Microsoft XML Fast-Tracked Despite Complaints

Lars Skovlund writes "Groklaw reports that the Microsoft Office XML standard is being put on the fast track in ISO despite the detailed complaints from national standards bodies. The move seems to be the decision of one person, Lisa Rachjel, secretariat of the ISO Joint Technical Committee, according to a comment made by her."

Re:hmm

[DavidKlemke]

That may be true, but there was strong opposition to the OOXML standard by many countries. In fact, when the standard went up for comment the ISO received more participation from commenting countries then it has seen with previous standards. Although Microsoft has actually created a competitor to ODF (which from an archival viewpoint is a good thing, the more ways we have of doing the same thing means a bigger safety net for our data) it's done so in a pretty ass backwards sort of way. This move to fast track it makes me uneasy, as there are some huge glaring holes in the standard which need to be fixed before it can really be declared as a good standard.

Re:hmm

[mollymoo]

MS's XML should be marked and tagged as standard ASAP -- that way, when Office 2010 rolls around, OpenOffice 3.0 can simply say "we put out docs according to MS's standard. If it doesn't work, it's THEIR fault."

The problem with Microsoft's "standard" is that in many places it says things like "do what Word 5.0.3 does in when in double-line-spaced mode" without saying just what that means. The specification for Microsoft's XML format is not in the standards documents, it exists in only one place - the source code for Microsoft Word. Making a fully compliant implementation of Microsoft's XML format when you haven't got access to the Word codebase is therefore virtually impossible.

You won't get what you want from MS Office XML

[twitter]

I'd rather have a published standard for microsoft interoperation via XML file formats then the old .doc & .xsl files.

This too seems to be the M$ party line - the magic of XML is better than their old secret formats. It's bogus, of course, because their new XML is as poorly defined as any of their formats [slashdot.org]. If M$ was interested in interoperability, they would use ODF and make a converter using their knowledge of their crusty old standards. It's an impossible task because their old "standards" were contradictory to begin with [slashdot.org]. At the end of the day, the old formats are doomed to well deserved neglect, and there's no reason M$ could not just publish everything about them and let their former users translate things for themselves.

There's so much double talk around this issue, it's not even funny.

Published Standard != Transparent or Open

[mpapet]

It's kind of like .doc only with obfuscation and litigation clearly called out.

What you fail to realize is the published standard in this case is handcuffed to an arsenal of undocumented licensed components.

From http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx [microsoft.com]

Q: Why doesn't the OSP apply to things that are merely referenced in the specification?

A: It is a common practice that technology licenses focus on the specifics of what is detailed in the specification(s) and exclude what are frequently called "enabling technologies."

Hmmm... So the specification alludes to closed and undocumented "enabling technologies" without specifying them OR licensing them. Same old Microsoft.

Re:No teeth.

[Anonymous Coward]

The reviews of the national bodies were to identify possible problems with contradictions with ISO standards. Ecma responded to those review and then if need the ISO JCT1 SC34 committe can advise on the raised issues.

Result of that can be continuation of the fastreracking proces, delay of the fastracking proces (for instance when an amendment by the proposing body is recommended) or withdrawel of the standard by the proposing body for instance when the JCTS committee strongly advinses against it. However the continuing of the fasttracking proces is mostly a procederal matter at this stage. There is no vote yet. so unless Ecma were to delay or stop the fastracking proces themselves the procedure would stay on course.

--
The Wraith
http://ooxmlhoaxes.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]

Have you read the ECMA responses?

[Spikeles]

Having read TFA and the PDF of the ECMA responses [computerworld.com] to the complaints, i can see why they decided to fast-track it, many of the complaints by countries are thoroughly debunked as misunderstandings of the specification. The rest are supposed to be resolved during the 5 month process.

As for TFA, they started out talking about fast-tracking the standard, then went on about totally unrelated and unsubstantiated stories about intimidation.

I may be flamed for it, but i call FUD on the part of Groklaw for this "story", the process is working as intended.

Re:hmm

[init100]

What this is about is getting the format accepted by ISO.

So that Microsoft can go to those governments that have declared that they will only use document formats that ate international standards and say "Look, look, ISO standard" (pointing to Open XML). "Now you can stay with safe Microsoft instead of going for that strange communist OpenOffice.org".

Re:hmm

[igb]

Have you seen any ISO 9001 certificates? The idea of going ISO is to be able to certify and advertise you compliance. There is no 97% compliance certificate!

The management systems, starting with 9000 and spanning things like 14001 environment, 18001 safety/health and 27001 security, have audit as an integral part of the process. That's not true of the other ISO standards: there isn't a process for having your `ISO' C Compiler certified, and there isn't an audit process. There are test suites, but no certifications.