RSSISO takes full charge of Open XML, sets up 'harmonization' group
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published April 10, 2008, 4:33 PM
It will now be up to a new working group, yet to be given an official name, to manage the process of making OXML play nice with ODF. It's out of Microsoft's hands.
We can't call it "Office Open XML" anymore, because it no longer belongs to Microsoft Office exclusively. As of yesterday, International Organization for Standardization committee SC 34 passed a resolution that effectively assumes stewardship of Open XML, the document format standard originally produced by Microsoft, and which is now officially under new management.
"The passage of ISO/IEC 29500 has instituted a new era of standards activity in SC 34 related to document formats," reads the text of one of 20 resolutions considered by SC 34 this week, and whose passage was formally announced yesterday. "ISO/IEC 29500 does not represent an isolated phenomenon, since SC 34 is also responsible for ISO/IEC 26300 and for interoperability between these and other projects."
ISO/IEC 29500 is, of course, Open XML; while ISO/IEC 26300 refers to OpenDocument Format, now the first of two XML-based document formats to receive international standard accreditation.
The resolution called for the creation of three working bodies within SC 34, each of the first two being devoted to one of the two document format suites. The third working group will be devoted to "interoperability/harmonization between document format standards."
To that end, SC 34 members considered ways in which both OXML (now with one less "O") and ODF can be maneuvered to co-exist with other standards, such as the Open Font Format that received standards accreditation in 2005. OFF includes a system for incorporating and re-rendering both PostScript Type 1 and TrueType fonts in a common fashion, which borrows OpenType's hinting method for rendering fonts more legibly at smaller point sizes.
Thus at least one of the predictions of OXML's entry into the annals of international standards is coming true: Microsoft's methodology will indeed start to sway the development and evolution of ODF.
Last week's decision by ISO committee JTC 1 was characterized by BetaNews as something of a squeaker, although Microsoft -- citing the three-fourths margin of passage -- took issue with that phrasing.
But in a personal blog post yesterday, Alex Brown, a key participant in the process and a convener of JTC 1 meetings, summed up his fellow members' feelings about the DIS 29500 adoption process going forward as nothing short of sheer exhaustion. "Although the margin of votes in its favour was (surprisingly to me) reasonably comfortable, the overall mood of acceptance seems less of a, 'yip yip yahoo!," Brown wrote, "and perhaps more of a, 'well, alright.' Everybody is now watching very carefully."
Today, the ISO lists standard 29500 as having obtained stage 40.99 of its history, "Full report circulated: DIS approved for registration as FDIS." That means it can be registered, though it does not mean it has been registered; that's stage 50.00. That approval and publication process may still take several months. A long road still lies ahead for FDIS 29500, even if it's a downhill one.
Does that mean people (other than MS) can now work to change it?
i.e. remove the crud, that relies on old legacy office apps, and the massive chunks of random binary blobs?
Score: 0
|If it is truly open and it is being proposed as a truly open standard, it should NOT be controlled by its creator.
Score: 0
|Things are very simple.
When M$ transformed ISO to a banana institution, then the ISO approve also have no value more for them
Score: 0
|Score: 0
|OXML is NOT a standard - it is an incomplete collection of legacy CRAP from a collection of Microsoft business applications.
The fact that Microsoft managed to stuff the ballot box and have it rammed through ISO fast track acceptance only means money can buy almost anything.
Unfortunately I think Microsoft has managed to destroy any cred ISO may have had and as such has rendered it irrelevant.
OXML is irreconcilable with real operational applications and as such will now assume it's real role in the world - a check mark on gov purchase orders requiring ISO standardization.
Shame on ISO.
Shame on everybody that contributed to this farce.
And finally, Shame On Microsoft - your tradition of success through corruption precedes you!
Bar
Score: 0
|ODF went through ISO faster and did not get a higher majority either.
There is no proof of corruption, one person not even associated with the format and the odf loyalists go nuts
Explain how its not going to be use in real world apps?
Everyone of you who are against it, use the same exact links that are severely outdated...if it had nothing to do with MS this would be a non issue.
Score: 0
|"ODF went through ISO faster and did not get a higher majority either."
ODF spent 3+ years at OASIS before it ever came to an ISO vote.
Score: 0
|It's not a standard??? So you and pitdingo are more qualified than ISO?
What makes you think that ISO is too stupid to know about the links you guys keep posting on here? Why do you think that you have all the answers and that the expersts are all suddenly morons?
I'll go out on a limb and say that ISO knows just a wee bit more about this subject than us mere mortals here at betanews, but what makes you believe them to be so stupid that they cannot see the corruption while you, the Enlightened Ones, are here to proclaim the truth?
Score: 0
|This article demonstrates a total lack of understanding as to what ISO is and does. ISO does not "own" M$OOXML anymore than it "owns" ODF or any other ISO approved standard.
M$ retains all the patents, copyrights, etc... behind the proprietary M$OOXML format. It is not open according to the classical definition.
THis is the definition of Open Source to everyone except M$ of course. http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd.
M$ gets well over half their revenue off of locking people into their proprietary Office formats and protocols. They are not going to just give it away.
Score: 0
|*yawn*
More BS from the "M$ Troll", El Dingo.
M$ retains all the patents, copyrights, etc... behind the proprietary M$OOXML format. It is not open according to the classical definition.
There *is* no OOXML format. Not even an M$OOXML format... That was the point all along, you just failed to grasp it in your absurd, pointless ranting.
THis is the definition of Open Source to everyone except M$ of course. http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd.
How does OXML fail to meet any of those criteria?
Score: 0
|so the 6000 pages of M$OOXML were, what? LOL. i just got your point. Yes, the 6000+ pages were really nothing, totally worthless and un-implementable. Good point. That is what smart people have been saying all along.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML
Yep, it never existed. LOL. What are they smoking over there in Redmond?
Here is the Free Software legal view:
http://www.softwarefreed...urces/2008/osp-gpl.html
You make this all too easy.
Score: 0
|No, as usual, you missed the point completely. MSOOXML is now OXML. Did you read the article? MSFT no longer has control over it.
Here is the Free Software legal view:
http://www.softwarefreed...urces/2008/osp-gpl.html
OSP vs. GPL has nothing to do with it. It is now an open standard. Anyone can use it, implement it in any way, in part or in whole, to their heart's content, ya clueless nit.
Score: 0
|"That is what smart people have been saying all along."
Please, please please don't tell me you consider yourself one of the "smart people"....I'm sorry to break the news to you, but you are FAR FAR from even being able to understand what a "smart person" is...
Score: 0
|Again, PC_Troll, your cluelessness never ceases to amaze. Let me spell it out more clearly for you:
http://www.noooxml.org/patents
No, you can not do whatever you want with M$OOXML (yes it is still called that).
Score: 0
|That site is in dire need of an update as its "proof" is 3 years old...
Score: 0
|If Microsoft isn't using OXML to reinforce their (slightly flagging) monopoly in the workplace, why not save time and money by simply accepting ODF? Obviously they ARE still controlling it in some fashion or influencing those who do. Nothing else makes any sense.
Score: 0
|It's my understanding that there are features of OXML that ODF doesn't have, and vice versa. Despite them being superficially similar formats (compressed collections of XML files and encoded binary data), there are substantially differing choices made in their specific implementations.
Score: 0
|As you point out, MS owns the workplace. Why not everyone accept OXML as THE format? Is it make more sense?
Score: 0
|Your positioning of OFF (Open Font Format) seems overly complex. OFF is basically the ISO version of Adobe & Microsoft's OpenType format. Thx, Si
Score: 0
|And yet, the truth is in its independent implementation. I'll bet €100 today that no other word processor and spreadsheet will successfully implement the MS-OOXML product specification in their programs. Not even Microsoft is tied to it.
Ever.
Score: 0
|Well if anybody takes you up on that bet they would be idiotic...since MS-OOXML doesn't actually exist anymore (it's just OXML now)...but if you want to put that money on OXML never being implemented in any word processor, I will take you on on that bet anyday.
I actually think it's kind of funny following the anti-MS posters on this issue...it went something like this:
Uh, OOXML will never pass as a standard
Ok, maybe OOXML will pass as a standard but only because MS is paying someone, but it will never be a "true" standard because MS will control it
Ok, it passed as a standard, and MS doesn't control it, but, but, nobody will implement it!
Well I'm going ot look into my magic 8 ball for your future comment:
"ok ok, it passed as a standard, MS doesn't control it, and word processors implemented it, but *I* will never use it!"
Score: 0
|++
You pretty much nailed it.
Score: 0
|Bravo!
Score: 0
|Two comments:
1. So much for all that IBM fear-mongering about Microsoft controlling the format.
2. The stories' comment about no longer calling it "Open Office XML' because it is now out of MS's hands is silly. First, "Office" does not denote Microsoft. Second, the standrd has been out of Microsoft's hands for about two years., since it was turned over to ECMA.
Score: 0
|^^^^ That
Score: 0
|And it makes one wonder if it is out of Microsoft's hands for two year during which it delivered MS Office 2007, then how far are Microsoft products from the standard just established and hence what's the bearing of having that standard anyway.
Score: 0
|All the MS trolls keep talking about how Office 2007 doesn't follow the standard and yet not a single one of them can offer an example Office 2007 behavior or file that does not follow the current spec.
Are you saying ECMA made some huge changes to the spec? Name one.
Score: 0
|???
Score: 0
|