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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."
After all the backroom dealing that was involved in getting OOXML standardized, a lot of people are going to be bitter.
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.
Fnord.
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.
To reflect the dreadful plague that is Microsoft and all their works.
you had me at #!
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.
ISO, the best standards money can buy.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
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."
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.
are only uncalled for when there is no clear evidence of personal misconduct.
Not all life is cyber. Extra Income
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]
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.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
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.
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.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
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.
No, the general public is not calling them incompetent. Other technical committees are calling them incompetent.
They're just being polite about it.
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.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
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.
For starters this new committee can specify what spacelikeword95 means. Its kinda funny that its does not say spaceExactlyTheSameAsWord95 but just "like".
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
Circumcision is child abuse.
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.
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.
Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist
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.
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
It matters because Microsoft is not going to control the web...all those technologies you mention are pointless in light of:
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... :-)
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
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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
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
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...
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)
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."