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Once More unto the Breach: Microsoft Discusses Open Standards (versus Open Source Software)

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 21:56:26 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

So here are some "Key Messages" from Microsoft's standards team circa 2003 (doing battle with the Australian parliament no doubt) [Emphasis added]:

An open standard is a publicly available specification which details certain technical functionality that may be implemented in different products and services. It is adopted in an open, consensus-based process and must satisfy other criteria for transparency, ease of access, and broad implementation as described below.
Open standards exist to facilitate interoperability and data exchange across various products and services in a marketplace of multiple, competing implementations, while ensuring that certain minimum requirements are met.
Other types of standards (e.g., “proprietary standards”) and market-based mechanisms exist and are currently used to facilitate interoperability. However, open standards ensure the highest level of interoperability across the widest range of competing products and services.

Tags: brm geneva interoperability iso microsoft odf ooxml open standards

Posted by: garyedwards

Open Malaysia: Geneva, Day Five

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 23:51:10 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

We eventually found out that if any changes affected current implementations it would certainly be rejected. This seriously compromised any elegant solutions, and it forced us to be mindful of the "existing corpus of documents" in the wild. I personally don't believe that that should be our problem, but there was a large and vocal voting bloc which would oppose any changes to the spec which would 'break' Ecma 376.

This was why appeasing Ecma had to happen. Even though they rushed their Ecma International Standard, and Microsoft took the risk in shipping Microsoft Office 2007 last year, we now have to bear the burden of having to support its limitations. This also means that future maintenance changes would get harder and harder.

Tags: brm geneva iso odf ooxml opendocument openxml

Posted by: garyedwards

Denmark: OOXML vote won't affect public sector. ODF is too costly! | InfoWorld

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 23:51:10 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Lebech said Denmark considers OOXML an open standard, regardless whether it is approved by the ISO. "It would be impossible for us to use only ISO standards if we want to fulfill the goal of creating interoperability in the government sector," he said.

The Danish Parliament also mandated that public agencies consider the cost of using open formats. One of the main reasons OOXML was included is because Denmark is heavily dependent on document management systems that are integrated with Microsoft's Office products, Lebech said.

Denmark also found that requiring agencies to only use ODF would have been too expensive, mostly because of the cost of converting documents into ODF, Lebech said.

"We wouldn't have been able to only support ODF," Lebech said. "It wouldn't have been cost neutral."

Tags: brm denmark geneva iso msoffice odf ooxml opendocment openxml

Posted by: garyedwards

A Savage Journey … ODF at the OOXML BRM « A Frantic Opposition

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 23:51:10 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

A Savage Journey …

‘Erupting from my vivid nightmares into the retro 80s faded luxury of a five-star hotel in Geneva, the pictures of the first victim reappeared on the wall. The head of the Brazilian delegation-it’s only a matter of time now.

My mind thrashes to disentangle the thrown spaghetti threads of blurred reasoning; who’s next, is it just the heads of delegation they are after, any NB member, P-members only?

The fog lifts and it’s worse. Who is behind this, them or us? We outnumber them, but maybe their plan is more devious. Must find Bonky Bob, he’ll know what to do.’

Enough levity for now. The BRM has held few surprises, other than the rather galling situation where I was forced to publicly toe the INCITS line by the temporary head of delegation, a Microsoft employee, against my better judgement.

Tags: brm ecma geneva iso odf ooxml opendocument openxml standards

Posted by: garyedwards

Microsoft's OOXML limps through ISO meeting - ZDNet UK

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 07:18:13 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

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."

Tags: brm ecma geneva iso oasis odf ooxml

Posted by: garyedwards

ODF and OOXML are standards in name only - Google: OOXML 'insufficient and unnecessary' - Talkback at ZDNet UK

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:27:41 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Both ODF and OOXML flunk that test badly. Their interoperable implementation neither has nor can be demonstrated. Both are designed for the waging of feature wars, not for interoperability. Both attempt to legitimize market-leading companies embracing and extending their own formats. They are standards in name only. What we are watching is a contest to decide which big vendor formats will be allowed to undeservedly claim the title of "international standard."

Tags: brm google interop iso marbux odf ooxml opendocument openxml zdnet-uk

Posted by: garyedwards

Word of recognition from an unexpected side: ODF editor Patrick Durusau supports OOXML - ISO effort

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 19:04:16 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

The OpenXML project has made a large amount of progress in terms of the openness of its evelopment. Objections that do not recognize that are focusing on what they want to see and not what is actually happening with OpenXML

Tags: brm durusau iso oasis odf officeopenxml ooxml opendocument openxml

Posted by: garyedwards

ODF Alliance on the Microsoft Disposition of ISO Comments on OOXML

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:25:45 -0000

Tags: brm odf odf-alliance ooxml opendocument openxml

Posted by: garyedwards