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Open XML - SC34 Maintenance Agreement

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Throughout the months leading up to the BRM and then following it, there was discussion over the future maintenance of the specification. Rather than recapitulate the results of the last SC 34 meeting, let me just point you to Alex Brown's blog. For those of you who were not following all of the players so closely - Alex was the convener of the ballot resolution meeting.

I still hear patently untrue claims that MS controls Open XML - this wasn't true following the adoption of Ecma 376, and is now permanently a moot argument. Alex's blog title says it all:

ISO COMMITTEE TAKES FULL CONTROL OF OOXML

Does anyone know if the commercial interests in control of ODF would be willing to take the same step?

Comments

  • Anonymous
    April 10, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 10, 2008
    The real question is when will Microsoft implement OOXML?  Which release of Microsoft Office is slated to have the spec fully implemented?

  • Anonymous
    April 10, 2008
    > Does anyone know if the commercial interests in control of ODF There are no commercial interest in ODF. It was not developed in secrecy for the bennifit of one, several companies participated and many individuals and MS was invited many times by Bob Sutor to help.  

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    Gotta agree with RichL, if Microsoft goes to such great effort to get OOXML standardized and then won't even commit to supporting the standardized version it really doesn't matter who controls the standard.  If Microsoft doesn't support standardized OOXML, who will?

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    "There are no commercial interest in ODF." Oh puhleez!  You can't be serious! There's as much commercial interest in ODF as there is in OOXML.

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 15, 2008
    Jason, you are free to take part in the beauty contest. It ressembles snow white: mirror, mirror on the wall... SUN played fair and ODF became the fairest of them all. Of course you can make OOXML more beautiful. SC34 is no argument in favour but a fulfillment of a formal criteria. The question is: What difference does it really make to you?

  • Anonymous
    April 16, 2008
    "Does anyone know if the commercial interests in control of ODF would be willing to take the same step?" I hope not, ODF's been getting great traction under the direction of a consortium of industry interests with quite a number of applications able to both read AND write ODF docs, most ODF capable apps are now tracing the proposed ODF 1.2 standard with near full implementation.  There are still "0" full implementations of OOXML, even now it's gone as far as it can in ISO ratification.   Naturally the biggest concern about handing the spec over to ISO now, especially after witnessing the DIS 29500 debacle would be the uncertainty of what would happen to it... I have a seemingly unlimited number of links to demonstrate NB and expert observer concerns if you'd like me to point them out complete with summaries, I'm not sure I have to point it out but it seems that ISO has little credibility left in that regard. Brett

  • Anonymous
    April 16, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 17, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 17, 2008

jasonmatusow said:

"Brett - Open XML is being implemented on Linux, Windows, OS/X, even zOS. It is on mobile devices, in Free Software, and yes, part of Microsoft Office. The point I made in my comment just 2 before yours in this thread still stands. You are saying no bird is flying into outerspace while ignoring the entire population of birds who are flying in the air. Commercial, academic, government, non-office automation apps, etc. etc. etc. are using the Open XML specification to deliver real value. That's the point of a spec - to enable people to go build real code that works." Help me out here, I'm struggling to find any OOXML apps that read and write OOXML of any type, be it ECMA-376 or ISO Pre/Post BRM.  There are some that read OOXML okay but none are 100% and more apps are actually just chasing MS Office Output conversion, not OOXML.  the likes of IBM for example, they can't care about the OOXML Standard however MS and pro-OOXML exponents were quick to point out IBM's support of OOXML despite IBM denying this publicly.  IBM are touting support of MS Office Docs for obvious reasons in this competitive environment. It sounds like you're insinuating all applications that are following MS Office Doc capability are by association OOXML apps? This has been the slippery Holy Grail of all Office Suites since the dawn of MS Office Dominance and not in any way an endorsement of support for OOXML.  OOXML in it's current form isn't altogether used by Microsoft anyway and the fact that other larger players are trumpeting compatibility with MS Office Docs as opposed to OOXML is if anything, actually telling of a lack of confidence in OOXML ever becoming a mainstream format for MS Office. Anyway, the ODF Birds seem to be flying in space just fine and the OASIS format is delivering credible competitiveness to the market that's been sorely missing for some time, there's plenty more real value in that too. OOXML seems like a "nearly there" fork of MS Office Output that isn't really supported. Some applications are trying to get compliant filters but just can't work out how to get it going quite right because there isn't an existing app that actually does produce this ISO (and earlier ECMA) standard version of OOXML.  It's something like having a special type of PDF standard that doesn't work quite right in practice... It's far easier to chase MS Office compatibility because it is possible to see how it works when you type something in and save it out. A note on the power of NB's  Quite a number wanted to submit additional concerns after having found more problems during the BRM and even existing comments of decent substance that would require major work were almost uniformly pulled aside by Microsoft or ECMA bodies and strongly urged not to raise them and that it'd be assured a priority in maintenance, especially where these concerns were large technical showstoppers. Not a lot of NB's were happy about it and certainly many didn't feel they were heard let alone had influence.  The way in which thousands of comments were arbitrarily accepted by mass vote without discussion let alone consensus is also a sore point. By contrast, no NB has indicated any problem with the way OASIS has conducted management of the ODF standard.  You'll probably find the reason that they wanted SC 34 to manage it is to cede some control away from ECMA and Microsoft so it might have a chance at becoming workable and not so unwieldy.  I see though that ECMA and Microsoft influence is still prevalent in this working group so it'll be interesting to see how it goes.   I'll have to go back through the case studies you mentioned in the previous article but when I looked through a quick handful, it seemed to me like it was more a technical showcase of Microsoft products and not a demonstration about openness and transparency/control of one's own data and application choice capability.