ISO votes to reject Microsoft's OOXML as standard. | The Coffeehouse

Sourcecode
Whatever it is, I didn't do it.

Here is the story.

It's not that big of a deal. Though I suspect it'll hold back some forward momentum until it is recognized. Especially where government bodies are concerned. Seems there is a big push toward open standards in government, almost to the point where it is becoming mandated.

Anyone have any experience with OOXML and would care to share their opinion on it?

Was this going to be used strictly in Office or does MS have other implementation plans ?

cheers

mig
Punctuality is the virtue of the bored. - Evelyn Waugh

Chinmay007 wrote:
It's not a complete loss, but it can cause some issues:

1) Microsoft can revise the standard

which means

1) Microsoft Office 2007 must be revised along with it, creating a possible mess with two different OOXML formats running around

-or-

2) Microsoft Office 2007 won't support standard ISO OOXML

If that is the case a service pack will most likely bring the OOXML format up to ISO standard and allow for backward compatibility saving (pre ISO standard). This approach seems to make the most sense, however since Service Packs are free and recommended I don't see why this should pose much of a problem for most people.

wkempf

Chinmay007 wrote:
It's not a complete loss, but it can cause some issues:

1) Microsoft can revise the standard

which means

1) Microsoft Office 2007 must be revised along with it, creating a possible mess with two different OOXML formats running around

-or-

2) Microsoft Office 2007 won't support standard ISO OOXML

I'm willing to bet most of the "comments" on the standard were looking for clarifications and more details, not actual changes that would impact the current Office. (For example, with heard the rumblings on here about "binary blobs" that are undocumented features for backwards compatibility with older Office formats. Fixing such an issue (if it exists) would only entail modifications to the document, and not any actual change to the existing format.) Even if there were changes required, you'd just be looking at a new version of Office and/or some service packs. As an XML format, if it's designed correctly, having multiple versions is a non-issue.

Kryptos
Backup People!

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/123978/microsoft-takes-big-step-towards-ooxml-approval.html

So it looks like it will happen....

Ray6

wkempf wrote:

Chinmay007 wrote:It's not a complete loss, but it can cause some issues:

1) Microsoft can revise the standard

which means

1) Microsoft Office 2007 must be revised along with it, creating a possible mess with two different OOXML formats running around

-or-

2) Microsoft Office 2007 won't support standard ISO OOXML

I'm willing to bet most of the "comments" on the standard were looking for clarifications and more details, not actual changes that would impact the current Office. (For example, with heard the rumblings on here about "binary blobs" that are undocumented features for backwards compatibility with older Office formats. Fixing such an issue (if it exists) would only entail modifications to the document, and not any actual change to the existing format.) Even if there were changes required, you'd just be looking at a new version of Office and/or some service packs. As an XML format, if it's designed correctly, having multiple versions is a non-issue.

It may be a little more complicated than that I'm afraid ....

PC World wrote:

Many of the national standard bodies voting against the OOXML proposal accompanied their votes with comments on what must be changed before they will vote in favor. ISO committee JTC1 must now reconcile those objections with the text, and find a compromise that will win enough votes to get through.
That will be difficult, as the French Association for Standardization, Afnor, wants to tear the proposal into two parts: a "core" part, which it wants to see converged over the course of three years with the competing Open Document Format (ODF), already an ISO standard, and an "extensions" part dealing with compatibility with legacy documents in proprietary formats.
France is not alone in suggesting modifications to the standard: Brazil raised more than 60 objections, including issues of support for different languages and date formats, while the standards body in India was concerned that OOXML is incompatible with the ODF standard.