Open Office standards row heats up

Microsoft is facing growing criticism of its bid to have Office Open XML (OOXML) accepted as an international standard ahead of a crucial vote by the ISO scheduled for February. Redmond initially promised that the ISO would have control of OOXML if and when it became a standard. Critics reckon Microsoft is now backsliding on …

[Anonymous Coward]

Misleading title

As the article itself says, Open Office _XML_ , NOT just Open Office. Please don't confuse people who just browse the headlines by conflating an Open Source suite with a proprietary piece of crap.

Cheers

[Mark]

Unfortunately, it didn't backfire in Sweden

Sweden were going to vote "no" for MSOOXML and by breaking the vote, got it downgraded to "abstain", which is less bad for the proposition.

If it could have stuffed enough "no" states, then we could have ended up with "yes" from Cuba (who cannot GET MS Office) being the only vote countable and the proposition passed.

[Anonymous Coward]

OOXML is DOA

Authorities will eventually require standards for which there are 2 or more complete and independent implementations. OOXML is too complex and riddled with patents to achieve such status. The complexity also makes it impossible to even verify whether MS own products are compliant.

OOXML is DOA. What ISO eventually decide makes no difference.

[Martin Gregorie]

What about the supporting code?

I thought that a major objection to MSOOXML becoming a standard was that the content of certain tags could only be handled by proprietary code whose specification was NOT part of the proposed standard.

When did this get fixed, then?

...if it did ever get fixed.

[tom]

This sort of thing...is getting old.

Is anybody fooled by Microsoft's transparent ploys to force bloated, poorly "designed" "standards" on the rest of the world? Does anybody *not* think that their only goal is to ensure that nothing works properly with the standard except Microsoft tools? If you raised your hand, you're a dirty liar, and you're going to hell.

[BitTwister]

Oxymoron

"Microsoft's Open Standard". 'nuff said.

[J]

Re:Misleading title

Second that, I also though the article was about something quite different...

Now, whatever ISO or whomever decides will make little difference in the end, most probably. MS will shove OOXML down peoples throats anyway and it will be the de facto standard as it has always happened with MS formats.

Unless people do something, which unfortunately does not seem very likely.

[Andy Bright]

Hah

Their evil plot has been revealed, or has it? Yes it may appear that Microsoft is embarking on a single-minded campaign to bring down the world's systems with bloatware and security unconscious software, but the truth is rather more boring.

If your monopoly controls the standards too, then everyone must conform with you.

So in a nutshell they won't have to change their lazy, bloatware, insecure ways and actually start producing something we in the industry refer to as "maintainable".

Microsoft have been creating their own "standards" for decades, and actually it's a tad puzzling they haven't tried to force them on everyone else sooner.

Shit they couldn't even do ASCII right - who else remembers programs that converted Microsoft "ascii" into proper ascii?

[Paul]

ooxml is just

ooxml is just a binary dump surrounded by angled brackets

.. I forget who said that, but it's largely true

[Morely Dotes]

@ tom

"If you raised your hand, you're a dirty liar, and you're going to hell."

But not nearly soon enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Misleading title because MS wants it to be

"Office Open XML" - what other reason could MS have named it thus, other than to create confusion with OpenOffice? Hell, even I just typed it the wrong way round and had to correct it!

[Ole Juul]

Re: This sort of thing...is getting old.

"Is anybody fooled by Microsoft's transparent ploys to force bloated, poorly "designed" "standards" on the rest of the world? Does anybody *not* think that their only goal is to ensure that nothing works properly with the standard except Microsoft tools?"

Yes! The Danish government IT leadership just confirmed today that they are ready for "open standards" in 13 days. Two of the "standards" they are talking about, and which will be rolled out January 1 are Open Office, and Open XML. Hello? Hello? .... sorry, I thought we lost the connection.... ayway ... The Danish Government and, it seems, most of Danish IT are completely convinced that Open XML is a standard. Aparently ISO has no validity in that country. From what I can read on the net, the Danish IT world is completly, and religiously, devoted to MicroSoft. It's pathetic. What many people would have thought of as a technologically advanced country, is really just a third world puppet show when it comes to IT.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweden backfired...just not in Sweden

Sweden was an observing member (O-member) of ISO, so a no-vote counts for little. After the negative publicity in Sweden, several countries who were participating members (P-members) changed their votes to "no" or abstained.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gov mandates may be a problem

The Norwegian gov't just passed a bill mandating ODF formatting for public documents. The Danish version goes along the same route, though it looks like they're assuming [hopefully in error] that the MS XML spec will end up with ISO approval as well.

If the government starts mandating non-MS formats for documents, what effect would that have on all the companies supplying them, publicly-funded schools, etc.? THAT'S why MS is looking to railroad their spec through ISO to avoid being cut out of the gov market and the potential cascade effect that would result.

[Devon Buchanan]

Devon Buchanan

If we start accepting Microsoft standards we will end up being even more hopelessly locked in then we already are. We are already enslaved by their OS, corporate servers and office suite.

We have an opportunity to start using truly open standards that give users choice. Tradition is what you do when you can't be bothered to think things through...

We need to kick the Microsoft habit soon, or the only digital revolution we will be getting will spin us right back to the days when computers were painfully slow, opaque machines that were used to suck money out of you...

Or are we already there? Isn't Vista the greatest OS ever!

[Alistair]

Dances with office open chairs

I think you all overestimate the power of the Redmond Monster.

In my guestimated outlook they are well past the powerpoint and now cannot excel at anything other than useless projects and rubbish windoze. Take my word for it, soon we will exchange our framework for access to the internet, explorer, and reap the benefits of a greater dot net. Fear not the ex-open-language-for-modelling-offices and instead bask in the glory of .... [deleted]

Pass the Bailey's theres a good chap. Hic.