Weir: ISO/IEC JTC1 Revises Directives, Addresses OOXML Abuses

[Posted July 8, 2010 by jake]

On his blog, Rob Weir looks at changes to the ISO standardization process, that would eliminate some of the abuses that were seen in the OOXML standardization effort. In 2007 and 2008, Microsoft pushed its office document format (OOXML) through the ISO fast track process, which allowed it to become a second ISO standard—the first was Open Document Format (ODF). "On July 1st, 2010 a new set of rules (directives) took effect in ISO/IEC JTC1 including new processing and voting rules for JTC1 Fast Track submissions. If these rules had been in effect back in 2007, OOXML would have died after its initial ballot." (Thanks to Martin Jeppesen.)

That's fine going forward, but...

Posted Jul 9, 2010 16:15 UTC (Fri) by jhardin@impsec.org (guest, #15045) [Link] (4 responses)

...is there any way these directives can be applied ex post facto to the OOXML "standard" to remove it?

That's fine going forward, but...

Posted Jul 9, 2010 20:08 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (3 responses)

Unlikely, but perhaps new standards could be given a different name, like "Gold Standards". The OOXML standard could be demoted to a "brown standard" because of its resemblance to a distasteful brown substance.

That's fine going forward, but...

Posted Jul 9, 2010 22:03 UTC (Fri) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] (2 responses)

Then ODF would be a brown standard as well, being an even older standard that OOXML.

That's fine going forward, but...

Posted Jul 10, 2010 1:21 UTC (Sat) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

Easy to fix; allow standards to be resubmitted following the "gold" rules.

That's fine going forward, but...

Posted Jul 12, 2010 15:23 UTC (Mon) by jhardin@impsec.org (guest, #15045) [Link]

You'd only demote the standard if its approval was tainted per these guidelines. I doubt ODF would qualify.

Weir: ISO/IEC JTC1 Revises Directives, Addresses OOXML Abuses

Posted Jul 9, 2010 21:23 UTC (Fri) by colo (guest, #45564) [Link] (4 responses)

Too little, too late. ISO's (reputation, at your choice) ruined already, at least in my book.

Weir: ISO/IEC JTC1 Revises Directives, Addresses OOXML Abuses

Posted Jul 10, 2010 12:51 UTC (Sat) by davi (guest, #18853) [Link]

I can only agree.

Does ISO certification make any sense for a file format?

Posted Jul 10, 2010 13:51 UTC (Sat) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] (2 responses)

We might want to reconsider the value of having any standards body (not just ISO) approve a file format. Even the ODF standard was not exactly conceived out of pure thought by disinterested guardians of the public interest. It, too, was shaped at least in part by existing implementations, principally StarOffice / OpenOffice, even though others such as KOffice took part. I'm not saying ODF is a bad standard or that the process for standardizing it was corrupted (as it clearly was for OOXML), rather asking whether the heavy international ISO process is appropriate at all. Couldn't free office suites manage to agree between themselves on a suitable file format?

The danger is that as soon as governments start to follow arbitrary rules (however well-intentioned) such as mandating documents to be saved in an ISO standard format, the question of ISO standardization becomes one where money is at stake, becomes politicized, and (given the willingness of many players to further their own interests) can no longer be decided on technical grounds. Vendors do what they can to comply with the letter of the regulation but not its spirit, so it's doubtful that any public money is spent more wisely. (We saw a similar nonsense with the requirement to purchase POSIX-compliant software, where Windows NT was certified but Linux is not.)

Of course all standards have always been politicized to some extent, and vendors (or national standards bodies) tend to push the technical decisions they have already committed to. In many cases there isn't a better alternative. Many physical interfaces need to be standardized, and in wizardly technical areas like language standards or networking (broadly speaking, those applications too complex for a marketing guy to understand what it does) we can benefit from the extra rigour the process brings, while it is unlikely to be corrupted. But does that really extend as far as office suites?

Does ISO certification make any sense for a file format?

Posted Jul 10, 2010 16:24 UTC (Sat) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]

So, free office suits decide on a document format. And? Microsoft would have ignored the whole thing if it wasn't to become an ISO standard.

Does ISO certification make any sense for a file format?

Posted Jul 12, 2010 16:53 UTC (Mon) by jthill (subscriber, #56558) [Link]

"Office suite" doesn't quite carry the right connotations for national budgets and legal documents.

PDF/A is rendered-document format. It turns out you need one for the preferred form for making modifications, too.

Who produces the tools to work with that format is utterly irrelevant.

ODF was "not exactly conceived out of pure thought by disinterested guardians of the public interest", compared to what, please? Is there some format out there constructed by more competent guardians of the public interest?

Weir: ISO/IEC JTC1 Revises Directives, Addresses OOXML Abuses

Posted Jul 12, 2010 16:08 UTC (Mon) by etienne (guest, #25256) [Link] (1 responses)

What is wrong with the old Internet saying: "To define a standard, you have to have first two independant implementation"?
When you just have a single implementation, you should deal with a RFC - because RFC can evolve.

Weir: ISO/IEC JTC1 Revises Directives, Addresses OOXML Abuses

Posted Jul 13, 2010 8:31 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

You need 2 implementations to advance an IETF draft RFC to standards track. :)