RSSOpen XML Still Likely to Be Certified
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published August 13, 2007, 9:30 AM
Last Friday's news that Microsoft's Office Open XML failed to pass a letter ballot for recommendation by the Executive Board of INCITS to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) without comments, was interpreted yet again by press sources as an outright failure of the standard, and the end of the road for global acceptance. But a check of comments posted by voting members, and a re-read of what rules the INCITS group has posted, says otherwise.
The test which OOXML failed last week was whether it could be recommended by the Board without any concerns being raised by members, regardless of whether they approve or disapprove. BetaNews has been told conflicting accounts of how the rules of INCITS actually work.
On Saturday, BetaNews heard from IBM software architect Rob Weir, who represents his company to the Executive Board. Weir explained that the final letter ballot would have required a two-thirds majority of voting members, regardless of whether any abstentions were cast. "So the ballot to approve OOXML failed on both counts," Weir wrote.
"Part of the problem is that many of these rules, in INCITS and in JTC1 [Joint Technical Committee 1], have not really been exercised in all of their details," he wrote in a later follow-up to BetaNews. "The vast majority of standards ballots are unanimous or at least with clear and wide consensus. It is only rare cases like this, where there is a lot of contention, that we need to figure out what the details are. The scary part is when we find that the details aren't... well...very detailed.
"So think Florida 2000 and hanging chads," Weir went on. "A close election causes every rule, every appeal, every avenue to be used. When that happens you often find out that the rules weren't thought out so carefully."
But the chairman of another INCITS Executive Board member company wrote an open letter to one of our sources on this topic -- Linux Foundation board member and open source attorney Andrew Updegrove -- saying that the current voting procedure is just part of the standard procedure a method or process or format goes through to eventually get accepted as an international standard - a procedure that, from his point of view, is already well thought-out. This from a company that, like IBM, voted no on the letter ballot.
Farance, Inc. chairman Frank Farance wrote for ConsortiumInfo.org, "My personal impression is that the document will become a standard after some changes have been made through the Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM), which will start in early 2008 and, depending upon the number of comments received from National Bodies, might take 3-6 months to complete. It will be at the end of the BRM process (i.e., where we've processed all the comments and we'll know what changes will be necessary) that we will determine whether or not the document will become an ISO/IEC standard."
Indeed, Farance's impressions are indicated by the company's formal comments on last week's vote, which have since been publicly posted.
"The reason for our NO vote is as follows," begins Farance, Inc.'s official comments: "The JTC1 Directives subclause 9.8 states, 'Conditional approval should be submitted as a disapproval vote.' It is clearly the case that the processed comments from INCITS/V1 are the consensus of technical experts, many of the proposed changes are substantive in nature, and the proposed changes need to be adopted by the DIS 29500 [Ballot Resolution Meeting]."
The company formally recommended that the US position on OOXML -- for now -- should be "Disapprove with comments." This is stage 5 of a six-stage relative approval scale, the bottom of which (#6) means permanent rejection. But stage 5 allows for "conditional approval," which means that rules are spelled out regarding how the submitters of a prospective standard address the comments and redeem themselves.
As Farance, Inc. suggested, INCITS should acquire all comments from Executive Board members, and group them into two batches: "Batch #1" for important matters that cannot be overlooked, and "Batch #2" for "for your information" matters that it would be nice if someone addressed, but not critical. "The US will change its vote from DISAPPROVE to APPROVE upon the adoption and acceptance of the proposed changes in Batch #1 comments," reads Farance's comments.
Based on that suggestion, BetaNews examined all the comments made available by Executive Board members (not all members posted comments, though the abstaining IEEE was required to do so). Most no voters sided with Farance, saying if comments and concerns were adequately addressed, they would be willing to change their vote during a later ballot to yes. Assuming that date of reckoning did arrive and all was satisfactory, we believe the final vote for that ballot could be 14-1-1.
Even IBM would vote in the affirmative, we were surprised to learn. "Directives are clear that in order to be assured that your comments will be addressed in a satisfactory manner you should vote 'NO,"' its official comments read. "IBM is willing to change the vote to a YES if the US changes its position to a 'NO' with comments."
The IEEE would continue to abstain, citing irreconcilable differences within its own membership. The lone no voter, we believe, could be the US Dept. of Defense, whose concerns may supersede their ability to be addressed with fixes or workarounds. Among them was this: "The use of proprietary file formats within the open standard appear to cause potential intellectual property ownership concerns."
Of course, all this presumes Microsoft's willingness to address the Executive Board's concerns. Thus, we may rightly be left scratching our heads with regard to its apparently dismissive attitude in its comments accompanying its fully anticipated yes vote, concerning recommendations that INCITS received from the outside:
"Microsoft further believes that (a) the 205 letters of general support/opposition/caution received from the public are not actionable at the BRM and should not be submitted; and (b) that the remaining 186 'unprocessed/unapproved' comments should not be submitted as supported US comments as they were never adopted by INCITS/V1, and should be simply transmitted to the Submitter for their review and appropriate treatment."
At any rate, this is clearly not the end for OOXML by any means.
Does one of the letters, "O" stand for Oxymoron? Does anyone besides the DOD understand that anything Microsoft does is in self interest and preserving the status quo largest "MONOPOLY" in the World. That even lost in court, but is still allowed to exist, bully and control an entire segment of society?
That the Word "OPEN" to them is as incongruous and contradictory in nature as Sweat from a HOG(hogs don't sweat, stupid)! Neither can anything M$ does, be considered even microscopically close to "OPEN". Like a light switch, it's either on or off, open or closed, proprietary or non-proprietary!
xridling states it correctly!
ODF or MS-OOXML? Why not just for once, Force M$ to conform to a standard that anyone can use including them if they so choose. Give into specialized interests and all we're doing is promoting their brand of Oligopolistic control. NOT centered on Society as a WHOLE!
Here we see how the ignorance of the masses keeps the very in power over the entire World!
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What it all comes down to is: Do you want a standards-based format spec like the OASIS OpenDocument (ODF) format or do you want a proprietary, vendor-controlled format spec like MS-OOXML?
With ODF, it's an open spec, already an approved ISO standard. With the proprietary MS-OOXML, well, just go see for yourself if it will ever be implemented by anyone other than Microsoft.
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What it comes down to for me, is to send documents in a format that the recipients can
easily open in the office program they have installed as the default. More often than not,
this is likely to be Microsoft Office, and the most likely format is .doc (from Word) .
Imagine sending a prospective employer your CV/resume save as an ODF document,
and he/she can't open it, because like most businesses, they've standardized on
using Microsoft Office. You lose the chance of the job offer based upon you
sending a document that just won't open on his/her PC.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm usually a stickler for standards, especially when it comes
to web coding and the way PC's are built, but while Microsoft Office is as widely used
as it is today, it's file formats are unfortunately the "de-facto" standard.
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The lone no voter, we believe, could be the US Dept. of Defense, whose concerns may supersede their ability to be addressed with fixes or workarounds. Among them was this: "The use of proprietary file formats within the open standard appear to cause potential intellectual property ownership concerns."
Proprietary. The one word that should automatically deserve the NO vote in any international standard.
Cheers.
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[Scott Fulton, author]:
Last Friday's news that Microsoft's Office Open XML failed to pass a letter ballot for recommendation by the Executive Board of INCITS to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) without comments, was interpreted yet again by press sources as an outright failure of the standard, and the end of the road for global acceptance.
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Scott, which press sources are you referring to? I haven't seen anyone or organization or news source write that MS-OOXML was dead over the weekend or through today. And yet your report cites several sources who says it's not over. ISO is like a complex court case; it will take a while — maybe 1-2 years — before either its full approval or rejection.
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When we get a standard does it mean we will never see an error message about incompatible file formats again?
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Nice pipe dream.
The *only* way that would ever happen is if they were *forced* to implement that standard, or, as is likely to be the case, *those* standards.
There will, hopefully, always be competing formats. Standard or not.
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Think this is one time in history I can state I agree with the US DoD.
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What is the general tenor of the "comments" and requested changes?
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