If This Was a Month Ago, OOXML Would Be Over 230
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 (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Help me out (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Help me out (Score:5, Funny)
Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Yes, with comments.
Here's Microsoft's take on it... (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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Long Answer: Could someone from MS please get back to me with $50,000?
Re:Help me out (Score:5, Informative)
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
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:4, Interesting)
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 (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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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.
They are marketing people, they don't understand more fine tuned issues like the technical or political ones. Technical issues they usually ignore, or only deal with them far enough to lock you in, to make the least possible interoperability. About political issues we see how
trademark infringement? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Not to mention there would be no point in suing them like this anyway.
Re:trademark infringement? (Score:4, Funny)
OpenOfficeOrg (Score:3, Informative)
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Clarifications... (Score:2)
In fact, I should say, they aren't so much against a converter as actually supporting the format, the way they do, say, RTF. You can, from the same Save dialog that lets you choose
A "c
Why can't they provide a reader? (Score:2)
I don't see why the standards bodies haven't insisted on this from the beginning.
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You'd have to be quite weird to think of C and C++ as file formats.
I can tell you where the official reference sources for JPG, PNG, etc. are.
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C++: ISO/IEC 14882
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If Microsoft wants OOXML to be a "standard" they should provide source code to read/render a file.
I don't see why the standards bodies haven't insisted on this from the beginning.
You don't want source code -- especially if it's not well documented and well-written.
What you really want is a well-designed and a well documented format, so that just about any team can write a reader in the language of their choice.
Unfortunately, the OOXML standard is neither well designed nor well documented. The way that it's currently defined, doing an open source OOXML reader (especially one which included the features which MS touts as most important) would be both (unnecessarily) technicall
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And you call that "no choice" why? Because you're used to them doing blatantly illegal things such as faking evidence in trials to protect that monopoly. That document may be a decade old, but Microsoft's practices ala funding SCO, alleging hundreds of misused patents, etc, prove that it's business as usual.
Besides, if anyone, business or person, is allowed to profit from the results of crime it will only
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That "in theory" part is important. Examine ODT documents actually produced by OpenOffice, and you'll find a ton of application-specific elements that are not covered in the standard, that you have to understand in order to accurately represent the documents.
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First time I've seen that claim.
Can you show an example?
Re:Help me out (Score:4, Informative)
Some examples are given here [msdn.com].
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Furthermore, when I last heard it I was rather unhappy with OOo so I went and had a look for any undocumented implementations and while only a quick look everything appeared to be above board. So unless you, or some one else, can show other wise I'm going to assume you are attempting to spread FUD.
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Re:Help me out (Score:4, Insightful)
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!
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Re:Help me out (Score:5, Interesting)
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!"
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]
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.
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I don't know about any one else here but if OOXML passed ISO in its current state I would loose all confidence in the ISO process and organisation.
OOXML has failed, but it isn't over. (Score:5, Informative)
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. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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The spec certainly needs a lot of cleanup to be truly useful as an ISO standard, and MS Office will need corresponding changes to comply with it (assuming it complies with what's there now, about which there's some debate given problems with e.g. Apple's implementation). But yeah, it'd nice to see a sensible ISO document standard that MS Office and other vendors' / open source applicat
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Re:OOXML has failed, but it isn't over. (Score:4, Interesting)
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. (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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Fair enough. None of us can know the exact motivations for why they pushed out a faulty standard. However, what we can do is predict Microsoft's future behavior in this case, by using their past actions as a guideline. Without being overly cynical, allow me to predict that Microsoft will not rectify the deficiencies in their standard. The reason is simple: it is not rea
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I'm pretty damn sure that the people who were writing the specs were BEGGING their boss not to make them push the standard in the shape it was, but that moron did it anyway
Re:OOXML has failed, but it isn't over. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Wouldn't this be about the best thing we could hope for? I mean if MS went to a BSD base and then did backward support of all the crusty Windows stuff on it (much the same way Novell does backwards support through Linux), wouldn't that be a step in the right direction of becoming open through legitimate (and agreeable to them) means?
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It
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Having worked on a lot of similar projects, it really look like its 1 part evil, 2 part simply rushed and unfinished.
Re:OOXML has failed, but it isn't over. (Score:5, Interesting)
They went about this by following two tracks:
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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)
- You could end up with a nominally OOXML implementation which didn't support these chunks,
- Implementations of these chunks wouldn't be protected by Microsoft's patent grants for the ECMA standard,
- 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).More problmatically, Microsoft made supporting some of these odities 'optional', which means that
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MS bugs (like thinking that 1900 was a leap year
I hate to defend Microsoft, but this one is starting to bother me. As stated on this page [microsoft.com], 1900 being treated as a leap year isn't a bug introduced by Microsoft. Rather, it's a feature added to be backwards compatible with a bug in Lotus 1-2-3.
Yes, there are still plenty of things that Microsoft did/does wrong, but at least watch out where you point the finger with this one.
Re:OOXML has failed, but it isn't over. (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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However, it could be argued that these are (foreign) subisidiaries of Microsoft acting to help Microsoft (US) maintain their monopoly in the US. As such, because they are minions of a US corporation acting to protect a US monopoly, it might be appropriate to US antitrust action. (I am not a lawyer -- much less a judge).
Re:OOXML has failed, but it isn't over. (Score:5, Funny)
Not quite, but... (Score:2, Informative)
Actually that particular form of corruption is not allowed by the rules [jtc1sc34.org] (the comments have to be "technical reasons").
However there are other possible ways of corruption that are not disallowed by the rules. For example, in Switzerland, the relevant committee was chaired by H. R. Thomann [thomannconsulting.ch], a consultant who earns money by representing business interests in standardization organizations. The rules of the Swiss standards organiza
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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".
Which really would work to microsoft's benefit since they have already implemented MS OOXML according to their own standard so to go back and change a few things to make member countries happier would make the standard even more incompatible with what they have already implemented in MS Office. And as others have pointed out, a major flaw in the Microsoft license is that they have given people free license to implement OOXML according to the standard, but not according to what they have actually implement
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It seems a bit outrageous to me that a corrupt organization can bribe a number of bullshit nothing countries into voting their way and potentially ram through a piece of junk like MSOXML. The biggest outrage to me is that bullshit nothing countries can get the same voting weight as the major industrialized countries (assuming that this is
Nevermind (Score:5, Insightful)
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.)
Oh no, do mind and do fix the problem. (Score:2)
my respect for and general goodwill toward the ISO process has been fairly well shaken. ... respect and admiration that I had for international standards bodies must now be earned.
That would be an unqualified win for M$ [slashdot.org], but we can do better than that by fixing the process. The corrections that have taken place in Sweeden, Norway and Hungary have started the process. The completion of that process is censoring OOXML, the tactics used and M$ itself. They have acted with malice and should be banned from
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I'd be interested if anyone can come up with another example where subverting the standards process was in the interests of a corporation of similar size and global reach.
If this standard proposal fails, then the fall-back option will prob
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It's a dicey proposition at best (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems to me that when companies need to cooperate, they find a way to do it by creating their own standards independent of standards
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I don't think microsoft cares. They have no respect for international standards, other than what they themselves dictate. If the credibility of ISO suffers from this, I suspect it would actually make Microsoft very happy.
But most likely the vote will be 'NO' [consortiuminfo.org] (that link is to the same blog as TFA, with an updated story). So, the main message is that after all the attempted corruptions by Microsoft, ISO survived and will hopefully be stronger for it.
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end of argument.
Yes w/ comments = BS! (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't confuse this farce with normal business (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Did anybody other then Microsoft have input? (Score:2)
So what's the point of "yes, with comments"? It's not like Microsoft is going to make a single change to it.
Yes and no (Score:2)
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If they're dreaming, it's of tropical paradises bought with Microsoft "donations".
The bodies voting "Yes, with comments" are the ones who sold out.
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The hell they can't. .docx and .xlsx already break compatibility with .doc, which has broken compatibility with itself several times now.
All they have to do is stick a version string on it and release a patch for any MS Office supporting OOXML. If they've done it right so far (doubtful), opening a file with a newer version of the standard would pop up a dialog prompting the user to upgrade, or at lea
Constructive Criticism, M$, and Standards. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, what's the point of "yes, with comments"? I mean, if the standard is endorsed, what are the odds that the comments will be addressed?
It means the standard is workable but could be improved the way you noticed. Outside of Redmond, people engage in constructive criticism and mean mostly mean well.
The adversarial tone above is the worst damage that M$ 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,
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
They should be punished. (Score:2)
To not punish this kind of behavior would be to treat M$ more than fairly and everyone else less than fairly. M$ needs to be fined and banned from participation for a few years.
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This is now getting off of topic, as I don't believe that OOXML has anything to do with their submissions to the OSI.
While it is easy to want to discriminate against Microsoft for their (many) questionable practices, the only way that we can hold our ideals is to be the better party. Let us not hurl insults (especially personal) at the "other side", let us not "game the process".
If the license is good, then it should be accepted. If Microsoft's practices with the ISO are bad, then let us denounce them.
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Hey! (Score:2)
OOXML should be revised to make it map ODF (Score:5, Informative)
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... (Score:2)
Luckily, it seems to be more difficult to trick engineering standards groups.
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redundant tag (Score:5, Funny)
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I think you have to admire Microsoft for the nakedness of its corruption in all of this. Microsoft didn't try to slink around; it was over-the-top and in-your-face at every step of the way. I wouldn't be surprised if either MSOXML gets rammed through right now on some technicality by bribing some ISO official or it executes another fast-track play and is even more over-the-top next time.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
How about a summary? (Score:2)
Summary (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The real problem: Managers don't even know (Score:3, Interesting)
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 (Score:2)
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IETF, MS vs Netscape, etc (Score:4, Interesting)
NYT: Microsoft Favored to Win Open Document Vote (Score:5, Informative)
Current Scoreboard (Score:3, Informative)
There have been reports on far more votes. See this blog post [blogspot.com] for the current standings.
Re: Why is this even news? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why would they care? (Score:2)
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.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up, please (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Microsoft probably doesn't have to manipulate (Score:5, Insightful)
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. (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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.
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