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I haven't seen the official announcement yet, although there were reports yesterday (Yeah, I know April Fools) and indications from the day or two prior to yesterday that microsoft's OOXML is going to pass approval as a ISO standard.
This is a horrible event and if it's true then it has effectively made a mockery of and discredited ISO certification.
To sum up some of the key points of why, on slashdot someone had asked "Sorry, but every article I read about OOXML is about the voting and standardization irregularities, and nothing I've found reviews OOXML from the users standpoint..."
And Neuticle (a slashdotter) had responded:
"That's pretty much because:
a) the voting irregularities are IMMENSE
and
b) there is no review on OOXML from the user's standpoint, because there is NO implementation (ZIP, ZERO, NONE) of the ISO candidate version of OOXML to review. Not even from Microsoft, who are using a different version now, and (IIRC) have stated that they WILL NOT be using the ISO version in the future, if it is approved. AND it is likely that there will never be a complete 3rd party implementation of the ISO OOXML standard because it is so long, complex and dependent on patents and references to legacy closed source software. MS happens to own that source and those patents and aren't about to give them away. So basically it's a dead end mockery of the ISO process."
What are some of the voting irregularities? Things such as lots of countries suddenly signing up to be on the voting board to vote in favor of OOXML - and that is the one and only thing they have voted on.
One of the more recent things in the last vote was from Norway which had changed it's vote from "NO" to "YES" in favor of it - this despite 19 of the 24 people voting had voted "NO" in that very vote.
So what's probably going to happen at this point, and this is just a gut feeling, is MS will start tooting about how their "OOXML" is certified by the ISO - even tho that version that they'll be feeding their users won't actually be the version that was actually certified. Read that again. The version of OOXML that Microsoft will be using WONT be compatible with the ISO OOXML that nobody but they can write an implimentation of - and anyone who manages to actually pull it off is at the risk of being sued by Microsoft for patent infringement. That is not a standard.
Doesn't matter much to me in the end - I'm simply never planning on using it. The problem comes from microsoft using "we're a standard" to trick governments and schools into using it when it's just as bad for long term archiving of electronic documents as using any particular version of Microsoft Office document. (They periodically drop support for older versions, and if they're not going to be implimenting the ISO version of OOXML from the get-go, then things don't look bright for it's future.
Don't mind me. Just ranting. :P Go read slashdot, you'll find plenty more detailed arguments about how bad a standard this is.
This is a horrible event and if it's true then it has effectively made a mockery of and discredited ISO certification.
To sum up some of the key points of why, on slashdot someone had asked "Sorry, but every article I read about OOXML is about the voting and standardization irregularities, and nothing I've found reviews OOXML from the users standpoint..."
And Neuticle (a slashdotter) had responded:
"That's pretty much because:
a) the voting irregularities are IMMENSE
and
b) there is no review on OOXML from the user's standpoint, because there is NO implementation (ZIP, ZERO, NONE) of the ISO candidate version of OOXML to review. Not even from Microsoft, who are using a different version now, and (IIRC) have stated that they WILL NOT be using the ISO version in the future, if it is approved. AND it is likely that there will never be a complete 3rd party implementation of the ISO OOXML standard because it is so long, complex and dependent on patents and references to legacy closed source software. MS happens to own that source and those patents and aren't about to give them away. So basically it's a dead end mockery of the ISO process."
What are some of the voting irregularities? Things such as lots of countries suddenly signing up to be on the voting board to vote in favor of OOXML - and that is the one and only thing they have voted on.
One of the more recent things in the last vote was from Norway which had changed it's vote from "NO" to "YES" in favor of it - this despite 19 of the 24 people voting had voted "NO" in that very vote.
So what's probably going to happen at this point, and this is just a gut feeling, is MS will start tooting about how their "OOXML" is certified by the ISO - even tho that version that they'll be feeding their users won't actually be the version that was actually certified. Read that again. The version of OOXML that Microsoft will be using WONT be compatible with the ISO OOXML that nobody but they can write an implimentation of - and anyone who manages to actually pull it off is at the risk of being sued by Microsoft for patent infringement. That is not a standard.
Doesn't matter much to me in the end - I'm simply never planning on using it. The problem comes from microsoft using "we're a standard" to trick governments and schools into using it when it's just as bad for long term archiving of electronic documents as using any particular version of Microsoft Office document. (They periodically drop support for older versions, and if they're not going to be implimenting the ISO version of OOXML from the get-go, then things don't look bright for it's future.
Don't mind me. Just ranting. :P Go read slashdot, you'll find plenty more detailed arguments about how bad a standard this is.
