ISO Takes Control Of OOXML

mikkl666 writes "Alex Brown, head of the ISO work group responsible for OOXML, has posted a summary of their latest meeting, and he also comments on the resolutions discussed there. The basic message is that ISO now has 'full responsibility for the standard,' and that several workgroups will be established to work on OOXML. An interesting point here is that 'setting up a maintance[sic] procedure for ODF, and then working on cross-standard initiatives' is one of the explicit goals. On a side note, they also reacted to the very emotional discussion on OOXML by posting an open letter: 'We the undersigned participants ... wish to make it clear that we deplore the personal attacks that have been made ... in recent months. We believe standards debate should always be carried out with respect for all parties, even when they strongly disagree.' As Brown correctly points out, 'This content speaks for itself.' We discussed the approval of OOXML earlier this month."

Comments

What do they expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

After all the backroom dealing that was involved in getting OOXML standardized, a lot of people are going to be bitter.

Re:What do they expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi there! Welcome to Slashdot. I think you may be lost.

Re:What do they expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

That Microsoft needed to stack the deck is all-telling, OOXML is unimplementable, has no place as an approved standard and Microsoft and the NB's full-well know it.

You're attempting to conflate the issue, there is ample evidence of irregularities in the OOXML fast track process without considering the backroom deal. The question why so many NB's did an about face requires further exploration and action, if not a backroom deal then something was responsible and it sure as hell wasn't improvements to the "standard"!

Re:What do they expect?

[Lknight]

It's amusing to see that because of the actions of a single software company, money that could have been spent on something like finding cleaner sources of energy or battling rising food prices, will now be spent on trying to support OOXML.

ODF is a standard, implementable by any third party and independent of the implementor's software. OOXML's inclusion as a 'standard' now also has the effect of influencing ODF's openness via 'cross-standard initiatives'.

The ISO process was abused, clearly. OOXML does not meet the minimum definition of an open standard and that is enough to show the process was abused.

Re:What do they expect?

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Despite the bevy of rational explanations, with official bodies denying, often with proof, that no 'backroom dealing' occurred, it's still not enough for people to realise that the ISO process may actually be working fine

Have you actually looked at the OOXML spec? It doesn't matter if "backroom dealing" occurred. If that trainwreck is approved as an ISO standard, then the ISO process is broken. Full stop.

Re:What do they expect?

[Mathinker]

> with official bodies denying, often with proof, that no 'backroom dealing' occurred

Like the Swedish official body?

From http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/08/31/Sweden-OOXML-vote-invalid_1.html:

The Swedish Standards Institute has declared its recent vote in favor of Microsoft's Office Open XML format invalid. It means that Sweden will probably abstain from an important upcoming international vote on whether to make the format a standard.

The reason given by SIS was not the controversial circumstances surrounding the vote, in which Microsoft was found to have offered companies "incentives" if they voted in favor of OOXML. Instead, SIS cited a technicality, saying proper procedures had not been followed.

SSI more or less admits that MS swayed member companies votes and at the same time claims that was perfectly OK, but there was a technical problem somewhere else (a double vote).

Are the other official bodies you're talking about applying the same "standards" as SSI to their voting procedures? If so, you might be technically correct, but as far as I'm concerned, it still stinks.

Re:What do they expect?

[jlarocco]

That means a lot coming from somebody who spends his money buying internet access and all his time surfing Slashdot. You horrible, horrible bastard. You should be donating that money to finding cleaner energy and feeding the poor.

The epic mistake that is OOXML still does not make that a good argument.

Re:What do they expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like we need another Swedish official body

Re:What do they expect?

[daeg]

And now government bodies will spend even MORE money hiring IT companies because some government bodies are required by *law* to follow international standards. If the standards were passed that every piece of software make a MOO sound every 30 seconds, the bodies would spend millions making sure every piece of software mooed every 30 seconds.

Open standards were supposed to save money, but I can't see any software vendor saving money by implementing OOXML.

I will laugh when Microsoft itself can't get software certified to match OOXML's trainwreck standards.

Re:What do they expect?

[VENONA]

Glad you're "amused."

Me, and a few people I know, who contribute to OS/free software, are a lot closer to pissed off than "amused." That obviously isn't you, as you're making a fallacious either/or argument. Do you seriously think that countries who were involved sent some Magical Rep, with instructions resembling, "Look, either support OOXML, or go to the next meeting while you're in Europe anyway, and support cleaner energy. Or maybe lower food prices. Whatever." I hate to break it to you, but Homer Simpson is a character in a cartoon, not an intellectual role model.

Until you get some sort of grip on logical thought, please stay focused on maintaining your pseudo-intellectual, aloof, amused Slashdot 'tude. Intensely irritating though you are, I'd far rather you were karma-whoring here, than contributing logic bugs to OS/free software that I might have to burn my time fixing.

Re:What do they expect?

[Lknight]

The opportunity cost lost to what I consider more worthy causes, by spending time on Slashdot pales when compared to the impact decisions like supporting OOXML have globally.

We all could do better, I agree (and thank you for reminding me). The time, energy and money spent to push OOXML through was a waste and the additional time, energy and money that's going to be used to keep it going will be an even bigger waste.

I never claimed to be holier-than-thou, but when people place their trust in you as a standards body, if you ignore it, it costs the people who trusted you one way or another.

There were better ways to spend that money.

Re:What do they expect?

[Lknight]

Pseudo-intellectual and aloof. Wow.

I am not amused. Far from it in fact. I was responding to the following except from a grandparent post satirically, before it was modded -1 troll.

It's actually kind of amusing to see people get so worked up. ODF is still a standard, and OOXML becoming one doesn't actually change that. I never meant to present a fallacious either/or argument, only indicate the entire process given where we saw it was going and how it has ended up so far as a waste.

I have contributed here and there to some open source projects, but I haven't had the time to in a while, so don't worry, your software's safe. For now. ;).

Re:What do they expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

As always, a post that goes counter to the "M$ is teh evil" groupthink gets modded into oblivion.

Re:What do they expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

The opportunity cost lost to what I consider more worthy causes, by spending time on Slashdot pales when compared to the impact decisions like supporting OOXML have globally.

If feeding the poor isn't even worth giving up internet access, why should large corporations spend millions of dollars on it instead of implementing OOXML?

It's a stupid argument because feeding the poor and implementing OOXML are completely orthogonal concepts. There's a laundry list of reasons why that money wasn't going to be spent feeding the poor and developing clean energy, whether OOXML got accepted or not.

OOXML getting accepted is a big enough fuck up that you shouldn't have to make yourself look like an idiot using fallacious arguments against it.

Re:What do they expect?

[Taagehornet]

[...] money that could have been spent on something like finding cleaner sources of energy or battling rising food prices, will now be spent on trying to support OOXML

Uh, tread carefully now. Applying the same logic you could argue that one Linux distribution would suffice, one window manager would suffice, one television network would suffice, one Democratic presidential candidate would suffice ;-)

It's the nature of any competition: along with diversity comes a rich supply of dead ends and wasted efforts. Yet, hasn't history proved that this is a price we should be willing to pay?

There may be many reasons to object to OOXML being approved as an ISO standard, but the fact that the Open Document Standard already exists is not a valid one. The dominant position of Microsoft's office applications makes the Microsoft formats de facto standards; a fact that ISO cannot ignore.

Let the market decide. If indeed OOXML is an abomination then it won't be with us for long.

Re:What do they expect?

[SendBot]

saying that open standards are intended to save money sounds overly simplistic. I looked at the iso website here and found this little gem:

Standards ensure desirable characteristics of products and services such as quality, environmental friendliness, safety, reliability, efficiency and interchangeability - and at an economical cost.

When products and services meet our expectations, we tend to take this for granted and be unaware of the role of standards. However, when standards are absent, we soon notice. We soon care when products turn out to be of poor quality, do not fit, are incompatible with equipment that we already have, are unreliable or dangerous.

When products, systems, machinery and devices work well and safely, it is often because they meet standards. And the organization responsible for many thousands of the standards which benefit the world is ISO.

Re:What do they expect?

[MrNaz]

Feeding the poor and wasting large amounts of resources unnecessary are not.

Yes, the OP gave in to a little hyperbole. No, I don't feel he was completely off, as the global efforts by other vendors to implement OOXML will result in a gigantic global waste of resources that could be better spent elsewhere. It is wrong to say that one should give up all but the basic survival requirements before being able to criticise other vastly more egregious cases of waste.

Re:What do they expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. GP is an idiot. Your surfing on /. is not an opportunity cost. I highly doubt you will ever make enough money to make a difference or that you're smart enough to solve any significant problem, whether or not it's related to energy.

Re:What do they expect?

[ta bu shi da yu]

Stupid reasoning. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation spends billions every year on the poor. If OOXML takes off and Bill Gates gets richer, the poor will be better off.

Sound wrong? Well, I'm just using the logic coming from this thread.

Re:What do they expect?

[Macthorpe]

Thank you for being the only person who responded to provide me with a link to some 'evidence', even if that evidence was that Sweden abstained for reasons that they specifically didn't say was related to Microsoft at all. Here I ask another question - the most prevalent argument that I hear is that a lot of Microsoft partners joined the process in order to vote in favour.

Isn't that how it's supposed to work?

Surely, national bodies are supposed to get the opinion of the companies in the country they represent, and the more companies the better? As it costs money to join the process, there must be a reason for these companies to fork out to have their say, and the most simple reason would be that it's in their best interests. A lot of companies rely on Microsoft to make a living, and those companies will appreciate OOXML being open because it will widen their customer base.

So, foul play or sour grapes?

Re:What do they expect?

[Hognoxious]

OOXML is unimplementable

It's certainly oonpronounxable!

Re:What do they expect?

[ewanm89]

Let the market decide. If indeed OOXML is an abomination then it won't be with us for long.

.

That seems very wishful to me, you've already pointed out that the abomination that is M$ Office is the "de facto standard". This process has just given a monopolistic corporation the ability to keep it that.

Re:What do they expect?

[Mikkeles]

'We believe standards debate should always be carried out with respect for all parties, even when they strongly disagree.'

I would agree if the parties are acting in good faith. Many involved in this exercise were not; they were just there to rubber stamp.

'As Brown correctly points out, 'This content speaks for itself.'

Indeed it does!

Re:What do they expect?

[Mathinker]

> ...is that a lot of Microsoft partners joined the process in order to vote in favour.

> Isn't that how it's supposed to work?

Well, yes, but only if Microsoft doesn't offer them special incentives to do so. If Microsoft is allowed to do that, the reliability of the vote as actually measuring how much the companies, or even national governments, as opposed to Microsoft, like or dislike the standard is highly questionable.

The anomaly which I pointed out in Sweden was that SSI admits that some of the member companies were promised incentives from Microsoft for voting for OOXML, but SSI didn't think that was important.

The reason that people complained about Microsoft partners was because they assumed that it would be even easier for Microsoft to surreptitiously "reward" those companies for voting for OOXML.

> So, foul play or sour grapes?

Well, no one really knows the full extent to which Microsoft manipulated the vote itself, so as a mathematician, I'd have to answer your question "yes".

However, everyone does know how many thousands of comments were raised against the standard, a large portion of which still remain untreated. And Microsoft is claimed to have declared that even if the standard passes after being amended to treat all those issues, it won't be updating Office 2007 to use the updated OOXML format. So, an awful lot of us are left thinking that Microsoft threw a lot of weight (and perhaps cash or other financial perks) around to get this standard through ISO just so software-procuring bureaucrats could point at the standard to claim that using Microsoft fulfills the requirements of any regulations or laws requiring standard file formats.

MS os OpenOffice?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this the MS led standard, or the OpenOffice one?

Re:MS os OpenOffice?

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

The Open Document Format (ODF) started as the OpenOffice format (though Sun does not control it).

The Microsoft Office Open XML (OOXML) format is the MS-led one.

Personal Attacks?

[mazarin5]

So is evidence of bribery, corruption, and other underhanded tactics considered personal attacks? It looks like they've decided to go ahead and accept it as a de facto standard; I thought they hadn't finished voting yet.

This open letter assures me though - the $y$tem works.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Doc Ruby]

"Personal attacks" has increasingly been the whine of people trying to cover up actions and speech that they personally did wrong, when the attacks are on those acts and speech, not the "person" themself. It's a perversion of invoking the "ad hominem" fallacy accusation when all they're really entitled to claim is "don't look at me" (because they don't want to be accountable for their actions).

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Rogerborg]

I doubt that the working group itself has been bribed. After all, they just held ISO down: it was Microsoft's paid catspaws who did the actual gang rape.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Naughty Bob]

>So is evidence of bribery, corruption, and other underhanded tactics considered personal attacks?

ISO don't consider them personal attacks at all. But that's what they'll cry, to anyone who will listen, as part of the spinning process.

Part of the problem is that those who want open, free and workable standards also tend to be nice people. Consequentially, they hold themselves to much higher standards than the bad guys, and refuse to use the underhanded (but winning) tactics of randomly spewing out FUD and shit about the opposition.

How to stop this? 2 options-

1) Some kind of ninjas/super best friends/Judges Dread figures, who will look after us all, and never abuse their position.
2) A highly educated majority of the populous, with the will and persistence to continually pick apart the lies.

I know which I think is more likely....

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Antique Geekmeister]

This seems sadly true. It's easy for a group that believes in an ethical standard to be misled by people who pretend to it publicly: it's like a spouse with an abusive partner. They hope for the best, and want the partner to improve and hope that they will, but their support of the partner actually prolongs the abusive relationship.

ISO needs to go to a family shelter, change their address, get a restraining order, and make sure that Microsoft's visitation rights with the children are supervised for safety.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Locutus]

ISO is a worthless org now that it has become obvious they not only allow corruption and deception but they also have refused to do anything about it. They knew months ago that Microsoft was paying business partners to join ISO and instructing them on what to say at the MSOOXML voting meetins. They/ISO have known that these fraudulent new members were not acting as concerned ISO members and voting on other ISO projects as is required and they/ISO continued to let another vote go through on MSOOXML months later.

ISO is worthless and should be disregarded until they fix what is wrong and repair the damage done in the exploitation of their poorly designed voting process by Microsoft.

As far as MSOOXML and ODF goes, it is over and Microsoft destroyed ODF just as they have done to so many public use standards in the past. Destroyed may be too harsh but they have basically diminished its value by about 90% because of the perceived openness of MSOOXML will trump choices to use ODF. MSOOXML will be viewed as some kind of vague standard and Microsoft will continue using proprietary versions in their MS Office products with mostly poor implementations of the "official" MSOOXML standard. IMO

LoB

Re:Personal Attacks?

[hey!]

Well said.

In matters of logic, it is critical to be clear about what questions are being addressed by which evidence.

The first question is the worthiness of OOXML to be an international standard. The second question is the integrity of the process under which ISO approved OOXML.

Nobody is arguing that OOXML is a bad standard because the process that approved it was corrupted. They are arguing that OOXML is a bad standard AND the process that approved it was corrupted. These questions are not unrelated; one could argue that assuming the badness of the OOXML process is evidence of the corruption of the process. However it isn't strictly necessary for one question to beg the other. There is sufficient independent evidence to consider each question separately.

It is really proponents that are confusing the two issues, and have an interest in doing so.

If the standard is bad, then the process that approved it must be questionable. Therefore, if the process that approved the proposal is above reproach, then the standard cannot be bad. We can't say, however, that because the process was bad, the proposal was bad, although it is not inconsistent to believe this.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Yvanhoe]

Also, how can a personal attack be made without knowing the attacked party personally ? Hell, most of them are not even named in the bribery accusations. They are usually designed by "faceless and numerous Microsoft drones".

Re:Personal Attacks?

[rabtech]

Except OOXML already is the standard, or at least the spiritual successor to it. Microsoft Word is how 90% of the world creates their documents.

Here we have the company responsible for that 90% (if not more!) wanting to open up their file format and make it an ISO standard, giving the wider global community some sort of say in the process, for the first time ever. There is absolutely no reason to oppose OOXML's adoption as a standard. It already *IS* the standard and any attempts to block it are just idiots sticking their head in the sand.

Let me repeat that: the vast majority of human beings on this planet that need to create a document in a word processor do it with some version of Microsoft Word. Period. This is *FACT*. Any move toward putting that file format into an open standard is a good move.

Complaining that the first version has technical flaws is just as useless. The ISO can address that with revisions. Some of those "flaws" are directly related to preserving the ability of a word processor to open older documents and render them properly (think un-translatable languages. will archaeologists be able to open a 100-yr old Word document in the future? 500 year old? I hope so, because that will be a regular part of the job...). If you've ever read Joel's article about the file formats, you'd understand that there are some behaviors that simply can't be described other than to say "here is the piece of code that produces that output". Microsoft didn't care back then - I doubt you would have given a rat's ass in the 80s either under the same circumstances and with the same disk and memory limits. We know a lot more about software development now.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who opposes the adoption of OOXML can go piss up a rope. As a developer I'm more than happy to have, for the first time ever, some readily available documentation on the file format and a standards body that will at least try to take care of the standard, whether they ever succeed or not.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Anonymous Coward]

It always bribery, corruption, and other underhanded tactics when it's a position you don't like.

And pissing sunshine and rainbows when it's a position you do.

A plague on both your houses.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Maxo-Texas]

It's my understanding that OOXML isn't even a standard that microsoft uses or can implement and microsoft intends to replace it in the very near future. So what was the point of this exercize? To make sure that a true open standard has a harder time getting a foothold until microsoft brings out their "real" open standard.

Now-- there is another issue... OOXML is not a true open standard-- it is patent encumbered for one thing, and can't be implemented for another.

Openoffice does a better job of opening my older word files than Word does at this point (in fact, at least a couple times a year I use it to FIX MSword documents at work that get corrupted section headers and crash Word). The thing that started this entire mess is that some governments noticed this fact with regard to their documents (i.e. Microsoft making not just the word processor you are using obsolete but making your *data* obsolete-- and in under 10 years) and passed laws saying documents were required to be in an open format so they could be read 50 years from now.

Microsoft word format is a standard-- its just not a very stable standard (changing substantially every few years) and it is not an OPEN standard. If ISO wanted to vote OOXML "the standard way one version of Word stores data" it might have been true. But they didn't-- they voted it an "Open" standard which has legal meaning to all those governments passing laws that their documents must be stored in an open format. It was a huge-- corrupt- scam job where Microsoft essentially got a standards body to label a white flour roll an apple so it would be immune to new laws saying kids had to have fruit instead of rolls with their school lunches.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Repossessed]

If Microsoft had opened up the specs for the docx and other new file formats for ISO approval, and documented them in an implementable fashion, then I (and I think, pretty much anybody who wants an office suite that can compete with Microsoft), would be thrilled. Hell, I *was* thrilled when I first heard about it.

Microsoft did not do this though, Microsoft gave us 6000 pages of an unimplementable spec, which refers to information that is not publicly available. There are serious legal questions as to whether the 'patent promise' holds any water as well, meaning that implementing the spec could cause problems for open source products. On top of it all the flagship OOXML product, Microsoft Office, does not currently appear to be following the OOXML spec properly. This is only going to get worse as ISO working committees refine the spec to fix the implementation problems Microsoft put into it.

The end result of this is that we are left with a ISO spec that has no real world implementation at all. The only thing I can really hope comes out of this is Microsoft gets hit with a fraud charge for claiming office is ISO compliant when is truth it is not.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Lknight]

Except OOXML already is the standard, or at least the spiritual successor to it. Microsoft Word is how 90% of the world creates their documents. And that's right where we want to be 20, 30 or even 50 years from now.

Here we have the company responsible for that 90% (if not more!) wanting to open up their file format and make it an ISO standard, giving the wider global community some sort of say in the process, for the first time ever. Not quite. They didn't want to open their file format, but they wanted to make it an ISO standard. They also wanted to give the global community a pat on the head to let them think that they had some sort of say in the process.

There is absolutely no reason to oppose OOXML's adoption as a standard. It already *IS* the standard and any attempts to block it are just idiots sticking their head in the sand. There is absolutely no reason to oppose ODF's adoption as a standard. It already *IS* the standard and any attempts to block it are just idiots sticking their head in the sand.

Let me repeat that: the vast majority of human beings on this planet that need to create a document in a word processor do it with some version of Microsoft Word. Period. This is *FACT*. Any move toward putting that file format into an open standard is a good move. You seem to be confused. There is a difference between a de facto standard (in this case due to a monopoly) and a derived standard (usually created and documented from technical input from known experts).

Complaining that the first version has technical flaws is just as useless. The ISO can address that with revisions. I would agree with you if it wasn't already a 'standard'. Think of other standards that you use which, if they were adopted before they addressed technical flaws, would have disastrous impacts. Want to play with the standard for electrical transmission? How about the standards that even let you use the Internet?

Some of those "flaws" are directly related to preserving the ability of a word processor to open older documents and render them properly (think un-translatable languages. will archaeologists be able to open a 100-yr old Word document in the future? 500 year old? I hope so, because that will be a regular part of the job...). So our brand new standard has to cater for the current de facto format's ability to be backward compatible with a monopolist's software package?

What would have been really great is if we had a whole bunch of other standards and incorporated them into a brand new standard! Too bad we didn't think of it before OOXML.

If you've ever read Joel's article about the file formats, you'd understand that there are some behaviors that simply can't be described other than to say "here is the piece of code that produces that output". No, still don't understand. And by the way, can you show me where Microsoft said 'here is the piece of code that produces that output' for all the binary blobs they're spewing out? Thanks!

Microsoft didn't care back then - I doubt you would have given a rat's ass in the 80s either under the same circumstances and with the same disk and memory limits. We know a lot more about software development now. Including not to tie ourselves to 80's file formats. Oops. Seems not.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who opposes the adoption of OOXML can go piss up a rope. As a developer I'm more than happy to have, for the first time ever, some readily available documentation on the file format and a standards body that will at least try to take care of the standard, whether they ever succeed or not. Well, I'm glad one of us is happy. Actually, no I'm not. If you think the OOXML file format documentation will actually help you, go read it and come back.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[I'm Don Giovanni]

Baseless accusations of bribery, et al, might be considered personal attacks by those on the receiving end.

The problem is that your accusations of bribery, et al, are so vague, that you're painting everyone that voted YES with the "corruption" brush. I wish you guys would man up and make a specific corruption charge against specific individuals.

For example, the Czech Republic's expert, Jiri Kosek, explained in great detail why the Czech Republic switched from NO to YES:
http://xmlguru.cz/2008/01/ecma-response-to-czech-ooxml-comments

Well, according to you guys, nobody in his right mind would switch from NO to YES without being bribed (or whatever), so let's get specific. Are you accusing Jiri Kosek of accepting a bribe, yes or no?

Sure, it's easy to accuse Microsoft of bribing "people" (since Microsoft is hated around here anyway, such a vague accusation will increase your karma), but bribery it is a two-way street. By accusing Microsoft of bribing people, you are also accusing someone of accepting those bribes. Don't you think that those that voted YES have a right to be offended by your accusations that they took bribes?

If you would make specific charges, naming the individuals that accepted bribes (and provide some details, like the dollar amounts that changed hands), then you'd have more credibility, wouldn't be painting everyone with the "corruption" brush, and would give those specifically accused a chance to defend themselves. But as it is, you guys don't have the evidence or guts to make specific charges against specific people (like Jiri Kosek), so you make these vague unsupported charges.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Maxo-Texas]

There is a way the governments can recover this...

Instead of using a title "Open", they list the characteristics they require.

* Not encumbered by patents in anyway (all involved patents must be released into the public domain immediately)
* Completely specified (nothing defined in terms of how another program works-- specify the desired behavior)
* I'm sure there are a few others but these two alone would kill OOXML from being relabeled an apple.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Angostura]

There is a difference between de facto and de jure standards.

The former would be how IE 6 rendered Web pages.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[zippthorne]

Don't you think that those that voted YES have a right to be offended by your accusations that they took bribes?

I have no desire to read the entire standard, but if the descriptions we've seen here on slashdot are representative, I submit that many here would suggest that they should be far more offended by the suggestion that they didn't.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except OOXML already is the standard, or at least the spiritual successor to it. Microsoft Word is how 90% of the world creates their documents. No.

99.99999% of the documents out there are html documents.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Zombywuf]

That document explains no reason to adopt OOXML. Just a bunch of "We found their answer satisfactory but we're not going to tell you what it is." It does say one thing though, that OOXML DOES NOT SUPPORT ANYTHING BUT UCS-2 FOR UNICODE!

It uses XML as a base. XML can use any encoding capable of representing the characters !"'? and =. Yet it remains limited to stone age character representations. In a document format.

If that isn't evidence of a corrupt process, it's evidence of clueless incompetence.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[nosfucious]

It might not hold legal water, but I suspect MS don't want to shoot themselves in the foot.

Any moves to sue, based on an open standard would prove how useless the "standard" is. And that there is no point trusting one of MS's standards in the future.

They might like to sue, but they've pretty well painted themselves in to a corner.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[jo42]

Given the prevalence and the amount of corruption going on in the Czech Republic these days, at all levels of society, the only reason from switching to YES from NO is bribery and/or chicanery of some sort.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Lonewolf666]

Except OOXML already is the standard, or at least the spiritual successor to it. Microsoft Word is how 90% of the world creates their documents.

Here we have the company responsible for that 90% (if not more!) wanting to open up their file format and make it an ISO standard, giving the wider global community some sort of say in the process, for the first time ever. There is absolutely no reason to oppose OOXML's adoption as a standard. It already *IS* the standard and any attempts to block it are just idiots sticking their head in the sand.

Well, OOXML is now an ISO standard (IMHO unfortunately as I found the arguments of the critics convincing). That means an opportunity missed:
Governments increasingly demand open standards, and that is the kind of power that could end Microsoft's stranglehold on document formats. If all government documents had to be done in ODF (just an example) that would create a pretty large market for word processors supporting ODF, as the vendors working for the government would have to switch as well.

And about technical flaws in the first version:
It is perfectly normal that a few things slip through and are discovered in practical use. Ignoring a LARGE number of technical flaws just to complete the fast track process in time is quite irresponsible. I think ISO should have taken OOXML off the fast track and sent it through the regular approval procedure. As it is, they have damaged their reputation in the eyes of many experts.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[RealGrouchy]

Also, the children need to lose a lot of weight.

- RG>

Re:Personal Attacks?

[temcat]

http://xmlguru.cz/2008/01/ecma-response-to-czech-ooxml-comments

It's lovely how this bullshit page is constantly brought up by OOXMLers. Now go read these proposed dispositions. No you can't. They are password protected. Even at this stage when OOXML is standardized. Now this is a truly open standard and process.

And BTW, a full text of OOXML with all corrections made to date doesn't even seem to exist.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[TheRaven64]

Or just one requirement:

Two or more, complete, independent implementations from different suppliers are available. That should be a requirement if you want good value irrespective of how open the standard is - if your supplier doesn't have to compete, what incentive do they have not to fleece you?

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Xenographic]

Agreed. People aren't arguing that "Microsoft is a doodyhead" they're arguing that specific ISO rules have been broken or ignored and that there's a pattern to which rules are violated that suggests this was done to help pass OOXML.

The sad thing is, even if some of the votes get invalidated that allowed OOXML to pass by ONE vote, I bet they'll just throw their hands up and say that they're not going to undo it because it would be too much trouble.

Or something like that.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[woot account]

>I know which I think is more likely....

As do I.

3) "Honey! The new season of American Idol is starting!" "Okay, let me just save this Word document and I'll be right there."

Re:Personal Attacks?

[KDR_11k]

But OOXML isn't the doc format everyone uses, it's the docx format a few people use unwittingly and are then confused about because noone else can open it and Windows conveniently hides the extension in the default settings.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Doc Ruby]

You're right. And that is why the ISO is directing attention to this straw man open letter: it's a smokescreen to distract from the only important issue, that the process of standardizing OOXML was corrupted by Microsoft to make them more money and give them more control. And everyone knows it, so they're trying to connect the volume of controversy to something superficial instead, this noncontroversy over "personal attacks".

Re:Personal Attacks?

[mysidia]

I'm all for the law defining its terms explicitly.

Those characteristics are what Open Standard means.

And if OOXML does not have those characteristics, then it is not an open standard regardless of what MS or any standards body chooses to call it.

An open standard that says "Do X like MS word does X" does not make a document that includes X be a document in a format specified by open standards.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[RelaxedTension]

All I can say to rabtech is please tell me your views like this when you come in for an interview with me for a development job, so I can send you on your way quickly.

You're the kind of developer that convinces his bosses that ooxml is the standard they HAVE to use because it is the future and using it will future-proof them. 5 years down the road, after spending tremendous time and money to try to implement it, and long after you've been fired, the enormity of the mistake the cost to fix it will be realized.

Read the spec so you can make an informed comment, and just for kicks read about the abortion of a process that they called ratification of a standard.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[LordVader717]

By far the most concise and thought provoking comment I've seen today, I wish I had Mod points.

The Question is though, where does it go from here? Will other companies follow lead and attempt to get "ISO approval" by flooding standards organisations, or will this just be a one-off?
It's not exactly as if we can just boycott ISO by ignoring all of the other standards they sell their documentations for. And hurting ISO would probably just make matters worse for interoperability and industrial cooperation.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Jesus_666]

I'd go with the following:

1. Available for implementation by everyone: Everyone can acquire the standard (an optional fee might be collected by the standards body) and it's unencumbered by patents or similar constructs
2. Completely specified within the standards framework: All behavior has to be defined either within the spec or within a different spec meeting these requirements already published by the same standards body
3. As concise as possible: Unneccessary complexity is to be avoided - OOXML's numerous date formats are a good counter-example
4. Based on other open standards meeting the requirements of requirement 2: If there's already a standard defining date representation then the new standard should use it or provide a sound reason against using it
5. Already implemented: At least one, preferably two implementations need to be in the wild

OOXML would fail requirements 2 (AutoSpaceLikeWord97, VML etc.), 3 (date representations), 4 (VML vs. SVG) and 5 (the OOXML spec has no implementations in the wild; the Office 2007 format does not match the spec). I'm not sure about requirement 1, but it's possible that OOXML fail that as well.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[NickFortune]

Any moves to sue, based on an open standard would prove how useless the "standard" is. And that there is no point trusting one of MS's standards in the future.

What they've done is set it up so that any licences only cover software that conforms to the software, and not extensions. So, all they have to do now is maintain MS Office as non-conforming to the spec. That way, anyone who follows the spec has useless software, and anyone who tweaks thins so they can interoperate isn't following the terms of the licence and can be used for violating MS's holy IP.

By the time Redmond finishes spinning the story, it will be about smelly hippies pirating Microsoft's assets, while Ballmer dances on the sidelines chanting "I told you so". The fact this grubby little non-spec was never fit for purpose and should never have been approved won't make it into the new stories.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Anonymous Coward]

And ODF would fail on requirement (spreadsheet formulas being part of an external, still to be finalised "standard" being the obvious one). In fact meeting requirement 4 means you can't meat requirement 2. Do you work in government by any chance?

Re:Personal Attacks?

[sjames]

A further advantage to that one is that many governments already understand second sources and either require them or grant an automatic advantage to proposals where they exist.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[sjames]

It's not surprising that MS can't follow the spec either. For years, a "word document" was little more than a memory dump From Word. As they developed new versions, they just piled more crap on top and let the stuff at the bottom go to compost. That's why it was possible to find fragments of unrelated documents in a Word document.

Then, the "magic XML" non-solution popped up so they wrapped the whole stinking crap ball up in that. You can frost a dog turd and call it wedding cake....

MS claims OOXML is some sort of specification or standard, but really it's an attempt to finally document the above crap ball. It's such a mess, they can't do it even with the complete source code revision history and the active coders that produced it.

That's also why it takes 6000 pages and still makes references to things that aren't documented. MS may or may not know what they are!

So, honestly it's not a spec at all and certainly isn't a standard, it's failed documentation.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as MSOOXML and ODF goes, it is over and Microsoft destroyed ODF just as they have done to so many public use standards in the past.

Only if everyone throws up their hands and gives up. Like you seem to be doing.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Antique Geekmeister]

They don't have to sue. They merely need to cast Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt over companies interested in developing products without cooperating with their patent-encumbered license agreement, especially the parts that restrict the addition of new features. Companies that might produce superior and competing products will be unable to safely follow the licensing agreements.

This is why SPF has not found its way directly into Sendmail: Microsoft's patent encumbered extensions to SPF prevent companies like Sendmail from being able to include it under their open source license, and few are willing to throw out Microsoft's exensions and put serious manpower into the older, simpler, and more stable implementation since Microsoft started violating the older specification in their software.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[I'm Don Giovanni]

OOXML would fail requirements 2 (AutoSpaceLikeWord97, VML etc.), 3 (date representations), 4 (VML vs. SVG) and 5 (the OOXML spec has no implementations in the wild; the Office 2007 format does not match the spec). I'm not sure about requirement 1, but it's possible that OOXML fail that as well. You, like most slashdotters, are completely unaware of what changes were made between ECMA's OOXML and the recently approved ISO OOXML.

First, the "AutoSpaceLikeWord97" issue has been fixed. AutoSpaceLikeWord95 and the like have now been fully spec'ed and placed in the "transition conformance" section (i.e. those behaviors are deprecated, only for use in old documents).
See the AutoSpaceLikeWord95 section of this page.
And see supressTopSpacingWP, for example

Second, ISO OOXML spreadsheets have only one date format, the ISO 8601 date format. And the Lotus leap year bug behavior has been deprecated, only for use by old spreadsheets (that may rely on that behavior either implicitly or even explicitly). Moreover, ISO OOXML's date format is now simpler than ODF's.
Resolution of OOXML spreadsheet dates issue

Third, VML has also been deprecated, and new documents are only to use DrawingML. But you cite SVG; the thing about that is that what ODF calls "SVG" isn't actually SVG. ODF extends SVG's features, cuts lots of SVG's features, and changes the behavior of other SVG features, so that one cannot just use an SVG library to implement ODF's "SVG" functionality and call it done.
Embrace and extend - SVG in ODF revisited

Finally, of course, there are not yet any ISO OOXML implementations in the wild. But there aren't any full implementations of ODF in the wild either. Here's a list of ODF apps, scored on their ODF functionality, and no app achieves a perfect score, not even OO.o.
http://opendocumentfellowship.com/applications

In summary, many here talk of how horrible OOXML is by citing problems that have been resolved in the approved ISO revision. (I'm amazed that so many here are under the illusion that the problems cited with ECMA OOXML weren't addressed at all in the final ISO version. Under that misunerstanding, I can see where one might be tempted to believe that NO votes switching to YES votes could only be the result of bribery and corruption.)

Many here also are blissfully (willfully?) ignorant of ODf's own problems. I've almost NEVER seen a post, let alone an article, on ODF's problems, like its bastardization of SVG. For example, people here cite ODF's use of "SVG" as a virtue, unaware that ODF's "SVG" isn't really SVG.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Kalriath]

* Not encumbered by patents in anyway (all involved patents must be released into the public domain immediately) Or just finally make a call and say "fuck it. No more software patents". This problem is immediately mooted.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, are you making a specific accusation against Jiri Kosek of taking a bribe (or engaging in some other act of corruption)? If we're ready to go there, that's great, because then we can get somewhere in destandardizing OOXML. The vague accusations of corruption won't lead anywhere; we need specific allegations of against specific, named, people. Of course, the latter requires actual evidence.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Locutus]

I'm not throwing up my hands and giving up but the millions who just take what given to them and make up the majority of the market are going to keep getting MS proprietary formats. There was great optimism that with ODFs ISO standard position and multiple implementations it had a great chance to gain acceptance where true open standards were required. Now that Microsoft had its MS OOXML declared a standard by two ORGs, there's little hope of ODF or any real standard gaining much if any ground. It is just reality given the situation and unwillingness of ISO to have stopped the bilking of its standards processes.

LoB

Re:Personal Attacks?

[zcat_NZ]

There's an easier test;

    The standard is specific enough that some kind of test or reference can be written to judge if an implementation 'complies' with the standard.

    The standard has been fully and properly implemented by at least two independent vendors.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Rennt]

I think that the free/open software communities opened the door for MS on this one a little.

We tried to frame the debate by using the words "free" or "open" as labels (just as you say) instead of discussing what the software actually lets you do, and hoped that OUR meaning of these admittedly vague words caught on. This is a common tactic in debate.

Unfortunately, it made it too easy for MS to use these words in their products and dilute the message. I'm surprised it took them so long.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[w000t]

Well reasoned Microsoft apologists are the ones that scary me the most.
What you say makes sense; yet, there's only so far you can go with that line of reasoning. Most reasoned OOXML justifications I've heard try to point out the flaws in ODF as if that could bring the 2 standards to the same level. It can't. At the end of the day ODF (with any flaws it may have) will still be a standard created to bring interoperability to the table by all players but Microsoft (granted, those whose stand to gain something by it) and OOXML is a format designed by Microsoft (the big loser in that scenario) to stop all other players from joining the party. This doesn't makes supporting ODF an anti-Microsoft crusade, it just happens to be that the whole world (expect Microsoft) stands to gain a lot from this too.
And it's not hard to understand either: If OOXML is just an interoperability scam, then it really doesn't matters much if the format is well documented or not, because it will never be implemented by Microsoft and anybody else at the same time: either Microsoft or the competition will (willingly or unwillingly) never fully comply with it and interoperability won't improve. In this is the case, OOXML ISO standardization just gave MS the rubber stamp it needed to maintain the status quo. If OOXML really was about interoperability, then they really should have questioned the need for a new standard when
1) there was already another one designed to fulfill this role (whether ODF fully satisfies this role ATM or not)
2) they were asked to join the ODF developing group (yet they refused to that which would have give them the chance to fix their flaws, hence weakening the "ODF wasn't good enough for us" claim)
3) the previous standard (ODF) went through a review process that lasted years and has already been revised and improved (and continues to be so) and OOXML was is such a bad shape that received a record number of comments despite the (unusually) short time of review it was subjected to.
So, which is it? Is there a good explanation for why OOXML as an ISO standard was needed or was it just the tool MS needed to secure their dominant position?

Re:Personal Attacks?

[John Jamieson]

You said "If you've ever read Joel's article about the file formats, you'd understand that there are some behaviors that simply can't be described other than to say "here is the piece of code that produces that output"."

LOL DON'T EVER SAY THIS AT A RATIONAL CONFERENCE. You will be laughed out of the building if someone doesn't kill you first.

Show me anything that can't be described by finite state diagrams/uml or Use Cases. Go ahead, I assure you it is not these file formats!

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Lonewolf666]

Finally, of course, there are not yet any ISO OOXML implementations in the wild. But there aren't any full implementations of ODF in the wild either. Here's a list of ODF apps, scored on their ODF functionality, and no app achieves a perfect score, not even OO.o.
http://opendocumentfellowship.com/applications [opendocume...owship.com]

In summary, many here talk of how horrible OOXML is by citing problems that have been resolved in the approved ISO revision. (I'm amazed that so many here are under the illusion that the problems cited with ECMA OOXML weren't addressed at all in the final ISO version. Under that misunerstanding, I can see where one might be tempted to believe that NO votes switching to YES votes could only be the result of bribery and corruption.)

After looking at the list of ODF apps and assuming the scores are fair, we have plenty of choice in the "works pretty well" (4 out of 5) category. So it is not perfect yet but quite usable. I think this is quite normal for complex software. Even Donald Knuth's Tex system (legendary for being the only large software that is almost certainly bug-free) took years after feature freeze to debug completely.

On the corruption theme, various observers reported rather strange proceedings in their institutions. Usually in the sense that the approval of OOXML was pushed through against the normal rules or against common sense. As a particular suspicious case, see
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/03/31/Norway-asks-to-suspend-its-Yes-vote-on-OOXML_1.html

You can find more links at Groklaw, check those from end of march in particeular:
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20071217022527429

Re:Personal Attacks?

[verayh]

So, is this open letter a taste of what the new standard word processed documents will look like? ROTFLOL!

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Jesus_666]

As for DoStuffLikeFoo: I know that there has been work on that. While I still don't like how they solved the problem (defining deprecated legacy interfaces in a first-version format is not very clean) at least the standard doesn't rely on them anymore - except, of course, if you want to open files created with MS Office. Same for VML.

As for "one date format for spreadsheets": Can you make the same statement for every single component of the standard? If I remember corretly there were also issues of, for example, a text document having (a) different date format(s) than a spreadsheet.

As for ODF: Yes, I was aware that ODF would probably fail my criteria. The SVG stuff (if what the article you linked to is illustrative of the whole issue) does look like it could feasibly be addressed in a relatively moinor revision.


I never claimed that none of the issues were adressed (however, if what we know about the comments process, many weren't because every member could only bring a small number of issues to the table). However, OOXML is still a horribly complex beast of a standard, many of the issues the ISO members found with it were "solved" by bulk vote and the entire standardization process was highly dubious. Those are things we know pretty well, with data to back them up. While NO->YES switches are not inconceivable, there have been enough instances of extremely weird practices to seriously cast doubt on their credibility.

In the end ODF is much smaller, has spent much more time in the standardization process and does not have a history of weird voting practices associated with it. While it's not perfect, those are pretty serious advantages.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[TheRaven64]

I think the ODF community are at least partially to blame for OXML being adopted as an ISO standard. ODF, as it stands, has a significant number of flaws and limitations and yet was pushed through ISO. OASIS has since addressed quite a few of the flaws, but not yet submitted revised versions of the spec to ISO. This enabled the OOXML lobby to say 'you accepted one crappy office standard, why not accept another?' If ODF had gone through a few more revisions before being sent to ISO, they would have had a bit less of a point.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[samwichse]

Actually, just having ONE complete implementation would sink OOXML, as MS Office doesn't even follow the standard as it was passed. That's right, there isn't a single office suite capable of reading/writing the ISO standard. Sam

Re:Personal Attacks?

[shutdown -p now]

Have you actually read the OOXML spec? Do you even know what an "OLE compound document" means?

Seriously. The number of people on Slashdot who are bashing OOXML but haven't even seen the spec is insane. If you guys were reading anything except for /. and Groklaw, you'd know that the "autoSpaceLikeWord95" thingy has been resolved (i.e., properly documented) during the ISO standardization process as well, as were hundreds of others. Have any of you seen the document which ISO approved? Do you have any specific and technical issues with it? You lot say it's "not implementable" (despite the fact there are tons of readers already, and a few full-featured implementations), but can you point to specific places in the OOXML spec that you can't implement?

So far, in every OOXML discussion I've seen on /., there's the same stuff again and again:

6000 pages - yes, it's a lot, and may well be more than needed; but given enough time and resources, one can figure this out. There are larger standards out there. Furthermore, noone ever said that it should be feasible for a single hobbyist OSS developer to write a full-fledged office suite.

autoSpaceLikeWord95 and friends - all properly documented now thanks to ISO. Not an issue anymore.

Using own formats instead of SVG, dates etc - yes, this is technically inelegant and wasteful, but as long as the formats used are all properly described, it does not impede implementations.

Corruption in ISO - ample evidence for that, and I won't argue here, but this is an entirely different issue from technical aspects of whether OOXML is an acceptable spec or not.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Alsee]

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who opposes the adoption of OOXML can go piss up a rope.

And you can kindly go suck on that wet rope.

(1) The massive corruption of process that has been permitted has entirely destroyed the ISO's credibility.
(2) The flood of bogus "P member" countries for the sole purpose of cramming OOXML through has materially disrupted work on other ISO business and votes, as these bogus Participating category countries never actually participate and never show up and never vote. ISO procedures are quite tolerant of the fact that not all P-member countries are going to show up all the time, however they were NEVER intended to operate under a substantial and organized DDOS attack of phony P-memberships.
(3) You are either astroturfing or totally clueless to defend this steaming pile of shit document as an ISO standard. The document is not merely defective, the document does not merely have hundreds of defects, the document is literally riddled with THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of defects. If you think OOXML should be an ISO standard because it is a de facto standard of Microsoft's de facto monopoly power, FINE, but at least POLISH THE TURD FIRST. Fix the the thousands upon thousands of flaws first. In its current state the document is an embarrassment even for a first draft submission. It grossly fails all minimal quality standards for an official ISO standard.

As a developer I'm more than happy to have, for the first time ever, some readily available documentation on the file format

Swell. But that is a totally fraudulent argument for an approve vote.

(1) Microsoft supplies that information and submitting their standard proposal.
(2) ISO reviews the proposed standards document and finds it grossly defective and votes reject.
(3) You still have that exact crap documentation you are so grateful to have.
(4) Maybe Microsoft still wants approval and actually goes to work and fixes the thousands of document problems and necessarily supplies valuable additional file format information.
(5) Either way you have everything you have now and at minimum are no worse off, and a REJECT result quite likely leaves you better off by receiving additional and better information.

-

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Maxo-Texas]

I appreciate your kicking in there... As you say, these are the scary ones...

However, He has some good points on the "No implementation of ODF" and "SVG not really supported". The SVG issue seems to have been around for a long time. I get the impression from skimming various web sites that many SVG documents work- but as he says the implementation is not identical so you could not develop another ODF reader and get predictable results. While digging, I noticed that 2.0 OOO and Koffice are both ODF but cannot read each other's documents with 100% reliability.

The great thing about ODF tho- is that OOO and KOffice will continue to be developed and these issues *will* be fixed. Microsoft told our corporation for some bugs in their products-- "that will not be fixed". And as a developer, I understand why a "for profit" corporation would do that. Why spend $1mil to fix a bug that produces $100k marginal income. Only Sears did that kinda thing (back in the day) because quality was part of their brand name. Microsoft doesn't really have a lot of skin in the "quality" brand name game. It's more in the "decent quality with lots of support if you pay for it" brand name game.

I know microsoft is having a rough time with the open source movement-- and their patents will only buy them at most 17 years. There will inevitably be a time that most basic kinds of software will have powerful,free, mature implementations that are O/S agnostic. Wordprocessing, spreadsheets, graphics and audio software all fit in that basic software category. Even GIMP will someday rival Adobe Photoshop. Because APS will get increasingly expensive to maintain while GIMP will just get better and better over time.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[sjames]

I can't say I've read all 6000 pages. I can say that even given the best of intentions and adequate time and funding, the odds of any two teams developing to such a spec such that they interoperate at the end of the process are nil.

Frankly, ODF is pushing the limits at 600 pages.

Successful and widely implemented specifications are typically layered and seperable such that an individual can take a part, study it carefully for a day or two, and then start implementing referring back to the spec only for specifics (such as what was the order of that enum).

For best results a specification for software should have at least a trivial reference implementation connected with it.

Those things alone are good enough reason to require a re-submission. A spec something like a document format is something the world has to live with for decades. It needs to at least start life very solid and with multiple implementations.

When designing a spec, the question is not "what else can I put in" but "what can I remove without compromising the functionality" and "what can I re-factor and consolodate". Then, finally "what implicit assumptions have I forgotten to document". The latter question was in part addressed in the process for MSOOXML. The first two seem to have been left in the dust.

I do know someone who tried saving a document in it (in Vista), uploaded it to a website and then tried to fetch it down in IE. Windows Vista decided it was a winzip file and offered to unzip it for him, but it wouldn't reload into Word.

Seems MS Windows can't make sense of it either.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[mrchaotica]

Here we have the company responsible for that 90% (if not more!) wanting to open up their file format and make it an ISO standard, giving the wider global community some sort of say in the process, for the first time ever.

Wrong! Microsoft doesn't want to open up a damn thing, nor does it want to give anybody else any say in the process. Microsoft wants nothing more and nothing less than to be able to claim compliance with government laws requiring the use of "open standard" file formats. In fact, Microsoft has even said that it intends to direct the development of the OOXML format itself, ignoring the recommendations of whatever groups ECMA and ISO might create.

Some of those "flaws" are directly related to preserving the ability of a word processor to open older documents and render them properly

That's bullshit. The correct way to handle that sort of thing is that, when translating an older document into the new format, to just do it fucking completely the first time. If Word knows what "AutoSpaceLikeWord95" means, then it needs to translate that into the correct formatting commands at the time it saves the new file, not just stick it in there as-is for some other program to have to support later!

will archaeologists be able to open a 100-yr old Word document in the future? 500 year old? I hope so, because that will be a regular part of the job...

No, they won't. And they won't be able to do it to a fucking OOXML file, either! It doesn't fucking matter that the format is text-based instead of binary (the only real difference between .doc and .docx); they're still not going to be able to deal with a 6000-page, internally-inconsistent, incomplete, unimplementable spec that dreams up its own auxiliary formats (for things like dates and vector graphics) instead of leveraging other standards!

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your argument might have some merit if MSWord actually supported the format, but it doesn't, so it doesn't.

Re:Personal Attacks?

[Anonymous Coward]

that IS the definition used in Danish decision to use open standards in government, but they accept OOXML anyway.

Here's a message for ISO and the letter...

[Snotman]

Boohoo! I guess the adoption of the standard around the world speaks for itself and the political motivations to have two document standards. How do they reason that there needs to be 2. And while they are at it, they should make a third and a fourth and a fifth. Obviously, when it comes to standards, diversity matters.

Re:Here's a message for ISO and the letter...

[Planesdragon]

How do they reason that there needs to be 2 Neither the F/OSS folks nor the Microsoft folks will abandon their established format. There will be two formats, no matter what the ISO does.

So, the best thing the ISO can do is formalize each "standard", and get each party used to listening to it and using it as the reference.

Re:Here's a message for ISO and the letter...

[mysidia]

How would they reason that it is bad to have two competing document standards?

The formats are significantly different, and OOXML must have some merit for being a standard in itsel, or at least some people believe. Presumptively if a major piece of the market is utilizing the format, then there are benefits to be realized by having standardized.

We have many programming language standards: for example, there is an ISO standard for C, there is an ISO standard for C++, there is an ISO standard for FORTRAN, etc.

MS wanting to standardize their Office formats can (IMO) only be seen as a great indication of Open Office's success, and the fact MS now feels a need to switch from proprietary file formats (unreadable to third party software) to more open formats.

Now with elimination of software patents... M$ Offices' unfair vendor lock-in and inability to interoperate with users of non-MS software may vanish in the future (provided they actually adopt the open format they are standardizing as the default file format)

Just a few benefits of OOXML being standardized.

It would be nice if M$ were to adopt ODF; however, it is doubtful they ever would do so -- due to "not invented here" syndrome.

Re:Here's a message for ISO and the letter...

[Lknight]

OOXML is not standardized. It's 'standardized'.

If Microsoft really wanted to eliminate their lock in and work on an open standard, they would have worked to extend ODF. That wasn't profitable for them, so they didn't do it.

We do have many programming language standards, but all of those standards are well defined. They do not include something that only one complier from one company knows just how it works!

Something is either open or not. You can't have it both ways. Microsoft realizes this, and realizes it can (through sheer complicated technicality) give the impression of being open, while being closed. It seems they are still fooling some of the people some of the time.

Re:Here's a message for ISO and the letter...

[Anonymous Coward]

Private business (ie Microsoft) has always been free to deviate from ISO standards in products they create. This is technique is generally referred to as "proprietary." The fault here is that Microsoft is has decided they don't want their format to be considered "proprietary" because of the competition the open source standard presents one of their flagship products. Thus, they have subverted the system with $ and corruption to force it to adopt their proprietary format as a "standard." This, in itself, perverts the organization of ISO, rendering it little more than a corporate puppet.

Re:Here's a message for ISO and the letter...

[peragrin]

it does speak volumes. with the EU investigating several countries for massive amounts of corruption, Norway voted against adopting it, yet the technical committee of MSFT friends passed it anyways. a 19 to 6 vote against does speak volumes.

There are currently enough voting irregularities that which if half of them switch to abstain OOXML is no longer a standard. OOXML is a piece of shit. no one and that's including MSFT can ever implement it as it is so complicated and relies on knowing undocumented features of word 95, 97, and 2000.

MSFT just killed the ISO as they can no longer be taken seriously. With enough bribes you can buy what ever standard you want.

Re:Here's a message for ISO and the letter...

[Locutus]

we've got a noob here. Microsoft follow standards you say? ha, and to even mention language standards is a double ha, ha.

Microsoft does NOT follow standards and any piece of garbage coming from their employees stating they do is fiction and just a tool to fool the market into thinking they do. Learn your history dude/dudette.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/10/21/reborn_or_stillborn_all_new/

And thinking that Microsoft will adopt ISO OOXML is foolish thought too. This whole exercise was created to block ODF because US State governments were realizing it would be best to have their docs in an open standard instead of one companies secret format. It is factually impossible for anyone but Microsoft to fully implement the ECMA MSOOXML standard and now that ISO has been corrupted and overtake by Microsoft partners to allow MSOOXML as also an ISO standard, it is game over for ODF. Microsoft got what they were after, no change to their control of the document specifications. IMO

LoB

Re:Here's a message for ISO and the letter...

[r7]

the best thing the ISO can do is formalize each "standard" I'm sure that would be a satisfactory outcome for Microsoft. It is, after all, true to their well established "embrace and extend" business method. But OOXML is not capable of being an actual standard for document interchange.
Think about it for a second, simply adding xml tags to the beginning and end of a proprietary file/object is like calling a sow's ear "silk, i.e., nothing more than marketing-driven rhetoric. Using terminology that means one thing to market your completely different thing, and doing so with the blessing of an "international organization", is corrupt.

Thank MSISO, but no thanks.

Re:Here's a message for ISO and the letter...

[mysidia]

Maybe, when MS finally gets around to making a fully compliant implementation of the final version of OOXML. And if OOXML fully meets the legal requirements for being an 'open standard' (maybe just being certified by ISO is not sufficient)

Customers who need an open standard will then have the option of picking OOXML or ODF, assuming they determine that OOXML fully meets their requirements.

MS Office has a history over 10 years. MS has put out a fairly compelling (nice looking) product, Office 2007, and sold many copies.

OOo is well, free, quite a few years younger than Office, and does not provide some of the accessibility features, usability features, and performance of Office, for instance when saving and opening documents.

When low cost is the object, OOo wins, when other considerations are more important, such as widespread reputation for reliability+usability, preference among colleagues, ease-of-use, etc, sometimes OOo won't win.

Re:Here's a message for ISO and the letter...

[Locutus]

Microsoft has no intention of supporting ISO OOXML, heck, they refused to support the ISO ODF format even when threatened with the loss of 10's of thousands of licenses for MS Office. It is a very well specified 600 page spec.

To hedge their bet on getting their own format standardized, the put out a pet project with little support behind it but a nice public face of attempting to support ODF. But it is half hearted at best.

Don't kid yourself, Microsoft has no intention of supporting the public spec which is now ISO OOXML or ISO ODF.

Also, it was Microsoft which made it a fight about MS Office vs all others. The requirement for ODF did not exclude Microsoft Office but instead, Microsoft refused to support ODF in MS Office. So, if you like MS Office you are stuck with their proprietary format and required licenses to read it.

LoB

Re:Here's a message for ISO and the letter...

[mysidia]

Microsoft has no intention of supporting ISO OOXML, heck, they refused to support the ISO ODF format even when threatened with the loss of 10's of thousands of licenses for MS Office. It is a very well specified 600 page spec.

This seems like an assertion bordering on wrecklessness to me. What evidence is there that MS had no intention to support the ISO OOXML?

There may be some cause to doubt their sincerity in certain respects. It is not clear that they have promised to support the ISO OOXML in their products, but they may. They may also turn around and support ISO ODF as their open format instead, so they can have extra checkboxes in their "feature support" I.E. 'MS Word:' The only word processor built on open standards that supports both ISO ODF and OOXML.

If government bodies are mandated to use an open standard, then MS has every reason to support fully open standards versions of the ISO OOXML or ODF, otherwise their products' document types will not be compliant with an open standard, and government bodies as a result can either no longer use Office, or they have to start saving documents as something like HTML/RTF/PDF, instead.

Re:Here's a message for ISO and the letter...

[Locutus]

This seems like an assertion bordering on wrecklessness to me. What evidence is there that MS had no intention to support the ISO OOXML?

There may be some cause to doubt their sincerity in certain respects. It is not clear that they have promised to support the ISO OOXML in their products, but they may. They may also turn around and support ISO ODF as their open format instead, so they can have extra checkboxes in their "feature support" I.E. 'MS Word:' The only word processor built on open standards that supports both ISO ODF and OOXML.

If government bodies are mandated to use an open standard, then MS has every reason to support fully open standards versions of the ISO OOXML or ODF, otherwise their products' document types will not be compliant with an open standard, and government bodies as a result can either no longer use Office, or they have to start saving documents as something like HTML/RTF/PDF, instead. history, the reasons why Embrace, Extend, Extinguish are a longtime Microsoft trait and label, Halloween documents, and how they handled the creation of the "standard".

And from history, Microsoft can easily produce partial compliance and any failures will get fixed a year or two out and at that time, other inconsistencies will be introduced. A year or two later they might get found and the cycle repeats. All the while, slightly twisted versions of the standard are continued to be used and only Microsoft's products keep up with keeping the documents readable or formatted correctly.

Read as much of the history of Massachusetts trip down open standard file document lane as you can stand. If you spend more than 5 hours on this, you just might understand the lack of belief in them really supporting the ISO or EMCA OOXML standards.

LoB

Re:Here's a message for ISO and the letter...

[Jesus_666]

This seems like an assertion bordering on wrecklessness to me.What evidence is there that MS had no intention to support the ISO OOXML?

Quoth the exec: "It's hard for Microsoft to commit to what comes out of Ecma [the European standards group that has already OK'd OOXML] in the coming years, because we don't know what direction they will take the formats. We'll of course stay active and propose changes based on where we want to go with Office 14. At the end of the day, though, the other Ecma members could decide to take the spec in a completely different direction. ... Since it's not guaranteed, it would be hard for us to make any sort of official statement."

Microsoft has put it plainly: If the Ecma (now ISO) spec doesn't match what Microsoft wants to do with the file format then the file format will deviate from the spec. That pretty much ruins the whole "read files 50 years from now" plan, at least for Office 14 onwards. Combined with the fact that the OOXML spec and the Office file format already don't match up I'd say that the chances of Microsoft sticking to OOXML are rather slim.

As for ODF: That would instantly diminish Office's market value by making interoperability easier (the ODF spec is much easier to implement than the OOXML one, being 1/10th the size). Microsoft lives off the being the only ones who can open their formats. They're not going to let that position go to waste.

why not open source Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the EU seems to be the only organization with a backbone willing to stand up to Microsoft, why don't they solve the "closed protocol" problem by open sourcing Windows?

The EU has the windows source code already. They have the regulatory power to do what is necessary to force compliance with the law, which MS is not willing to do on its own.

Think about it: this would open up the possibility for Windows competitors. MS would no longer be a monopoly, and could not abuse its position to ram non-"standards" through a kangaroo standards body. They could no longer abuse their dominant market position to shut down competitors or strongarm vendors into not allowing other OSs to be sold on their systems. It fixes all the problems caused by a MS monopoly.

In addition, it ultimately allows for more security: Windows vendors could compete on security of their version.

It brings interoperability to the industry, and it means that hardware drivers can be supplied for many different systems, not just Windows, addressing one of the big problems *nixes face today.

It's time to see an open source Windows. All the EU needs is a >little more of a backbone. "MS: you have failed to comply with the terms of the court. As a result, Windows is now open sourced, and we are seeding 10 competitors to start up and sell their own versions."

Bring competition back to the market, and these things will not be a problem any more. As long as there is no meaningful competition, any other steps are bandaids.

Re:why not open source Windows?

[tomtomtom777]

The EU has the windows source code already.

What makes you think they have? Any sources on this?

Besides, even if they have access to it, they surely didn't get the right to open-source it. Not legally nor morally, even for open-source advocates.

Re:why not open source Windows?

[Danse]

Besides, even if they have access to it, they surely didn't get the right to open-source it. Not legally nor morally, even for open-source advocates. Given that copyright is a legal right granted by legislation, it could certainly be revoked by legislation as well, which would be both legal and moral if the corporation was violating the law, which they have determined that MS has been doing, repeatedly.

Re:why not open source Windows?

[notamisfit]

First of all, copyright, like any other form of property right, is a moral right upheld by legislation. Yeah, they can "revoke" it, in the same sense that government thugs with guns can "revoke" my right to my computer or my house. Second of all, yeah, EU could expropriate the copyright. How much shit do you think is going to hit the fan if they do? That's essentially a repudiation of every international copyright agreement out there, and reciprocity can be a real bitch.

Re:why not open source Windows?

[notamisfit]

MS opens themselves up for this shit by continuing to operate in these countries. I wish they'd made good on their promise to pull out of South Korea a few years back; now everyone knows they'll stay and swallow whatever shit the European worker's paradise wishes to feed them.

Re:why not open source Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the EU seems to be the only organization with a backbone willing to stand up to Microsoft

Since when is extorting^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H levying huge "fines" demonstrating a backbone? Seriously, how much courage does it take to tell Microsoft they have to pay $600M in fines to continue to do business in Europe? If they really wanted to show backbone they would simply say that Microsoft products could no longer be sold in Europe. Period. But as we all know, it's much easier, and of course much more profitable for the commission, to just keep fining them. How brave of them. that is actually being looked into btw

infact such a thing was reported a few days ago on /.

Re:why not open source Windows?

[Danse]

First of all, copyright, like any other form of property right, is a moral right upheld by legislation. It's hardly a moral right. It's simply a compromise between the public and those who create new works in an effort to encourage such creations. They get a temporary right to exclusively duplicate and distribute those works in exchange for them being added to the public domain at the end of that period. That the copyright industry has grossly perverted that compromise is the real breach of morality.

Re:why not open source Windows?

[thetoadwarrior]

It's not like the US doesn't have double standards when it comes to international copyright and business protection. They wouldn't have a leg to stand on and I doubt the US would get any sympathy from other countries excepy maybe America Jr. (Canada).

Re:why not open source Windows?

[thetoadwarrior]

Microsoft can't pull out. Europe has excellent ties to upcoming nations. If they pulled out and Europe went Open Source or went with Apple then they risk China, India and other nations which huge populations doing the same.

America may think it's the centre of the universe but it's not and it's going to find that out quickly when the bottom of their economy falls out completely in the near future.

Re:why not open source Windows?

[Kalriath]

Given that copyright is a legal right granted by legislation, it could certainly be revoked by legislation as well, which would be both legal Actually, it wouldn't be legal. Have you heard of the Berne Convention? Well, they're signatories to that, and technically a treaty signed into law by a government is the same as a local law. Violating the Berne Convention would wreak absolute havoc on their economic relations.

Re:why not open source Windows?

[Danse]

Actually, it wouldn't be legal. Have you heard of the Berne Convention? Well, they're signatories to that, and technically a treaty signed into law by a government is the same as a local law. Violating the Berne Convention would wreak absolute havoc on their economic relations. They wouldn't necessarily be violating the convention by revoking a copyright. IIRC, the convention just requires them to apply their own copyright laws to foreign copyrights as well. If British copyright law allows for the revocation then it should still be legal. There may be other ways it could be legally done as well, but I'd have to do some research to find out.

Now wait just a cotton pickin' minute

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft's patented strategy is: Embrace, Extend, Eliminate.

Is Microsoft going to have to embrace, extend and eliminate their own 'standard'. Surely they aren't going to let ISO dictate OOXML to them. My brain hurts.

Re:Now wait just a cotton pickin' minute

[Locutus]

why do they have to fully support the ISO standard? That was not the plan IMO and there is nothing which requires them to do this. They may have a poorly supported export/import function for the ISO standard but they do not have to support it. And there is no reason to believe they would even though they will say that they do and will support it.

There is nothing legally requiring them to do this. And the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish element here is to the ODF standard. They claimed to embrace XML, they extended the belief that everything in XML is open by embedding proprietary and patented stuff in their XML, and the Extinguished ODF's chance of being a valid competitor for office file formats by purchasing there way to standardizing a version of their MSOOXML.

There is nothing requiring them to support this new office document standard and I would think it very difficult to find a document from Microsoft which we could believe proves they will adhere to it. The ISO org will now spin its wheels pretending they have a purpose in this game of Microsofts and spend many years running around in circles working on these two documents, MSOOXML and ODF. And Microsft will continue on controlling access to the office document formats. IMO

LoB

Re:Now wait just a cotton pickin' minute

[dvice_null]

They don't have to follow the standard. They can use their own version of the standard. As no-one else will use the standard, they basicly can use the ISO standard as a marketing term, without actually following use.

Damage control done too late

[Pecisk]

ISO, it is already too late. OOXML is tainted with very bad attitude from Microsoft and not control, nor ownership change not gonna cut it. You blow your own reputation and you have to live with that.

And hands off from ODF. Get lost.

Re:Damage control done too late

[deniable]

Yeah, but if we can get the right people on the committee we can fix OOXML. Let's give Microsoft a moving target. :)

As to cross standard efforts, I think ODF should embrace OOXML, then extend it.

Re:Damage control done too late

[Lknight]

You're assuming Microsoft will actually follow the standard in its entirety. The moving target is for the people who want to inter-operate with Microsoft, not the other way around.

ODF should embrace any missing functionality using existing standards (like flowcharts drawn using SVG). To embrace OOXML will cause it to implode upon itself.

Re:Damage control done too late

[Pecisk]

They wanted to get OOXML ISO standardized purerly because of marketing and PR stuff, so they can continue to brainwash governments and orgs into using Microsoft Office. As simple as that.

If you really think they care about full compliance, well, they never cared, they never will care.

Re:Damage control done too late

[erroneus]

According to THIS interpretation of events, Microsoft basically owns how ISO will deal with ISO/IEC 29500. SC34 is under the control of ECMA... we know who is in control of ECMA.

I propose we call it POXML

[toby]

To reflect the dreadful plague that is Microsoft and all their works.

Re:I propose we call it POXML

[Anonymous Coward]

To reflect the dreadful plague that is Microsoft and all their works.

I guess that works out to Proprietary Office XML?

Re:I propose we call it POXML

[Anonymous Coward]

POXML approximates a standard. POXML it is. As for Alex Brown, head of the ISO work group, and his statement on the vote on Microsoft's proposed fast-tracking of the POXML, the voting is still under appeal. Stating there were a lot of irregularities in the process is not a personal attack. In fact, it is an understatement. However, if ISO cannot control whether an outside company gets to decide which ISO rules are followed (we will know more about this once the appeals are over), then ISO certainly cannot state they have "control" of POXML, or OOXML, or whatever you want to call something that Microsoft controls and ISO does not.

Re:I propose we call it POXML

[jo42]

POOXML is much more appropriate here.

Spare me the false civility

[Anonymous Coward]

When a party is acting dishonorably, to the extent that Microsoft did with their OOXML shenanigans, they and their supporters need calling on it. These guys allowed OOXML to happen and they are being called on it. Never mind an open letter about personal attacks, these fucking clowns must be actively excluded from any future standardization process or that too will be deemed a joke!

The future

[Random BedHead Ed]

The real test is the future. If Microsoft works through ISO to improve the standard, and ODF and OOXML are gradually harmonized, then all our complaining is moot. If other companies and projects implement OOXML and have no trouble doing it, and Microsoft doesn't sue them for infringement of some obscure patent, that's fine. We get what we want.

Consider this silver lining: without ODF, under what other circumstances would Microsoft have turned their new document file format over to a standards body? This whole scenario would have been an open source advocate's wet dream in the 1990s. Sure, what happened with the ISO vote was deplorable and calls the standards body's process and impartiality into question, but things are a lot better than they would have been without ODF.

Re:The future

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless they modify it to actually be standard, instead of being a "standard" shell to a proprietary microsoft document format, then this could be a good thing.

If not, it's time to send in the captcha ... the marines

Re:The future

[Pecisk]

It is not worth for Microsoft to improve standard, if they won't make their Office releases _fully_ OOXML standard compliant. As standard for now is completely mess, I will guess it will take approximately 2 years to wait for it to be seriously completed.

In two years ODF will have additional stuff to support flowchart apps, and other stuff.

OOXML standardisation is simply NOT WORTH that. It is just Microsoft childish behaviour (they don't have serious strategy for that) that keeps OOXML floating around. And ohh, lot of support for coders who just don't wanna rewrite their filters to support ODF (Novell/Ximian, yeah, I am talking about you).

Re:The future

[Samari711]

Of course, that assumes that Microsoft actually implements any of the changes that ISO makes to the standard. I wouldn't put it past them to not follow their own standard if it stops suiting their need.

Re:The future

[Danse]

If Microsoft works through ISO to improve the standard, and ODF and OOXML are gradually harmonized, then all our complaining is moot Given Microsoft's past actions regarding ODF, what do you think the chances are that they will allow them to be harmonized?

Consider this silver lining: without ODF, under what other circumstances would Microsoft have turned their new document file format over to a standards body? Turned it over? They rammed it through the process using every dirty tactic they could come up with. Somehow I'm thinking that Microsoft hasn't really lost control of anything. They seem to have plenty of control over the ISO.

Re:The future

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, considering M$ has explicitly said that they wouldn't follow any changes ISO makes to the standard...
Or, for that matter, they haven't even implemented their own draft version of the standard in the latest Office.

Re:The future

[shutdown -p now]

It is not worth for Microsoft to improve standard, if they won't make their Office releases _fully_ OOXML standard compliant.

They have already made an official commitment to do just that, both for their next Office release, and for the final version of the OOXML SDK.

In two years ODF will have additional stuff to support flowchart apps, and other stuff.

As you sure well know, the issue with ODF is the lack of support for it in the most widespread Office suite out there. This isn't going to get any better, either. Meanwhile, the number of applications with OOXML support grows steadily. Apple's commitment to OOXML (apparently they even support reading it on the iPhone) and not to ODF is the final nail in the coffin - it pretty much only leaves Linux as the only "ODF by default" platform out there; and even there Novell is muddying the waters now with its plugin, and OpenOffice 3.0 is going to support OOXML out of the box...

Look, we may like it or not, but it has pretty much been decided now. OOXML is going to be the standard for exchanging office documents. Ugly as it may be (I admit I haven't read the specs, but I've read the introductory booklets by MS covering the basics - and it looks rather messy even there), it's still better than no standard at all.

Re:The future

[shutdown -p now]

From here:

"... we are committed to supporting the Open XML specification that is approved by ISO/IEC in our products"

It makes sense too, if you think of it. What Microsoft expects to get from this is access to markets where a standardized document format is required (such as some governments). Unless they actually implement the OOXML as approved by ISO, they won't get it (they would still be able to claim that OOXML is an ISO standard without clarifying that it's not the same OOXML as in Office 2007, but they wouldn't pass any actual checks or certifications needed).

Re:The future

[shutdown -p now]

Given Microsoft's past actions regarding ODF, what do you think the chances are that they will allow them to be harmonized?

Pretty good, actually. It begins with "embrace and extend", remember? Though in this case, it is now more likely to be "assimilate".

Re:The future

[Anonymous Coward]

"If Microsoft works through ISO to improve the standard, and ODF and OOXML are gradually harmonized, then all our complaining is moot."

While you're at it, if we wish really hard we can turn lead into gold and then we'll all be so rich we won't care.

Re:The future

[Anonymous Coward]

"Given Microsoft's past actions regarding ODF, what do you think the chances are that they will allow them to be harmonized?"

Why wouldn't Microsoft allow them to harmonize the standardized OOXML with ODF?

After all, they've already said long ago that they do not plan on using the ISO OOXML version themselves anyway. Or has that changed somehow?

So basically the situation is, the committee will cripple ODF down to the level of the unimplimentable OOXML (or attempt to). This might go so far as forcably add "IndentLikeOffice95" to ODF "to harmonize them". Of course the open source community will reject that and refuse to add it! Thereby making their non-corrupted form of ODF non-ISO standard and thereby unusable by governments and schools that require a standard! :)

Meanwhile those schools and governments will adopt the next version of MS Office because it will be the only thing to support "OOXML" which is being pushed upon them by marketing as an ISO standard - even if it isn't since it's just a -version- of it that isn't actually compatible with the real ISO-OOXML.

Re:The future

[Kasracer]

Given Microsoft's past actions regarding ODF, what do you think the chances are that they will allow them to be harmonized?

OOXML is now an ISO standard. They have no choice in the matter.

Re:The future

[HalAtWork]

If Microsoft implements OOXML as described by the ISO it would be great too.

Re:The future

[Danse]

You say:

Of course the open source community will reject that and refuse to add it! Thereby making their non-corrupted form of ODF non-ISO standard and thereby unusable by governments and schools that require a standard! :) and then...

Meanwhile those schools and governments will adopt the next version of MS Office because it will be the only thing to support "OOXML" which is being pushed upon them by marketing as an ISO standard - even if it isn't since it's just a -version- of it that isn't actually compatible with the real ISO-OOXML. So, Microsoft will basically do the same thing that the open source community is doing, namely refusing to implement the standard. Yet they will somehow be acceptable? If that's the case, the the ISO is completely pointless. I almost hope it comes to that, as I would like to see them face some serious consequences for this debacle.

Re:The future

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, so they already made an official commitment to fully comply with OOXML? Well all is well then isn't it? I also heard that Duke Nukem Forever was just around the corner... So basically OOXML is the spec and now that the Spec is a standard it's worth implementing? Even funnier is that this spec got Fast-Tracked! Pardon the language but: Unbe-fucking-leivable! There's a reason why in the IETF for a Internet-Draft to become standards track there need at least exist two independent fully interoperable implementations...

Re:The future

[Tikkun]

A standard that only one company can fully implement is not a standard, it is a monopoly.

Re:The future

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are mistaken. For one, the fast-track vote is still under appeal. For two, Nobody supports what ISO voted on, not even Microsoft. For three, ODF is the current and only open worldwide standard for easily-editable word processing, spreadsheet, graphics, database, and pretty much every other kind of computer document. And the readers and editors for ODF are free. Sorry, but you are trying to call the game before the first quarter is even over. And right now your side is down by 50 points and awaiting penalties for breaking the rules.*

--
* See for example the Europe Union declarations. Or just review what happened at ISO recently.

Re:The future

[Pecisk]

They have already made an official commitment to do just that, both for their next Office release, and for the final version of the OOXML SDK.

Next Office release? When? According to pause between XP and Vista releases, it is about 3 - 4 years at least. It is VERY long time. Before that, talking about supporting of OOXML (which is not even cleaned up for now) is just laughing stock and no one will base serious business on that.

As you sure well know, the issue with ODF is the lack of support for it in the most widespread Office suite out there. This isn't going to get any better, either. Meanwhile, the number of applications with OOXML support grows steadily.

Most of apps comes from Apple (which, I guess, has agreement with Microsoft), Microsoft (well, duh), and OpenOffice and it's derratives (like NeoOffice). Some small online apps and that's it. OpenOffice.org 3 is due to be released not so soon and current OOXML support in NeoOffice and OpenOffice.org is not serous to talk about (tried to use it, nightmare).

Apple's commitment to OOXML (apparently they even support reading it on the iPhone) and not to ODF is the final nail in the coffin - it pretty much only leaves Linux as the only "ODF by default" platform out there; and even there Novell is muddying the waters now with its plugin, and OpenOffice 3.0 is going to support OOXML out of the box...

Apple support to OOXML in iWorks haven't been surprise. However you have missed something, Apple supports ODF in DEFAULT text editor TextEdit in Leopard http://www.solidoffice.com/archives/657 (when iWorks is trial and actually costs nice bunch of bucks) and as it is also available in iPhone. So it makes even, doesn't it?

ook, we may like it or not, but it has pretty much been decided now. OOXML is going to be the standard for exchanging office documents. Ugly as it may be (I admit I haven't read the specs, but I've read the introductory booklets by MS covering the basics - and it looks rather messy even there), it's still better than no standard at all.

Nope, I don't like it and it won't be. I also turned 20 people against OOXML, switiching their default saves to DOC and/or starting to migrate to OpenOffice.org and even Linux.

So, ODF will be standard and OOXML will be mockery of the standard which will be left to death my Microsoft itself - as history repeats itself. Apple even supports ODF now, and lot of other companies, including big ones like IBM, HP actively addopts ODF for various goverment projects. Don't forget, people actually can view docs trough other means, usually HTML or PDF is used.

Of course, claiming that "OMG we are doomed, Microsoft will win this one" will always win insightful mod, because ignorance is the bliss (and hey Microsoft always wins, according to their PR). Truth is much much more difficult.

Re:The future

[Stephen Ma]

Ugly as it may be ... it's still better than no standard at all.

You don't or won't understand: OOXML is *not* a standard in the sense that people can rely on it for a long, long time. The electrical plug is such standard; we will be using it, essentially unchanged, for hundreds of years. OOXML is so complex and deliberately underspecified that it has and will not have any faithful implementations of it. It's not a standard.

Already the latest generations of Word are having problems opening some 10-year-old documents. Only the totally naive believe that the situation will improve with time, not when Microsoft benefits from breaking old documents: this forces their customers into a perpetual cycle of upgrades.

Microsoft knows that OOXML is a bad standard -- hell, they wrote it specifically to be unimplementable. Which is why the ISO approval process for OOXML was so flagrantly corrupt.

The world cannot and should not standardize on something that breaks every few years. OOXML is worthless.

Re:The future

[Antique Geekmeister]

The electrical plug is not a 'standard'. There are at least 5 such standards in the USA, alone. Matched blades for 120 Volt, polarized plug, and polarized grounded for wall plugs, that funky little figure 8 on laptop power supplies and some home electronics, the 3-prong small connector used for computers and televisions and dual voltage devices, and then there are the 220 Volt connectors.

Add in Japanese, European, and English, and you have a nightmare. I _wish_ we could easily get rid of most of them, and switch to one standard. Fortunately, adapters are easy to make or to wire in, but it's not a good exmaple of a standard.

Re:The future

[Kalriath]

Slightly offtopic, but 3drealms is saying that Duke Nukem Forever is (finally) "just around the corner". They even demoed something recently (and no, not on April 1 - in December 2007)

Re:The future

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly the wikipedia article is edited by Microsoft fanboys who push through anything that tries to use ooxml. None of witch will have it working as well as Microsoft, and when the next office update that breaks all of then it will come as a shock?

Re:The future

[shutdown -p now]

Next Office release? When? According to pause between XP and Vista releases, it is about 3 - 4 years at least.

There's no official date yet, but it is widely speculated to be 2009. I don't see any point in comparing that to XP/Vista, as it is two very different products with rather distinct past history. It's also pretty well-known that Office 2007 did much better than Vista.

Apple support to OOXML in iWorks haven't been surprise. However you have missed something, Apple supports ODF in DEFAULT text editor TextEdit in Leopard http://www.solidoffice.com/archives/657 (when iWorks is trial and actually costs nice bunch of bucks) and as it is also available in iPhone. So it makes even, doesn't it?

Not really, since TextEdit supports OOXML in TextEdit, too. The real point is this: say you're a guy who really doesn't know or care about all this fight (i.e. the majority of users out there), who happens to use Apple products, and is offered a choice between "OpenDocument" and "Office Open XML (Microsoft Word compatible)" to save his documents. What would you choose in this case? Ironically, when ODF and OOXML get equal support in products, it still currently helps OOXML more than it does ODF, simply because of the larger userbase for the former, and thus a larger incentive to use it.

A comparable example could be this: English may suck as a language, but we all use it because we want to be understood. Esperanto is nice, simple and logical, but nobody cares. You may release your program with interfaces in both, fully supported, but the majority of your users will just use English, and overall, by and large, you'll simply increase the market share of software with English support.

So, ODF will be standard and OOXML will be mockery of the standard which will be left to death my Microsoft itself - as history repeats itself. Apple even supports ODF now, and lot of other companies, including big ones like IBM, HP actively addopts ODF for various goverment projects. Don't forget, people actually can view docs trough other means, usually HTML or PDF is used.

Well, I did not see ISO C# or CLR standards being "left to death" by Microsoft, quite the opposite, in fact.

As for ODF adoption - what are the real adoption figures now? What is the actual growth rate? That's what matters, not hearsay, and I seriously doubt it looks good for ODF. Now with OOXML being approved as an ISO standard, the last non-technical argument in favor of ODF is gone, and technical ones are hard to make heard by the management (or legislators) who make the decision, so it will probably be even worse. Meanwhile, MS will keep going around ramming OOXML down people's throat, and they are very good at that.

Don't forget, people actually can view docs trough other means, usually HTML or PDF is used.

Don't worry, this is being taken care of, too. Heard of WPF, Silverlight, and XPS? I wouldn't be surprised if the latter particularly will be pushed to become an ISO standard once OOXML is ratified...

Of course, claiming that "OMG we are doomed, Microsoft will win this one" will always win insightful mod, because ignorance is the bliss (and hey Microsoft always wins, according to their PR). Truth is much much more difficult.

Microsoft has a pretty good track record of winning (whether the means were fair or not is another matter), otherwise they wouldn't be in the position they are now. I'm not saying we are doomed, either; but then again, I don't believe that OOXML is really as bad as many people make it sound to be (it's inelegant and messy, but it is implementable nonetheless, and now it is standardized). But saying that "ODF will be the standard in N years" is rather akin to announcing every other year "The Year of Linux on the Desktop" - you may wish it to be so, and self-delusion is a powerful thing, but numbers don't agree with you, and they don't lie.

Re:The future

[shutdown -p now]

How gullible you are. They don't intend to keep their word, and even if they do nobody can properly implement a complex, vague, six thousand page specification.

Of course you can, especially if you are the one who mostly wrote it in the first place to cover what your own code already does!

For MS to conform to ISO now, what they need to do is a few minor tweaks here and there. It is not a big burden at all. It's certainly worth ISO compliance they will get from it, since that'll open the doors to many governments who mandate standardized file formats for their software.

They will nearly implement it, but have enough bugs to prevent interoperability. Interopability would destroy the lock-in that generates them billions of dollars.

People keep saying that, but miss the point. The present OOXML standard is only marginally less complicated than the original Office binary format (by design). Meanwhile, the specs for the original format could easily be obtained from Microsoft for the last 10 years or so (and yes, you could write a competing Office suite using them, and people did that, too). And still, with all this, the only competitor which comes closest to MSOffice now is OpenOffice, and even there a lot of people consider it to be lagging behind. So it seems that it's not just about open file formats. A modern Office suite is a very complex piece of software (OpenOffice is the longest-building package I've seen on Gentoo - it builds longer than the entire KDE!), and Microsoft has a huge advantage of already having a lot of code written and well-tested. They still have plenty of time.

Re:The future

[Anonymous Coward]

For MS to conform to ISO now, what they need to do is a few minor tweaks here and there.

And you don't think they should have done that BEFORE they even asked MSOOXML to become an ISO standard? It does not seem to bother you that this so called standard has no implementation whatsoever let alone two independantly developed and interoperable implementations.
Intentions shouldn't carry ANY weight whatsoever. This should all have been done before standardization was even considered.

Meanwhile, the specs for the original format could easily be obtained from Microsoft for the last 10 years or so (and yes, you could write a competing Office suite using them, and people did that, too). Can you cite some reference here? Link to a website from Microsoft where I can order the specs?

Re:The future

[shutdown -p now]

And you don't think they should have done that BEFORE they even asked MSOOXML to become an ISO standard?

Erm... how do you implement the standard which isn't there yet?

It went something like this. First, Microsoft introduced OOXML in Office 2007. Then they've submitted it to ECMA for standardization. The resulting spec had a few tweaks in it. That, in turn, got submitted to ISO, and they've made quite a few (albeit mostly minor) changes to it there. What got approved by ISO is the spec with all those changes, which Microsoft obviously couldn't have anticipated. Now, though, there's no excuse for them not to catch up - and I'm sure they will do it, otherwise the whole ISO push is moot for them.

It does not seem to bother you that this so called standard has no implementation whatsoever let alone two independantly developed and interoperable implementations.

The ISO standardization process in this case bothered me a lot. I'm not one of those guys who calls outright fraud "minor procedural issues" and whatnot.

Can you cite some reference here? Link to a website from Microsoft where I can order the specs?

I can't find the old page now (it basically said something like "Contact Microsoft at this email to request the specification"), because it has apparently been superceeded by the latest drive to publish specs for a lot of Microsoft stuff, including old (from 97 on) binary Office formats. You can download the specs for .doc, .xls and .ppt for free here.

Re:The future

[shutdown -p now]

Well, considering M$ has explicitly said that they wouldn't follow any changes ISO makes to the standard...

Link, please. Because I've seen them explicitly saying quite the opposite.

The process spoke for itself

[stox]

ISO, the best standards money can buy.

Re:The process spoke for itself

[HalAtWork]

At least ODF is a standard. Won't people be more likely to use it if they see it works the same across the board? OOXML can't claim the same.

Re:The process spoke for itself

[phantomfive]

Yes, exactly. But it isn't like this is something new, it's just something people have become more aware of. The ISO has ALWAYS been around to serve corporate interests, mainly because for a long time corporations were the only ones who really cared/had a say. Now suddenly there is a new player in the group, the open source community, and it is changing the balance of power.

People are here saying the ISO has lost credibility. No, that is not true: it is just a matter of people coming to terms with what the ISO actually is.

Re:The process spoke for itself

[Alsee]

You appear to have made a typo in the name.
I$O, the best standards money can buy.

-

Microsoft now owns ODF,

[ozmanjusri]

This is going to get bad.

The convenor of the committee is Alex Brown, an advisor to the British Library, which was a co-sponsor of Ecma putting OOXML on the fast track.

They've basically given Microsoft control over ODF's future.

Bye bye interoperability for another couple of decades.

Re:Microsoft now owns ODF,

[Dr_Barnowl]

MS can't own ODF. They may gain control over a body that approves of ODF as a standard. They may be able to tell that body to change what it claims to the standard. But the all the authors of ODF have to do is publicly announce that they no longer consider the ISO accreditation of ODF to be valid. The OOo team sure as hell won't write anything into the OOo ODF filter if it serves MS (and only MS).

Re:Microsoft now owns ODF,

[Jesus_666]

And thus all governments have to use OOXML because the mandate an ISO-standardized format. Unwise.

Re:Microsoft now owns ODF,

[rohan972]

But the all the authors of ODF have to do is publicly announce that they no longer consider the ISO accreditation of ODF to be valid.

Since the whole point of getting ISO accreditation is to gain access to markets where buyers are demanding standardised formats (government purchases) that would be the final victory to MS. It would leave their format as the only accredited standard.

Corrupt officals

[edxwelch]

If they want to avoid personal attacks maybe they should clean up their shop first. Like find the corrupt officals that changed the vote of Norway and fire them.

What exactly has changed here?

[Lknight]

There were a number of defects in the OOXML 'standard' and there is yet another working group charged with rationalizing the issues who (because of the vagueness of the 'standard') need to get the ECMA people in to 'advise' them if they could change something or not. That does not sound like they're in control.

One has to wonder who they think they're fooling. Microsoft has no obligation to implement any changes the ISO group may advise, but through the ECMA, the ISO would have no real choice.

To add further insult to injury, they're setting up yet another group to work on 'cross standard initiatives' - i.e. let's try to make ODF as useless as OOXML as a standard.

The ISO didn't have control of OOXML from the beginning. If they believe anything they do will give them control, they are sadly mistaken.

Re:What exactly has changed here?

[Anonymous Coward]

What changed is an admission by ISO that OOXML needs some work, i.e. that they made it a standard before it is ready.

Re:What exactly has changed here?

[Lknight]

I don't see from the article where they admitted that they made it a standard too early. The most they are doing is getting a group together to keep track of all the defects they find and getting another group to keep the ECMA and ISO versions in sync. Business as usual for maintaining the 'standard'.

Re:What exactly has changed here?

[poot_rootbeer]

Microsoft has no obligation to implement any changes the ISO group may advise

But if they don't, wouldn't they lose the ability to tout their products as "ISO-certified", and thus lose their eligibility to bid on contracts where ISO certification is a prerequisite? Thus nullifying the entire point of pushing their Office-derived format as an "open standard" in the first place?

Personal attacks...

[krazytekn0]

are only uncalled for when there is no clear evidence of personal misconduct.

Re:Personal attacks...

[Anonymous Coward]

Superb.

If you could just produce the clear evidence of misconduct, I'm sure you'll be in the clear to say whatever you want.

You missed the real story with the ISO/IEC action

[marbux]

Private deal to approve OOXML? More evidence surfaces --- Universal Interoperability Council).

Circumstantial evidence is mounting of one or more private deals having been struck to approve DIS-29500 Office Open XML ("OOXML") as an international standard, a deal that may have played a role in several key national standardization bodies changing their voting position to approve OOXML.

[more]

Future relevance of ISO given their OOXML debacle

[r7]

The first question is the worthiness of OOXML to be an international standard That would be my second question. The first would be regarding ISO itself. Clearly this brings down ISO's stature as a standards setting organization by several notches. I mean how seriously can you take a standard that was adopted not on its technical merit, not because it was better than competing proposals, but because the voting members could be bought?

This whole matter reminds me of a startrek episode

[3seas]

... where some evil doctor was recreated in the holodeck to help find a cure for a disease one of them had. Even though the one being cured would have rather died than have this evil doctors cure.

the moral point came at the end. To save the evil doctors program and cure, or to delete it because of the immoral way in which he did his research.

The choice was to delete it.

In other words, ooxml could be the best document format there is, but given the evil company who created it (evil proven so in so many ways, not least of which is in legal cases outcomes), do we all really want it or is it something that mass ignorance (users who don't know but will use it upon it being dumped on them) will force the rest of us to use?

OR

IS THERE GOING TO BE A 99.9% converter so those of us who want to be free of it can be, as well as allowing those who want top be ignorantly enslaved can be fully so?

If the standards org is not going to do this then what is the worth of anything else they might do with this matter?

It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all.

[FireAtWill]

XAML will replace HTML (as well as Flash, PDF, Postscript, etc.)

Under the guise of security, Microsoft has quietly been making Windows applications difficult to deploy within corporations, and have been luring corporate developers towards ASP DotNet. With the release of The latest DotNet development tools and Expression Blend, the strategy is nearing fulfillment.

It has been a master stroke, I must admit. I've long thought that HTML was a poor foundation for what we're trying to do on the web these days. I spent all of yesterday putting the pieces together and am well impressed. And afraid.

Microsoft's strategy appears to be to drive internal corporate developent, then B2B, along with governments (Library of Congress), etc. and by eventually it will surely gain ubiquity. It will raise the bar for internet applications. Anybody switching between Expression Blend and, say, Dreamweaver will quickly see the folly of stretching pixels to make boxes. Vector graphics makes much more sense for the web. Along with a rich set of controls.

Why would you need OOXML, when you've got XPS (a subset of XAML)? It can replace ))XML, PDF and Postscript.

Of course, this is all an open standard right? And Microsoft has released the specs and is working with Mono on Moonlight, right? Well, yes, just when they're launching all of their tools that utilize it.

I imagine that's what will happen with each future version of the standard.

MS OOXML and ISO OXML are now different

[caseih]

Now that OOXML has been made an ISO standard (called now OXML I think), we can differentiate between MS's bastardized implementation of this format and the ISO standard. If anyone thinks that now third parties can freely implement OXML and be able to read and write with 100% accuracy formats created in MS Office, they are sadly mistaken. Sure OXML file should be able to be read and written by any applications that implement the ISO format just fine (provided they can implement every detail of the hundreds of pages of specifications), but MS Office will always be able to produce files that don't quite look right everywhere else because of the way MS interprets/wrote the specification, or deliberately left out some important little detail. This will create a second-class landscape of OXML users, which will always be minor plays and insignificant next to the continuing Office hegemony. This is a fantastic move on MS's part. They've managed to totally play the part and even go through the motions without giving up a single thing! The ultimate deception. In the meantime a bunch of us rag-tag Linux hippies will continue to promote a standard that's truly open in the ways that count (ODF), and hopefully have some success in certain circles. The rest of the clueless masses seem preoccupied with other things to care, sadly. Anyway, it will be interesting to see exactly how this situation plays out. The EU, at least, has the guts to stand up to MS (sort of anyway), so hopefully they will slap MS hard if things do go the way I predict they will.

Re:MS OOXML and ISO OXML are now different

[I'm Don Giovanni]

Sadly, much of what you say applies to OO.o and ODF. OO.o's files aren't in full compliance with ISO ODF (and therefore OO.o's ODF can be differentiated from ISO ODF), and different apps exhibit different behaviors when reading ODF documents. Indeed, many ODF apps are "second-class" ODF apps.

Here's a rating of various application's ODF support, from one star to five stars (five stars means "perfect"):
http://opendocumentfellowship.com/applications

You'll note that NO app achieves 5 stars. There are a number of 4-star apps, but most are three stars and lower. (And I'd bet you a twinkie that nearly all (and possibly ALL) of the 4-star apps aren't independently developed from the spec, but are using rebranded versiond of OO.o's code. (It's known that many ODF apps are simply using OO.o code (the ODF spec is too vague in many places to create code simply based on the spec.)

(There's another web page on an ODF support site somewhere that lists details of problems when using particular apps to load ODF files created by other particlar apps (like using K-Office to load ODF files created by OO.o), but I can't find it at the moment.)

Re:MS OOXML and ISO OXML are now different

[caseih]

And I'd bet you a twinkie that nearly all (and possibly ALL) of the 4-star apps aren't independently developed from the spec, but are using rebranded versiond of OO.o's code.

At least it's possible and legal to do this, though. OO.org as a reference implementation with source code can at least make it possible to get 100% compatibility. That's the main difference here.

Re:MS OOXML and ISO OXML are now different

[rohan972]

Sadly, much of what you say applies to OO.o and ODF.

And I'd bet you a twinkie that nearly all (and possibly ALL) of the 4-star apps aren't independently developed from the spec, but are using rebranded versiond of OO.o's code.

There appears to be some difficulty in implementing standards, yet there is a substantial difference in effect. As the GP states:
"but MS Office will always be able to produce files that don't quite look right everywhere else because of the way MS interprets/wrote the specification, or deliberately left out some important little detail."
By considering MS's history, it is reasonable to conclude that they intend to make it difficult or impossible for others to compete with them by using this standard. On the other hand, your own post concedes that people can compete with OOo by simply rebranding the OOo code. While it could be accurately stated that this has nothing to do with the standards process itself, it is still relevant. It demonstrates that their is no intentional effort to make ODF unusable to restrict competition, whereas no matter how good OOXML might be as a standard, the holding of relevant patents by MS is not useful for anything other than to restrict competition.

So for what purpose do we want standardization? If one of the reasons is to allow competitive implementations, OOXML is seriously deficient when compared to ODF. Perhaps on other criteria they are equal.

I am aware that there are other standards that have patents, but in todays world F/OSS software (GPL in particular) is a part of the competitive marketplace. Standards that don't allow competition by GPL'd software are anticompetitive.

Re:MS OOXML and ISO OXML are now different

[TheRaven64]

According to that table, StarOffice doesn't run on Solaris. I think someone should probably tell Sun that...

About incompetence

[firefly4f4]

Meanwhile some on-looking SC 34 people felt insulted. One neutral XML expert, who I know for a fact took a very close technical look at DIS 29500 asked "what are they saying? that we are incompetent? that we do not have the right to decide for ourselves?".

No, the general public is not calling them incompetent. Other technical committees are calling them incompetent.

They're just being polite about it.

Waste of time

[pembo13]

The chances of Microsoft implementing any changes ISO makes is slim to none. And no business or government agency is going to (collectively) believe that Microsoft doesn't follow its own "international standard". Which means that OO.org, Koffice, Abiword, etc all need to follow the Microsoft way, as some have already begun to do.

Re:Future relevance of ISO given their OOXML debac

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean how seriously can you take a standard that was adopted not on its technical merit, not because it was better than competing proposals, but because the voting members could be bought? You mean like the ISO-9000 standard?

This is not the first time that an ISO standard was obviously political rather than technical.

I'm Sorry, Is Some ISO Maggot Making M$-Noises?

[RailGunSally]

The ISO sold its intrinsic value, in the form of its integrity and credibility, to Microsoft Corporation. Now the utterances of ISO functionaries are of no importance whatsoever, just as the standards maintained by the ISO are of no value at all. We will interpret the actions of M$ and the ISO as the damage that they truly are and simply route around them. The lesson here is that, in the brave new interconnected world, centralized authorities are single points of failure. They are utterly vulnerable to the enemies of freedom, and must be eliminated. We will therefore evolve distributed standards authorities of some fundamentally new nature. Soviet-era centralized control systems are as obsolete as proprietary operating systems. These things will chaotically destabilize and vanish to be replaced by an equilibrium of resilient, distributed algorithms.

OOXML is dieing

[Anonymous Coward]

Netcraft confirms it.

submit defect reports

[Anonymous Coward]

If OOXML has been approved then people should submit defect reports. The purpose of a spec is to allow a person to read it and implement it. Since OOXML doesn't allow that, it should get buried with requests for clarifications. They'll still be writing defect reports, errata, and addendums by the time ODF gets ratified.

get real

[Anonymous Coward]

One example-majority of Norway's delegates want "no", yet their vote gets cast as "yes". And this is "working fine"? You are an adult, get paid a living salary for some job that requires at least average intelligence and thinking skills?

ISO is fucked, corrupt, and no one should pay any attention to them anymore, their usefulness as a legitimate standards body is over. And MS has been their typical since they have been in operation "industry standard" conniving scheming assholes.

Re:get real

[xOneca]

ISO is not corrupt, Microsoft corrupts ISO.

Re:get real

[Stormwatch]

ISO is not corrupt, Microsoft corrupts ISO.

End result being: ISO is corrupt now.

Re:get real

[eck011219]

I won't argue whether there was pressure from MS or not -- I happen to believe a lot of that is overblown, but other people feel they have strong evidence to the contrary. Fine.

But I WILL say, however, that even if MS did try to corrupt ISO, ultimately ISO corrupted itself. If I hand you a beer and car keys, ultimately it's up to you to decide what to do with them.

As I and others have said MANY times around here before: bash MS for the stuff they really do -- if you want to look for and interpret the evidence, there's probably enough to go around. But don't start painting ISO as the naive country girl in the big city, scammed and violated by big, bad Snidely Microsoft.

At best, it degrades the people at ISO who had to figure this crap out while everyone was barking half-truths at them from both sides.

Re:get real

[MadnessASAP]

Open the beer with the car keys if in a bottle, or puncture can and shotgun it otherwise?

Re:get real

[xOneca]

Yes, you're right. I was blinded by my anti-M$ thoughts.
If M$ had foul played, people of ISO would do bad by following M$'s "game".

Re:get real

[Anonymous Coward]

One example-majority of Norway's delegates want "no", yet their vote gets cast as "yes". And this is "working fine"? You are an adult, get paid a living salary for some job that requires at least average intelligence and thinking skills? Norway has for years had a system where their standards committee considers the arguments put forward by their recommendation committee, not based on the majority of those on the recommendation committee, but based on the strength of the arguments put forward by that committee on both sides. The "majority" of those on the recommendation committee were "CON" (thanks to IBM packing the committee), but their arguments by and large sucked compared with the "PRO" arguments put forward by the minority of that committee, so the PROs won, despite being in the minority.

It has NEVER been a rule in Norway that the majority on the recommendations committee rules, NEVER. There can be a single person on the recommendations committee that puts forward an argument so compelling, that he wins out over the rest of that committee. And that's as it should be, particularly when you look at the make up of Norway's recommendations committee in the OOXML case (i.e. IBM packed the committee with anti-OOXML members that didn't add anything to the "CON" arguments, the merely signed on to IBM's position).

Re:get real

[Anonymous Coward]

You should use PeerGuardian or similar then to prevent downloading from fake servers injecting crap content; then your ISO won't be corrupt.

Re:get real

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot: meet your new "Soviet Russia" meme variation.

Re:You missed the real story with the ISO/IEC acti

[I'm Don Giovanni]

Sorry, but this has already been debunked:

Anti-OOXML guy posting your link and making your "private deal" charge on Rick Jelliffe's blog

Rick Jelliffe debunking the "secret deals" charge

Who cares what they've been paid to "think"

[Akita24]

Dear ISO, since we've established that you're nothing more than a selfish, greedy collection of assholes who are bought and paid for, we could care a rat's ass what you think of anything from this day forward. You are NOT a standards organization, you are a pathetic front for whomever pays you the most cash. You have flushed what little credibility you once had as an impartial entity working towards standards that would benefit everyone down the toilet for good. Go crawl back under your rock and die a slow painful death. I for one don't give a fsck what you are paid to think and never will again.

two words

[phrostie]

Embrace, Extend

ISO embraces

MS Extends

spacelikeword95

[hey]

For starters this new committee can specify what spacelikeword95 means. Its kinda funny that its does not say spaceExactlyTheSameAsWord95 but just "like".

Re:spacelikeword95

[shutdown -p now]

It does in the version of spec approved by ISO (just search for "autoSpaceLikeWord95" in the web page at the link).

The Name

[hey]

The committee should also alter the name (perhaps by inserting "Microsoft") so it isn't so similar to ODF. Its only fair. ODF=OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications. It has the name of the source organization. Renaming OOXML to MSOOXML would make thing clearer.

Re:The Name

[TheRaven64]

They did alter the name. It's now just OpenXML, with no Office in the name. Doesn't really make it any clearer, does it?

Slashdot disappointment

[Vexorian]

It's lame that this article got to the main page. It is disinformation at its best and tries to promote a new name "OXML" as an attempt to cover the bad adverts for OOXML. This said, infecting ODF with this garbage is lame.

Call things by its name, it is MSOOXML, ISO has not taken any control of it.

Re:It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all

[jo42]

A pile of cr*p shaped like a brick and painted gold does not make it a gold brick - even if it has 'Microsoft' stamped on it.

Microsofts aim: destroy open standards

[amck]

If Microsoft wanted the Office 20xx standard to be an open standard, it could have joined the ODF forum, when everyone wanted it to, and pushed the DOC format into ODF. As OpenOffice, etc. currently read .doc files, etc. anyway, it would have been easier for everyone, rather than make a new standard. Along the way, problems with the Office (OOXML) standard would have been sorted out by all.

Instead, MS didn't join OASIS / ODF. It pushed forward a standard that even it doesn't adhere to, why?

Because MS only makes money if people buy new software. It needs to keep changing the format, as it has done continuously, to make everyone buy the new code. MS loses if any open standard is used; both because they could buy non-MS software, and because there is little need to but new software in the first place, if you have an old version of Office around.

We need to understand this, and avoid infighting with the ISO. ISO is the target that MS is trying to corrupt and destroy. We need to help root out the corruption, but strengthen, not destroy, ISO in the process.

Re:Microsofts aim: destroy open standards

[harlows_monkeys]

If Microsoft wanted the Office 20xx standard to be an open standard, it could have joined the ODF forum, when everyone wanted it to, and pushed the DOC format into ODF

Sun shot that idea down back when it was first proposed. They said ODF would not be allowed to have any features not needed by StarOffice.

It is not that simple

[Anonymous Coward]

While I do not know enough about the process to know how MS broke the rules, I would support them being punished for their underhanded deeds.. BUT

One point that people seem to forget is that MS has MILLIONS of users that rely on DOC and DOCX files and that many of the features supported in these formats cannot be represented by any existing open format, including ODF. In order to deliver an open format that fully supports the features that existing customers are ALREADY_USING they had to create a new format.

Only the future will tell us if the ISO as an organization and the standards process itself will be able make the format into a truly open standard.

I also know from experience that Apple hates using anything they did not create and the fact that they have implemented OXML or what ever the official name is really makes me wonder how it could possibly be as hard to implement as people are saying.

Corrupt or incompetent? Take your pick

[vidarh]

Alex Brown may complain all he wants, but after the way he managed the ballot resolution meeting, either he doesn't know or understand the rules all that well, or he ignored them on purpose. I HOPE he just didn't know what he was doing, and I can see why he wants people to stop focusing on how he did his job, but that doesn't make it any less appalling.

Bill? is that you?

[toby]

n/t

No personal attacks here

[david_thornley]

I have no intention of making personal attacks.

Neither Microsoft, which has shown determination to trash anything useful in its quest to make more money, nor its bitch ISO, are persons.

Open Letter to ISO

[Anonymous Coward]

After calming down I looked at the following letter and decided it was inappropriate. Instead of sending it I'm posting it so everyone can get a laugh.

Dear ISO,

We, here at Slashdot, received your letter and felt it necessary to respond in kind.

It is amazing how quickly 'personal attacks' arise. However, what we interpret as the 'personal attacks' you refer to (convenient how that's ambiguous) were not personal attacks at all: they were facts and we have evidence to back it up.

The fact of the matter is, it couldn't of been a personal attack anyway because it wasn't ad hominem, but a statement on the process, validity of the standard, and how that effects ISO's authority as a standard body. A better word would have been slander or libel. Not only would it have been more technically accurate but you could have tried to sue us. Now, while we hope that you lining your pockets with our money would allow you to be honest in the next standard, we find this unlikely and thus point out that it can't be slander or libel because we have evidence. This said, you could probably bribe a judge to sue us for slander or libel... (hence why I'm posting anonymously)

Sincerely,

A concerned Slashdot reader

Re:It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Microsoft has quietly been making Windows applications difficult to deploy within corporations, and have been luring corporate developers towards ASP DotNet. They have? Anything to substantiate this? On client desktops, we're a mostly microsoft shop, and have no problem deploying our desktop applications to internal customers (over 10k for some of the apps).

Re:It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all

[edalytical]

It matters because Microsoft is not going to control the web...all those technologies you mention are pointless in light of:

• HTML5/XHTML2
• CSS 3
• SVG
• H.264
• JavaScript
• PDF

Microsoft's track record for cross platform web support just plain sucks. Internet Explorer for the Mac is abandonware! Microsoft quit supporting WM Player for Mac, they now distribute a third-party application. Do you think well ever see IE for Linux or WM Player for Linux? No we won't. Microsoft may be working with Mono on Moonlight, but what will happen when they abandon the project like they did with IE on Mac?

ODF/OOXML is about creating a desktop office suite interchange format to make sharing documents easier...that's all, that's what it's made for...that's not what XPS is made for. XPS is a pointless replacement for something that's not broken...PDF works just fine.

I realize you were probably being sarcastic... :-)

Re:Personal Attacks? Duh!

[kurt555gs]

It is a sad day for the world and ISO, the formerly respected standards body. This is just Rambus II.

Rambus got their patent ridden junk in a standard and then sued everyone. M$ has seen this and now expects to do the same.

It is sad to see this level of corruption happen, knowing what is next.

Sad day for all.

Wait till they actually publish the standard

[CustomDesigned]

M$XML was accepted sight unseen. Although only a fraction of NB issues were addressed, there were a flurry of changes at the last meeting. The final result was required to be published within 30 days. As of the expiration of the vote changing period, it still hadn't been published, and is still unpublished the last I checked.

Wouldn't it be funny if when the OOXML standard finally gets actually published - it looks like ODF with M$ compatibility extensions?

Re:It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, the only reason why you might want to reference pixels in your HTML/CSS is if you are making hacks to support non-compliant browsers (read: IE).

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

ooxml?

[Anonymous Coward]

We discussed the approval of OOXML earlier this month.

Did you? I must have missed it.

Re:It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all

[EvilRyry]

Have you noticed how Microsoft still has the majority share of web browsers and that they drag their feet on every standard that isn't theirs?

As long as Microsoft doesn't fully implement those technologies, they don't exist. There's not too many people out there who will make a website that doesn't work with 70% of internet users no matter how much better it may make web development.

Now, Microsoft comes out with XAML, rolls it out with Vista, waits a few years and suddenly 90% of the internet has XAML support. Thats good enough for many people to start using it to replace the portion of "normal" technologies people are stuck with because its all IE supports.

This is the danger of a monopoly. They already showed a very similar story with ODF vs OOXML. ODF doesn't exist in the minds of many because Microsoft doesn't support it. It doesn't matter how many entities are in OASIS and worked very hard to create a document format that was vendor neutral. Microsoft has a monopoly and abused its power yet again to disadvantage its competitors and screw consumers.

With the current direction things are headed, OOXML will be what most people use. OOXML will continue to evolve and non-MS products will always be two steps behind. Microsoft is trying very hard to repeat this "success" with XAML. Fortunately there's still time to change how this one ends...

I think for the first time ever

[Provocateur]

...I think this is the first time ever as a /.-er, that I've read a story here and wished it were April 1.

Re:It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything to substantiate this?

Are you new here? It's an anti-MS rant.

Re:It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all

[blowdart]

Now, Microsoft comes out with XAML, rolls it out with Vista, waits a few years and suddenly 90% of the internet has XAML support. Thats good enough for many people to start using it to replace the portion of "normal" technologies people are stuck with because its all IE supports.

• XAML has nothing to do with Vista; its part of the .net framework and as such runs on XP, 2003 etc.
• All IE supports? So what, Flash, Shockwave, Air etc. don't exist? They don't work in IE? REALLY?
• Google gears? That doesn't work in IE?

Paranoia is all very well, but outright untruths don't help anyone.

You are either naiive or disingenuous

[Anonymous Coward]

You are either naiive or disingenous - I can't tell which, so I'll moderate the tone of my comment accordingly.

Firstly, it's not called bribery any more. It's called "sweetheart consulting contract" or just "consulting contract" for short.

I want to emphasize this point, since no-one seems to be realising it. There is almost no such thing as bribery any more. There are only big, fat consulting contracts for people who "realise" they were wrong. The money is the same, the result is the same, but it sounds a lot more legitimate. I wish I could go on CNN and scream this to the world!

Secondly, you demand an unreasonable level of proof before you'll entertain notions of bribery (consulting). How are we to know exact details of contracts, payments, etc? These details can only be accessed by legally privileged parties - police, etc. Of course we cannot provide details, so you set us up to fail.

What we do know, however, is that we have on one side a huge, highly motivated, extremely rich player with a long history of splashing money around to get what it wants, and on the other we have a lot of people just "deciding" to change their minds.

You are right, I can't prove specific instances of bribery. What I can do and do say, however, is that the whole thing stinks, and it's a very familiar smell - Eu de Microsoft Money.

Specific details take years, and court orders, to come out. But come on man - think about who you're dealing with here, think of the history. If anything I would be surprised if Microsoft *hadn't* tried, and mostly succeeded, in buying key players in this whole farcical deal.

The whole point of a conspiracy is that it's secret. Those who suspect a conspiracy can rarely prove it immediately, unless the conspirators are highly incompetent. But conspiracies happen all the same, and are unravelled years later by legal teams. Or are you suggesting there's no such thing as a conspiracy that can't be proved right this instant?

There is very little doubt in my mind that Microsoft has spent a lot of money swinging the OOXML vote in its favour. That money went somewhere. Call it lobbying, consulting, bribery, call it whatever you want - there was a lot of money and it influenced people "somehow". Can we prove it for you? No.

Is the writing on the wall? Yup.

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the nail, on the head, with the hammer, 'twas hit.

Let me try

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Microsoft spends a lot of money promoting its proposal
2. A lot of people mysteriously change their opinions
3. ???
4. Profit! (Microsoft's)

I can't show you exactly the mechanism by which gravity tethers me to the Earth, but tether me it obviously does.

I can't show you the specific instances and clear evidence of misconduct in this situation, but just like the gravity, Microsoft's money has obviously produced its natural effect.

You can stick your fingers in your ears and refuse to listen until you have names, dates, places, and exact dollar figures - but you'll just be deluding yourself. Zoom out a little, and you'll see the gross effect clear enough.

Re:This whole matter reminds me of a startrek epis

[TropicalCoder]

The choice was to delete it.

I think deleting OOXML would be a far less painful decision than deleting the cure for the disease found by immoral research methods. Let's do it.

Duplicates

[lseltzer]

There are 2 Dave Welshs and 2 Grantham Daniels signed to the open letter. Not a big deal I guess.

Re:It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all

[EvilRyry]

XAML support is bundled with Vista ( through .NET). People typically aren't very apt to download it until they need it, and web developers aren't very apt to use it until people have it. Even Windows updates only goes so far, see IE7 for more info. By preinstalling on Vista, they force one half to happen so that the other can happen.

XAML is aimed to compete with HTML. Flash, Shockwave, and Air are kind of in their own niche in the minds of most. The kinds of technology that I was speaking of was what the parent had mentioned; namely HTML5, JavaScript 2, and CSS3 which are in different stages of their life cycle. These three have the potential to make web development easier, but only if they're supported by a majority of users computers. By Microsoft not supporting these (properly), they vote for themselves.

If you've been screwed by Microsoft repeatedly in the past, being afraid of it happening again isn't paranoia. Ignoring the past however is well... ignorant.

Hey ISO

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite all the lipstick, I can see that's a pig you have there.

Good luck to the ISO...

[zkiwi34]

After all, they'll need it. OOXML has so much broken about it it'll chew up as many resources/people as they care to throw at the problem of fixing it. I hope they enjoy the effort. However, and more importantly, I hope that the ODF folk just keep on keeping on with their thing and hopefully make it better!

Re:It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all

[Kalriath]

XAML is aimed to compete with HTML. Flash, Shockwave, and Air are kind of in their own niche in the minds of most. The kinds of technology that Dumbass. XAML is designed to obsolete one of Microsoft's own development platforms - WinForms. Granted, WinForms is less than 5 years old, and replacing it already is stupid enough anyway, but it's nothing to do with replacing HTML (which Microsoft is a member of the Working Group for and contributes to, along with others like Google and Apple).

Re:You missed the real story with the ISO/IEC acti

[ozmanjusri]

Sorry, but this has already been debunked:

No, it hasn't been debunked.

Rick Jelliffe is one of Microsoft's guys in Australia, and his opinion does not constitute a debunking.

ISO is being replaced

[Anonymous Coward]

...at least for any computer-related standards. They are basically totally irrelevant now, yet another bought and paid for rubber stamp.

http://www.certifiedopen.com

It hasn't been formally launched yet, but it is all set to replace ISO.

What Respect?

[BanjoBob]

We believe standards debate should always be carried out with respect for all parties, even when they strongly disagree

They want everybody to respect all parties yet, the ISO organization threw all respect out the window for the technical community. Pray tell, how can ISO demand respect for all parties after the slap in the face they just gave us?

Respect is a two-way street. ISO is starting to sound more and more like Microsoft -- we will tell you what you want and we will tell you how to do it.

Re:It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all

[Anonymous Coward]

Any chance you would be willing to write more on the history of Microsoft? We are working on a directory of critical company profiles here and it would be great to get more info from people who have experience with the subject.

Re:It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this DotNet you speak of? Is it sort of like .NET?

Re:It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all

[nguy]

Why would you need OOXML, when you've got XPS (a subset of XAML)? It can replace ))XML, PDF and Postscript.

So? There are dozens of formats and technologies that "can replace" XML, PDF, and Postscript, and have been for years.. What matters is which formats are adopted and deployed, whether they are patent encumbered, and how they are supported.

Of course, this is all an open standard right? And Microsoft has released the specs and is working with Mono on Moonlight, right? Well, yes, just when they're launching all of their tools that utilize it.

Microsoft's tools are becoming less and less relevant. If they think they are going to get the market to adopt their formats because of their tools, they are seriously confused.

you're so out of it

[nguy]

Now, Microsoft comes out with XAML, rolls it out with Vista, waits a few years and suddenly 90% of the internet has XAML support.

Microsoft may have 90% of some nebulously defined subset of machines called "PCs", but they don't even get close to controlling 90% of the browser market. Browsers are everywhere, on every platform: phones, embedded systems, self-service terminals, large displays, webpads, game consoles, game handhelds, PDAs, cameras, camcorders, etc. And the vast majority of pages on the Internet are generated by software that has nothing to do with Microsoft; people aren't going to rewrite that software for no good reason, let alone if it means losing a big part of their visitors.

Microsoft has no control over web standards, other than a little feet dragging on IE. Even there, they have to be careful, because every time they drag their feet too much, they lose another percent or two of market share.

The future of ISO

[Anonymous Coward]

With so many P-members inside ISO which are MS's boot-kissers, I wonder if every standard approved by ISO from now on will be only beneficial to MS, or, the ISO won't be able to approve any standard later?

Everything has a price

[Anonymous Coward]

MSOOXML is no more a standard than I'm a jet airplane. I will never take the ISO seriously again. Congratulations, you have single handedly dragged the entire industry 2 steps backwards.

Oh yeah...

[jddunlap]

Now that the ISO has "taken control" I wish you the best of luck trying to get Microsoft to comply with any changes you make to the standard...

The nature of ISO

[rastoboy29]

You know, from a lot of poster's comments, it's clear that many don't understand the nature of ISO.  It had no defense against this attack.

I don't think an ISO standard has to be open

[walterbyrd]

Open standards may be prefered, but I don't think it's an actual ISO requirement. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Msft does not use the same OOXML standard

[walterbyrd]

> It's my understanding that OOXML isn't even a standard that microsoft uses or can implement and microsoft intends to replace it in the very near future.

I think msft does use an OOXML standard, just not the same OOXML standard that ISO approved. As I understand it, there are many OOXML "standards" just as there are many .doc standards.

It is interesting that the OOXML standard that was approved for fast-track processing, was so approved because it was deemed to be the de-facto standard. A de-facto standard that is being used by absolutely nobody, even the standard's creator.

Are those personal attacks in your open letter?

[argent]

We the undersigned participants at this SC 34 meeting wish to make it clear that we deplore the personal attacks that have been made during the DIS 29500 standardisation project in recent months. What personal attacks? I can see accusations that the process was not being followed, but if the process was not being followed that's not a "personal attack", that's "news".

We believe standards debate should always be carried out with respect for all parties, even when they strongly disagree. I agree, and that is a two-way street. When standards committees respect experts and industry groups the way they respect Microsoft, then talk to us about respect.

We call on all organisations and individuals involved in SC 34 standardisation to support this view, and to refrain from initiating or engaging in any such personal attacks. That's a two-way street, too... or what else would you call referring to technical criticism and honest reporting of irregularities as "personal attacks"?

Re:It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all

[shutdown -p now]

Under the guise of security, Microsoft has quietly been making Windows applications difficult to deploy within corporations

This is pure bullshit. .NET applications are among the easiest to deploy on Vista (I assume that's what you refer to here), because, as long as you use the standard provisions for stuff such as storing application preferences, your software will be a very well-behaved citizen in the Windows land.

and have been luring corporate developers towards ASP DotNet. With the release of The latest DotNet development tools and Expression Blend, the strategy is nearing fulfillment.

I would hardly call Expression a ".NET development too". It's really more of a designer tool, similar to whatever Adobe has for Flash.

Why would you need OOXML, when you've got XPS (a subset of XAML)? It can replace ))XML, PDF and Postscript.

For the same reason why PDF can't replace ODF - they are designed to do very different things.

Of course, this is all an open standard right? And Microsoft has released the specs and is working with Mono on Moonlight, right?

Neither XAML nor Silverlight are open standards in any way. C# 2.0 is an ISO standard. C# 3.5 is not (yet) standardized, and neither is DLR.

Nice find

[Mateo_LeFou]

But the fact is that -- especially with IT systems -- "interchangeability" is the one that leads to all the others. If the level of quality, environmental friendliness, safety, reliability, and efficiency that you're getting isn't enough for you, it *doesn't matter if you're technologically incapable of switching to another solution.

Re:Nice find

[Mateo_LeFou]

Forgot: This is just another way of saying that the availability of substitutes is important to the functioning of any competitive market

Then run "fsck.iso" on it....

[DrYak]

ISO is corrupt now. Arbort, Retry, Fail ? _

Web monopolies

[DrYak]

Browsers are everywhere, on every platform: phones, embedded systems, self-service terminals, large displays, webpads, game consoles, game handhelds, PDAs, cameras, camcorders, etc. And the massive amount of website that require a full Javascript stack, Adobe Flash, ActiveX, or VBscript as the main scripting language tells us that the biggest fraction of web designer don't give a damn fuck if your fridge is web enabled.

Web designer *should* follow the standards to enable users to use the web services in new and creative way that weren't predicted by the designer.

Practically, most web designer design for what they think is the single most widespread platform at the moment. And currently, most of them seem to think that IE running on XP is the main platfrom to target. So they only design and test with that platform in mind. The fact that you might want to surf the web with your homebrew linux-running-on-a-toaster doesn't bother them at all.

They haven't achieved on actual monopoly but are in the situation where everybody reacts as if.

Re:Web monopolies

[nguy]

And the massive amount of website that require a full Javascript stack

That's standard.

Adobe Flash

That's a widely available plug-in, and it's only being used where it's needed.

ActiveX, or VBscript

None of those run on any of the machines I use day-to-day and I have yet to find a web site that requires it.

The fact that you might want to surf the web with your homebrew linux-running-on-a-toaster doesn't bother them at all.

I do run Linux on my "toasters". That's, in fact, all I run, and I can tell you: IE-specificity simply is not significant anymore.

  as the main scripting language tells us that the biggest fraction of web designer don't give a damn fuck if your fridge is web enabled.

Re:Web monopolies

[DrYak]

a full Javascript stack That's standard. I'm aware that ECMAscript is a standart. My problem is that not all embed/phone/PDA/cameras/camcoder have a complete Javascript stack, and not all website have a fallback solution for them.

Adobe Flash That's a widely available plug-in, and it's only being used where it's needed. It's a plugins widely available only exclusively on Intel x86 32bits machines running either Windows XP or Linux and eventually 64bits machines using some adapting layer (32bits IE on 64bits Windows, or nspluginwrapper in Firefox on 64bit Linux).
Almost none of the platforms you mention in your previous post has it. Yet, an incredible amount of website rely on it for navigation.
I happen to have my plugin (gnash) configured not to automatically start Flash content, but only if I decide to play it. I've noticed that a lot of hardware maker use flash for their site's navigation menu (Zalman and Auzentech come as example just out of the top of my head) even if there's no obvious reason why it should be implemented that way.

It's just a perfect example of why web desiner will start (ab)using XAML : Just because it's widely available on the single platform that they target, even if there are no practical reason why they shouldn't use the technology that already exists.

Re:Web monopolies

[nguy]

My problem is that not all embed/phone/PDA/cameras/camcoder have a complete Javascript stack, and not all website have a fallback solution for them.

That has nothing to do with a Microsoft monopoly, and it's not a problem either.

[Flash] a plugins widely available only exclusively on Intel x86 32bits machines running either Windows XP or Linux

Bullshit. Flash exists for Macintosh and many cell phones as well. Furthermore, there are open source implemenations. And Flash is not a Microsoft product.

Almost none of the platforms you mention in your previous post has it. Yet, an incredible amount of website rely on it for navigation.

Nonsense. Almost no serious web site uses Flash for navigation. It's used for games and video, something for which there simply is no alternative.

site's navigation menu (Zalman and Auzentech come as example just out of the top of my head) even if there's no obvious reason why it should be implemented that way.

Sites like that are very rare. I usually browse with Flashblock, and I don't encounter them. Furthermore, they are illegal in many countries because they violate accessibility regulations.

It's just a perfect example of why web desiner will start (ab)using XAML

Of course, some web designers will stat using XAML, but that's different from your fear mongering about XAML taking over the Internet. Microsoft-proprietary technologies are insignificant on the Internet already and Microsoft isn't going to be able to set any web standards. Just about the only proprietary technology that has any significance is Flash, and even there, Adobe had to move towards opening the specs and donating large chunks to the open source community because they know that if they don't, SVG and similar standards would kill them.

Re:Web monopolies

[wertigon]

Actually the sites where you need Flash just to use it are quite a few. I've even visited a few *government* sites that required Flash 9 back in the days when Linux still was stuck on Flash 7. My banking site recently pushed an upgrade, and uses Flash. The fact that there are no decent 64-bit versions makes things even worse, since it crashes half the time using ndiswrapper, and Gnash just makes me gnash my teeth because it still sucks for my needs. No, the grand parent is right in this. As much as I hate to admit it, unless a miracle occurs, Microsoft will have the last laugh on this. In five years quite a few - Not every site, but quite a few - websites will require XAML and/or Silverlight. Enough to make it a pain in the neck to surf the web without said technologies. At that point Microsoft will have the world by the balls (again). Sad but true. :(

Re:It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all

[Anonymous Coward]

Take the time to understand Silverlight and XAML fully. Then you'll be very afraid.

Re:It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all

[marcosdumay]

suddenly 90% of the internet has XAML support

75%, and going down.

When you behave like a cheap hooker

[0x1b]

Don't get all up yourself when a drunk hits on you.

ISO spent it's reputation and is learning a costly lesson. rip.

Re:It doesn't Matter Anymore. XAML replaces it all

[FireAtWill]

I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing. When I talk about "Ease of deployment" I'm talking about putting an exe on a fileserver and creating a shortcut (actually, that's a bit crude compared to the optimum - with the right infrastructure, the shortcut isn't necessary) You may actually be installing software onto each PC (bad idea). In order to acheive deployment from network drives, with the .net framework 1.1, you must first install the 1.1 framework. Then, because the program you want to deploy is running on the network, you need to deal with the security. On 1.1, you can simply disable it with caspol -s off. That doesn't work in 2.0 It was at that point that I figured that I ought to ask my Microsoftie bretheren, how it ought be done. ASP I was told. I would like for you to tell me what the ultimate deployment strategy is. Then, you can tell me how inferior a web page is in terms of deployment. I challenge you to go to Microsoft's site right now and install Silverlight. You won't have a problem finding it. Install Silverlight for yourself (okay, Windows only) and then ask yourself whether you've ever seen a more painless installation (short of what I've described above).