Voices for Innovation

VFI member Stephen McGibbon has been doing a lot of blogging on the Open XML debate.  With the final voting period for national bodies concluding on March 29th, McGibbon cross links to Patrick Durusau's post on what would happen if Open XML is voted down at ISO.  Durusau is an editor of OpenDocument (ODF).   

In general, Durusau writes, and McGibbon supports, that the following will lose if Open XML loses:

1. National bodies lose an open and international forum for further work on DIS 29500.
2. Microsoft based third-party vendors may be excluded from contracts because Microsoft has no ISO approved format.
3. ODF has no ISO-based formula definitions to insure compatibility between OpenDocument and OpenXML.
4. ODF has no ISO-based definition of MS legacy features for an ODF extension.
5. ODF has no ISO-based definition of the current MS format for mapping purposes.

You should also check out the following post from Jan van den Beld, former senior official for the standards body Ecma International.  He writes: 

I do want to avoid going into the smearing campaigns against individuals as much a possible. Only some general remarks. It looks that there are still many people presenting themselves as process or material experts who believe that arguments become stronger and better when shouting louder and using dirty language. A few people even express their views that following the formal roads to improving standardization processes is no longer the most effective way to achieve something in the standards area. If individuals believe that the whole standardization process is without value, one can wonder why ODF proponents have ever sought the ISO/IEC logo on their standard.
IBM has happily been fanning the flames of many attacks, just as it was aggressive in its failed attempt to stop international acceptance of Open XML. IBM seem to go through different phases in its relation with JTC 1: in the eighties full support and even driving JTC 1, in the nineties IBM withdrew almost completely from JTC 1 and national activities, and did we now arrive at their pure butt and bray approach? When Ecma was invited by SUN in 1999 to make a standard for Java, IBM was pushing hard to make it happen. And what was the preferred process? Well, no surprise: first a ‘catch-up’ project in Ecma to be followed by a Fast-Track process in JTC 1, exactly the same what has been used for OpenXML to bring it as soon as possible to the international level. Indeed, nothing new under the sun unless your attitude changes and you have gone sour.
 

You can view his post at the following; http://janvandenbeld.blogspot.com/