Microsoft's OOXML limps through ISO meeting
Published: 04 Mar 2008 16:21 GMT
...most of them were not discussed. "There were many technical changes the delegates made to really get consensus on some of the more challenging issues, but all of these passed overwhelmingly once they were updated," said Microsoft Office programme manager Brian Jones, who was a US delegate.
Tim Bray, one of the original creators of the XML specification on which OOXML is founded, and a Canadian delegate for ISO, suggested ISO should never have been proposed for the fast-track route. "The process was complete, utter, unadulterated bullshit," said Bray in a blog post. "This was horrible, egregious, process abuse and ISO should hang their heads in shame for allowing it to happen.
"I'm not an ISO expert, but whatever their 'Fast Track' process was designed for, it sure wasn't this," added Bray, who is now director of web technologies at Sun. "You just can't revise 6,000 pages of deeply complex specification-ware in the time that was provided for the process."
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Microsoft now has one month to persuade enough national delegates to vote in favour of the specification, but Bray thinks this is very unlikely: "I totally don't believe that ECMA/Microsoft is going to be able to pull together a revised draft of this Frankenstein's monster in that timeframe."
Microsoft Office itself does not comply fully with OOXML, according to ZDNet.co.uk member Goldie Simmons: "Many are worried about the line which separates the OOXML 'standard' from the MS-OOXML 'reality', where features such as scripts, macros and DRM are used but not documented in the OOXML specification."
Other ZDNet.co.uk members claim ODF and OOXML are fundamentally flawed standards, as they were proposed to ISO from vendor consortia (ODF came through the Oasis group).
Gary Edwards, former president of the Open Document Foundation, an industry group that promoted ODF but then rejected both approaches and closed itself down in November 2007, said: "Ecma and Oasis are vendor consortia where the rules governing standards specification work favour vendor innovation over the open and transparent interoperability consumers, governments and FLOSS efforts demand... Shutting that door on Ecma OOXML is proving very difficult exactly because the primary and fundamental rule of ISO interoperability requirements has been breached."
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