OOXML approved
Chris Auld has the results of the international standards meeting on Open Office XML (OOXML), and reports it has been overwhelmingly approved.
I doubt many have followed this debate, but it has to some degree become a proxy (even though it shouldn’t have been) for Microsoft vs open source and a closely followed issue by many of the IT industry. The very simple explanation is it was about whether one needed to have OOXML adopted as a standard when there was already an open source ODF standard. There were strong arguments both ways.
An unofficial tally as the following votes cast:
Approve
- Azerbaijan
- Cote-d’Ivore
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Finland
- Germany
- Ireland
- Japan
- Jamaica
- Kazakhstan
- Lebanon
- Malta
- Norway
- Pakistan
- Saudi Arabia
- Singapore
- Slovenia
- South Korea
- Switzerland
- Trinidad and Tobago
- United Kingdom
- USA
- Uruguay
Disapprove
- Canada
- China
- Ecuador
- India
- Iran
- New Zealand
- South Africa
- Venezuela
Abstain
- Australia
- Belgium
- France
- Italy
- Kenya
- Malaysia
- Netherlands
- Spain
- Turkey
There has been some ferocious (and controversial) lobbying around this vote, plus one should acknowledge a lot of work to improve the OOXML standard from the previous version which was rejected.
This means Open XML now joins HTML, PDF and ODF as ISO- and IEC-recognized open document format standards.
For those worried about the future of ODF, I found a useful read this blog post giving ten reasons why ODF will not be greatly impacted by the adoption of OOXML. The author was against OOXML being approved, but doesn’t think in the end it will reverse the momentum ODF has.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:32 am
Why would NZ vote against adopting a nascent global standard?
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:43 am
Probably because although Microsoft has the word “open” in the name; it is not actually open.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:34 am
Look at the COMPANY NZ is in. Very telling. By the way, Canada is one of the most totalitarian countries in the world. Look up the recent publicity over their various “human rights commissions”.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:36 am
That’s Labour policy for you… wherever Iran, China and Venezuela go, we go!
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:41 am
Exactly PhilB.
We look like a bunch of commies.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:09 am
Typical Microsoft, naming one of their products (in this case a standard) after a competing product (Open Office who support ODF). How is that even possible? A linux company couldn’t call their product Lindows because Microsoft objected…
I’m surprised that NZ voted no, after all Microsoft were/are official suppliers of software to the government I believe. Perhaps this is a good indication that we’re willing to be independant? China voted no because they run their own state version of Linux on which most office systems support ODF. Atleast we’re not fence sitting like Australia.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:21 am
Labrator.
China may also have voted no because they have their own Open standards office file format called UOF.
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=2006110806164573
I was involved in the process quite heavily in NZ.
Disappointed we didn’t get a yes bu in the end you lose the battle but win the war on some of these things.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:37 am
>I’m surprised that NZ voted no
There are issues around whether the world needs two XML-based document formats, one of which is essentially under the control of Microsoft and based on compatibility with the previous non-XML versions of their office products.
There are issues with the standard itself. It is many times longer than similar standards, including ODF. This length and complexity is required in order to maintain the backwards compatibility with many years of product technical compromise. Despite this length and complexity, up until very recently (I assume it has been fixed), the draft standard still essentially contained sections where particular behaviours weren’t described except to say they should operate as Microsoft Office already operates. There are some really weird aspects of Office that are not adequately described in the OOXML, such as the rounding down from whole numbers to a stored “.9999999″ that has been widely reported… this weirdness was hidden in previous non-XML Microsoft Office document formats and really shouldn’t be supported in to the future.
The complexity of the standard means that it is going to be difficult for non Microsoft products to build compatible products. IMHO, we should be promoting standards like ODF that encourage competition for office products and efficient document interchange. An international standard shouldn’t be a tool used to support a company’s market advantage.
And I have problems with the standards process itself. Large numbers of small countries joined the standards body in the lead up to the OOXML votes. They all voted “yes”. None of them have shown any interest in the standards setting process in the past. There are indications that Microsoft sponsored these countries. The whole process looks corrupt.
I’m glad that NZ voted No. And I don’t believe it was a government-influenced decision… NZ’s delegation was three people, including an independent IT consultant who writes at http://it.gen.nz and who I know would vote based on the merits of the standard rather than anything a politician might tell him.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:08 am
“And I don’t believe it was a government-influenced decision…”
Reading the Standards NZ press release indicates that this was a VERY large influence.
David, can you describe what makes one ‘independant’?
FWIW I’m completely not independant.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:18 am
The result of this vote is a sad indication of the extent that Microsoft was able to corrupt ISO’s decision making process.
The skulduggery involved is extensive. A case in point is Norway’s “yes” vote which has been formally protested by the Chairman of the Norwegian committee because 80% of said committee voted “no”.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:33 am
@davidp: I was surprised that NZ voted no because we’re so closely aligned with Microsoft. I’m glad we voted no as there was already a standard which covered the format as you say.
This standards body system seems awfully reminiscient of the International Whaling Commission where small islands have purportedly been paid off by Japan for their pro-whaling vote even though they have no financial or food source interest in it. Azerbaijan is hardly an IT heavy weight…
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:05 pm
>David, can you describe what makes one ‘independant’?
He is self employed. I believe he has good standing in the IT industry. The customer he has been working for recently doesn’t have a position on document formats and did not direct him as to how he should vote. And, when I have talked to him about this issue, the talk mostly consisted of me directing my opinions at him in a loud fashion, while he refused to provide any indication of how he would vote on the basis that it would be unethical.
One of the other NZ delegates was employed by Microsoft. I’m guessing that if there were 3 delegates and NZ voted no, then the vote in the NZ delegation was Microsoft “yes” and the other two “no”. But that is just guessing.
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:55 pm
No one is ever going to adopt OOXML, not even Microsoft. Microsoft will just go on its merry way with .docx, etc formats which have some similarities to OOXML, but are not OOXML. Those writing ‘office’ suites or convertors will base them on .docx , etc in practice, not OOXML.
IMO the State Services Commission needs to take a hard look at ‘office’ file formats and set an appropriate ‘roadmap’ for Departments, and commend it to universities and schools. It should not allow Microsoft to set the roadmap by default. The ‘roadmap’ decision will affect all Kiwis, not just Departments or educational institutions.
IMO a realistic roadmap would be to stick with .doc etc or .pdf for the immediate future, then transition to ODF, but NOT to use .docx etc formats in any way that would force people to upgrade to or purchase MS Office 2007. This is of special concern to small businesses and ordinary people who have to pay full retail ‘shrinkwrap’ prices for MS Office compared with the ‘knock down’ prices available for Government agencies (including schools and universities), large companies etc.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:04 pm
“One of the other NZ delegates was employed by Microsoft. I’m guessing that if there were 3 delegates and NZ voted no, then the vote in the NZ delegation was Microsoft “yes” and the other two “no”. But that is just guessing.”
Yes. Just guessing. The New Zealand delegation to the Geneva Ballot Resolution Meeting voted to approve all of the responses to New Zealand comments. I don’t believe that this delegation was ever asked to vote on the approval of the DIS itself.
I understand that advice was given by Standards New Zealand, a commercial entity to the Standards Council (a statutory decision making body) and the COuncil cast the final vote.
“The customer he has been working for recently doesn’t have a position on document formats and did not direct him as to how he should vote.”
Which one? and… Really? Are you sure?
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:49 pm
>Which one? and… Really? Are you sure?
Ministry of Health. Yes, really, I’ve checked with the architecture team and no one has heard of any. Someone thinks that SSC might be looking in to the area, but that linkage is too tenuous (in my opinion) to suggest that a person’s opinion on OOXML or ODF might be influenced by commercial considerations. And, in practice, SSC standards are used to inform Ministry directions rather than forcing immediate compliance.
So, I’m sure. There might be a document floating around somewhere with a direction or strategy described. But, if so, no one here that is responsible for developing infrastructure or applications has heard of it.
Oh… and if the Ministry standards decision was mine, then it’d be ODF. I’m positive about Microsoft products, would pick Win 2008 over any of the *nix products, and believe that technologies like Active Directory should be exploited far more than they are. But I also think that OOXML is a bad standard, and Office should support a genuinely open standard. Which is ODF. If Office supported ODF, then it has a part on a desktop. If not, I’d look for a product that did.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Some standard. Standards are supposed to ensure interoperability and compatibility between platforms etc. You can’t use OOXML on hardware that isn’t supported by Microsoft Windows. Some standard indeed.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Crikey. Works for lots of people then.
I wasn’t thinking of the Ministry of Health when I made my comments.
Stand by the fact the peoples opinions can be and indeed are influenced by commercial considerations.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:44 pm
@davidp and cauld: this sentence from the Standards NZ press release says it all really with regard to government influence: “A major concern is the expected increase in costs for government agencies that would result from the specification being adopted as an ISO/IEC international Standard. Cost increases for government agencies ultimately impact all New Zealanders”. It looks to me like the government put pressure on Standards NZ to say no.
@davidp: re the person you’re talking about I think if you do some more digging you’ll find he is a very passionate and vocal open source supporter and, for that same reason, will likely be a very passionate Microsoft non-supporter. He also used to be the head of InternetNZ and they came out very strongly against OpenXML a while back. “Independent” just means he doesn’t have a full-time employer, it doesn’t mean he’s neutral or unbiased when it comes to this topic
@peterwn: users of Office 2000, OfficeXP and Office 2003 can download a free plugin which enables them to read and write OpenXML files natively. This is one file format change which does not force users to buy new software.
@thrash: can you quote an example? From my experience Windows supports a far broader range of hardware than Linux so I don’t quite get your point. If you’re specifically referring to the Mac platform I understand that Apple are already using OpenXML in iWorks
@labrator: the people that made Lindows (now Linspire) signed some sort of interoperability agreement with MS recently so I guess they aren’t as upset about the “Lindows” thing as you are :^)
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:18 am
@mahjoun: “The skulduggery involved is extensive. A case in point is Norway’s “yes” vote”
Yes, isn’t shocking how the anti-OOXML folks tried to stack the meetings and how IBM and Google joined at the 11th hour. You mentioned the chairman of Standard Norge had some objections, would he be the same one who was excused because he “could no longer meet the criteria for neutrality”? Have a look at the Standard Norge press release for more juicy details of all that naughty skullduggery.
It seems a bit of FUD is being spread about Germany too.
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:32 am
FUCK THE ISO. As a programmer who has seen how big this abomination of a standard is (trust it it’s huge) I can honestly say I won’t be going anywhere near it. Once again FUCK the ISO. FUCK Microsoft and FUCK their corruption!
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:48 am
Citizen: It isn’t a Windows vs. Linux thing. An international standard of this type should be able to be applied to any hardware platform whether it can run Windows or not. Examples: The blob used for storing printer data can only be understood in a Windows environment; The algorithm for password hashing in spreadsheets consists of 5 pages of actual C source code which uses machine dependent bit manipulation – a document created on one platform and passworded would not be able to be opened on another platform. The optimizeForBrowser element of Wordprocessing is designed to work with Internet Explorer and ignores other browsers.
As for your claim of Windows supporting a broader range of hardware than Linux based on your experience, I’m not talking about Windows supporting Intel hardware such as graphics cards, sound cards, NICs etc. I’m talking about hardware platforms – entire computer systems not necessarily built on the “PC” platform.
Apparently iWorks can read OOXML documents but cannot write them. This isn’t exactly supporting it.
Even Microsoft’s own products don’t really support OOXML. Documents produced by Office 2007 contain a lot of binary code, macros, OLE objects, ActiveX, DRM and SharePoint metadata etc. that are not part of OOXML therefore the documents are not OOXML compliant.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:57 pm
@citizen: I was pointing out the hypocrisy of Microsoft naming their product after a competitor when they don’t like that happening to them. I don’t think I said it upset me. As a daily Microsoft product user I think their products are on the whole good however I do disagree with some of their hypocritical ideals. Goose gander etc.
But this is all off topic. ODF is perfectly satisfactory. OOXML was not required and is being used for political posturing so Microsoft can say that they’re open and transparent so they can keep some of their big government contracts which more and more are requiring openness of data format. If no one else implements OOXML because it is ridiculously complex (700+ pages to I believe less than 90), then this defeats the whole purpose of the governments legislation which is to keep the publics data open and freely accessible. Of course you can argue that if their is enough demand for OOXML then other people will read and implement the 700 pages but this has just given Microsoft, and only Microsoft, a competitive advantage. Very monopolistic behaviour in my opinion.
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:07 pm
6000+ pages
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:37 pm
@labrator, Thrash Cardiom
Two opinions to check out about this “6,000 page” issue are Patrick Durusau and Rick Jelliffe.
The way you use this type of standard is more like a reference encyclopedia than a book that you read cover to cover. When you use Open XML, it’s nicely laid out, it has tons of examples and explanations. With ODF, I found the explanations and examples are short and less comprehensive. Also ODF leaves out a lot of things that Open XML has like spreadsheet formulas. Open XML covers backwards compatibility, which ODF doesn’t cover even for previous StarOffice formats. All that extra information takes a lot of space. Sure ODF is “shorter”, but does that make it “better”?
Now to do useful partial implementation is very achievable if you actually try it. Less than 0.01% of developers would ever need all of Open XML, and the ones that do will be big companies who have all the resources to easily digest 6,000 pages if they want to. I heard Java is bigger, and that’s used quite a bit last I checked.
As for print extensions and binary blobs and embedded objects, proprietary extensions and application defined behaviours, if you are concerned about those things in Open XML you should be also be concerned about the same things in PDF and ODF because they are there too. Strangely despite that the anti-OOXML crowd ignored the recent ISO process for a new version of PDF.
@labrator
There are multiple overlapping standards for all sorts of things. Always have been, always will be. The existence of overlapping standards is no reason to block them.
April 8th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
“The New Zealand delegation to the Geneva Ballot Resolution Meeting voted to approve all of the responses to New Zealand comments”
It’s probably worth mentioning that the majority of the responses didn’t propose *any* changes so voting to Approve everything should be taken as such. I suspect that you’d need to get more granular — down to individual responses — in order to understand this. The NZOSS posted a review of the individual Ecma responses here in the PDF attached to this story, http://nzoss.org.nz/news/2008/nzoss-analysis-ecma-ooxml-responses
I was involved in the Standards NZ process too (for the NZOSS), and I’ve posted some commentary on my blog: http://holloway.co.nz/blog/ . Keen readers might want to check for the PDFs linked there too, as they were supplied to SNZ.