Comment The Charter Trap (Score 1) 268
I know Patrick fairly well. And having worked with him on the OASIS ODF TC for the first five years of development, i have the utmost respect for his integrity. He is also a renown and respected expert regarding the standards process and the specification contenders. His public support of OOXML, coming as it did just prior to the Geneva BRM, has to be sourced in something of extraordinary substance and concern.
He knows full well that ISO approval of OOXML is the end of ODF. It's that simple.
He also knows that ODF has serious interoperability problems. In May of 2006, an ISO directive was issued insisting that ODF be brought into compliance with existing ISO Interoperability Requirements. Yet nothing to date has been done. Like OOXML, ODF is seriously lacking an interoperability framework compliant with ISO Interop Requirements. ODF 1.2 should have been out in December of 2007, but continues to languish. The OpenOffice source code consortia of vendors driving ODF (IBM, Sun, Novell and Google) show no signs whatsoever of fixing the interop problems that allow them to claim compliance in spite of the continued and unlimited use of undocumented eXtensions and application settings.
This has to be very disappointing to Patrick. The larger problem he faces though is that he can't vote against OOXML after allowing - supporting ISO approval of an ODF specification that refuses to conform with ISO Interoperability Requirements. The interop compliance problems with ODF had to be fixed BEFORE OOXML came up for vote.
So he is caught between a rock and a hard place. The ODF source code vendor consortia refuses to fix ODF interop because that would impact their use of undocumented and often proprietary eXtensions. Although Microsoft is reluctant to publicly discuss this ODF issue, no doubt they are quick to point this out to Patrick.
Here's the thing. ODF can be fixed at ISO. OOXML can not.
It is entirely possible for Patrick to use his ISO JTC-1 editors position to craft an interoperability framework that would bring ODF into compliance with ISO Interop Requirements, which are themselves required by GATT and WTO International Trade Agreements (among others :). If he really wanted too, Patrick is in a position to ram interop down the ODF vendor source code consortia throats.
OOXML on the other hand presents ISO with a very different situation. Because of the way the OOXML - Ecma charter is worded, i don't see how ISO JTC-1 could ever fix the OOXML interoperability problems. ISO approval of OOXML would include acceptance of a charter that defines and limits OOXML interoperability to whatever MSOffice determines it to be. If Patrick and the JTC-1 tried to bring OOXML into compliance with existing ISO Interoperability Requirements, they would have to somehow amend a charter duly approved.
Given that the JTC-1 has yet to address a two year old ISO directive regarding ODF interop compliance, what are the odds they will dare to amend an approved charter? Not good i think.
ISO approval of OOXML is a tragedy for all of us. For sure it's the end of ODF. It's perhaps the end of ISO as a respected standards organization. The issue of open standards itself will become a joke, with the reality of standards by corporation having us all wringing our hands in despair.
More importantly though, ISO approval of OOXML will break the Web. Microsoft will use OOXML to break from advancing W3C standards such as XHTML-2, CSS-3, SVG, XForms and RDF. These technologies are critical to the transition of complex documents to interactive web use. The MSOffice SDK beta demonstrates an easy to implement OOXML XAML converter. ISO approval of OOXML would establish MSOffice as a standards compliant "editor" for a proprietary MS Cloud of collaborative computing technologies driven by WPF specific XAML (fixed/flow), WPF, Silverlight, Winforms, XPS, and Smart Tags. All of which are proprietary replacements for W3C XHTML, CSS, SVG, XForms, CDF and RDF!
Interestingly, IE-8 does not support any of the advanced W3C technologies or JavaScript. The effect of this will be a partitioning of the Web where lightweight consumer oriented documents and information streams will have a very wide range of browser based interoperability. The kind of sophisticated and complex business process documents produced by MSOffice will be directed to proprietary XAML-Silverlight-Smart Tags, with interop limited to the MSOffice-IE-MS Web Server Stack model (Exchange, SharePoint, SQL-Server, Windows-Server). The Web breaks with Google-Firefox-Apache-SalesForce.com owning much of the consumer wave, and Microsoft-Yahoo owning all of the consumer-business wave aggregate.
At the end of the day, ISO approval of OOXML is needed for the leveraging of the Microsoft desktop monopoly across the next great wave of the Web. A feat that could not be accomplished if not for prior ISO approval of an interoperability challenged ODF.
Damn. It's increasingly looking like we held the door open for Microsoft to take the Web.
~ge~
He knows full well that ISO approval of OOXML is the end of ODF. It's that simple.
He also knows that ODF has serious interoperability problems. In May of 2006, an ISO directive was issued insisting that ODF be brought into compliance with existing ISO Interoperability Requirements. Yet nothing to date has been done. Like OOXML, ODF is seriously lacking an interoperability framework compliant with ISO Interop Requirements. ODF 1.2 should have been out in December of 2007, but continues to languish. The OpenOffice source code consortia of vendors driving ODF (IBM, Sun, Novell and Google) show no signs whatsoever of fixing the interop problems that allow them to claim compliance in spite of the continued and unlimited use of undocumented eXtensions and application settings.
This has to be very disappointing to Patrick. The larger problem he faces though is that he can't vote against OOXML after allowing - supporting ISO approval of an ODF specification that refuses to conform with ISO Interoperability Requirements. The interop compliance problems with ODF had to be fixed BEFORE OOXML came up for vote.
So he is caught between a rock and a hard place. The ODF source code vendor consortia refuses to fix ODF interop because that would impact their use of undocumented and often proprietary eXtensions. Although Microsoft is reluctant to publicly discuss this ODF issue, no doubt they are quick to point this out to Patrick.
Here's the thing. ODF can be fixed at ISO. OOXML can not.
It is entirely possible for Patrick to use his ISO JTC-1 editors position to craft an interoperability framework that would bring ODF into compliance with ISO Interop Requirements, which are themselves required by GATT and WTO International Trade Agreements (among others
OOXML on the other hand presents ISO with a very different situation. Because of the way the OOXML - Ecma charter is worded, i don't see how ISO JTC-1 could ever fix the OOXML interoperability problems. ISO approval of OOXML would include acceptance of a charter that defines and limits OOXML interoperability to whatever MSOffice determines it to be. If Patrick and the JTC-1 tried to bring OOXML into compliance with existing ISO Interoperability Requirements, they would have to somehow amend a charter duly approved.
Given that the JTC-1 has yet to address a two year old ISO directive regarding ODF interop compliance, what are the odds they will dare to amend an approved charter? Not good i think.
ISO approval of OOXML is a tragedy for all of us. For sure it's the end of ODF. It's perhaps the end of ISO as a respected standards organization. The issue of open standards itself will become a joke, with the reality of standards by corporation having us all wringing our hands in despair.
More importantly though, ISO approval of OOXML will break the Web. Microsoft will use OOXML to break from advancing W3C standards such as XHTML-2, CSS-3, SVG, XForms and RDF. These technologies are critical to the transition of complex documents to interactive web use. The MSOffice SDK beta demonstrates an easy to implement OOXML XAML converter. ISO approval of OOXML would establish MSOffice as a standards compliant "editor" for a proprietary MS Cloud of collaborative computing technologies driven by WPF specific XAML (fixed/flow), WPF, Silverlight, Winforms, XPS, and Smart Tags. All of which are proprietary replacements for W3C XHTML, CSS, SVG, XForms, CDF and RDF!
Interestingly, IE-8 does not support any of the advanced W3C technologies or JavaScript. The effect of this will be a partitioning of the Web where lightweight consumer oriented documents and information streams will have a very wide range of browser based interoperability. The kind of sophisticated and complex business process documents produced by MSOffice will be directed to proprietary XAML-Silverlight-Smart Tags, with interop limited to the MSOffice-IE-MS Web Server Stack model (Exchange, SharePoint, SQL-Server, Windows-Server). The Web breaks with Google-Firefox-Apache-SalesForce.com owning much of the consumer wave, and Microsoft-Yahoo owning all of the consumer-business wave aggregate.
At the end of the day, ISO approval of OOXML is needed for the leveraging of the Microsoft desktop monopoly across the next great wave of the Web. A feat that could not be accomplished if not for prior ISO approval of an interoperability challenged ODF.
Damn. It's increasingly looking like we held the door open for Microsoft to take the Web.
~ge~
