EU's Anti-Trust Investigation of OOXML Continues

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Since January, the EU has been investigating whether Microsoft broke anti-trust laws while advocating OOXML. That investigation continues following its passage as a standard. Meanwhile, the ISO approval of OOXML is being appealed, so Microsoft hasn't won just yet."

Comments

Cramped comments

[Rik Sweeney]

Am I the only one who is experiencing cramped comments? About 1/5 of the page is just a margin.

not yet, but it will be.

[apodyopsis]

Well I don't read that an appeal has been filed yet.

But it will be.

To not appeal as this point is tantamount to agreeing to the decision to make it a standard. It is demonstrable that a great many people, companies and organizations do not agree (in fairly strong terms) as we can assume an appeal is inevitable.

At this point, an appeal makes a stand and casts doubt on OOXML as a standard - so win or lose in the appeal, the mere fact that there is one will help our case.

Lastly, I state again - if OOXML passed the agreed consultations and tests for a standard, was approved in the conventional standard, and brought a demonstrably superior implementation to ODF then I would accept it in a heartbeat.

ISO is now irrelevant

[denis-The-menace]

The OOXML Standard was bought and the ISO stood idly by, hand extended.

Therefore the ISO is now irrelevant; so who cares about the ISO.

Re:ISO is now irrelevant

[marcosdumay]

The ISO followed procedure

Oh, no. It didn't. ISO changed the procedure exclusively for this one draft, hours before making a decision to not kill it while the old procedures required it to be killed.

Re:ISO is now irrelevant

[mysticgoat]

I can't follow your logic.

The ISO standards process was corrupted while processing the OOXML "fast track" request. So the OOXML standard is corrupt, and the application of the "fast track" process is corruptible, if not corrupt itself.

That has no bearing on any of the other ISO standards. Such as

• ISO 9000: quality management in production environments
• ISO 10161: Interlibrary Loan Application Protocol
• ISO 7: Pipe threads where pressure-tight joints are made on the threads
• ISO 500: Rear-mounted power take-off specifications for agricultural tractors
• ISO 999: Guidelines for the content, organization, and presentation of indexes
• ISO 68-1: Basic profile of metric screw threads
• ISO 7736: Car radio installation space
• Any of the other 16,000+ ISO standards that enrich our lives

No one with any sense is going to declare the ISO process null and void. It has proven its value too many times, in too many different areas.

What is likely to happen is that people who are used to working with ISO standards are going to be saying "This is great! Now we have a way of measuring how closely different software conforms to an international standard! Look, this version of OpenOffice is in proven conformance with only eighty-something percent of the ODF Standard. But when we measure this version of MS Office against the OOXML Standard, it is in conformance with... uh... less than 10% ????"

The acceptance of OOXML as a standard to be measured against is going to make it more difficult for Microsoft to sell its products in a lot of markets in the short term. From what I've read, the OOXML standard is going to be so hard to implement that it will be difficult for Microsoft to score well against it for the long term as well. Microsoft may have put itself into a situation where they will have to work with ODF files in order to sell to the big accounts, where ISO 9000 and shipping containers that can be moved from truck to train to boat are important to the business.

Does it even matter if it's a standard?

[zarmanto]

It seems to me that it doesn't matter in the least if OOXML becomes a standard -- because frankly, nobody but Microsoft is going to put any significant effort into supporting it. A "standard" which is only supported by one product is about as useful as a two inch long drinking straw in a world of six inch tall soda cans... what's the point in even worrying about it?

Another example of this same problem is the Acid3 browser test. While I applaud the guys who came up with the tests for pointing out how many "standards" have been ignored by modern browsers, and I am quite impressed with the folks developing Opera and Safari/Webkit for their efforts to meet those standards... it still won't genuinely mean much until the forty foot gorilla in the room (Microsoft's Internet Explorer, of course) decides to play nice too.

In the case of Acid3, this is a regrettable fact of life that actually works to Microsoft's advantage -- which is why they aren't chomping at the bit to actually fix their browser. In the case of OOXML... Microsoft probably doesn't realize it yet, but they're pretty much screwed no matter how this thing ends.

Interesting quote from groklaw link

[firefly4f4]

PJ posted a link to http://government.zdnet.com/?p=3745 in her latest update on OOXML, and it contained an interesting quote from news.com:

Microsoft's general manager of standards and interoperability Tom Robertson said that Microsoft, too, has been queried as part of the investigation.

He said that Microsoft will "fully cooperate" with any investigation from the Commission. In response to the accusations of stacking committees, Robertson said that IBM and other competitors have done exactly what Microsoft is accused of doing. For example, an employee from Google, which opposed Open XML standardization, joined the Finnish national committee only three days before a vote.

"It seems that one of the main concerns that people have raised about the process is the broad-based participation in the standards body deliberation," he said. "I think it's ironic IBM is complaining about new members in national standards bodies when they have been working around the clock to get people to join."

Two wrongs do not make a right, and if IBM and other companies were wrong as he suggest, then so was Microsoft if they did the same, and it just goes to support the argument that the process was tampered with and the results discarded. By making that statement, he actually argued against his own position that everything went fine.

Note: I work for IBM, but this opinion is my own

Re:Interesting quote from groklaw link

[Shados]

I'm a pretty big Microsoft supporter (yeah, one of like, 3 on this site...I do NOT work for MS however), and even I agree with you. Even if MS won, the process was tempered with. If OOXML is to be an ISO standard, we'll be stuck with it. It has to win fair and square. And if it is good enough to be an ISO standard, it should win, regardless of IBM. If its awful (and in its current state, its probably not so hot), it has to fail, so that MS can go back to the drawing board.

They need to trash the results and start over. As it is, even though OOXML was approved, NO ONE will trust it, because no one know if it actually deserves the spot or not. (And it goes both ways. Its not as simple as "It shouldn't be ISO!").

Re:Interesting quote from groklaw link

[Jason Levine]

In theory, I agree. If OOXML were truly an open standard, but just differed from ODF in some ways (perhaps better in some ways and worse in others), but otherwise was a fully implementable standard, I would be all for making it an ISO standard and having OpenOffice.org able to read/save OOXML files.

In practice, however, Microsoft has shown that they don't really care about OOXML as a standard. They've said themselves that they aren't going to implement it. If they aren't going to implement it, then how is anyone else supposed to? Besides, it's littered with awful "explanations" like AutoSpaceLikeWord95. How do you AutoSpace like Word95? OOXML doesn't explain this. You're just expected to know. OOXML is really just an attempt by Microsoft to get to claim support for open standards without actually having to support open standards.

In short, I would have no problem with someone else coming up with a format to compete with ODF, but I don't think Microsoft is willing to do it.

Re:I hope MS gets rebuffed harshly

[Eternal Annoyance]

Microsoft did this to discredit ISO. Think about it, Microsoft sabotages the voting process and everyone "inconviniently" discovers the voting fraud. As a consequence ISO isn't trusted anymore.

What happens? Everyone scrambles to consolidate "their" (read: Microsoft's) idea of standard. "Unfortunately" this will mean that each and every standard breakable by Microsoft will be broken in such a way that it's very convenient for... Microsoft.

Microsoft is pushing OOXML simply to sabotage ISO and not to provide a "competitor" to ODF, that's only the front.

At this point criminal prosecution of the Microsoft execs responsible for this would be very desirable (corruption, fraud and forgery of documents (yes, it might just apply here)).

The companies aiding Microsoft in the irregularities deserve to get punished severely over this.