RSSUS INCITS Votes to Approve OOXML With Comments
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published August 24, 2007, 3:22 PM
The executive board of the INCITS standards body voted yesterday to approve the recommendation of Microsoft's Office Open XML standard to the International Standards Organization as Draft International Standard 29500, once concerns voiced by some of its members have been attached and adequately addressed by Microsoft. The vote was 12 yea, 3 nay, and one abstention - again by the IEEE.
Voting in the negative were Oracle; standards consulting body Farance, Inc.; and IBM, which had earlier indicated it would change its vote to "Yes, with comments" if others would do the same.
Voting in the affirmative were Apple, the US Dept. of Homeland Security, the Electronic Industries Alliance, storage network manufacturer EMC, the barcode standards group GS1 US, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Lexmark, the National Institute of Science and Technology, Sony Electronics, Microsoft itself, and the US Dept. of Defense - which had been believed to be a staunch opponent of OOXML's recommendation. It did not comment as to why.
For its part, the yea-voting DHS commented that it "remains concerned by the comments, and it is our desire that the comments be formatted (as was agreed to at the August 15th Ballot Resolution Meeting), adjudicated and addressed as part of this process." The entirety of Sony's comments read, "All comments should be resolved." No other yea voter provided comments.
IBM's comments returned back to the company's original objections: that the V1 technical committee had no real time to review the unprecedentedly long specification submitted by Microsoft.
"The current five month Fast Track process has not allowed for a sufficient technical review of this unprecedented 6,000+ page specification," commented IBM for its nay vote. "The JTC1 Directives are explicit in their instructions in section 9.8 which clearly states that an Approval position on a Fast Track [draft international standard] denotes that the technical content of the DIS is approved 'as presented.' However, our US technical committee, INCITS V1, by a consensus process, has identified many hundreds of technical flaws in OOXML, some of them quite serious. How can this proposal then be called acceptable 'as presented?' To approve this proposal, in this condition, and at this stage, is to ignore the plain language of the Directives and substitute a political decision for sound technical judgment. We do not believe that the technical content of DIS 29500 is even remotely acceptable 'as presented."'
On a subsequent ballot on the same measure - most likely an affirmation of the previous vote's recommendations on behalf of the Executive Board as a whole - the measure passed unanimously.
Last Tuesday, the German standards group DIN voted to approve recommendation of OOXML to the ISO, again so long as Microsoft addresses members' many comments. Adding a noteworthy note of support was the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communications Systems, which is connected with the laboratory that developed the MP3 standard, and that licenses its use worldwide to Apple and Microsoft, among others.
But this morning, there was the first indication that all would not be so rosy for OOXML worldwide. The Indian business journal Business Standard reported today that the Bureau of Indian Standards officially voted to disapprove OOXML from recommendation, though with comments from both supporters and opponents of that standard. The Standard did not report the vote tally, though it did say that under that country's system, the vote remains on the table for review until September 2.
The paper quoted an unnamed supporter of the competing OpenDocument Format there as saying, "Multiple standards are always bad." It then cited from Microsoft's official statement, which said it will continue to work closely with the BIS, adding, "It is important to note that all the BIS members unanimously support the need for multiple standards."
GS1 US 1st letter Ballot response:
Vote: NO "- with the following comment: I am opposed to approval with
comments; it does not assure proper vetting of the comments submitted.
Clause 9.8 of the ISO/IEC Directives, 5th Edition indicates that the
correct response, in order to be assured that these technical comments
will be addressed in a satisfactory manner, is to disapprove
(conditional) with comments. ..."
(http://ballot.itic.org/i...&response_id=113261)
GS1 US 2nd letter Ballot comment ( 1 week later ): no comments ( and
vote changed to YES )
(http://ballot.itic.org/i...CITS&ballot_id=2341)
-------
US Department of Defense 1st letter Ballot response:
Vote: NO "The DOD position is based on the requirement to first
resolve existing comments and further develop mature the present state
of the standard..."
(http://ballot.itic.org/i...&response_id=113266)
US Department of Defense 2nd letter Ballot comment ( 1 week later ):
no comments ( and vote changed to YES )
(http://ballot.itic.org/i...CITS&ballot_id=2341)
-------
NIST 1st letter Ballot response:
Vote: NO "Based upon the technical comments identified, NIST believes
that the US National Body should be voting for conditional approval to
DIS 29500. The JTC 1 procedures in clause 9.8, Votes on Fast-track
DISs, contain the note: "[Note: Conditional approval should be
submitted as a disapproval vote.]" While this is advisory (i.e.,
should versus shall), it is the best way to ensure that the comments
submitted by the US National Body are given careful consideration."
(http://ballot.itic.org/i...&response_id=113254)
NIST 2nd letter Ballot comment ( 1 week later ): no comments ( and
vote changed to YES )
(http://ballot.itic.org/i...CITS&ballot_id=2341
****
mmmm... suspicious, very suspicious
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|My real question is this... wtf are the dept of homeland security and dept of defense doing involved in this ? IMO, they dont belong in this group, which SHOULD be comprised only of developers of computer technology and/or software.
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|Microsoft has new Astroturf guide lines: anyone against OOXML is really just a Microsoft hater. Dismiss all concerns with "you're just saying that because you have an obsessive hatred for anything Microsoft. "
Pay no attention to the Astroturfers. Nobody hates Microsoft, well I don't, we just deserve a better file format than OOXML.
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|I seriously doubt Microsoft has new astroturf guidelines. Also, your obsession with over-generalization for people with whom you disagree with does seem to indicate that while you may not hate Microsoft, you certainly go out of your way to criticize those that support them.
Yes, I'm going out of my way to reply to your comments, but the difference is that I don't call you an MS-hater and I don't accuse ms-haters of forming astroturf guidelines to counter pro-linux arguments.
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|"Voting in the negative were {...} and IBM, which had earlier indicated it would change its vote to "Yes, with comments" if others would do the same."
There's a story in and of itself. Business is more political these days than politics...er, no, maybe not...
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|A sad day...
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|Because something pro-microsoft was approved? Or because the US INCITS voted to approve OOXML with comments?
It's fine if you're just anti-microsoft. You are entitled to your position. I'm just wanting to know if it's that or if you just think OOXML being approved is sad because there are clearly obvious reasons it should not be approved?
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|It is a sad day because a garbage, proprietary format was approved. Yes, there are many, many, reasons why it should not be approved.
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|Once again, toolie fails to understand even the basics of this issue.
How can you promote multiple standards (which is the stupidest thing you could ever say when you think about it) when the one you're cheering for and bribing national bodies to approve cannot be implemented?
FACT: There has not been a single implementation of MS-OOXML. Not even Office 2007 is not an implementation of MS-OOXML, as it's document format was not based on the spec; rather the spec was based on Office 2007. Not a single vendor has actually taken the MS-OOXML spec and written an implementation from it. A consequence of this is that no-one actually yet knows if it is possible to create an implementation from the spec.
If you want further proof of why MS-OOXML will never be more than a proprietary vendor de facto "standard" at best, at least take the time to see how the MS-OOXML in Excel is defective by design by Stephane Rodriguez.
________________________________________________
PS: China voted NO with comments. At least the communists are sane. UOF and ODF will be harmonized, whereas MS-OOXML will eventually be abandoned by Microsoft within three versions of Office tops. Think about what happens to all your MS-OOXML documents then. Oh, and if you're in college or grad school, MS-OOXML is not allowed, period. As of now, over 240 academic journals disallow the use of MS-OOXML for any submissions. So Microsoft has some more bribing to do.
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|Fact: Even Open Office does not implement ODF standard 100%. So there.
Name one software that implements ODF standard 100% to the letter. There is none out there.
edit: And your ignorance of the nuances of why China voted NO with comments is astounding. Note: With comments ahahahaha. Plus, you 'foresight' about Microsoft abandoning MS-OOXML is amazing. Can I get a lottery number from you. Surely I can hit that local jackpot.
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|How can you promote multiple standards (which is the stupidest thing you could ever say when you think about it)
*yawn*
JPG
PNG
GIF
BMP
TIF
*yawn*
MP3
OGG
AAC
WMA
*yawn*
Dumbasz.
Oh, and FYI;
Promoting multiple standards != Promoting Microsoft, doorknob.
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|Missing the point again....
Are all those "standards" approved by a single body?
Actually in the case of support for OOXML, it is promoting M$; it is _their_ format, no one else contributed to it.
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|*laughs*
Are all those "standards" approved by a single body?
I see. So you'd be peachy if there were dozens of standards bodies and each one had their own standard?
Because if not, you're being a hypocrite again.
Which I'm sure would surprise us all...
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|Anyone can make a standards body. Just a question of will people look to that group for guidance.
The issue here is ISO _already_ has a document standard in ODF. A _truely_ open one at that.
Why the personal attacks? i thought Beta News was clamping down on your like....
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|Note: a "NO" vote.
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|Why the personal attacks? i thought Beta News was clamping down on your like....
It's not an attack if it's true.
While Zaine actually *is* an idiot. You're just fun to play with. Don't take it personally. I'm sure you're a decent person, you're just emotionally invested in anything Anti-Microsoft.
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|where was i a hypocrite before?
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|"FACT: There has not been a single implementation of MS-OOXML."
I'm not going to go through every aspect of your post as there has been plenty of that in this forum already, but I will touch this one.
http://www.openxmlcommunity.org/applications.aspx
Nice fact.
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|*laughs*
Well, at least you didn't try and argue the "emotionally invested" bit. :p
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|So everybody has a price, that's news.
Standard means interchangeable, inter-operable and available from many vendors. If you don't have that then you have no standard, regardless of how many committees have voted.
All we really want is to never again see an incompatible file format error message. Once we upgrade our software and data to an ISO standard XML office document file format everything should "just work".
As long as we are still going force upgrades with incompatible file formats and force competitors to license last years format, just before releasing an incompatible upgrade then nothing is changed.
I don't want any particular standard, or even an official standard. I just want the benefits of a standard. A real open, free-to-implement, XML file-format where core feature tags never change and new feature extensions can be safely ignored by old programs.
All I want is NO MORE INCOMPATIBLE FILE FORMAT ERROR MESSAGES.
If you can't deliver that then I am not interested in your XML.
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|ISO Fact Of The Day: An upcoming standard does not have to be compatible with an earlier standard to be approved.
Hey, when Microsoft fast-tracked C# towards ISO standardization, no one complains that C# has to be compatible with C++. Same happened when PNG is standardized with JPEG already exists.
Speaking of that, when Microsoft used the backdoor and asked the JPEG technical committee to make HDPhoto as ISO standard under the JPEG banner, no one seems to be complaining either. Talk about misplaced priorities.
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|C# ISO C++ PNG JPEG
WHO CARES?
As long as I don't have to deal with incompatible file format error messages.
if a standard does not solve incompatibility then it does no good.
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|So, C#, PNG, AAC are bad standards just because they are not compatible with earlier standards like MP3 or JPEG or C++?
I wonder what will happen if (for example) Microsoft wants to standardize WMA audio format as an ISO standard. If this OOXML fiasco is taken into account, people will surely b****es about WMA not being compatible with AAC/MP3 formats or complains that the world does not need yet another audio format. But then again when Microsoft sneaks HDPhoto towards ISO certification, no one seems to be complaining either. So I could be wrong.
Whether OOXML should be accepted as an ISO standard must only rely on the technical aspect of the OOXML format. Politics like "we do not need yet another office document format" or "Microsoft is evil monopolist empire, their format should not be accepted" should not be used as yardstick. The link at http://www.arstdesign.co...efective-by-design.html takes a better approach at telling people why OOXML should not be approved (although many of the points in that link can be addressed by comments), which is with cold hard facts instead of sentiments and bias just because the submitter is Microsoft.
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|"ISO will loose all credibility on this one"
Yup, this will do it.
The certification that began as a trade restriction will finally lose credibility.
It did that with ISO9000, the certification aimed at restricting foreign trade that while percived by many as a 'quality' standard, has nothing tht necessarily relates to quality.
But it does do documentation! So if you are manufacturing something with a 95% failure rate, you can duplicate that process, along with the 95% failure rate, to the T!
Yeah, ISO rocks... :-))))
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|ISO9000 has never been described to me as a tool by which quality is guaranteed, measured, or created. It's always been one of documented processes and standard procedures.
This exists so that if there *is* a flaw in the way something is done, it can be easily tracked down and the process can be changed, all with a minimum of fuss.
There are other "quality" based certifications. ISO9000 has *never* been one of them.
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|Money wins in the end as i predicted. OOXML is a horrible format which flies in the face of what an ISO standard adhere. It fails to leverage existing standards, duplicates existing standards, etc.... ISO will loose all credibility on this one...which IMO is what M$ set out to do from the beginning.
OOXML should be thrown out immediately. However, M$ bribes their way into acceptance.
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|Proof man, proof!
You have proof, report it. Certification revoked, end of story and you will be happy.
But I believe you do not have any.
Don't you dare look down upon ISO. These kind of things happens regularly (and legally). Plus US is only one vote......
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|Look at the meetings of various countries. Look at all the M$ partners all of a sudden joining these groups. Just a coincidence i guess. Or having Google, Deutsche Telecom not allowed to vote or be allowed in the meetings.
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|(sarcasm) Nice proof you have there. You should work as a defense attorney if you aren't one already, you just keep blasting us with these peices of hard evidence. Hope you never sue me though (/end sarcasm)
There are plenty of other explainations as to why Google and Telecom aren't allowed to vote or be in meetings. Now, if you can prove that they are being bribed or that Microsoft is somehow directly preventing them from being involved, let us know.
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|so you are going to deny M$ is "stuffing" the ballot? You are denying that every M$ partner is all of a sudden joining various countries committees? cough....Sweden.
LOL. I love the M$ drones posting on here, completely oblivious to the world going on around them.
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|(sarcasm)Yup, I'm just another evil Micro$oft drone.(/end sarcasm)
I'm oblivious to facts that are impertinent to the issue at hand. If every "M$" partner were suddenly joining various committees, is it somehow their fault...
OHHH, I see...we have a logic problem going on here. Logic as you see it:
Factual statement (1). I hate/boycott/despise company "A".
Factual statement (2). Company "A" suddenly flourishes.
Factual Statement (3). Company "A" is a monopoly.
Conclusion (4): Therefore, company "A" is illegally growing.
If you had trusted Microsoft (see Factual statement (1) )--or at least didn't mistrust them--before using your logic, this conclusion would never have been deduced.
The only reason in your mind that Microsoft must be illegally shaping these votes is based on Factual statement (1), which leads you to Conclusion (4).
I am not saying that there is no way that Microsoft could be doing what you suggest here, I am only saying that we do not know that they are "stuffing" the ballot. It seems obvious to you, but again this is mostly due to Factual statement (1), which is clouding your logic.
Am I clouded by believing Microsoft at their word? Maybe, but I tend to think not. Maybe I'll be proved wrong, and MS really is buying the votes here. I'll go away and think it over and re-evaluate.
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|http://www.betanews.com/...ordic_States/1188335569
Please dont talk like you know anything of what is going on. I laugh at you, M$ drone.
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|I didn't know at the time I wrote the comment.
However, the article still doesn't really give any evidence, but rather just reiterates what you've been saying because that's the political system from the other side. It can't win the argument that Linux/Sun Java/etc. is truley better than Microsoft's alternative, so it attacks Microsoft based on coincidences and speculation...
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|"Multiple standards are always bad."
- unnamed supporter of the competing OpenDocument FormatThat has got to be the most ignorant statement I've heard in a long time. What works for one organization or body, may not work for others. No single standard can ever possibly hope to cover all needs.
Sure, every rule has an exception, and people are free to use non-standards certified solutions, but when we're faced with only one standard, exceptions *become* the rule.
Flame away, Zaine.
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|VHS vs Betamax.
MiniDisc vs CD (vs the other, forgotten attempts).
DVI vs VCD (vs he other, forgotten attempts).
DVD+ vs DVD-.
HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray (vs.. http://en.wikipedia.org/...ative_disc_technologies).
ODF vs OOXML.
So tell me that we're better off with multiple standards for the same thing?
The real problem with OOXML is the vast quantity of technical problems: undocumented "do it the way Office 97 did it" flags, undocumented "insert a chunk of the older format" objects, etc - it isn't a data file specification, it's a container format for older MSOffice data. Unfortunately most of the world is either sufficiently paid off or just plain ignorant to the point that they shouldn't be involved in an actual decision making proces, or both, as the case seems to be.
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|"DVI vs VCD"
Do you mean VGA, dear?
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|Competition is always good.
If we just have 1 format, think how much it cost? Do you think you can get a blank DVD for less than 25 cents if there is no competition. Who ever own the technology can just charge the royalty however they like it.
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|LOL. I love how clueless people are on these forums. Your statement has zero relevance to the topic.
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|except mindisc is still used instead of using dat for a lot of electronic artists.
betamax is still used just not in the consumer market
dvi and vga still are both being used as not everyone has upgraded
hd-dvd and blu-ray are still in competition most likely one will result to the consumer the other for other needs.
anything else?
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|IF M$ finds ODF "incomplete", why did they not submit proposals to make it "complete"? That the whole idea of an open standard like ODF.
A closed standard like OOXML does not allow for such things. M$ is in sole control.
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|If you look at the person above him
he was replying to his comment. Therefore his argument about competition would be valid as it has been brought up in the discussion. Thats also why there is a button below all posters names for reply to comment. (I KNOW its a radical concept)
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|You really couldn't have chosen a worse set of examples.
VHS Vs. Betamax? Betamax lost...*and* it was "better".
DVI Vs. VGA? It's called progress. One is the logical progression of the other. It's not a competition, it's an upgrade.
DVD+ vs. DVD-? They still make and sell both. My burner can handle both formats. Competition drives prices down. I fail to see how tis harms the market.
HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray? *laughs* Give me a break.
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|They did submit proposals. They were all rejected. Hence, MS made OOXML.
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|The bottom line is that one open extensible standard will break a monopoly and promote competition. That is why M$ doesn't want it and why many others in that space do. Many of the ISO decision makers seem more interested in short term considerations, are over-influenced by M$ or simply don't get it. Reinforcing a monopoly should be antithetical to ISO.
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|In what universe? Show me the evidence?
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|you dont get it. From your posting history, it does not suprise me.
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|Apparently, you don't get it,either. When looking at your posting history, I am not surprised either.
He commented on one person not the article, what you did about how clueless people are is called trolling.
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|Of course we need multiple standards. A standard for power outlets, a standard for letter sized paper, a standard connector for fire hoses, a standard character set, a standard for Ethernet, a standard for TCP/IP, a standard for HTTP, and a standard for XML office documents. That way everything you buy can work together.
But multiple standards for the same thing is just stupid. If you don't have a standard (one) you can't be sure the things you buy will work together.
Unless of course what you want is to prevent things from working together.
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|"break a monopoly and promote competition. "
Which monopoly are we talking about here? I don't believe I know of a monipoly that exists in this case that is relevant...
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|Do you know there are multiple specifications for power outlets? So are character sets. I dunno about the others but multiple standard for the same thing will still make things you buy works together.
For example, there are at least 2 ISO standards in programming languages, which is C++ and C#. Did the scenario you mentioned happened? No isn't it.
C++ and C# is a good example to be used here. After all, one of the language is made by Microsoft. The sky isn't falling just because there are 2 standards in programming languages. The same is true even if there are 2 standards in office documents. There are no precedents at all where multiple standards in one field will bring the chaos or the end of the world.
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|C++ and C# are different things they should have different standards.
220 volts and 110 volts are different things they should have different standards.
7 bit ASCII and 16 bit Unicode are different character sets and they need different standards. But those standards come from sincere engineers who care about compatibility.
You will find different standards for the same thing coming from different countries. That's because products that meet the local standards are big business, and good governments want to keep that business local.
So having one standard for one thing is about compatibility, and having multiple standards for one thing is about funneling business to preferred vendors.
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|Genuine question:
What makes the difference between DVI and VGA other than the adapter (and by logical progression HDMI)? From what I've seen DVI can do nothing more than VGA. HDMI just has a hardware layer that is design for DRM.
/can't be bothered to research myself
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|Do you *know* how many different types of power outlets there are? Paper sizes?
*laughs*
Anyone who thinks this is a one size fits all, one way to do anything world is bats*** crazy.
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|One supplies power, the other supplies power.
One format creates a document, the other format creates a document.
The difference is that one format is being created by Microsoft and is therefore, obviously, Evil.
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|All I want is results. If a standard, from anyone, solves the problems that exist with today's office document files formats, that would be great.
But remember these are real problems that need real solutions. We a need a format can be implemented by everyone, extended without creating incompatibilities, and never causes incompatible file format error messages.
when arbitrary format changes can be used to force customers to upgrade, or if secretive imaginary property must be licensed, or if license terms preclude GPL implementations. Then that format does not solve the problems we need a standardized format to solve.
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|To be honest, I'm not exactly sure either.
As I understand it, it's simply more capability, faster throughput (supporting higher resolutions, larger display devices, etc).
All of the above could be wrong. As I said, never really looked at DVI/VGA that closely.
It just seems to fit with the PCI/PCI-E, PATA/SATA scenario.
I'm sure I could Google it, but I'm not feeling all that ambitious atm.
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|Aha! This is why there is so much OOXML bashing:
"Reinforcing a monopoly should be antithetical to ISO."
Where I would say, "OOXML is approved as an open format standard" others would see it as "US INCITS Gives the Evil Microsoft Monopoly more Reinforcement".
I'm glad none of us here at Betanews work as a Supreme Court Judge, because biased opinion seems to be the determining factor as to who gets what in betanews land.
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|