[OpenISO] The Deprecated "Smoke Screen" of MS Office Open XML (OOXML)

[Norbert Bollow]

Russell Ossendryver <worldlabel at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for reading my blog post. Sorry you dont quite agree with everything
> but since I am not a responsible journalist I can be a bit more sensational.

Hey, no need to apologize just because I don't fully agree :-)

> I have issues with ECMA that they should propose these resolutions now, when
> really these "repulsive aspects" should have been addressed in thier review.

I quite agree, and in fact I'm totally disinclined to say anything
positive about ECMA or its secretary-general whom I know because of
his role in the Swiss Association for Standardization where he's
quite unashamedly pushing for ECMA's agenda on issues like ignoring
what the ISO/IEC directives say about patents etc.

Also, I strongly agree with your main point that OOXML certainly
doesn't deserve to be accepted as an international standard because
it's entirely designed around the interests of a single monopolistic
company, and no amount of superficial massaging of the most repulsive
aspects can change that.

However I don't think that it's justified to also attack the people
who are members of ECMA TC45 simply because their employer is
interested in having a public-domain document with useful
interoperability information.  I think that the move to declare that
revulsive stuff "deprecated" comes from this kind of people.
This belief is based on the following observation: In the discussions
in the concerned committee of the Swiss Association for
Standardization, the Microsoft people were very reluctant to agree to
any proposal that involves declaring any of their software's behavior
"deprecated", but they did agree when pressed strongly enough.

> But they are in a rush to get fast-track and did not do thier job. I
> also think MS is totally directing all the activities of ECMA TC45.

Hmm, I think that if that were strictly the case, the statement from
the ECMA TC would be significantly different.  However it's of course
clear to all participants that no amount of rubber-stamping as a
"standard" will change the fact that OOXML is Microsoft's format.
Their interest in OOXML comes only from the felt need to interoperate
with Microsoft's software.  Therefore no-one is interested in pursuing
ideas for changes that Microsoft is not willing to make.  For these
reasons, MS certainly has immense influence on all the activities of
ECMA TC45 and this is not even a conspiracy theory but just a plain
effect of the economics of self-interest among the participants of the
committee.

The root of the problem is the unwillingness of ECMA and ISO/IEC to
see Microsoft's abuse of their dominant market position for what it is.
This is illegal under the laws of every civilized country including
Switzerland where ECMA and ISO and IEC are all based, but it seems
they're not going to care unless some interested party makes at least
a credible threat of going to court over the issue.

> > We should really get started with producing the planned "problem
> > report" document that will make clear what the main issues are.
> 
> Would be happy to give my input when ever possible.

Cool, thanks!

Maybe you could help us get started by proposing some text on how
it is totally unacceptable for a standard to be designed entirely
around the goal of interoperating with a monopolistic company?

Greetings,
Norbert.


-- 
Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch>                      http://Norbert.ch
President of the Swiss Internet User Group SIUG    http://SIUG.ch
Working on establishing a non-corrupt and
truly /open/ international standards organization  http://OpenISO.org