheLoo]

You are right about the size of the market but wrong about how much money it will make you and what tools to use. Sun and IBM will give you PDF of ODF output and a handy database system to keep it all. So can anyone else with Open Office. Some people are going to be automating the process better than others but it's going to be a competitive market. That's the whole point of standards, to avoid the massive cost of reinventing what should be obvious and spend resources on things people actually want. MSXML is going nowhere in a market like that.

Does anybody else...

[$RANDOMLUSER]

...find it ironic that the document describing OOXML's ISO adoption is in PDF format?

Re:Weirdest April 1st Ever!

[codemachine]

The fools are those at ISO who voted to approve this horrid "standard". It definitely wasn't good enough to be fast-tracked, let alone made into a standard.

Should be interesting to see the next moves from IBM and Sun though. Could there be some sort of challenge or appeal coming? I don't think we've seen the end of this.

Re:Support Needed.

[Xiph]

Lets wait for the announcement tomorrow, ISO is deliberately avoiding an Aprils Fool announcement, which could mean that it might be of a more serious nature.
Of course if the serious nature of the announcement is approving OOXML, I'll be sending them some emails telling them what a disgrace the process has been.

It might not change anything, but I encourage anyone with the ability to send email to do something similar.

To: central@iso.org

[Tolkien]

Subject: Re: Result of voting on ISO/IEC DIS 29500

Hello, I'm writing to voice my opinion on the approval of Microsoft's OOXML format. It amazes me that ISO allowed such a monstrosity to pass. Everyone is aware of Microsoft's unending history of corruption. They bought out as many representatives as they could, to get this vote. Even Norway had corrupt people within its circles, though their committee chairman wasn't one of them (http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/31/200201) thankfully. It appears ISO completely ignored his protests however because this change of vote, according to the PDF file that I found here (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/01/2229207), lists Norway as Yes without comments, regardless of the fact that it was originally No with comments.

Shame on you ISO. You have successfully contributed to setting back innovation both directly and indirectly until you come to your senses and approve the ODF file format, or another format which will have been developed by a corporation that has nothing monetary to gain by standardization. How long will that be, 5 years? Maybe 10 years?

As this file (http://www.noooxml.org/local--files/arguments/TheCaseAgainstOOXML.pdf) should illustrate, everyone with two brain cells worth rubbing together knows that those thousands of pages contain many instances of Microsoft intentionally leaving out important information necessary to implement functional OOXML files which look and act identically in all software implementations. This should have been a massive red flag for ISO to choose to not even consider OOXML as a standard, much less APPROVE it.

I urge you to reconsider and reverse the decision to formally approve OOXML. OOXML should never have even been considered in the first place.

After this mistake, I will never fully trust ISO's standards again, considering how Microsoft successfully undermined its voting process, and ISO made no effort to verify or rectify the corruption. I suppose the next question could be "how much money did ISO gain by approving this format?" but I dare not ask. I'm sure I'd be sadly disappointed regardless of the answer given.

Sincerely,
Tolkien