LWN: Comments on "OOXML gets ISO approval"

OOXML gets ISO approval

hazelsct — 2008-04-06T20:52:13+00:00

Indeed.  I've always marveled that Sun didn't file a trademark infringement suit the moment
Microsoft announced the format name.  They got beat when they tried "Palm PC" so we have
"Pocket PC", why not here?

In that regard, it does very much matter if OOXML succeeds and ODF does not, because it
creates the very confusion that trademark law is designed to prevent.

Danish report by the national IT and telecom agency on standardisation organisations

Zenith — 2008-04-03T21:51:40+00:00

The agency looked at the following 10 agencies: CEN, ECMA, ETSI, IETF, ISO, ITU, NIST, OASIS, OMG, and W3C.

Link to report in English

I have not read it, only skimmed the conclusion, but it might have some interesting stuff in it if someone has the time to peruse it.

I just received it in my inbox tonight.

Metric system (was OOXML gets ISO approval)

nix — 2008-04-03T20:47:01+00:00

Oh indeed. That sort of wild regional variability (same names, different 
units) is why the French came up with the metric system in the first 
place...

Metric system (was OOXML gets ISO approval)

moreati — 2008-04-03T20:39:04+00:00

We also buy our milk and beer in multiples of 0.568261485 litres, for some quaint historic
reason.

Incidentally, until now I never knew there is both a US pint & a UK (aka imperial) pint.

Metric system (was OOXML gets ISO approval)

nix — 2008-04-03T19:21:05+00:00

The UK is wabbling, but a lot of us under about the age of 40 are wholly 
or largely metric, with only distances-driven and car speeds seeming to be 
persistent holdouts. (I'm not even sure what a stone is, and I hardly ever 
use feet.)

OOXML gets ISO approval

lysse — 2008-04-03T16:46:39+00:00

However (and sorry to reply to myself) I should point out that I never advocated banning
anything, nor did I say anything about general principles. I responded to an individual
instance which was directed at me, to point out that it *had* caused *actual* (not potential)
offence - is anyone seriously going to suggest that I shouldn't have the right to do that, or
that doing so is tantamount to calling for a ban on potentially-offensive responses?

OOXML gets ISO approval

lysse — 2008-04-03T16:42:25+00:00

Well, it has been generally observed that I'm unusually sensitive.

OOXML gets ISO approval

RobSeace — 2008-04-03T16:39:56+00:00

No mention of the documented "voting irregularities" (to put it nicely)? Apparently, to the ISO, 80% saying "No" really means "Yes"...

Run back to sweet mama Microsoft

bronson — 2008-04-03T15:18:27+00:00

> when no one does better than an 80% solution

By the Court of Public Opinion, Microsoft creates the reference standard.  It doesn't matter
how close your importer is to the standard, if it screws up an Office document it's your
fault, not Microsoft's.  Always.

In the eyes of Joe and Jane Public, Microsoft is already at 100% compliance.  :(

Metric system (was OOXML gets ISO approval)

jschrod — 2008-04-03T15:11:13+00:00

Being from Germany, I can fully sympathesize with your view.

But then, I have been in many international projects where we had to cater for the US folks
who insist on using inches, feets, and other obscure stuff in their technical specs.
mm/dd/yyyy, anyone? What's the logic behind that order?

Mind you, I don't care if they use it in private life or in local business, we also use
"dozen" or "pound" at our local store. (Though our pound is different than that from the UK
and from the US. :-) I'm also willing to get myself aquianted with that strange Fahrenheit
notion when I'm on the road privately. That's a cultural matter, and then I'm a visitor; I
don't run around with short trousers in islamic countries either.

But in documents of international projects, that's completely different. Here it is a pet
peeve of mine, due to several severe problems that I have experienced first-hand. Metric units
should be a must here (and also date notation in form of YYYY-MM-DD), but try to convince my
fellow US project partners of that. No chance, and it just brings out the label `not
constructive'. :-(

Anyhow, anough rambling, back to work. :-)

OOXML gets ISO approval

bronson — 2008-04-03T15:10:36+00:00

Yes!  Let's ban fun discourse on the off chance that it should offend the sensitive.  All LWN
posts should heretofore attempt to resemble RFCs and ISO documents.

(The original statement sounded light hearted enough to me, especially since it was surrounded
by informative content that took the original poster quite seriously...  If it had been aimed
at me, I don't think I would have taken offense...  even if I thought myself particularly
young and naive!)

Metric system (was OOXML gets ISO approval)

dskoll — 2008-04-03T14:55:21+00:00

An other ISO standard slowly coming are SI units, i.e., the metric system, -- the hell might freeze over before the US starts to use it.

Well, that's just stupidity on the part of the US. Every other industrialized country has standardized on SI. In fact, are there even any other countries that have not standardized on SI?

I even recall hearing that the US is "officially" metric. It's about time American citizens were dragged into the 19th century and forced to learn about kilograms, metres and litres! :-)

OOXML gets ISO approval

amazingblair — 2008-04-03T14:53:16+00:00

Hear hear, lysse!  

We should all re-read our comments before clicking "Post" and remove anything derogatory. If
you pause a moment, you can think of a way to express your opinion in a strictly expository
manner. 

(And if you can't, then consider not posting at all. There will always be another discussion
to join.) 

-Amazing Blair

P.S.  Now to go figure out what a "false bifurcation" is, and if my flu shot will protect me.

OOXML gets ISO approval

lysse — 2008-04-03T13:08:49+00:00

> You are either very young or very naive.

Quite aside from the false bifurcation, that's a *great* way to ensure I pay careful attention
to anything else you write, isn't it?

OOXML gets ISO approval

davecb — 2008-04-03T12:49:49+00:00

Nevertheless, they do have a duty to ensure
that their procedures are followed, and
that the part of the process they "own"
not only does justice, but is seen to do 
justice.

Failing to do that legitimately raises
questions of corruption in the ISO, as
well as in the individual national 
bodies who make it up.

Think of gangrene: If your left leg has it,
then *you* have gangrene. And if you don't 
cure it or at least cut off your leg, all 
parts of your body get to die (;-))

--dave

Run back to sweet mama Microsoft

smitty_one_each — 2008-04-03T11:48:19+00:00

Yeah, but when "sweet mama Microsoft" is convicted of prostitution in the Court of Public
Opinion, and no one does better than an 80% solution on OOXML, this ISOdomy shall appear a
pyrrhic victory indeed.

Run back to sweet mama Microsoft

dfarning — 2008-04-03T10:59:36+00:00

I just found this article on the Redmond channel Partner--

http://rcpmag.com/blogs/weblog.aspx?blog=2075

That means that Microsoft has legitimacy in the eyes of an independent -- well, more or less
independent -- standards body.

Of course, we're sure that Microsoft, uh, strongly encouraged a few delegates from a few
nations to change their votes -- which lots of delegates did. And, really, OOXML's acceptance
isn't all that big of a deal for partners and users, practically speaking; after all,
Microsoft document formats are also de facto standards.

But now, all of those government agencies charged with implementing standards-based computing
are free to turn away from open source and run back to sweet mama Microsoft if they so choose.
And whatever momentum open source had gained by taking the standards route in IT departments
has certainly slowed -- if not come to a screeching halt.

OOXML gets ISO approval

jschrod — 2008-04-03T09:35:40+00:00

> Of course, Microsoft have essentially destroyed the ISO's credibility now
> - not just in software, but for any purpose at all.

You are either very young or very naive. ISO's credibility has not been destroyed at all. It
has rubberstamped or even (gasp!) developed bad standards before.

Some of them have been ignored, e.g. the elder ones of us still remember the struggle between
*/IP (IETF standards) and OSI (ISO standards, most often in the form of X.*). See, ISO did
*not* standardize TCP/IP and some of its member bodies even actively worked against it. ("ISO"
seldom does anything, it's more a kind of clearing house. Its member bodies decide and act.)
An other ISO standard slowly coming are SI units, i.e., the metric system, -- the hell might
freeze over before the US starts to use it.

Other bad standards were not only accepted, but even commonly realized, that's the way
standardization works. Hell, it's not as if other standardization bodies wouldn't make bad
standards either, just look at XML schemata and SOAP from W3C.

And my accusation of naivety is because you seem to believe that anyone outside the narrow
circle of IT desktop/office technology open source proponents will give a rat about that vote.
Please note, the world is larger. ISO standardizes a mind-boggling number of interfaces, and
OOXML is just one of them. Many of them have *much* larger pricetags than an office suite. Do
you really believe that this was the first political pressure that was put on an ISO decision.
A quick search on Google provided
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3739/is_200104/ai... that is from another area
complaining about problems in IEC and approval processes. Did you know about these
standardization problems? If not, why do you expect other technical areas to know about our
problems?

And, to cut a potential argument short: I don't care much about either standard and thus don't
consider myself biased. I find neither OOo nor MS Office good products. In fact, as a member
of the LaTeX team, I have a clear (and biased) viewpoint what's the best authoring and
publishing system around. :-)

Revert to their previous behaviors? Do you mean CONTINUE their previous [mis]behaviors?

khim — 2008-04-03T05:45:07+00:00

This is not first time Microsoft played this game (this is the first time ISO was involved, but the game is not new). Once upon time Windows had competition, believe it or not. GEM, DESQview/X and others. And some even used standards (DESQview/X). Microsoft needed standard too. And got one: ECMA 234. Of course standard was quickly obsolete: even before it was approved Windows 95 (with greatly expanded set of interfaces) was out. But it allowed Microsoft to use the same rhetoric back then: we are open, we support international standards, bla-bla-bla.

If you'll take a look on today's story you'll see little differences, but nothing major: competitors had ISO-approved standards this time, so Microsoft needed one too, MS Office 14 is not yet released, but beta will be out soon. OOXML will not cover it like ECMA's Windows API only covered Windows 3.x. In short: I see no need for them to revert to their previous behaviors. Because they never really stopped. Will they get similar reward this time too? We'll see.

The only serious change I see is software patents: back then Microsoft viewed them as abominations, but today it uses them as weapons. I can not say this is change for the better though...

OOXML gets ISO approval

eru — 2008-04-03T05:25:51+00:00

No to mention that most office software implementors will find it necessary to support both standards (except MS who will now have no reason at all to implement ODF), complicating office software needlessly.

OOXML gets ISO approval

tialaramex — 2008-04-03T04:29:17+00:00

ISO isn't really corrupt per se, it's just a talking shop, like the UN. It exists at the whim
of its member nations. Most major industrialised nations are participating members, and thus
have a vote.

Corruption within the national standards bodies (which is what was actually documented) is an
internal matter. Some countries had robust national standards bodies which looked at this
proposal and rejected it. Some didn't. If yours didn't, you need to be making a fuss about
that. Your country's national standards body is probably responsible for your day-to-day
safety since it sets all sorts of relevant standards, so if it's corrupt and a company like
Microsoft can buy votes, that's a serious issue and you should be able to get some daylight on
it from your national press.

ISO has approved a very large number of standards, some of which are useless. If no-one adopts
this standard (note that so far Microsoft don't implement it) then it achieves nothing except
some bad press for ISO and some mixed press for Microsoft.

OOXML gets ISO approval

lysse — 2008-04-03T03:34:52+00:00

I can't help wondering how corrupt the ISO was before Microsoft showed everyone, quite
shamelessly, how easy it was to game. How much vendor influence has been brought to bear
before, but in subtler ways?

(Of course, Microsoft have essentially destroyed the ISO's credibility now - not just in
software, but for any purpose at all. Oh well. Standards are great; everyone should have one.)

OOXML gets ISO approval

jmorris42 — 2008-04-03T02:34:32+00:00

> 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.

No, it would still be bad.  Would you rather have a 6,000 page tome sitting on your desk or
the ODF spec.  Now that OOXML has won the day we will all be paying the price for
standardizing the world's documents on such an unwieldy standard for decades to come.

OOXML gets ISO approval

jimparis — 2008-04-03T02:19:18+00:00

I've always suspected that Microsoft is just purposely trying to confuse things and keep a
real standard from becoming commonplace.  Come on, just look at the name... My dumb brain
still thinks "OOXML" means "Open Office XML" and not "Office Open XML" every time I look at
it...