OOXML fails to get ISO approval

Author: Phil Cogar
Published: 5th September 2007
Comments (16) Stumble
Word 07 and other components of Office 07 use XML as the default file type when saving files.

Word 07 and other components of Office 07 use XML as the default file type when saving files.

The International Organization for Standardisation has voted against giving Microsoft's Office Open XML format a fast track approval to becoming an international standard. Instead, Microsoft will get a second chance in March of next year by revising the proposed standard. Changes to the format itself could be needed which would then force an update of Office 2007, which uses XML as the standard file saving format.

The count came out as the following: out of 41 countries that had participated in the vote, 17 voted yes, 15 voted no and 9 were abstentions. That comes down to 53 percent of all participating votes as a yes when a total of 66.66 percent was need to give the format approval for a fast tracked standardisation.

"This preliminary vote is a milestone for the widespread adoption of the Open XML formats around the world for the benefit of millions of customers. Given how encouraging today's results were, we believe that the final tally in early 2008 will result in the ratification of Open XML as an ISO standard," said Tom Robertson, Microsoft's general manager for standards and interoperability.

Of course this isn't the only file format Microsoft is trying to push as a standard. The company is also looking to replace JPEG with its HD Photo format. I guess we'll just have to wait until next year to see which way either format falls on the standardised line.

Anytime you bring up Microsoft, it's bound to bring on a lot of hate and a lot of defending...so go ahead and tell us what you think about the big M controlling all of your file formats over in the forums or in the comment section below.
Quote steveo_mcg 5th September 2007, 15:22
Not sure i entirely trust MS with controlling the standards for everything, especially photos don't want to find that the pictures taken with my digi cam don't work on my Linux box because MS wouldn't give them access to the format. Wouldn't be the first time MS just dropped something either forcing every one to upgrade and lets face it mass upgrade suits MS in their position as a monopoly. By the same token i think its unwise to trust any one company with your data.
Quote Phil Rhodes 5th September 2007, 15:28
> Microsoft's general manager for standards and interoperabilty (sic)

Gneh, heh!

But seriously. If they're trying to make something an ISO standard, this is a good thing. We'd need to be very careful - probably have ISO put measures in place to prevent them doing an embrace, extend, extinguish on us, but having this stuff properly ratified is only a good thing.

P
Quote quack 5th September 2007, 15:34
Except there already is a standard - ODF. We don't need another.
Quote wharrad 5th September 2007, 15:44
Standards are good... But I'm agreeing that maybe we should be careful allowing Microsoft to decide everything. It's not that I'm against them per say, but I had a little run in with them about a week ago. Apparently needing media rights to play an .avi file I recorded myself in my garden with my video camera of my family... Errr, no thanks.

Of course XML is different to AVI, but still - in principle I don't want say my dissertation or something locked down by Microsoft and open souce is the easist way to make sure that won't happen.
Quote jakenbake 5th September 2007, 16:15
i must add that last year, for senior design, we had to write a final paper that ended up being about 100 pages with pictures included and everything. the .docx file format was SIGNIFICANTLY smaller than the .doc file format when saved. just a thought.
Quote Ramble 5th September 2007, 17:48
Quote:
Originally Posted by quack
Except there already is a standard - ODF. We don't need another.

Agreed, but the standard that ISO accepted of ODF doesn't allow some integral part of spreadsheets. I can't remember what it was though, I think it might have been something like functions.

EDIT: I have no problem with MS stuff becoming a standard as long as it's open and well documented. It's just like any other company submitted a standard then.
Quote aon`aTv.gsus666 5th September 2007, 18:41
I'm writing a white paper at the moment investigating security mechanisms of DOCX, ODT and PDF/A and have to say OOXML seems to be one easy to work with format if I ever saw one. That has its downsides of course (read: SECURITY FLAAAAAW!!!!) but I'd support OOXML becoming a new standard.
And about the ODF being the actual standard right now as far as I know MS and OO.org's people worked on an open document format together quite some time before MS quit and finally released OOXML. So ODF is (and please correct me if I'm wrong) almost the same as OOXML minus some features like adjustments for handicapped or blind people.
Quote completemadness 5th September 2007, 18:56
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramble
I have no problem with MS stuff becoming a standard as long as it's open and well documented. It's just like any other company submitted a standard then.
QFT

Only MS would release their new version of their software, using their new standard, which, oh, BTW, isn't a standard - *claps*
Quote TRG 5th September 2007, 20:58
I believe that a working example of a given standard is required to become ratified, regardless of the vote, thus because office 2007 does not comply fully, it doesn't fly, regardless of the vote. Also, it conflicts with many other standards, such as standards for date and time representation.
Quote Shielder 5th September 2007, 21:50
Quote:
Originally Posted by aon`aTv.gsus666
I'm writing a white paper at the moment investigating security mechanisms of DOCX, ODT and PDF/A and have to say OOXML seems to be one easy to work with format if I ever saw one. That has its downsides of course (read: SECURITY FLAAAAAW!!!!) but I'd support OOXML becoming a new standard.
And about the ODF being the actual standard right now as far as I know MS and OO.org's people worked on an open document format together quite some time before MS quit and finally released OOXML. So ODF is (and please correct me if I'm wrong) almost the same as OOXML minus some features like adjustments for handicapped or blind people.

Hmmm, I'd have to disagree with most of what you wrote there. How can a document format that has 6000(!) pages of documentation in support of it be easy to work with? How can a document format that isn't even fully documented by it's own maker be easy to work with?

You are correct that MS were part of the OASIS committee, but they didn't even participate in designing a standard that anyone could use, they just desiced to design a competing format that only they could use. How "standard" is that?

The only similarity between ODF and OOXML is that they both use XML coding in their structure. The major difference is that ODF has full and complete documetnation, is implimented by at least 10+ office packages and was ratified on it's own merits by the ISO committee. No ballot stuffing there. Oh, and the support for people with disabilities is there as well. I think, although I could be wrong, most of the support that exists in the MS format comes from third party vendors...

Now, what were you saying about OOXML again?
Quote qupada 6th September 2007, 08:05
Quote:
Originally Posted by jakenbake
i must add that last year, for senior design, we had to write a final paper that ended up being about 100 pages with pictures included and everything. the .docx file format was SIGNIFICANTLY smaller than the .doc file format when saved. just a thought.

Probably only a small amount to do with the fact that under the fancy extension it's actually a zip file (with a quite excessively complicated directory structure to boot).
Quote DougEdey 6th September 2007, 08:24
But the comparisson of ODF to Microsoft Formats is massive anyway. Especially the spreadsheets, ODF was 11KB on one file, XLS was 111KB
Quote Hamish 6th September 2007, 09:19
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shielder
How can a document format that has 6000(!) pages of documentation in support of it be easy to work with? How can a document format that isn't even fully documented by it's own maker be easy to work with?
6000 pages and they still didnt even manage to document it properly!
the main example thrown about is the one about word95-alike margins, where the spec is required to match word95 margin behaviour exactly but doesnt actually say what that behaviour is
requiring you to reverse-engineer word95 to properly support ooxml, unless you're microsoft of course...

im not one for out of hand microsoft bashing but ooxml is total bs :p
Quote Shielder 6th September 2007, 10:01
From what I understand, it isn't documented properly because MS themselves don't know how it works. I have seen a quote on the internet concerning this, but I can't remember where.
Quote proxess 6th September 2007, 13:30
i've seen docs with 400kb being turned into OTF's with 60kb, I haven't tried converting it into an Office2007 file tho. I don't intend to either.
Quote shaq 6th September 2007, 16:43
Something seems inherently wrong in ISO approving a format that is proprietary. Unless Microsoft licenses this format under something like the GPL, I think we are better off with ODF.

Of course, hell will freeze over before MS has anything to with the GPL...
Log in

You are not logged in, please login with your forum account below. If you don't already have an account please register to start contributing.





Stats: 0.125 seconds