The Proliferation of Linux

In an interview with Ars Technica, Bob Sutor, IBM’s vice president of open source and standards, reveals that he believes that Microsoft’s OOXML format will die off, regardless of the outcome of the ISO appeals process.

He is convinced that the industry will regard OOXML as a dead end, and that will force Microsoft to accept ODF. We have already seen some evidence of this in Microsoft’s recent decision to support ODF in Office—a change of heart that was precipitated by pressure from ODF adopters. Sutor suspects that this trend will continue and that Microsoft will eventually fully embrace ODF.

Ars Technica

ISO has responded to the appeal launched against OOXML standardisation.  In essence ISO says that there is no grounds for appeal and that the process was just fine and dandy.

1. All judgments made during the course of the process were appropriately made under the Directives
2. The fact that the BRM voted on all proposed resolutions in some fashion satisfies the Directives
3. The fact that a sufficient percentage of National Bodies (NBs) ultimately voted to approve DIS 29500 ratifies the process and any flaws in that process
4. Many objections, regardless of their merits, are irrelevant to the appeals process

Groklaw & ConsortiumInfo.org [via Slashdot]

Despite the deadline for appeals having already lapsed, Denmark has become the fourth country (after South Africa, Brazil and India) to appeal the OOXML decision.  The reasons cited include that ISO rules were broken, there was no consensus in Denmark, and that the Fast Track process “has been formally annulled for 2 months now - since the 29th of March, where the specification should have been sent to the national standardization organizations. The basis for a fast track procedure is no longer present, and I therefore expect ISO to pick up the case again.”

This article seems to be raising a serious question. If there is no final draft yet, and for unknown reasons there isn’t, and if Microsoft itself is not supporting OOXML yet, and it says it isn’t, how is true interoperability possible? This couldn’t be a deliberate delay game, could it? I hate to think that, but I confess this article has started me thinking in a brand new way about the delay in delivering the final draft. And since currently Microsoft isn’t supporting ODF, only promising to do so someday, where does that leave interoperability? Finally, since ODF 1.1, as I understand it, has issues with spreadsheets and accessibility that are solved in ODF 1.2, why did Microsoft choose to support the version that works less well? Is their goal really interoperability or just the appearance of a willingness to do it someday?

Groklaw has the full story, and more analysis…

Groklaw [via Slashdot]

South Africa has already launched an appeal against the standardisation of OOXML and now Brazil is following suit.  Apparently the reason why the appeal took so long was that Microsoft represantitives were in the meetings and kept asking for delays:

At the end of this presentation, the representative of [Microsoft] has taken the line of defense for his companions in the room: “I am not prepared, at this meeting, to evaluate the arguments and decide. I need more time.” It is worth highlighting that this meeting was scheduled on May 8th (date of our last meeting) and officially convened on May 19th.

[ homembit via Slashdot]

According a a blog post be Steve Pepper, the former chairman of the Norway standards commitee responsible for evaluating OOXML, South Africa’s national standards body, SABS, has appealed over the OOXML ballot at ISO.

“The South African national standards body, SABS, has appealed against the result of the OOXML DIS 29500 ballot in ISO. In a letter sent to the General Secretary of the IEC (co-sponsor with ISO of JTC1), the SABS expresses its “deep concern over the increasing tendency of international organizations to use the JTC 1 process to circumvent the consensus-building process that is the cornerstone to the success and international acceptance of ISO and IEC standards.”"

Steve Pepper also expressed some concern over whether the evaluation of the appeal will be impartial.  Read more on Steve Pepper’s blog.

[ Topic Maps via Slashdot]