ISO Says No To Microsoft's OOXML Standard 315
qcomp writes "The votes are in and Microsoft has lost for now, reports the FFII's campaign website OOXML. The 2/3 majority needed to proceed with the fast-track standardization has not been achieved. Now the standard will head to the ballot resolution meeting to address the hundreds of technical comments submitted along with the votes." Here is yesterday's speculation as to how the vote would turn out.
Can a committee stop the rotation of the Earth? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hurrah! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It ain't over yet... (Score:1, Insightful)
What is particularly interesting about the result is the "new" members of the voting body (you know the ones that don't normally voted but suspiciously wanted to this time) all voted for YES. Its obvious Microsoft has been bribing voters, surely this won't go unnoticed by the heads of ISO? Perhaps it's time the changed the rules to prevent this happening again?
How bad is this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Still not official (Score:1, Insightful)
I no longer presume "sources" to have any credibility.
Not likely (Score:5, Insightful)
Lessons learned - the job isn't over (Score:5, Insightful)
I submit though, that the job isn't over, but incomplete. The ISO seriously needs to look at fixing how Microsoft attempted to hijack the process to suit their own gain, and ignore the real purpose of International Standards.
Until this fixed, we'll see more of the same, on a greater scale. And not just by Microsoft. The end result would be the weakening of the usefulness of real standards, if the current system is left as it is.
Good luck to the ISO.
But now... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can a committee stop the rotation of the Earth? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:System continues to work (Score:5, Insightful)
If Microsoft addressed all the concerns, then they would likely have an open standard. Microsoft won't do that, because within a few months of them having an open standard, OpenOffice and KOffice will have OOXML support.
Fair enough (Score:4, Insightful)
In the mean time, I'm going to continue sending PDFs around. Neither OOXML nor ODF provide the level of consistency in layout that PDF provides.
Re:Good (Score:1, Insightful)
Perhaps that's why they engage in these practices? Surely if developers and end users were aware of the "actual benefits of Microsoft technology", they'd switch to a platform that benefits them rather than Microsoft.
Re:Good (Score:2, Insightful)
So the official line from you shills is still going to be "It was rogue employees" eh?
OOXML and ODF both suck (Score:4, Insightful)
I can take 20 year old TeX documents and render them just fine. But you give me even a 10 year old WYSIWYG file and there is a good chance I won't be able to do anything with the file.
What is it going to be like 50 years from now when you try to pull up an old manuscript? You know how Popular Science likes to pull up magazine issues from 40+ years ago, I wonder how they are going to manage that 40 years from now when the proprietary and open file formats are unsupported and "obsolete".
Really the only safe choice is to make a hard copy and hope the OCR of the future is better than it is now.
Re:Good (Score:2, Insightful)
France, and I think some more, has suggested to split OOXML in two parts, one which is ODF compatible, one which deals with the old Office formats.
What is your view as being a MS developer, do you think Microsoft are able to do this?
(I don't mean technically, merely politically) For my own I think that is a great idea.Re:MS needs to be less paranoid (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Mod Parent Informative (Score:3, Insightful)
Has MSFT damaged its own reputation in ISO? (Score:3, Insightful)
Now that a little polish has been taken off its faux standards, perhaps we will see a bit more free market competition enter into a previously broken market. I wonder how well Microsoft would compete in the Office productivity market if it were unable to charge exorbitant prices for its commodity office productivity solutions? I am betting that a large segment of the market is going say that OpenOffice.org is "good enough" for them, and abandon Microsoft.
At any rate, Microsoft's most recent round of bullying will serve as a visible reminder to the world why it is dangerous to allow Microsoft to continue to hold its monopoly: because it will abuse its power.
Re:Fair enough (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't being buggy and broken enough for it to take a lot of crap? Seriously, "spaceLikeWord98?" WTF?
Re:It ain't over yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
By your logic, bribing a Senator is no worse than giving money to the AARP.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
As a disgruntled Microsoft customer, I'd like to ask "WTF?!"
Seriously, I don't believe the devs working within the company are bad, but you guys need to stage an uprising or something. The people running your company seem to be total dicks.
Re:Good? I think it's rotten! (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a saying where I live that goes... "You just need to sample a single grain of rice to judge an entire pot..." Microsoft's dubious and nefarious tactics wrt OOXML have shown them to be ruthless cowards; and enemies of technical merit; as software developers like you must know.
Other than rewriting the same code every 3 years when MS decides to rebrand an technology and stop supporting old versions... what are these 'benefits' you see in MS technology? Spreading disinformation amongst the developer community is a very grave sin, in my book... much worse than 'Get the Facts' aimed at consumers.
Re:I have an idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
Once you break the Office lock-in, the potential for Windows itself to be compromised, because moving away from Office means having the capacity to move away from the entire Windows platform. For Microsoft, ODF is an enormous threat. Not today, not tomorrow, but within the next five to ten years, particularly if the trend of various governments and other groups to push for documents being stored in open formats continues. Microsoft has to find a way to get OOXML defined as an open format, and now it has made it clear that it is willing to pay to make sure that standards body are undermined so that it can do so.
It has failed in the fast-track, which, I'd say, reduces the possibility of OOXML as it now stands ever getting an ISO stamp. However, it has sent the message to its business partners throughout the world, and likely to a many nations themselves, that if they are willing to be bribed, it's willing to put money in their hands.
It's shown a rather ugly side of ISO, and international standards in general, but here's the real problem. No one cares. Where is the BBC, CNN or any major news site picking up on the story of a major corporation attempting to undermine the ISO to get a standard which even the most generous experts are calling flawed passed? Where are the investigative reporters looking into attempts to undermine open document adoption in places like Massachussetts? Where are the editorials condemning Microsoft for undue influence over public policy? I mean, every time Sony so much as appears that it's going to do something nasty, the BBC tech site has a writeup on it. When some director at AT&T burps, it's over the financial pages?
Is it just that open document concerns aren't as sexy as network neutrality or rootkits?
Sorry, I see this differently - ENFORCE that spec (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's turn this one on its head. I'm perfectly happy with MS ratifying a 6000+ page spec, because the moment they have the ISO standard status they will to abide by it to be compliant.
I don't think it would be wildly unfair to ask MS to then ensure AND PROVE BEYOND DOUBT that the product they supply is FULLY compliant with their ISO standard.
To me, that would mean:
(1) A full test suite needs to be constructed of which independent scrutiny is paid for by MS. MS Office needs to be fully compliant with statements as made in the specifications. No ifs, no buts, no maybe. Only full compliance means an acceptable product, but that's only 50% of the requirement - there's more, mainly addressing the reason the whole ISO standard compliance is required:
(2) The identification and demonstration of a mature, competing product that can read, edit and write the documents produced by the above compliant suite to a standard that makes it clear there is 100% interoperability.
The latter proves to the evaluating entity that:
(1) the standard is complied with, and is not just a marketing gimmick.
(2) the interoperability needs are addressed
(3) there is an alternative product which prevents vendor lock in (this is why I used the word 'MATURE' - you don't want some last-minute coded piece of junk from an MS friendly vendor pretending it's a product). A product has an established user base.
If the product on offer cannot meet those two requirements the story is over. Simple. If no 3rd party can create a competing product or, at a minimum, achieve unencumbered interoperability (i.e. not depending on a license) then the product is unsafe from a disaster recovery point of view.
So, if Microsoft's 6000+ page spec is a bit too much for either themselves or someone else to implement, the answer is easy - make one that works. That's all the world has been asking, simple unencumbered interoperability. I'm fully aware that that doesn't agree with their current business model, but they ought to read "who moved my cheese" - the supply is dwindling.
IMHO they had their opportunity with ODF. They blew it.
Re:Pursuit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I have an idea! (Score:2, Insightful)
WTF? This is insightful? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, I don't believe the devs working within the company are bad, but you guys need to stage an uprising or something.
FFS! Take some responsibility for your actions people.
Re:How bad is this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if every company that you ever have to deal with in the history of your company's existance uses MS Office, you will still have a multitude of problems sharing documents between people that use Office 2007, Office 2003, Office XP, Office 2000, and god forbid, even earlier versions. Don't believe me? Get a random sampling of Office 2007 documents and open them up on the equivalent tools in an Office 2003 or Office XP suite.
All it takes is for one customer to modify a sales order that you sent them in Word 2003 format, and save it in Word 2007 format before sending it back to you to cause you a load of grief. If you haven't experienced this with the MS formats, perhaps you have been in a position where you are only sharing documents with other folks internal to your company that are on the same version? Or perhaps the documents you use are simple enough thta the differences in formatting between versions was not evident?
The problem is real, as this is how MS has designed the formats - to produce false incentives to 'upgrade' to the latest version of Office.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
So let's put it this way, Is Microsoft AFRAID of a level playing field?
If they were serious about the whole standards thing, they could just add real ODF support. Then they could simply put out MS Office that worked with ODF, and most people and businesses would STILL buy it, even with alternatives available. Beyond that, since they do have appear to have a head start in usability and function with MS Office, they could simply have the have the BEST office suite that happens to work with ODF file formats. Beyond that, if ODF is not sufficiently robust, MS could "play well with others" and work to add what is needed. Aren't they confident that they could still have the BEST implementation, along with "history effect"?
Does Microsoft really believe that they can't compete in an open market, without customer lock-in, or without cheating?
is this even news (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:WTF? This is insightful? (Score:5, Insightful)
This "vote with your feet" bs needs to stop, seriously. It takes an overly simplistic look at the way a market actually functions in the real world -- which is not the same as the way it functions in this libertarian day dream. The fundamental problem with libertarianism is that it treats all markets as if they were perfectly competitive markets with low barriers to entry, when in reality, the vast majority of them are not.
If you seriously believe that substituting away from Windows, or from Word, is something that the vast majority of people here can actually do, then you're absolutely wrong. Listen, I don't own a Windows system -- I use Debian GNU/Linux exclusively. But Word and Windows are the defacto standard and living outside of that standard is impossible. Let's look at the facts:
Whether you want to admit it or not, there is massive inertia in the industry. Everyone runs Windows, and that keeps everyone else running Windows. "Just don't buy MS" is the most ridiculous statement in the world. Sure, if everyone stopped, then that would hurt their bottom-line. But even if every Slashdotter ever stopped buying Windows, MS would still be making billions. Every time a court slaps a fine of a hundred million dollars on MS, everyone on Slashdot whines about how it's a slap on the wrist and nothing more, because the company makes so much money it's sick. The exact same logic applies here.
What you're suggesting would only work if a large percentage of MS's clients all defected. It's like saying, "Big Oil acting badly? Just don't buy oil! That'll teach 'em!"
Come on, this isn't a perfectly competitive market. It's a monopoly. There's a reason economists think that those are bad.
Re:I wonder? (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, OOXML will be what everyone uses?
Great.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Backwards compatibility should be handled by the converter, and shouldn't pollute the format itself.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
"single disgruntled employee who singlehandedly and without authorization from his/her manager bribed the national bureaux of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Congo, Costa Rica, Côte-d'Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba (Cuba? they're not even allowed to buy Microsoft products!), Cyprus, Egypt, Fiji, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Morocco, Kuwait, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tanzania, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan,
(take deep breath)
Austria, Bulgaria, Colombia, Germany (shame on you, DIN), Ghana, Greece, Kenya, Malta, Poland (only half of the committee(s)), Portugal, Singapore, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, Uruguay, USA, Venezuela (wait 'till someone tells Chávez [vit.com.ve] this),
(remember to breathe)
and thwarted into abstinence the votes of a.o. Malaysia, the Netherlands and Sweden",
yet? (verb at beginning of sentence)
Let's all thank the 1 country above quotum that voted no, otherwise this would have destroyed the credibility of ISO, IMHO.
Thank you VERY much, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, India, Iran, Ireland, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, United Kingdom. I don't have money but you have my respect.
Re:OOXML and ODF both suck (Score:2, Insightful)
As much as I like TeX, it is also tied a the special rendering algorithms of a certain program, in this case the TeX processor. If several vendors wrote their own, independent TeX processors, I'm sure you'd get the same sort of incompatibilities.
That's completely unrelated to WYSIWYG. It's because unlike TeX, the word processors haven't stabilized their file formats. TeX gives consistent results because there's basically just one implementation, and that one's more or less frozen.
A WYSIWYG word processor can be just as stable as a non-WYSIWYG one (and vice versa). If a file from ten years ago doesn't render exactly the same today, that's because either the rendering algorithms have substantially changed, or the format was too much tied to the platform. Both are completely unrelated to WYSIWYG and are only due to bad decisions made by the program writers.
Re:How bad is this? (Score:1, Insightful)
Recall that back in the Win3.1 days, the Word file format was indeed documented. At my place of business, we had a copy of the Word developer's kit from MS, documentation and sample code. (We had to write our own converter from WordPerfect, since WordPerfect's didn't work right, and they refused to improve it.) Just because a format is documented doesn't mean that it's effectively supported. "Open" doesn't mean "supported", nor does it mean "current". The documentation to solve your particular probably actually existed, but you didn't know about it, couldn't find it, didn't even look, or found it too much trouble.
So, what will happen is that there will be OpenDocment 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and at some point someone will want a ten-year-old document opened. Their current software won't handle it correctly. Calls to the commercial developer result in "HOW old did you say? Who's going to pay for that?" Calls to the FOSS development group will be met with a "screw you, we're onto a cool new skins plugin, you've got the source, do it yourself", which of course the secretary making the call simply can't do, even if she had the time.
So, the company will find a consultant to rebuild a ten-year-old machine, install some old FOSS software on it that read the obsolete though documented format, and strip the text and screen-shot the illustrations -- because that will be easier and simpler than finding the old documentation and writing software to translate it.
Re:It ain't over yet... (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe, maybe not, but Cuba and Syria would like to see the decline of Western civilisation, so they do have an interest in OOXML becoming a standard.
Re:ODF's bad too (Score:3, Insightful)
What _will_ help is a good compliance test suite, and an understanding that it's *ok* to extend formats so long as you do so to include things that users need that the standard provides no way to represent and that are non-critical to the core functionality of the document. In general, if you can strip the extensions and still use the document, that's OK.
There are good reasons why you want to be able to extend document formats. Document management systems, for example, benefit considerably from being able to embed their own data in the XML document structure. Forms processing engines need this. In fact, most server-based document manipulation really wants to be able to keep it's own data in the document struture. I'm not convinced that ODF will be seriously adopted in government and large companies unless these things are possible. You might wonder why people use this stuff, and I can only offer my assurance that it can indeed be useful, since unless you've been working with lots of documents it's kind of hard to grasp. Even at my small company there are things like this that I'd like to be able to do to keep track of some of our work better.
MS will embrace & extend the format if they like, whether or not it makes explicit provision for extensibility. That's the problem. If the format is designed to be extensible, such efforts are less harmful, easier to make understood by other tools, and more susceptible to submission as subsidiary standards where they're generally useful. I think MS got this right to an extent with OOXML, and ODF will sooner or later have to follow a similar path or be replaced by something that can.