Family Holloway

(This isn’t a nuanced opinion, that would be very long!)

The ISO Standardisation of OOXML in 17 Easy Steps

1. We have had over 15 years of secret file-formats changing with every version of Microsoft Office in order to stifle competition and force annual upgrades to compatible software (the upgrade treadmill),
2. It’s a principle of government that they should be vendor neutral. If a government said “All Ford trucks can drive 20 kilometres faster than all other cars” there would be outrage! In the late 1990s governments all around the world realized that web sites shouldn’t favour Microsoft Internet Explorer, and that they must use vendor-neutral standards.
3. This argument is then extended to Office Suites and their secret file-formats. For vendor-neutrality/competition some governments propose moving away from Microsoft Office’s format to a new standard called OpenDocument (ODF) which is used by OpenOffice.org, KOffice and many others. ODF was approved by ISO under the ‘PAS’ process.
4. Microsoft are concerned that they’ll lose their government sales because their Office Suite doesn’t use a standard. If government start using a competitor and putting money into them then maybe something like Firefox will spring up to take them on in Office Suites. Their Microsoft Office cash-cow that earns them (something like) 3.8 billion every 3 months is under threat!
5. Microsoft respond not by supporting ODF but by proposing a competing faux-standard, OOXML (Office Open XML). They hurriedly rush through some poorly written documentation with hundreds (if not thousands) of mistakes that can’t be implemented in full. This is good enough for Ecma International, who approve it as a standard called ECMA-376. ECMA-376 is a complete mess — inconsistent, buggy, inflexible, ugly (non-mixed content model, OLE, DEVMODE).
6. ECMA-376 is submitted to the ISO under the ‘Fast Track’ process, and is now given the name DIS-29500. It’s not a normal process that allows time for improvement, it’s a brief 9 month review of 6000 pages (that’s a lot).
7. Lobbying begins internationally. To stereotype the process into two camps, it’s the people who want to get out from the monopoly Vs those who benefit from the monopoly (Microsoft and business partners).
8. Every country gets a vote in the ISO, so New Zealand is as big as the United States, China, India … and each country has 9 months to comment on OOXML. The proposed standard is soon recognized as being technically awful, broken, not-cross-platform, designed to confer the appearance of standardisation but without the detail necessary.
9. The ISO doesn’t necessarily decide on technical merit, there’s a lot of non-techies who are open to all kinds of arguments other than the quality of the standard. They’re not the ITTF either, they don’t need implementations to prove the standard. The ‘Fast Track’ can just approve stuff.
10. Process irregularities come out in favour of Microsoft. There are accusations of corruption. They’re caught stuffing the ballot in Sweden. Lots of small African nations suddenly sign-up and favour Microsoft. Public perception is that the ISO process itself is quite hackable.
11. Microsoft lose the late 2007 vote, but there’s another final chance.
12. Microsoft make some changes to OOXML in response to national comments, but a 9 month review has only touched the surface of the problems within OOXML.
13. They probably will win this current vote (March 2008) and gain ISO approval for OOXML.
14. A lot more accusations of process irregularities, some by people from within the process.
15. If OOXML gains approval then the ISOs reputation will be in tatters within the technical community.
16. The backlash against Microsoft and the ISO will be strong. This Slashdot post sumarises this well: Slashdot: Microsoft’s Miscalculation.
17. But really we’re just back to Microsoft Office and its secrets (due to the poor quality of OOXML). We have the same task ahead of us. We need to promote open standards as a way out from the upgrade treadmill. We need to get people to switch software. The work has only just begun.

Coming up next… my involvement in the New Zealand process.

Edit: corrected estimations of Microsoft revenue on their office suite (it’s only 3.8 Billion every 3 months).

This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 9:43 pm and is filed under OOXML. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.