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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."
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.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
To reflect the dreadful plague that is Microsoft and all their works.
I guess that works out to Proprietary Office XML?
No, the general public is not calling them incompetent. Other technical committees are calling them incompetent.
They're just being polite about it.
Like the Swedish official body?
From http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/08/31/Sweden-OOXML-vote-invalid_1.html: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.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
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.)
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
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
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
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.
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.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Are you new here? It's an anti-MS rant.
No, it hasn't been debunked.
Rick Jelliffe is one of Microsoft's guys in Australia, and his opinion does not constitute a debunking.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."