ISO blows fanfare for OOXML

What a bunch of BS. That's not even close to a standard. Now ISO is in question.

I'd love to see their reaction if a government specifies a contractual guarantee of standards compliance, with financial penalties for not complying. From all accounts, OOXML is effectively impossible to fully comply with, even for microsoft.

It makes no sense to have two non-compatible source document standards. ISO just approved ODt last year and now change their mind in favor of the Vole. Letting the market decide will be very expensive, and confusing. I refuse to use OOXML. I fear the Vole will win in the end

You folks should wrap copper wire and magnets around your articles. The amount of spin you put into them could generate a lot of environmentally healthy electricity.

But the last 18 letters are redundant.

The worlds first completely unimplemented standard.

How can M$'s OOXML be a standard?
ODF has been an open standard for years.
Looks like ISO can be bought, just like M$ buys everything else that obstructs them....they tried with the EU too, but failed.

Now it means, wave enough money in the USA and you become what you want...evan an ISO standard.

(1) OOXML in MS Office 2007 is NOT the same as the one being passed through ISO. The latter has additions that are NOT implemented in Office 2007. 

This is just a "rubber stamp" standard to allow Microsoft to get past Govt's (around the world), demands for open document standards. ie: "Oh look! Our OOXML is an ISO standard!"

(2) OOXML (one going through ISO) started at approx 6,000+ pages...It is now over 7,200+ pages. 

Ask yourself this: Are you going to read all that? Think about how big of a pile is that in Letter sized paper sheets sitting on your desk.

(3) MS's talk about ODF being the winner and they may consider supporting it in the future, is utter nonsense. (Just like the rest of their marketing its all lip service). 

You will NOT see official ODF support in MS Office 2007...EVER. You'll only see third-parties provide pathetic "plug-in" support. (Not enough to get you a good and accurate translation from one form to another).

Just like why you'll never see a Blu-Ray external drive for their Xbox 360. They do NOT officially accept other people's standards that they DO NOT control or start themselves. 

For Microsoft, 
=> Standards = Control
=> Control = Profit
=> Profit = More corporate lunches, marketing spinning, and chairs for their CEO to throw.

(4) One of MS's arguments for OOXML is that (to paraphrase): "two standards offer choice". 

WRONG! Two standards causes problems and MORE work than necessary. Anyone studying engineering will tell you the same thing...

EXAMPLE 1: Metric vs Imperial system mix up almost causes an air disaster.
=> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

EXAMPLE 2: Metric vs Imperial system mix up costs NASA millions as a Mars Orbiter is destroyed.
=> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter

When ISO says "the market decides which survives..."

It means that they do NOT care anymore! Plain and simple. They just want to get it over with and damn the consequences. 

The whole ISO process has proven to be one big joke. We know it, Microsoft knows, and even the members in ISO know it.

So its official. As of 2008, ISO is internationally recognised as => I Sold Out.

Just like what the UN has become...
UN = Unnecessary Nonsense.

This has taught everyone an important lesson: 

Standards, technical merit, honesty, integrity, etc means NOTHING when you have money, power, influence over anyone who's desperately willing to accept "benefits". There's really nothing to stop you in getting your way.

Or is there? Have a think about that... ;-)

In the real world IP has to be pooled to be part of a standard. A marketer's wet dream is "owning" a standard so they have been known to try pulling fast ones (e.g. with DRAM patents) but standards organizations are aware of this possibility and defend their processes from it.

The only reason that MSFT can get away with this is that its the big gorilla. Normally this process involves competing companies of similar sizes so no one company can dominate and force their proprietary IP down everyones' throats. ISO should have realized that they were dealing with lop-sided power and acted as a check on it. Instead they've brought the whole process into disrepute.

(But then the reason for this is obvious. The only competitive advantage that MSFT has with Office is the incompatible file formats -- the fear that "something won't work".)

Looks like standard can be bought then doesn't it.

Microsoft constantly change formats to secure their revenue stream, office 2007 now as .docx and .xlsx why? to ensure that openoffice is kept at arms length.

They also have a history of changing the SMB protocol through "patches" to stop linux samba servers working.

Why on earth would they want a document standard? They can be trusted, they are bunch of money grabbing monopolists.

There are *eight* currently active ISO/IEC Working Groups working on standards for programming languages: APL, COBOL, Fortran, Ada, C, Lisp, Prolog and C++. Are these also redundant?

Would you rather Microsoft defined their own format with no input from other interested parties, as happened in the binary .doc era? ODF isn't an option for Office's native file format, as it does not offer full fidelity with the older format and Office 2007's feature set, and Oasis would not accept any attempts from Microsoft to extend the format to support all of Office's features.

Standing Committee 34, responsible for "document description and processing languages", also published SGML. Surely that makes ODF redundant as well, by your arguments?

But although I am quite pissed off at ISO, it doesn't really matter whether OOXML is a "standard", since the only standard that is actually implemented is ODF.
So the market is going to decide by default, given that Microsoft is not going to be able to get anyone to implement its "standard" that it so blatantly pushed up everyone's ass.
Even so, I feel like someone should be fired for such a monumental cock-up.

Oh you sad whiner bore me so...