If This Was a Month Ago, OOXML Would Be Over

Andy Updegrove writes "Public announcements of how Participating members of ISO have voted on OOXML are now rolling in one at a time, and the trend thus far is meaningfully weighted towards 'No with comments.' By my count, there are now four announced Yes votes, with comments, two abstentions, and seven public No with comments votes for OOXML in ISO/IEC JT1. Korea has reportedly voted no as well, and I expect at least Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom to announce 'No with comments' today or tomorrow. There will be more no votes on the roster when the final results are announced in a day or two. But even if the 11 votes I know of now were the only votes, the vote would now have failed — but for the 11 countries that upgraded their status from Observer to Participating member status in the last few weeks. Without those extra 11 'P' countries, it would only require 10 votes to block OOXML from immediate approval. If most or all of those additional 'P' members vote 'yes' as expected, it will confirm suspicions that Microsoft has promoted extra votes in favor of OOXML not only within National Bodies, but within ISO itself."

Help me out

Do we want this voted down? I haven't kept up with the newsletter.

Re:Help me out

Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Hell yes!

Re:Help me out

I thought is was something like:

Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Yes, with comments.

Here's Microsoft's take on it...

Source: [yahoo.com]

"We had a situation where an employee sent a communication via e-mail that was inconsistent with our corporate policy," said Tom Robertson, general manager for interoperability and standards at Microsoft. "That communication had no impact on the final vote."

[...]

Besides Sweden, there are unconfirmed reports of last-minute appearances by Microsoft allies to vote in favor of Open XML in countries such as Norway, Colombia, Switzerland and Portugal.

Robertson dismissed the criticism. Most standards bodies are filled with "an old guard" membership that needs rejuvenation, he said.

I would like to note that those "unconfirmed" reports have been confirmed by many sources at this point, and that the list given is FAR too short. Something like 40+ countries have decided they want a voting ("P" level, rather than "O" level) membership in the ISO and this interest corresponds with Microsoft's "voter registration drive."

Never mind such a drive being inconsistent with US anti-trust law. A few anti-trust settlements are merely a cost of doing business these days, and the Iowa settlement is an aberration. Most of them have settled for far less, like the Arizona settlement where they got to give away software that would not only cost them pennies on the dollar (actually, probably less than pennies) but would help further their lock-in in the educational market.

Re:Help me out

OK, let me give you the overview. Once upon a time, there was Microsoft Word .doc files. This is a format that has changed over the years and is not a good format for long-term storage of files. So, government bodies wanted there to be a standard format. So, the OpenOffice (Linux's big free office suite) developers developed ODT [wikipedia.org], a format whose description is open and one that can be read without having to be reverse-engineered (at least in theory).

Well, ODT became an ISO standard and government bodies have started requiring documents to be in this format. This, as you can imagine, does not make Microsoft happy. Microsoft publically claims that ODT is a limited format. However, many people suspect that Microsoft's opposition to ODT is that a widespread adoption of this format will make it so people don't feel forced to use Microsoft Word in order to communicate with business associates, since Word is a closed, proprietary format. So Microsoft invented OOXML, which is a, in theory Open Format that is basically a Word .doc file converted to XML.

OOXML, to put it mildly, is an extremely messy format. The general consensus seems to be that, OOXML, as specified, is very complex and the spec is incomplete, making it impossible for third parties to make effective OOXML import/export filters.

what Microsoft is trying to do now is make OOXML an ISO standard, so PHBs (pointy-haired bosses) can claim that OOXML is an open standard (really, it's not), and force people to continue using Word to make documents (since no other program is ever going to have an effective OOXML import/export filter). Microsoft, quite bluntly, is playing very dirty pool in order to make OOXML an ISO standard, and a lot of people are crying foul.

So now, the current battle is to stop OOXML from becoming an ISO standard, so that Microsoft no longer has less of a monopoly on document exchange formats.

Yes, Microsoft could actually help ODF catch on by making it a format that Word can read or write (such as what this converter [sourceforge.net] does for MS Office), but they don't seem to want to do that.

Re:Help me out

"The general consensus seems to be that, OOXML, as specified, is very complex and the spec is incomplete"

By which he means you find things like "do margins like Word 95" with (of course) the actual code that explains how margins are done in Word 95... missing. And with Word 95 itself being closed source... well, nobody but microsoft can implement OOXML fully without reverse engineering several microsoft products. Except microsoft of course, which has the souce code for said products. The document is also 6000 pages long, compared to 700 for ODF.

"Microsoft, quite bluntly, is playing very dirty pool in order to make OOXML an ISO standard"

By which he means "a microsoft employee admitted they were buying votes" as well as the doubling of voting members of not only the ISO but govermental bodies deciding votes for their country in the ISO and how nearly every one of these new members plans to vote YES to OOXML as a standard.

Also, the name "Office Open XML" is suspiciously similar to a *real* open-source product, Open Office.

Re:Help me out

If I were in MS strategy I would buy the new 'P' members and have them vote 'No with comments,' ensuring the comments were easily addressed and trivial. This would add validity to the next vote when all of the pocketed participants vote Yes as their comments had been addressed.

I have a hard time believing that MS would stack the deck so blatantly, but have no doubt that they would do so in a more covert manner. Long story short, don't be surprised if a number of the new voting members vote no initially.

Regards.

Re:Help me out

This probably isn't driven by MS strategy. More marketing's realm, one would think.

Add to it that Office has been Microsoft's bread and butter for a decade now, and all truly threatening competition was pretty much quashed when Word Perfect fell. Now you have a situation where there has only been one extremely strong player in the business document production arena since before 'Internet' was a household word. There's a pile of money riding on this - not really in the US, where PC software is pretty sewn up - but overseas. A good rational look at the situation, and do you REALLY think the entire US government is going to go to OpenOffice? Yeah, no. But if OOXML is a standard it gives M$ sales a slight chance at selling developing countries' governments while their technical base is less knowledgeable about OSS.

Microsoft doesn't really HAVE to care about the US anymore; inertia will keep them in business here for the foreseeable future, like it has IBM despite some horrific failure. It's expansion markets (which, amusingly enough, probably won't listen to an American company as well as they would have before Mr. Gates got his way and a Republican shattered our reputation in the world) that M$ needs for stock prices to go up.

Re:trademark infringement?

Does this mean I can create a product called SoftMicro Windows, and SoftMicro Office, without fear of getting sued by Microsoft?

Re:Help me out

Can you show an example?

Some examples are given here [msdn.com].

Re:Help me out

OOXML, to put it mildly, is an extremely messy format.

Mildly indeed. Aside from it being a 6000 page steaming pile of shite, it is loaded with all sorts of wonderful nuggets such as *REQUIRING* applications to deliberately report the wrong day of the week for certain dates. To quote the lovely specification:

" shall treat 1900 as though it was a leap year... A consequence of this is that for dates between January 1 and February 28, WEEKDAY shall return a value for the day immediately prior to the correct day"

So if a certain date was a Monday, Microsoft's specification requires that software must deliberately and incorrectly tell you it was a Sunday.

Why would Microsoft put insane requirements like deliberate date errors into an international standard? Simple. Once upon a time sold some software that didn't know how the fuck(*) to calculate leap years, and OOXML really isn't intended as any sort of legitimate interoperable international standard. OOML is really just a fancy way of saying "use Microsoft's software". Sending OOXML through the standards process is really just a way of slapping a BOGUS "open standard" label onto Microsoft monopoly lock in software and formats. Microsoft does not want politicians and corporate managers to be lured away by the actual International Standard and actual Open Format - the already existing ODF Open Document Format.

(*) footnote: Yes, it crossed my mind that maybe I shouldn't gratuitously drop "fuck" in there. I thought about changing it. I tried to change it. Really I did. But come on! It's a major software vendor producing a major business application.... and they can't get leap years right? W...T...F!

-

Re:Help me out

Yes, the collective hive-mind of /. does care and in the latest newsletter there was the quote "we want this voted down!".

You see, a few years ago governments all around the world started realizing that when they send ".doc" files to the public they're asking people to go spend money with a particular company to read that file. Governments shouldn't say "People with FIRESTONE tyres get to stay on the road!" ...or.. "People with Microsoft Office can talk to the government!". So there's been a raising of consciousness around how file formats cost countries tens or hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

What Governments should do is say "People whose cars pass certain tests can stay on the road!" or "People with an Office Suite that uses a published standard can talk to us!". That way it encourages competition, "innovation", and cut-throat pricing.

Microsoft could tell where the wind was blowing, and they began trying to get the International Standards Organisation (ISO) to rubber-stamp their 6000 page proposed standard... a standard called OOXML. An Open Standard sounded like a great idea but the question was: Had Microsoft really told everyone their secret mix of herbs and spices? Well, no, because as it turned out many things in OOXML were left undefined and the only vendor capable of implementing OOXML was Microsoft.

(and even they're having problems [blogspot.com] ... let alone the problems other vendors have [holloway.co.nz])

Now although ISO haven't announced anything it looks like it's going to go "No" for Microsoft.

This doesn't affect what software individuals or the private sector choose, but people who should use standards (government and government vendors) do care about this decision. Actually, individuals and the private sector probably should care because more competition in the office suite market may lower the cost of Microsoft Office.

A country's "no" can turn into a "yes" when an issue is addressed at the ballot resolution meeting (I think) so the more "no"s the better because otherwise a single country could just swing it in favour of OOXML. The more "no"s the larger the safety net, so it'll be interesting to see what the final vote is.

So I'd expect that in the coming days there'll be a lot of analysis of whether the actual comments in the "No, with comments" from each country are fundamental problems or superficial quirks. Can any particular country be swung to vote yes easily?

Still, it's a great start. The noooxml crowd are predicting 18 "no"s.

OOXML has failed, but it isn't over.

There's pretty good vote tracking going on here [blogspot.com], and as of a little while ago they're calling the vote failed: too many "no" votes to get the 2/3 majority needed to pass.

That doesn't mean it's over: there's a resolution process over the next few months, culminating in a vote in February, to address the comments submitted with "no, with comments" votes. If the comments are resolved to the voter's satisfaction, the "no" vote can be changed to a "yes".

Expect Microsoft to pull out all the stops to get countries to change there votes even without the comments being resolved. You thought there were dirty tricks before? You ain't seen nothing yet.

Or perhaps they'll just fix the standard. Ha ha ha ha...er, sorry.

Re:OOXML has failed, but it isn't over.

Without being able to know exactly what happens internally at Microsoft, the feeling I get is that someone actually got the good idea and enough power at MS to try and get MS to make something that would actually be standard, and it got approved. Architects, developers and co went ahead and started something that would have had the stuff to be approved by ISO. However, time ran short, and some bozo project manager and such at the top rushed the people to get something out of the door.

Those people then complained "But boss! Its not ready yet!", and said project manager (or whatever) said "Well, you can't have everything in life, thats how we're gonna present it. Your job is on the line, is it ready enough or not?", "Well sir...I.....guess...maybe....". And it was pushed to ISO. Most people who ever worked for a large company probably had to deal with a similar situation at least once.

Now that its getting rejected, maybe said person at the top will see more clearly and actually let em fix it. So this version isn't good enough, but after some fixes and cleanups, and removing the legacy crap, it might be ok in the end.

Re:OOXML has failed, but it isn't over.

Not that I have a lot of experience with standards (my group's leader at work has written a new ISO standard and it's going through the process right now), but that is NOT the way the company I work at handles standards. Of course the company I work at has a longer history that MS and mostly deals with machinery safety standards, which you can not mess around with. But all the same an ISO standard is an ISO standard, you should respect the process and make a good standard, and respect your peers in the industry when they bring up issues. I don't think MS has the respect for ISO's authority at all, and until they do, I don't think ISO should pay one wit of attention to them. Same goes for OSI (that's strange... did any one realize the are different sides of the same coin... so to speak) and MS's shared-source licenses.

A simple analogy: I teacher does not teach to a student who thinks they have nothing to learn. Nor does a good teacher allow said student to interrupt class. That student should be on their own if they don't want to participate in a constructive way. Alone in a corner. Cleaning the erasers.
That's my take on it. Of course someone will prove my analogy wrong, but it's more fun that way... fire away!

Re:OOXML has failed, but it isn't over.

I agree, its not how a company should handle things. However Microsoft is part of two "groups" of businesses that don't think the way a company like yours do. #1: Software Companies. A very good way of handling software development (not that everyone agrees, but it DOES work, in many, MANY scenarios) is "Fail early, fail often". Since in most areas (not stuff like medical and such...), it isn't going to kill anyone, it is more efficient to push software out and find kinks as you go. Its not even always out of disrespect for your customers, because it is a good way to get solid software faster even when its just internally! (so there's no customers to screw over).

An inexperienced (with standards, which would make sense considering MS) MS project manager probably tried to apply this rational, while everyone around him tried to stop him, but on that day, he was in charge, and he screwed it up for everyone. Probably a group of project manager even.

The second group MS belongs to, is the "money-first" business kind. Where all these standards and ethics are pretty much just a way to make money. This where MS is on the "evil" side rather than just on the "dumb" side like the first group. They'll learn the hard way.

Anyway, not the best analogy in the world, but point is, the kind of businesses that handle more "real" things (like yours) tend to think very very differently from software/business companies, who (usually) work more with abstract concepts, and where usually no one gets killed. And a huge machine like Microsoft can't change in 1 day. Even if Steve Balmer was a -saint-, it would still not be possible to steer that ship in one shot. So expect MS to fuck up a lot in the next couple of years.

If in 20+ years they're still alive, they'll probably be quite different from what we've seen in the last couple of decades. The market is showing that their ways won't work much longer, and they'll end as the next Novell if they aren't careful. So like you said, ISO shouldn't give them any respect, until MS learns, which comes down to what I said. If at first you don't succeed, try again.

I'm sure when the company you work for just started working with standards and such (which they probably did at some point... as they probably were too small at first for that), they made mistakes. Its not because Microsoft is big that its any smarter. Especially since Microsoft's side is mostly split up in tiny pieces, and its one of those tiny portions that messed up on OOXML.

Re:OOXML has failed, but it isn't over.

The problem with that of course is M$ seeming willingness to corrupt the ISO standard process to get it approved. It makes it appear that M$ is in fact corrupt to the core, all the lies, false advertising, defective products, political lobbying, are just M$'s basic nature. They have a complete disregard for the cost and harm they create and are only concerned with their own profits and ego.

The whole thing should simply be tossed out as it is clear that M$ never intended to and never will produce a workable open standard, for them it is just a cynically corrupt exercise in marketing. Governments should really be taking a long hard look at this type of behaviour and regardless of the temporary inconvenience exclude them from government contracts for at least 10 years.

Re:OOXML has failed, but it isn't over.

From what I can tell, it started with Massachusetts's decision to limit their next office product purcase to products which support "Open" and "XML-based" Document protocols. At that time, Open Document Format (which was based on the Open Office XML document format) was the only open document format available. This meant that Microsoft would either have to bow to using a format defined and controlled by somebody else, or somehow make their own closed format into something acceptable by Microsoft.

They went about this by following two tracks:

• On one track, they made life unbearable for the CIO at Massachusetts -- and also his successor, who also understood the issues at hand ... until they finally ended up with a CIO who would swallow.
• On the other track they suddenly decided to submit their XMLish document format to ECMA to make it an 'open' standard. ... but huge chunks of the 'XML-standard' were actually embeded binary chunks who's documentation consisted of "Uhm, reverse engineer Office-97 to figure this out, OK?". Even with these huge chunks effectively MIA, their 'standard' still consisted of over 6000 pages -- in part, because OOXML eschews international standards in favour of entrenching 20 years of MS bugs (like thinking that 1900 was a leap year, and encoding language types in wonky ways)

  More problmatically, Microsoft made supporting some of these odities 'optional', which means that

  1. You could end up with a nominally OOXML implementation which didn't support these chunks,
  2. Implementations of these chunks wouldn't be protected by Microsoft's patent grants for the ECMA standard,
  3. Microsoft could (and did) then promote these undocumented and unprotected features as 'critical aspects' of OOXML -- that any competitors who wanted to produce a competing OOXML implementation have a hard time (both technically and legally) implementing.

In short, OOXML allows microsoft to claim (to technically illiterate political cheque-signers) that Office 2007 uses an Open, XML-based document format -- but do it in a way that pretty much ensures them that nobody that's not a Microsoft lap-dog will be able to legally create an implementation that can actually read most Office 2007 documents. (or -- at the very least -- it will take them years to put something legal together, by which time Ofice 2007 will have squeezed Open Office out of the market).

Re:OOXML has failed, but it isn't over.

Most of the comments will never be resolved. Microsoft has no intention of re-writing their format specification. There has been much discussion about what is "wrong" with their format and many of the comments spell them out clearly. Some comments have to do with some things that are fixable, but those that are described as part of the Win32 or Office software behavior will not be defined in a way that is both accurate and unlinked to Win32 or Office. Their links to Windows and Office is what will help keep their monopoly rolling. (That, and patent encumbered 'standards' that only Microsoft can implement.)

And to offer a clue to other products that parallel this situation, one only needs to investigate MSIE's broken implementation of CSS. Invariably, web designers have to create their pages around MSIE's broken CSS implementation if they want the majority of viewers to see their page correctly. The public's perception of anything else is that the web site is broken or poorly designed in some way. This broken majority keeps development for MSIE active.

I'm hopeful that the 2/3 majority issue is already defeated. I'm also hopeful that every other participating body has also heard about Microsoft's goof in trying to buy the "yes" vote by stuffing the votes. (And there is NO way that happened at the direction of a mere 'underling.' Someone with real decision-making power and responsibility must have directed the "program." This sort of activity may easily be considered lobbying... but I consider a lot of 'lobbying' activity rather subversive to a democratic process as well.)

Committee stuffing legally different from lobbying

I'm also hopeful that every other participating body has also heard about Microsoft's goof in trying to buy the "yes" vote by stuffing the votes. (And there is NO way that happened at the direction of a mere 'underling.' Someone with real decision-making power and responsibility must have directed the "program." This sort of activity may easily be considered lobbying... but I consider a lot of 'lobbying' activity rather subversive to a democratic process as well.)

Here [justia.com] is a U.S. supreme court decision holding that committee stuffing in standardization organizations is fundamentally different from lobbying.

From the decision: "Petitioner, and others concerned about the safety or competitive threat of polyvinyl chloride conduit, can, with full antitrust immunity, engage in concerted efforts to influence those governments through direct lobbying, publicity campaigns, and other traditional avenues of political expression. To the extent state and local governments are more difficult to persuade through these other avenues, that no doubt reflects their preference for and confidence in the nonpartisan consensus process that petitioner has undermined. Petitioner remains free to take advantage of the forum provided by the standard-setting process by presenting and vigorously arguing accurate scientific evidence before a nonpartisan private standard-setting body.[Footnote 13] And petitioner can avoid the strictures of the private standard-setting process by attempting to influence legislatures through other forums. What petitioner may not do (without exposing itself to possible antitrust liability for direct injuries) is bias the process by, as in this case, stacking the private standard-setting body with decisionmakers sharing their economic interest in restraining competition."

Re:Committee stuffing legally different from lobby

Pursuant to this precedent, can Microsoft be hauled back into court for violating their anti-trust restrictions following their conviction if their clear violation happened outside of the U.S.? It is the same company though operating in another jurisdiction.

Re:OOXML has failed, but it isn't over.

If the comments are resolved to the voter's satisfaction, the "no" vote can be changed to a "yes".

Can comments be of the form "I would need more money in order to vote 'yes'"?

Nevermind

Utterly ignoring the actual standard being discussed, I have to say that my respect for and general goodwill toward the ISO process has been fairly well shaken. Its a shame really because standardisation (if not of spelling) is one of those things that has driven innovation and allowed our society to progress enormously. Having now seen the process involved in deciding on a new standard, and more importantly how it can or may be manipulated is frankly disturbing.

Well I guess its a good thing to have your faith in something shaken, doubly if it means that from here on in the respect and admiration that I had for international standards bodies must now be earned. (Not that my opinion will matter, but I am sure other more influential voices have also taken note.)

Yes w/ comments = BS!

Seriously, what's the point of "yes, with comments"? I mean, if the standard is endorsed, what are the odds that the comments will be addressed? It's a completely toothless vote, and it might as well be a straight-up "Yes" vote. Whoever sold those countries the idea that "Yes, with comments" is different from "Yes" sold them a bill of goods.

Don't confuse this farce with normal business

Seriously, what's the point of "yes, with comments"?

In a normal standards process, "Yes, with comments" is very valuable. Remember, in a normal standards process everyone is basically on the same team. "Yes, with comments" means that the spec under consideration is "good enough," but that it could be improved by (for instance) clearer wording of a section.

Again, I can't overemphasize that this kind of hardball, take-no-prisoners approach is very much the exception and that ISO (and the national bodies) simply aren't prepared to deal with it. Have a look at the comments of, for instance, the Hungarian government for a taste of how "enlightening" this has all been.

Constructive Criticism, M$, and Standards.

Seriously, what's the point of "yes, with comments"? I mean, if the standard is endorsed, what are the odds that the comments will be addressed?

It means the standard is workable but could be improved the way you noticed. Outside of Redmond, people engage in constructive criticism and mean mostly mean well.

The adversarial tone above is the worst damage that M$ has done to ISO. Standards are agreements meant to reduce duplication of work and friction between people, not a way to lock people into buying your crap. Real standards, like ODF are created by groups representing many interested parties. They are complete and easily implemented by others, and exceptions are always documented. OOXML, on the other hand, is incomplete, contradictory, patent protected and will remain single vendor. It's presentation was an affront. The gamesmenship was worse. If it that kind behavior is tollerated and encouraged, there will be no standards for anything. But this attack has been coming for ten years. [catb.org] As they put it themselves,

OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market.

M$'s true intentions and use of standards is everything standards are supposed to avoid. This fact has been drug up in court several times.

ISO should punish those who took bribe as well as those who offered them. M$ should be banned from participation for a good long time or they will succeed in their destruction of real standards.

ESR and OOXML

Eric S. Raymond (ESR) commented on Microsoft's OOXML tactics as they relate to their proposed open source licenses in a OSI blog entry [opensource.org].

I agree pretty much with his position. If the playing field were anything near to level, I would have no issue in evaluating Microsoft's license submissions purely on their merits, just like any other license. However, I have difficulty in reconciling Microsoft wanting to be treated fairly by OSI with Microsoft's tactics in their attempts to ram OOXML through ISO. If Microsoft can game the ISO approval process, shouldn't it be fair for us to game the OSI approval process?

Hey!

Surely you're not suggesting that Microsoft would throw its money around in order to obtain special treatment.

OOXML should be revised to make it map ODF

Most of the public (and non-public) discussions seem to miss the main point: From Microsoft's business perspective, pursuing the ISO/IEC strandardization process for OOXML isn't at all about OOXML, but rather it is about trying to kill ODF.

As pointed out in this U.S. supreme court decision [justia.com], "Agreement on a product standard is, after all, implicitly an agreement not to manufacture, distribute, or purchase certain types of products." In the case of OOXML, the agreement is primarily about not manufacturing, distributing or puchasing products relying on the truly open document format standard ODF.

Really it is only acceptable for the standardization of OOXML to proceed if OOXML is first revised to make it "map ODF", see this article [siug.ch] for a precise definition and detailed argument.

If true, it's a new move...

We all know that Microsoft corrupts and destroys standards from the outside in. Java comes to mind, as well as the maliciously-compliant dhcp client in Vista. But this would be new (at least to me) - an attempt to corrupt a standards body from the inside out.

Luckily, it seems to be more difficult to trick engineering standards groups.

redundant tag

we really need a "shameless" tag, but with microsoft I think that already goes without saying. They're not hiding in the shadows on this, they're grinning like a skunk eating manure.

And if my Grandmother had wheels, she'd be a wagon

Microsoft is lobbying hard to get OOXML adopted as an industry standard, to prevent Open Office's ODF from becoming de facto THE accepted standard for document preparation, transmission and storage. I'm sure that all of the votaries who answered "No, with comments" are currently hearing from M$ reps just how, er, lucrative a "Yes" vote could be.

Yes, maybe I'm being paranoid. Being paranoid doesn't mean that they're not out to get you!

How about a summary?

Would it be too much to ask for a summary, rather than merely copying & pasting the linked article? Maybe mention what ODF and OOXML are, why we might NOT want the ISO to accept OOXML as a standard, things like that?

Summary

ODF - A document format originally based on the Open Office file format. It spent four years going through the ISO process, being revised to comply with other ISO standards, and was released as a standard in 2006. The entire specification is a couple hundred pages long. Since then, an number of states in the US, and countries, have decided that all official documents must be saved in a standard format.

OOXML - Microsoft's format based on their Office Suite. It is about 6000 pages long.

A couple of my favorite reasons for not allowing OOXML to become a standard include:
1. 1900 is defined as a leap year because that's what MSOffice does.
2. The specification includes numerous definitions of tags like autoSpaceLikeWord95, which is defined as:

This element specifies that applications shall emulate the behavior of a previously existing word processing application (Microsoft Word 95) when determining the spacing between full-width East Asian characters in a document's content.
[Guidance: To faithfully replicate this behavior, applications must imitate the behavior of that application, which involves many possible behaviors and cannot be faithfully placed into narrative for this Office Open XML Standard. If applications wish to match this behavior, they must utilize and duplicate the output of those applications. It is recommended that applications not intentionally replicate this behavior as it was deprecated due to issues with its output, and is maintained only for compatibility with existing documents from that application. end guidance]

The "Standard" contains an erroneous date calculation, and won't tell you how to properly do something defined in the standard.

Recent stuff:
It seems that companies that never before bothered to show up for standards votes are magically showing up on the day of the OOXML vote, paying their dues, and voting. And we're not talking about a few. Suddenly, votes that would normally have ten to twenty companies show up all of the sudden have 20 new businesses. Also, there have been reports of companies that support Microsoft getting access to Microsoft technology they wouldn't otherwise have access to. Also, countries are supporting OOXML that never bothered with these votes.

BTW, have you been living under a rock? This story shows up almost as often as the BSD/GPL tussle.

The real problem: Managers don't even know

The real problem about it all is that the managers, who will or will not heed that "standard" don't even know how it came into existance. They don't care about open source or vendor lock in (hell, they love the lock in, they already have a minuscle grasp on Windows, they would do whatever necessary to avoid change, and if all that's required is doing nothing...). They don't care about implementation (that's gonna be YOUR job after all, they just waggle their fingers and cast a "make it so" spell on you).

They care about standardisation. You will not convince your boss with a lack of interoperability, but you will get him with telling him that in that new "standard", some of his fancy and oh-so-important feature-junk he tends to pepper his documents with won't work anymore.

If you want your boss to object to OOXML, find out what clipart trash won't work anymore. That's how you get him on your side.

I don't get it

So the future is looking bleak for OCXML (Office *Closed* XML) but what's with the claim about last month? This issue wasn't over a month ago so why the cryptic headline?

IETF, MS vs Netscape, etc

This is no different than how MS subverted the IETF process in the early '90s. And not really fundamentally different than how MS subverted web standards to undermine Netscape.

NYT: Microsoft Favored to Win Open Document Vote

New York Times article here [nytimes.com] (reg req'd, etc).

BERLIN, Sept. 3 -- Amid intense lobbying, Microsoft is expected to squeak out a victory this week to have its open document format, Office Open XML, recognized as an international standard, people tracking the vote said Monday. ... "After what basically has amounted to unprecedented lobbying, I think that Microsoft's standard is going to get the necessary amount of support," said Pieter Hintjens, president of Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, a Brussels group that led the opposition.

Rage, rage, at the dying of the light.

Current Scoreboard

By my count, there are now four announced Yes votes, with comments, two abstentions, and seven public No with comments votes for OOXML in ISO/IEC JT1.

There have been reports on far more votes. See this blog post [blogspot.com] for the current standings.

EEE

So this time, MS has applied "Embrace, extend and extinguish" to the standard process itself.

There's a lot of smart, not-yet-bought people in ISO. I'm sure they already realized that unless they can fix this up, ISO will be done with. Its image has already very much suffered. That might even be intentional, for even if MS fails in pushing OOXML through, they might succeed in damaging ISO so much that ODF being an ISO standard and OOXML not doesn't matter as much as it used to.

Ireland vote bought?

Ireland has shamefully voted Yes with reservations ("qualified approval" recommending some small changes), with the National Standards Authority for Ireland (NSAI) hiding it behind an announcement [www.nsai.ie] entitled "NSAI PROVIDES QUALIFIED APPROVAL FOR MAJOR SOFTWARE STANDARD".

Complex spec

For anybody pround of being able to write complex specs, take a lesson from Microsoft. IBM bought printed copies of the ODF and OOXML specs to the Hungary meeting. One of the presents toke a picture [tomka.hu]. Can you guess with pile is the OOXML spec?

Re: Why is this even news?

Microsoft's power is a temporary thing, just like IBM's before it. Quit wasting your time obsessing over it and worry about real social ills.

Such as... Microsoft.

Re:Why is this even news?

Microsoft's power is a temporary thing, just like IBM's before it. Quit wasting your time obsessing over it and worry about real social ills.

The only reason that Microsoft's power is temporary is because concerned people are spending large amounts of time obsessing about it. You get what you inspect, not necessarily what you expect.

-=Geoskd

Why would they care?

"If there's anything Microsoft doesn't want, it's to get caught up in more antitrust lawsuits."

Well, the last round had no apparent impact on MS, so I'm guessing they no longer believe anti-trust to be an issue any longer. That threat left the station 7 years ago when the current administration took office.

Re:Microsoft probably doesn't have to manipulate

don't know why the /. crowd always assumes Microsoft is some crazy puppet master pulling strings in all these places to get more people involved in the ISO standardization and voting. If there's anything Microsoft doesn't want, it's to get caught up in more antitrust lawsuits.

That would be because these antitrust lawsuits have cost them so much in the past? So far the cost for microsoft to change its long standing behavioral model would be far greater than the costs associated with loosing these antitrust lawsuits at the current rate. Corporations are inherently a-moral and absolutely logical. The only thing a corporation undertsands is a cost statement. If a decision is to be made, then all of the relevant factors and probabilities are weighed and the resulting cost /benefit analysis determines future behavior. Except for a few aberrant corporations, most of which are short lived, this is simply the way things are done. Microsoft follows these behaviors not out of some deep seated evil, but because that is how the game is played. Any company's officers who don't understand that truth, and live with it, will not be in charge for long. They will see reduced corporate earnings and be replaced with people who will play the game. It also means that corporate officers will gladly sacrifice a campanies long term stability for short term profits, as will stock holders. The idea being simply to keep profits high and the charade going until after you are no longer in charge. This is most strongly supported by the fact that even the most far reaching companies to not make long range plans longer than 4 to 5 years out.

You want companies to behave with more concern for long term stability as well as good corporate citizenship, you have to make the stockholders care about more than just the P/E ratio and the ROI. There is only one way I know of to accomplish that... Eliminate Limited Liability. If you want stockholders to pay attention to how their companies are being run, then make then unlimitedly responsible for the companies actions. You better bet that things like the Enron scandal, and the various examples of public polutuion by industry would become a very rare critter. Make it so that people stand to loose a lot more than just their initial investment if the company they invest in is doing Evil, and they will become your much needed public watchdog. They would be able to access all company records without a court order, because they own the company, and they would have the best reason in the world to do so. To those people who sa y that this will destroy the economy, that simply is not true. People will always be trying to invest money for a return. People aren't suddenly going to stop investing, they'll just become a lot more carefull about it, especially those with deep pockets. Those who are currently the most likely to enable the current destructive behavior would now be the strongest force preventing the bad behaviors.

-=Geoskd

Re:Microsoft probably doesn't have to manipulate

Did you miss the part about ISO letters being submitted by new companies that had never voted before all looking exactly the same? Or the part about companies getting special access to Microsoft stuff if they vote in favor?

If Microsoft actually made a better product, in part that means creating a standard that's really a standard, everything would work out. But that's not what they are doing.

Re:Microsoft probably doesn't have to manipulate

The world is more complex than Microsoft v Open Source.

This has nothing to do with Open Source.

This has to do with Microsoft v ANY competitor.

This has to do with Microsoft v ANY computer user who wants seamless exchange of information.

This has to do with Microsoft's willingness to destroy faith in a process which has made cooperation between nations and business across thousands of fields possible. Construction, manufacturing, medicine, transport. Almost all of human enterprise benefits from standards.

Microsoft is prepared to subvert all that just to grab a bit more money.

That's what's so contemptible about their latest efforts.

No.

There's nothing non-standard with the title as written for this story. Using were is more formal; not to imply that was in that context is informal.

Re:Microsoft probably doesn't have to manipulate

>Did it occur to you that when there are Microsoft partners involved in these things (Oh no, Microsoft must have paid them off!)

I guess you didn't read the Microsoft memo that state how much the organizations that voted "yes" were to be paid.

Nor did you read the Microsoft memo that discussed how much to pay the various ECMA officials for ensuring that OOXML was approved?

>you just assume that they're doing Microsoft's bidding because they're a partner?

Nor did you read the Microsoft memo that suggests terminating business relationships with partners who vote "no".

Amber

Re:Anti-Trust Case again... here we come!

I say the people need to slap M$ with Anti-Trust on this one.

Ah, but you see, it was business partners and errant employees. Microsoft would never sanction undermining a major international standards association to get an utterly unusable document certified as a standard.

I'm cancelling my holiday to Costa Rica

Hey, if Costa Rica is stupid enough to vote "yes" for OOXML, I will take my holiday money elsewhere, to a tropical country that did vote "no": Brazil, Ecuador. Mmmmh, surprising low amount of countries had the brains to say no.

And some of the countries that approved don't even have the money to buy MS Office licenses to use that OOXML standard: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Congo, Cote d'Ivoir, Cuba, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tanzania, Ukraine, Uzbekistan.

Can anyone explain me why those countries voted "yes" ? Take Cuba... MS is not allowed to sell licenses there due to the USA governement childish rules. And all those developing nations, they don't have money...

Re:Microsoft probably doesn't have to manipulate

I don't know why the /. crowd always assumes Microsoft is some crazy puppet master pulling strings in all these places to get more people involved in the ISO standardization and voting.

Oh I dunno.... maybe it's because at least one of the companies that Microsoft DID attempt to bribe has publicly blown the whistle on that attempt, and Microsoft was forced to admit it. [computerworld.com]

No, the flood of Microsoft lackies flooding in to various national groups at the last minute to spam the vote is not on the up-and-up. No, the flood of groups from tiny countries with no history of activity on technical standards rushing in to join this specific workgroup at International Organization for Standardization to spam the vote is not on the up-and-up. Microsoft's hands are quite dirty here. It is a deliberate effort by Microsoft to subvert the process when Microsoft knows that the existing standards bodies would have overwhelmingly rejected Microsoft's submission for legitimate and severe technical deficiencies.

There is so much bloodlust against Microsoft here it's scary.

Well it turns out in this case that they were right and you were mistaken.

Maybe there is a good reason for that. Maybe they know a lot more about Microsoft's behavior than you do. Maybe there is a very long history of good reasons for "bloodlust" against Microsoft, and maybe if you were to read up on the long history of Microsoft's behavior you too would develop a quite justified well informed "bloodlust" against Microsoft too. If a person or company violates enough laws and and does enough unethical things and deliberately inflicts enough harm, it can be quite reasonable and rational to be angry at them. Just because you are unaware of the reasons for that anger is not a very good reason to presume Microsoft is some innocent victim here.

Microsoft has the will and resources to fix everything that needs fixing

I am a programmer, have the background and expertise to read and competently comment on the OOXML specification Microsoft has submitted. I have not read the full 6000 pages. In fact I'll freely admit that I have read only a few small peices of it. However I have read more then enough to absolutely conclude NO, Microsoft will not and cannot fix it. OOXML is not an open format, there is no possibility that anyone else could implement it, and there is no possibility that Microsoft ever expected anyone else to be able to implement it. OOXML is little more than a wrapper that says "keep using Microsoft's software".

The only way Microsoft could seriously fix everything that needs to be fixed in OOXML would be to literally start from scratch. And if they started from scratch and addressed all of the "No, with comments" issues, they might as well simply participate in the already existing standard rather than pointlessly duplicating it.

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