OOXML gets ISO approval

The votes are in, with Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) format gaining international standard status. Both Microsoft and Ecma International jumped the gun a bit by proclaiming victory a day before the official announcement, but the writing was on the wall since the balloting closed on March 29. There are now two competing standards for office document formats that have been approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO): OOXML and Open Document Format (ODF).

The most recent vote was an opportunity for the national bodies to change their vote from September based on the outcome of the Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM). The September vote was relatively close but OOXML did not pass, which led Ecma and Microsoft to try and address the 3,500 comments (1,000+ after eliminating duplicates) made by participating countries. The comments and the Microsoft/Ecma solutions to them were discussed during the five-day BRM meeting in Geneva in late February.

When the BRM was announced, many wondered how that number of comments could be handled in a week-long meeting, unfortunately the answer is: not very well. There was simply too much to cover, so the majority of comments—mostly substantive issues with OOXML—didn't get discussed and were voted on en masse. The majority of participants abstained (18) or failed to vote (4), with six voting to accept the changes proposed by Microsoft/Ecma and four voting against. This allowed the BRM process to complete, leaving it up to the national bodies to decide whether to change their September votes.

The outcome was again fairly close, but a net change of seven votes from "disapprove" to "approve" moved OOXML into approval. 24 of 32 votes from Participating countries were for approval, which is beyond the two-thirds majority required. Also, 86% of the Observing countries voted to approve, which is above the 75% required. In both cases, abstentions are not counted.

At some level, the outcome should not be surprising. Microsoft put a huge effort into ensuring OOXML standardization. Some would claim that they "gamed" the system—it's pretty clear they did—what's less clear is why, and what they plan to do next. Their tactics have been questionable, which leads many to believe they have an ulterior motive.

To start with, Ecma International essentially rubber-stamped a "specification" that Microsoft presented as ECMA-376. Then it was introduced to ISO on the "fast-track" process, which is meant for mature standards that have few gray areas or controversial parts. Whatever else can be said of OOXML, nearly anyone that is not firmly in the Microsoft camp can see that it is in no way mature, clear, or non-controversial—it is flawed at multiple levels.

One of the most puzzling things about the process is how we have ended up with two standards. In general, standards are supposed to be, well, standard, allowing multiple implementations that use the standard, but innovate in other areas. HTML and HTTP are standards, whereas Firefox, Safari, Konqueror, Opera, and Internet Explorer all implement those standards—some more faithfully than others—but provide different sets of features on top. Microsoft's argument for multiple standards is a disingenuous one: choice.

It would seem that Microsoft wants to paint this as a VHS vs. Betamax battle, where the consumer is able to choose the one best suited for their needs. But, both of the video recording standards were proprietary, with many arguing that the technically inferior choice "won". Microsoft is, of course, no stranger to having its choices—again arguably technically inferior and generally pushed through its near-monopoly on the desktop—come out on top.

One might be able to argue that competition between the standards is consumer-friendly if there is a level playing field. In order for that to happen, Microsoft would have to implement and deploy the competitive standard—something it has clearly said it will not do. It is hard to see how customers are going to be able to determine which of the two formats is "better" when most of them will only be given one choice.

Many also fear that free software (and other non-Microsoft proprietary) implementations of the standard will not be fully interoperable with the de facto standard because of specification inadequacies or patents. Many, including ODF editor Patrick Durusau have called for OOXML to be passed so that it can be clarified. Setting aside the obvious cart-before-the-horse problem, standards bodies are notoriously slow—it has been more than a year for the fast-track approval of OOXML for example—expecting that clarifications can be made through that process is somewhat alarming. More likely, changes will be made in the format emitted by various Microsoft products and then shoehorned into the standard some months or years later.

The claim that billions of documents exist in OOXML, which leads many to believe it should be adopted, is particularly galling to many. There is no OOXML standard yet—the final document has not yet been produced—but that is a minor issue. The fact is that even though a form of OOXML is available in recent Microsoft products, it is not the default and most documents have not been stored using it. The billions of documents are mostly stored in various versions of the proprietary DOC format that non-Microsoft users have been struggling to read for years.

The opponents of OOXML had their own share of misbehavior during this process. It is pretty unlikely that everyone who favored OOXML passage is in the pay of Microsoft, for example. The doom and gloom predictions of what will happen have sometimes been over the top as well. Free software is not about restricting choices—if folks want to store documents in OOXML, that is their decision.

So, what will happen to ODF? To many it looks like a truly vendor-neutral standard—warts and all—will be shoved aside by a truly vendor-specific one. Andy Updegrove, who has followed this process closely and fairly objectively in his weblog, sees things a bit differently. There is still a long way to go before OOXML supplants ODF, if it ever does, according to Updegrove:

It is possible that Microsoft is changing its ways, but longtime Microsoft watchers, especially those who have been harmed by their tactics in the past, remain skeptical. One would guess Microsoft will be on its best behavior for the next two months while objections to the approval can still be raised. After that, we will see—over time—whether this is yet another lock-in play or whether they wish to play fair in the document storage arena. Every move they make will be closely scrutinized; there are risks to reverting to their previous behaviors. But, if we end up with a truly open standard, free of patent nonsense, and implementable by all, it doesn't really matter whether it is OOXML or ODF.