Denmark Becomes Fourth Nation To Protest OOXML

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The rumors of a fourth OOXML complaint turned out to be true. Denmark has become the fourth nation to protest the ISO's acceptance of OOXML, and Groklaw has a translation of their complaint. They now join India, Brazil, and South Africa. There are going to be plenty of questions about deadlines, because people have been given two different deadlines for appeals, and the final DIS of OOXML was late in being distributed and not widely available. In fact, that seems to be one of Denmark's complaints, along with missing XML schemas, contradictory wording, lack of interoperability, and troubles with the maintenance of DIS29500. In other words, we should expect a lot of wrangling over untested rules from here on out, and Microsoft knows how to deal with that."

Comments

Farewell ISO

[symbolset]

Will noone step up and defend the credibility and proud history of ISO here? They have done good work in the past. Cannot someone defend the way they've handled this?

No?

Anybody? Anybody at all?

I thought not.

Reputation. 60 years to build and 6 months to burn down.

Goodbye ISO.

Re:Farewell ISO

[ushering05401]

"Goodbye ISO."

From a more optimistic slant:

ISO is being forced to address certain issues for the first time, and the outcome could be a more robust and impartial standardization process.

I'm not predicting a better future for ISO, just refusing to believe that all is lost.

Re:Farewell ISO

[Compenguin]

ISO has been playing games like this with SC29/WG11 for years.

SC29/WG11 (More commonly known as MPEG) is notoriously closed off. All their proposed work for consideration is closed off from public scrutiny until after it has been accepted and published. Reference software updates are only made available to committee members while the rest of us have to wait for a version to be signed off as a Corrigendum/Addendum and then sit for a year as all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed in the general body (why can't non controversial reference software bugfixes get fast-tracked the same way OOXML was?). When people come to MPEG industry forum technical list (Mp4-tech) for clarification they are often referred secret documents and reference software that they have no way of getting. Furthermore their document interchange format is .doc not ODF or OOXML.

Where did this "credibility and proud history of ISO" meme come from?

Re:Farewell ISO

[ozmanjusri]

Will noone step up and defend the credibility and proud history of ISO here? They have done good work in the past. Cannot someone defend the way they've handled this?

No?

I don't understand this "blame the victim" mentality that's pervasive in Slashdot discussions on this.

Microsoft deliberately subverted ECMA, a number of national standards bodies as well as ISO itself. The influence they brought to bear was unprecedented, and ISO simply was not designed to deal with it. The fast track process was abused to prevent a reasonable response, and the short deadlines are being used to the same effect in this protest phase.

It was a deliberate, calculated attack on an unprepared target.

And ISO is not alone - look at all the governments and departments MS has bought or influenced over the years.

Whether ISO can recover from this is questionable now. Responding correctly will be hard because the committees are still stacked with Microsoft reps. They're like a rooted box - untrustworthy without some extensive malware cleaning.

If this is evidence for anything, it's that Microsoft is out of control and must be split up.

Re:Farewell ISO

[Nullav]

You seem to have overlooked the fact that this is an issue nobody cares about except for a few geeks. You seem to have overlooked the fact that the ISO is largely run by 'a few' geeks.

Re:Farewell ISO

[Anonymous Coward]

ISO is being forced to address certain issues for the first time, and the outcome could be a more robust and impartial standardization process. I'm not predicting a better future for ISO, just refusing to believe that all is lost.

Show me one admission that the ISO even realise that this is an abomination of a process. SC34 are overrun with Microsoft zealots like Rick Jelliffe and they blame the world for noticing what a poor job they've done.

They need to admit fault if they want to be trusted again. As of yet there is nothing from the ISO that would inspire confidence.

Re:Farewell ISO

[Insanity Defense]

Just a few geeks?

What about governments and businesses that want and need a usable standard? Many governments have to by law put bids up to public tender and cannot specify a precise product. Right now they get locked into a file format that only one company can fully support, they need a standard to make it possible for them to obey the law. Businesses don't like being locked into one supplier who can do anything knowing you have no choice. Other businesses want to be able to compete with Microsoft for those lucrative government and big company contracts.

It seems to me that it is more than just a few geeks.

Re:Farewell ISO

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft deliberately subverted ECMA

ECMA are an organisation designed to used this way, or in other words ECMA is a sell-out by trade, selling out is the ECMA business model.

Listen to Jan Van de Beld former General Secretary of ECMA describe how they run their business: QUOTE:

"ECMA for instance has made all the standards for DVD and optical disks. There were 5 recording formats. So there you feel a little bit uneasy, of course. And again after a few beers I can ask the people in the room. Why do you want to have 5 formats? Do you still call that standardization?

The answer is always the same: You are well paid. Shut up"

Fast-forward to 4:15 for the quote.

Re:Farewell ISO

[Kjella]

Cannot someone defend the way they've handled this? No? Anybody? Anybody at all?I thought not. On slashdot? Not without an asbestous suit. Look at it from ISOs point of view - they had a lot of large companies voting for OOXML. Stuffed or not, many national bodies voted yes. What do you expect, an ISO tzar sitting on top to say "We'll take your votes under advicement, but we'll do whatever the f... we like and reject it anyway"? Like in a court, almost no matter how badly the case was botched it's the parties that has to appeal, not the judge. That's what happening now, and the appeals process can get all the dirty laundry and breach of process out in the open.

Reputation. 60 years to build and 6 months to burn down. Goodbye ISO. Yeah sure, an organization that makes thousands of standards is going to burn down over one mishandled one. I wonder if you'd like to try that standard on anything else, for example Congress. If we burned them down every time the process was subverted by riders or they passed unconstitutional laws or just did things that in retrospect were considered horrible, horrible screwups we wouldn't have time to rebuild before we'd have to burn them again. Go easy on the hyperbole, the world is not about to end. If all appeals fail and OOXML is finally approved, there will still be a reckoning in ten years or so that this was a mistake. Having standards is too important though, burn down ISO and you'll have even more paid shills like ECMA take their place.

Re:Farewell ISO

[TubeSteak]

From a more optimistic slant:

ISO is being forced to address certain issues for the first time, and the outcome could be a more robust and impartial standardization process. ISO has already blown it @ the State level.
Their rules were not setup to deal with an actively aggressive entity like Microsoft.

Maybe things will get fixed at the National level, but the organization as a whole has been tainted by the abuses visited upon the individual member States. The only way they can regain their credibility is for each country to implement robust rule changes.

ISO doesn't just certify software.
Maybe the next poorly conceived ISO spec to get railroaded through will have real world safety implications.

Re:Farewell ISO

[cp.tar]

ISO doesn't just certify software. Maybe the next poorly conceived ISO spec to get railroaded through will have real world safety implications.

I'd consider having to buy an expensive program for a not at all cheap OS just to open a standardized document a real-world consequence. And with a limited budget that is expected to feed my family, for instance, I'd even call it a safety implication.

Other possible implications are left as an exercise for the reader.

Some of us here are educators, in one way or another. It is our duty to ram this point home to future generations.
Change is possible, but we have to work rather hard to achieve it.

Re:Farewell ISO

[pembo13]

The victims shouldn't stand-up and defend the perp after the fact. If they really are the victim, let them reveal their rapist, or lie in shame.

Re:Farewell ISO

[NickFortune]

Or was it because they never needed to buy votes?

Although, of course, the closed nature of the proceedings mean that if the process was corrupt, most people would never have heard about it. Of course, the major difference here is that the MPEG standard is in fact workable and fit for purpose. I don't think there'd be nearly the level of outcry if the same were true of OOXML.

Sadly though, one of the side effects of this whole sorry mess is likely to be a far more critical eye being cast upon other ISO standards, and a far more receptive hearing given to complaints about abuse of process in other areas. And of course, there's a danger of other groups being tarred with the same brush if their interactions with ISO are less than transparent.

I don't think ISO have yet realised what this fiasco has cost them in terms of credibility. Now I'm beginning to wonder the fallout might extend further than anyone anticipated.

Re:Farewell ISO

[Insanity Defense]

None of which matters. Businesses don't care what format they use as long as they can pass it back and forth and it just works. That isn't going to change anytime soon.

Businesses care because of what is happening now, with Office 2007 Microsoft is changing the format in a major way. It isn't decided by market forces, its decided by Microsoft, their customers have no say. Why the change? Microsoft gives various reasons, some may even be valid, but the big one is Microsoft wants to force an upgrade to improve their revenue stream. Companies don't like it that they can be forced by their supplier to replace their stock of a product for no reason but to improve the suppliers bottom line. If they can break free to a true standard then no one vendor can control when and if those businesses upgrade.

Businesses and governments have a massive archive of old data in the older DOC formats. Only Microsoft can provide the tools to convert them. This conversion is going to cost those governments and bushinesses a fortune and that expenditure is not dictated by their desires but by Microsoft. They are now beginning to realize that this can happen any time Microsoft wishes to dictate it. Naturally they don't wish to be forced to spend vast quantities of money whenever it is convenient to Microsoft. With a real standard no one company can force such a conversion. No one company will be the sole provider of the tools to do the conversion. No one company can hold your data hostage by their control of the format.

Governments and businesses are slowly coming to understand that right now they no longer control their data, Microsoft does. As that realization sinks in they begin to look for ways to take back control. A true standard helps to take back that control.

Right now in recessionary times when governments and businesses want to conserve money is when Microsoft is seeing a need to force an upgrade and compel those governments and businesses to spend, just when they can least afford to. Also due to the timing of the EU vs Microsoft antitrust cases the eyes of the world are on Microsoft and people are being shown how Microsoft's behaviour is bad for governments and businesses.

Companies that wish to compete for the Office software market have for sometime been educating companies and governments about these issue and slowly they are winning. Self interest is driving those companies to make the educational effort. Self interest is what makes the customers begin to care about standards. Self interest is why Microsoft has to fight so hard to continue their control of the Office market.

Re:Farewell ISO

[Insanity Defense]

Funny, Office 2007 came out 'recently', as did 2008 for Mac. Did they put any money into that they are entitled to attempt to recoup?

They are definitely entitled to attempt to recoup their costs. The problem comes from their control of the market place which gives them the ability to compel expenditures and to use that compulsion to recoup their costs instead of letting the market decide if they deserve to recoup them.

Governments and businesses are entitled to control their own expenditures and to decide what format their data will be stored in. Right now Microsoft is working to compel them to change that data format because Microsoft desires it. Naturally that is being resisted. Governments and businesses are slowly beginning to say "It MY data and I WILL control it". Microsoft is like the Outer Limits control voice demanding that in fact they will control your data.

Re:Farewell ISO

[Insanity Defense]

The Voice of Microsoft:

There is nothing wrong with your computer.

Do not attempt to adjust its functions.

We are controlling its functioning.

If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume.

If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper.

We can reduce the performance to a crawl, or acclerate it to a functional level.

We will control your data.

We will control the format. For eternity, sit quietly and we will control all that you do.

You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind of Gate to... The Microsoft Domain Controller.

Re:Farewell ISO

[Kalriath]

Noone. If you create a product you are entitled to charge what you want for it, and people are entitled to not buy it. And if anyone tries to send you a Word document (just like it anyone tries to send me a WordPerfect document), feel free to tell them to send you a TXT file.

Re:Farewell ISO

[NickFortune]

And if the outcry were limited Slashdot and Groklaw then you might have a point. However, the outcry I'm referring to is that raised by the standards bodies of Denmark, India, Brazil and South Africa. Oh, and the UKUUG too, although they're just taking the BSA to court rather than protesting the result.

So, unless you think that Slashdot has somehow unfairly subverted these bodies, then I think you'll find you're wrong on that one.

As for Groklaw, PJ is a paralegal bu training, and at least two of the Groklaw regulars are are qualified lawyers, either practicing or retired. So it's kind of hard to see how you come to the conclusion that they know nothing about law.

Hmm... Not doing very well, are we?

Re:Farewell ISO

[Samgilljoy]

I don't understand this "blame the victim" mentality that's pervasive in Slashdot discussions on this.

It's highly tendentious to characterize the ISO as a "victim." It would be just as easy to call it a body of accomplices. What use is such an organization, if they can't even handle the entities whose products they are supposed to judge? At best, they're incompetent, not poor victims bedazzled by city slickers.

This "victim" crap is the same trope people trot out to excuse failures on the part of people who belong to some group many are afraid to criticize. You want to blame Microsoft; you don't want to blame the ISO, so suddenly this standards body is a poor passive entity tossed hither and thither by forces too great for it to withstand. You get the exact same crap, when someone from a marginalized segment of society fails in some major way. Oh, it's not their fault, they are just at the whim of greater forces, no responsibility, no blame. BS.

If you want them to be "victims," then you have to accept their weakness and incompetence, which condemns them just as thoroughly as if they are knowingly complicit.

Re:Farewell ISO

[NickFortune]

No, no I don't find that at all. What I do find though is that if you look around, the only people who actually care about this whole thing is the open source folks trying to force governments to legislate Office out of existence

Oh, right. So the national standards bodies of four separate nations are composed entirely of Free Software zealots, and the way we can tell is that they're complaining about the perversion oft he ISO fast track process. So that wouldn't be circular logic, because...?

Groklaw and it's regulars still insist that "conveyancing" in GPLv3 is actually enforceable. You have to be all kinds of useless at law to believe that.

Ah, so they're useless at law because they don't hold with your favourite untested legal theory. Does the phrase "confirmation bias" mean anything to you?

While we're on, show me where PJ said this, please. It's most unlike her to state anything as legally enforceable - she tends to quote the relevant legislation and then say how she thinks it might be applied.

You may say, just "don't read OOXML stories" and "don't read Microsoft stories" but here at Slashdot that's all there fucking is.

Well, the obvious thing there is don't read Slashdot if the choice of stories offends you so much. All the same, I'd like to test this particular assertion against the current front page.

Bye Bye Bananas

Ah, yes. Microsoft have announced plans to discontinue support for the popular Banana protocol and announced that all post Vista versions of the OS will only us MS-Kumquat. All that stuff about spreading fungus is clearly FUD spread by astroturfers and MS fanboys in the media. How could I have been so blind?

An Imaginative Use For CCTVs

The point that's not immediately apparent here is that The Get Out Clause were in fact singing songs with pro MSOOXML lyrics. Whoever would have thunk it?

China's All Seeing Eye

Now this one actually mentions Microsoft in TFA. Admittedly it's only one sentence, but that alone should be enough to make the entire articel about Microsoft.

After that, we get this discussion, which obviously is about MSOOXML, then according to my prefs, it's "Seven Failed Foot-Based Game Controllers" and "A Home Lab/Shop For Kids?" I don't think I need to take this one any further.

And by the way, I have no idea what moderation to expect on this one. Probably funny though. It amused me, at least.

What can I say? You made me laugh.

Re:Farewell ISO

[somersault]

We can reduce the performance to a crawl, or acclerate it to a functional level I call bullshit, oh Voice of Microsoft!

Overheard in Helsingør [aka Elsinore]...

[Foobar of Borg]

Prince of Denmark: To be or not to be. -- Not to be.

[presses remote button and explosion rips through ISO headquarters in Geneva]

Re:zzz

[UnknowingFool]

Is anybody else tired of reading OOXML articles every other day?

I call BS. You are obviously a MS troll because no one not even MS Office can read OOXML--oh you mean reading articles about OOXML? In that case, I agree with you. We do not welcome the OOXML-reading overlords. :P

Re:zzz

[superslacker87]

Yes, but I'm glad that there is some exhibiting of common sense. Even /. itself had an article that stated even Microsoft won't be supporting OOXML until two versions from now. When they won't even fully support their own standard in the next version of MS Office (Version 13.0/20xx), how do they expect other software developers to do the same?

Microsoft never split

[CustomDesigned]

To the best of my knowledge, the split ordered by judge Jackson was never carried out - because he made unwise comments in public in a moment of anger over Microsoft behavior.

Re:The text of the story is just plain wrong...

[shis-ka-bob]

This coward is right. This is only a story about Danes protesting to Denmark and the ISO.

Re:I value your opinion

[ozmanjusri]

It was important that the first comment not be some GNAA garbage.

It was, but it's even more important that people realise the problem is Microsoft, not ISO.

As long as they are allowed to continue wielding the amount of power they do today, they will corrupt ANY standards body. It's simply not possible to design a consultative standards body that's immune to the type of panel and committee stacking we've seen from Microsoft on this issue.

Yes, ISO is now badly damaged, and that's a tragedy all of it's own, because ISO was a body of great value to the whole world. Now the world needs to be looking at clipping the wings of the predator that did the damage, not at sinking the boot into a crippled ISO.

No, Denmark has not protested.

[pheede]

No: Denmark has not protested formally. Denmark is represented in ISO by Dansk Standard which, as you may recall, somewhat controversially changed its vote to "Yes".

This is a protest letter from Foreningen af Open Source Leverandører a vendor's association (literally: "The Association of Open Source Vendors", their official English title seems to be "The Danish Open Source Business Association"). They happened to be part of the technical committee (as I understand it, I may be wrong) in Denmark, but are not formal representatives of Dansk Standard.

The recipient of the letter, Jacob Holmblad, is the managing director of Dansk Standard, who also happens to be vice-president of technical management at ISO.

While an interesting complaint, which raises a number of pertinent issues, this is not a formal complaint from a national standards body as those from South Africa, Brazil, and India.

Re:No, Denmark has not protested.

[AySz88]

FYI, I think the correct wording is that Denmark hasn't yet appealed formally. The summary is misleading with the whole talk about appeals, but this letter itself doesn't seem to be an appeal.

However, this quote from TFA suggests that Denmark is still intending to appeal:
"'Jacob Holmblad [the recipient of the letter, and ISO Vice President, and managing director of Danish Standard] will appeal directly, because he has one foot in each camp,' explains Morten Kjærsgaard to Computerworld."

Re:No, Denmark has not protested.

[spectrokid]

I live in Denmark and this country is a notorious Microsoft bitch. MS has a development center here, most large companies are pure MS-shops and the government is not exactly doing great efforts to look beyond Redmond shrink-wrap. Heck, even the crown prince wife is an ex-MS employee!

ISO 9000

[symbolset]

As a wiser poster than me observed some time ago, that ISO failed to have management processes in place a year in advance of predictable environment changes is evidence they fail even at following their own standards.

That they've let this issue go so long past its natural conclusion - laughing at a proposal to fast-track a 6000 page un-implemented proprietary standard - is evidence they are themselves compromised by agents of an external entity.

If they abort this atrocity all is not yet well. Until they dig out and expel every agent that perverted their mission and monitor for some time that their processes do now work, they will remain suspect.

If they fail to do the right thing, well, they're done. Stick a fork in them. The nations of the world would prefer to return to the bad old days of setting their own standards and negotiating equivalence by treaty. They will not stand for having their standards dictated to them by a US corporation, even through a puppet ISO.

Re:ISO 9000

[cp.tar]

If they fail to do the right thing, well, they're done. Stick a fork in them. The nations of the world would prefer to return to the bad old days of setting their own standards and negotiating equivalence by treaty. They will not stand for having their standards dictated to them by a US corporation, even through a puppet ISO.

Actually, the nations of the world in general will bend over and spread'em for both the US and their corporations with little or no questions asked, and a Thank-you-sir-may-I-have-another-sir afterwards.

Were it not like that, OOXML would not have passed through ISO with so little opposition, i.e. the opposition would not have been quashed so easily.

Living in one of these nations, I cannot begin to tell you how much it saddens me.

Re:ISO 9000

[symbolset]

Living in one of these nations, I cannot begin to tell you how much it saddens me.

Don't despair yet. We're giving this issue the one thing it cannot stand: Light.

Re:ISO 9000

[cp.tar]

Living in one of these nations, I cannot begin to tell you how much it saddens me.

Don't despair yet. We're giving this issue the one thing it cannot stand: Light.

Are you saying this issue is kind of like a cockroach?

Re:ISO 9000

[Herschel Cohen]

RE: "Until they dig out and expel every agent that perverted their mission ... "

I fear the cure may be worse than the disease. Anytime a program like this is put into play, it becomes a game to settle old scores having nothing to do with the supposed issue at hand. That is, too often it is the classic "punish the innocent" while giving the selected guilty another free pass.

It becomes a witch hunt. Believe me I would like to see what was proposed be carried out, but reality intrudes. Like a civil war the wounds fester for ages and the lies propagate until the very types supposedly eliminated are again in charge.

Re:ISO 9000

[somersault]

The tree of international standards must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of coprorate shills and yacht-owning sell-outs

Mod parent up!

[khasim]

Until ISO PUBLICLY admits the SPECIFIC mistakes made AND takes action against the people who committed those mistakes, there is no reason to believe that ISO will do anything differently in the future.

ISO sold out. That's all there is to it.

Re:Mod parent up!

[jd]

Sadly, I fear you are correct. However, there is another consideration. There ARE other standards bodies, and standards bodies are no different from commodities or currencies - once they are devalued, nobody wants to buy in. A standards body is only a tradable commodity whilst people are still buying in, same as with the dollar or the zlotty. If one of the other bodies were to become politically attractive to enough countries and enough businesses, the ISO currency collapses.

It doesn't matter if it's not a total collapse, it just has to scare ISO. Scare them badly. So badly they stop messing around and pocketing back-handers, but go straight for a bit.

The geeks vote, they do not run ISO.

[khasim]

As can be seen from this charade, the votes do not matter.

It is who counts the votes that matters.

Microsoft could not buy off all the geeks. So Microsoft bought off the administration staff. Which then allowed a single secretary to get their "standard" on the fast track when it failed every one of their rules for that.

Re:Pardon my ignorance, but...

[ushering05401]

"... what ramifications does ISO's decision actually have?"

A brief summary:

Storing data in an open document format will ensure the accessibility of that data moving forward, regardless of software vendor, changes in the software ecosystem, etc... because anyone will be able to implement their own version of the standard for retrieving the stored data should that become necessary.

With this in mind, governments and institutions around the world are looking at ways they can ensure the accessibility of their documents unconditionally moving into the future. The impact of these new open document format policies will be huge on software purchasing decisions, as any software package used to generate, modify, or read documents will need to comply with the open document format.

Enter MS and OOXML, a document standard that has now been validated by and internationally accepted ISO review procedure.

There are questions about the way the standard was written, whether it can actually be implemented, whether any implementation would require dependence on proprietary MS technology, and whether the dominant MS products would adhere to the strict letter of the standard or break compatibility with non-MS implementations as has happened in other instances with MS implementations.

Finally, there are questions about whether bribery and other underhanded tactics were used to secure a fast track process and passing vote through the ISO process.

If OOXML is allowed to stand there are concerns that MS will effectively achieve lock-in with the governments that opt for OOXML technology, because access to data stored in OOXML documents will remain dependent on MS.

Re:Pardon my ignorance, but...

[totally bogus dude]

Beaten by another, but I wrote a reply so I'm posting it anyway.

The main thing seems to be that lots of government bodies are putting in place (or have already put in place) legislation requiring all government documents use a format that complies to an "open standard". Requiring this for internal documents is less common, but it is common for anything published for public access. The idea being to ensure every citizen is able to access the information the government produces without having to buy products from a specific vendor, for example.

From a technical point of view what ISO does matters not at all. Microsoft are going to continue to develop the format to suit their needs, and any long-term compatibility with whatever ends up being in the "OOXML ISO specification" will be purely coincidental, as they've already stated. Government departments will continue using whatever software they feel like using, and will make a half-hearted attempt to conform to whatever rules they have to, just like they always have.

If .docx and friends get the magic ISO Standard Tick then government departments can simply slap their .docx files on a website and be in compliance with the legislation regarding making their publications publically accessible without vendor bias: it's not their fault that there's only one working implementation of the "standard". Now they could theoretically mount legal action against Microsoft for selling them a product which they claim supports the OOXML ISO standard but doesn't really, but that's unlikely since everybody knows the whole thing is a sham and they're just playing along to cover their asses.

On the other hand, if .docx and friends don't get the magic tick, then the government departments will have to publish their files in something other than {.doc,.docx}. If the chosen format was ODF (.odt etc) then people will need software that can open it. This means a) the government will be pointing people to alternatives to MS Office, and b) Microsoft will "have to" natively support opening .odt files within Office; otherwise they risk losing customers -- particularly the ones that buy Office because that's "what you use to write documents". Also the government departments will need a way to export to the "standard" format, and if Office can't do it natively some may decide to switch software to save that step.

Consider that currently, even if you use OpenOffice or KOffice or Abiword or anything else, you probably send documents to other people using .doc unless you specifically know they don't use Office. The reason is simply that, even if they do use something else, they can probably import the .doc file without problems. However if they do use Office, they're completely unable to import most other document formats.

So, the hoped-for end result is that Microsoft will effectively be forced to make Office interoperate with other software, rather than having everyone else trying to implement Microsoft's format. While the documentation for .docx will no doubt be useful in figuring out some corner cases, it's not a significant improvement over the reverse engineered re-implementations of the format currently being used.

That's the theory, anyway. I doubt it will have an earth-shattering affect either way, but I suppose it's another straw on the camel's back.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Congratulations

[symbolset]

You've just said too much. Now everybody knows who you are.

Any developer who stops learning new languages, tools, techniques, etc. has decided they want to work on legacy apps for the rest of their life.

Whereas people who save their documents in OOXML have decided they want to lose access to them over time (if not immediately). And C# and .NET developers want to write code they'll have to port to next year's Next Big Thing. That's job security there, Maynard. And re-porting the same stuff over and over means you'll never make progress after the first evolution. Congratulations. You've just found a way to get someone to pay you to avoid doing useful work.

Meanwhile, ODF is portable and, well, C. What can you say? If that's not standing the test of time in programming then what is?

Re:Congratulations

[symbolset]

Other than for embedded devices, C is pretty much dead -- and even a lot of that work is in C++ today.

Question for the class: what languages are C++ compilers, Windows and Linux written in? Since we're talking about OOXML and ODF, what language is Microsoft's own ODF to OOXML translator written in? That may be a .cpp file, but the vast majority of that code is C.

You've declued yourself. I'm sorry. Do you want to try again, perhaps on topic this time? You're killing your Karma dude.

Re:Just wait

[Maxo-Texas]

There is "maintaining legacy apps" and there is "this language is end of life- any patch we release from now on could break it".

This is a very real risk to my company-- we have 30 year old mainframe programs running as well as the day they were first written but our large visual basic system (1500 class x 40 lines os I guess about 60,000 lines?) now has 3 components at "end of life" and may randomly become non-functional without warning.

So we will have to replace it.

Will we use .net? Not very likely. The program works fine- the only reason it can't be kept is microsoft's policy that VB6 is dead (along with the version of SQL it was written in).

For a major corporation, 5 years is an eye blink-- but $5 to $10 million (plus new bugs/ lowered customer satisfaction) is not something they want to repeat every 5 years.

And yet, Microsoft says they plan to own developer mind space? Are they on drugs then? Because this is not the way to go about it.

The problem is Microsoft

[symbolset]

It was, but it's even more important that people realise the problem is Microsoft, not ISO.

I agree with you in every way. You got the message out - your post is highly moderated and right below mine. I recommend people reading this review what you've said.

When you're going for the first comment you have maybe thirty seconds on slashdot when it's slow. That's not time enough to nuance stuff. You have to strike while the iron is hot and get in the best blow you can. Too much subtlety and it's lost. Too much "blame Microsoft" and it's downmodded too fast for people to see it. I did the best I could.

Yes, ISO is now badly damaged, and that's a tragedy all of it's own, because ISO was a body of great value to the whole world. Now the world needs to be looking at clipping the wings of the predator that did the damage, not at sinking the boot into a crippled ISO.

We need an international standards organization. Do we need this one? I don't know. My opinion will depend on if they fix this, and what processes they put in place to prevent a recurrence. Is my opinion important? Only as much as it is insightful and informative and only to the extent I get my message out, which is why it was important to me to get my comment in first. As others here have noted this is not ISO's first offense - just the most onerous one. This is the telling one. If they will not fix this they are beyond saving. It is not impossible to "fork" ISO.

On slashdot I am fond of saying "this is a tool". Well, standards are tools too. If we don't trust this manufacturer of this class of tool we will need to find one or make one if we are to continue about the business of creating interdependent global stuff.

Re:zzz

[ozmanjusri]

This has been debunked so many times. To reiterate;

1. This discussion is about ODF, not Open Office. OOo is only one of many suites and applications supporting ODF.

2. More spin.

   This statement is misleading. Every file written by OpenOffice.org, KOffice or IBM Symmphony (to use common examples) is ODF compliant. The file may not require every tag in the full specification to describe the contents each application is capable of writing, but it will comply with the standard. In other words, each application is fully compliant with the subset of the standard mandated by the application's content creation role.

   By contrast, MS Office does NOT write compliant OOXML files at all

Let's hope

[jeevesbond]

Does anyone else find it odd that Microsoft touted support for ODF then pushed back supporting OOXML to the next version of Office just before all these complaints landed on ISO's doormat?

This, to my mind, shows two things:

1. Microsoft believes these appeals/complaints are likely to succeed;
2. they certainly have paid shills in a number of ISO committees, otherwise they wouldn't have seen this coming;

Apparently representatives from Microsoft were stalling for time in Brazil. So the support for ODF In Office seems like firefighting more than anything. The dropping of the Microsoft project, encoding books to OOXML, would also seem to be a sign that Microsoft is giving up.

*joke* If these appeals are successful, I for one will be on Alex Brown's blog, posting this video of Kryten in 'smug mode'. Muahaha. */joke*

Re:Let's hope

[Sique]

I would wager 3.)

They play for time, implement the depreceated ODF 1.1, thus are "standards compliant" and count on the several flaws within ODF 1.1 to taint ODF's stance with gouvernment officials, which in turn will be still using .doc/docx for information interchange. Thus Microsoft gets the time to mend OOXML to agree with their actual document format.

Re:I value your opinion

[Eivind]

The problem is both.

ISO is not set up to handle an aggressive, resourceful and abusive applicant. Which meant they ended up doing something which everyone sees is patently nonsense when confronted by such an applicant. Using the "fast-track" for a "standard" that is over 6000 pages, incomplete, with literally thousands of objections to it, and for which there exist -zero- implementations is patent nonsense, and everyone sees it. (possible exception if they've been paid handsomely to develop a blind spot for it)

Yes. MS is to blame for abusing a process. ISO is to blame for not having adequate defences against abuse.

Inflammatory Windows Nuclear Plant Worm

[symbolset]

I have to wonder if you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds: a document that (and we're speculating even here, but I'll give it to you for the moment) can maybe only be opened correctly with Office is equivalent to (for example) certifying a standard for nuclear plant safety that could kill millions of people.

I'm not trying to be inflammatory, but seriously, listen to yourself for a minute.

Oh, FSM preserve us!

You're not referring to one of the Windows ONLY worms that crashed multiple nuclear plants are you? You have to be some anti-Microsoft troll to be bringing that (2003) ancient history up again.

Dude, if you're a Microsoft astroturfer you should make sure you pick up your personal effects on the way out today.

Perhaps I'm naive, but...

[hyades1]

...I would think the best way to combat this is to find some way to turn the situation upside down. What's Microsoft's business strategy for next-generation products, and how could this be used to cause problems for them?

If Microsoft's understanding and control of the current arena is so complete that they can pull off something like this, then it's time to change the venue. Microsoft doesn't seem to do well in novel and fluid situations.

OK.....

[crhylove]

So the hierarchy of countries where there is a real informed segment of the populace or government now starts with Denmark, South Africa, India and Brazil?!?

Refresh my memory, do those countries waterboard people? Do they use rigged machines to count votes? What is the matter with those people?!?

Pinko commies the lot of 'em, allowing true interoperable anti monopoly standards and actually counting votes. They better not be brown, or we'll bomb the shit out of 'em!

Re:I value your opinion

[NickFortune]

Now the world needs to be looking at clipping the wings of the predator that did the damage, not at sinking the boot into a crippled ISO.

I love the "crippled ISO" image. It almost suggests that if we just shout at Microsoft and stop saying hurtful things about ISO, why then the organisation will get a chance to heal, and recover its ethical values, and be a force for good in the world once more.

Sadly, I don't think things work like that.

While I agree about Microsoft, I don't think we can really absolve ISO from all blame. To do that would be to send a message to the ISO saying "it's OK to be corrupt. No one minds. Break the rules, stack the deck; they'll just blame the organisation sponsoring the standard. Get your noses in the trough, boys!"

I agree that the fall of ISO is a tragedy. But until and unless they set their house in order I don't see how anyone is going to trust them again. Effectively they've just hung out a shingle saying "For Rent".

At the very least, ISO need to admit that there's a problem here and take steps to both fix the damage done, and to ensure it doesn't happen again. And that's not going to happen if they feedback they get "well, I guess that could have happened to anyone".

Explains what?

[symbolset]

Windows is largely written in C++. Explains a lot, doesn't it?

C++ is derived from C. I've never seen any C++ code that wasn't 90% standard C.

So what have you proven? That Bjarne Stroustrup at Bell Labs in 1979 had 10% to add to C? Where are the Wonders of Microsoft in this equation? On that day Microsoft was still working on a version of DOS that might have subdirectories someday. They knew barely enough about compilers to get their stuff to run.

More importantly, what have they added of value since? Come on. They're the most powerful software company in the world. It's been almost thirty years. They must have contributed something persistent to the pool of common knowledge, eh? Or maybe not.

Re:zzz

[Kalriath]

Actually, it hasn't been debunked at all. There doesn't actually exist a version of OpenOffice.org which actually generates documents compliant with the ISO spec, but that's probably not all that bad (providing the "subsequent versions" which haven't been looked at by ISO don't go overboard).

By contrast, the only thing preventing MSO from writing 100% compliant transitional OOXML is their insistence on using "true/false" instead of "yes/no" (or is that "on/off"?) - as noted here where Rob Weir actually makes a comment that only one change (or very few) would be needed to Office 07 to make it generate valid OOXML.

Re:Pardon my ignorance, but...

[Sique]

Enter MS and OOXML, a document standard that has now been validated by and internationally accepted ISO review procedure. But Morten Kjærsgaard begs to differ:
1.) There is no validated standard right now, for that the final draft had to be published and sent to the members by March 29 2008. This deadline is missed, so the DIS29500 is not official yet and thus cannot be accepted yet.
2.) For a standard to get fast tracked, there has to be an implementation. Because even Microsoft will not support OOXML for at least a year, OOXML couldn't be fast tracked to begin with, and the votes in the different comitees were votes about nil, but not about a fast tracked standard.

Real World Safety Implications

[Mateo_LeFou]

Increasingly, this notion that what we geeks are hot and bothered about is "just software, after all" is going to be questioned.

Many thousands of annual deaths are attributable to harmful drug interactions, and a lot of these result from the unavailability of standard Electronic Medical Records(EMR) across care providers.

That's right, vendor lock-in and nonstandard documents are killing people.

The (open) standardization of general-purpose office documents should have been completed a decade ago. EMRs should have been standardized 5 years ago. Many people have died unnecessarily.

Go dream...

[jopsen]

I hate to say it... but I don't think an appeal from Denmark is comming...

I live in Denmark, and do read Danish... Usually I'm not reading local tech-news, however I've been reading a little from various Danish news sites and judging from the wording there I don't think you should expect an official appeal.

Also as "spectrokid" says in a comment below you I quote:

this country is a notorious Microsoft bitch
The quote you have from the article is not translated correctly in Danish it says:

Jacob Holmblad får klagen direkte, fordi han har en fod i hver lejr," forklarer Morten Kjærsgaard til Computerworld. The correct translation would be

Jacob Holmblad receives/gets the complaint directly, because he has a foot in each camp," explains Morten Kjærsgaard to Computerworld He doesn't say that he'll appeal directly. I fact he's quoted for saying that he'd bring the complaint to ISO, at the end of the article.

Venezuela also appeals OOXML ratification

[Bayesela]

"After the two-month appeal period, we now have four appeals -- Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela," Jonathan Buck, the director of communications for IEC, told ZDNet.co.uk on Monday http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39427754,00.htm