Unix Group Takes UK Standards Body To Court Over OOXML

superglaze writes "Halfway through the two-month window of opportunity during which OOXML's ISO standardization can be derailed by a formal objection from a national standards body, the UK Unix Users Group is trying to force the British Standards Institution to do just that. According to the Unix Users Group, the BSI used a flawed decision-making process when they chose to approve OOXML in the ISO vote. 'The UKUUG is also folding in many other complaints about Office Open XML (OOXML), such as unresolved patent issues and a lack of completion in the specification's documentation, and is calling for the High Court of Justice to force a judicial review of the BSI's decision.' This is not the first time a country's ISO vote has been challenged."

At least SOMEBODY is doing something!

Props UK, boo others.

Where are the mods?

I've got some karma to burn, so here's something blatantly off-topic. Where are the mods? I've hardly seen any comments above a 2 for the last several stories. Is nobody moderating anymore? Do I have my preferences set wrong? Feel free to reply as AC so you don't lose karma answering me. I'm just curious here.

The least ISO could do is drop ODF

If the people over at the ISO have any level of logic left within their collective, they would have some respect for ODF and the people who worked on it and drop it. It is impossible for ODF to exist favorably in the face of of MS-OOXML for several, non-technical reasons

No way

OOXML is such a foul, repugnant anti-standard, and it will be pushed so hard, that if it's accepted it will severely damage the whole idea of interoperability standards.

ODF implementations have been written for countless office apps. Getting that out is n

Re:No way

If Microsoft was really interested in standards at all they would simply have filed complaints against ODF so those involved could fix them.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

We can do both.

It's called teamwork. While one group is building the tools you mention, others are putting themselves in the path of an 800 lb. gorilla. It's not just the heroes who save the day, but all of the little people in red shirts that buy them time.

Parent post is a troll. Mod it down

> The best thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.

You're damn right. But OOXML is not a standard. A standard has to be documented properly and (which is more important) completely. OOXML satisfies neither of these conditions. So

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

If you think it is ODF or RTF or HTML or any of the hundreds of file formats for document representation that should be the choice of governments, then get good, usable versions of software into the market.

That's being done, has been done. It was done before OOXML was even pretending to be a viable standard. It's the whole reason OOXML was pushed as a standard.

And it's not mutually exclusive with fighting OOXML.

So you shoot yourself in the foot by appearing to want to go technologically backwards and like whiny bitches at the same time.

Wow, nice spin-doctoring.

The alternative is to say nothing, which would be seen as tacit acceptance -- and then we would actually be forced to implement this "standard". So we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't. At least this way, there's a chance we'll get the decision reversed.

Because I care a lot more about actually working with ODF (and not working with ODF) then looking good by cooperating with OOXML in any way.

Save the energy you want to spend on protests and lawsuits and direct it towards building a better product.

See, the problem is, we tried that, and it didn't work.

Re:

So because you can't win, you will complain until your technically superior solution is accepted?

Well, this is how we win.

Put another way: No, we can't win by throwing large sacks of cash around, the way Microsoft is. You found us out -- we simply cannot compete.

I, for one, would much rather win on technical merits. But technical merits can't buy peo

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

The best thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.

I thought the advantage of standards was to reduce divergence in systems. The more implementations of particular items, such as screws, conform to a standard, such as phillips head, the better it is for the people who use screws.

Instead of focusing energy on the ISO vote, focus on getting implementations of the standard that *you* think is reasonable into widespread usage. If you think it is ODF or RTF or HTML or any of the hundreds of file formats for document representation that should be the choice of governments, then get good, usable versions of software into the market.

Energy has/is being focused on implementations of another standard and there are already good implementations of the formats you mention from numerous sources including Microsoft.

The problem with OOXML is that it cannot be implemented by anyone other than a single vendor because the format as defined contains references to specific behavior without actually specifying said behavior.

Where a vote has been passed on an obviously incomplete specification and through such blatant corruption, it should be challenged. This is the duty of anyone who values freedom and democracy - and for people intelligent enough to appreciate the importance of the the rule of law. The fact that the format was pushed through by Microsoft in particular is irrelevant to this point.

Standing around crying because Microsoft bought a standard is only counterproductive and makes you come off looking like a bunch of whiners. On top of that, because the whining is explicitly anti-this new standard, it is implicitly perceived to be against progress. So you shoot yourself in the foot by appearing to want to go technologically backwards and like whiny bitches at the same time.

The UKUUG taking legal action over the corruption in the vote doesn't make them look like whiners. It makes them look like learned elders who are about to take a stick to a bunch of delinquents. And all power to them.

Protest against the standardization of OOXML doesn't appear technologically backwards when conducted in an appropriate forum and it portrays OOXML as the backwards step it truly is.

As the web makes it possible for more devices from more vendors to inter-operate seamlessly, along comes a format which is only really implementable by one vendor. If someone was to try this with heads or threads, they'd be totally screwed. Microsoft needed to pay to have this pass and by highlighting that at every step of the way, the more money they pour into this, the more corrupt they appear and the more they blacken their own name.

Save the energy you want to spend on protests and lawsuits and direct it towards building a better product.

Oh nonononono. Silly little monkey.

This is not about a product. This is about a format to be implemented by anyone who can read a specification

A reasonable open standard already exists.

Using the judiciary to defeat corruption wherever it exists is entirely correct. That is one of the reasons for it's existence.

Toss pot

Re:

Standing around crying because Microsoft bought a standard is only counterproductive and makes you come off looking like a bunch of whiners.

This is the important bit, I think: M$ is trying damn hard to get people to believe that all this whining is simply because of *them* instead of their flawed standard or corrupt practices. And they are succeeding, unfortunately. "You are against OOXML? Oh

Re:

Here [slashdot.org], from all of about 6 posts up the page.

Re:

The only valid point against OOXML is that it contains unclear and/or unimplementable aspects, thus denying others from the ability to create supporting implementations. However, if this is the case, and MS is unwilling to create OOXML implementations for non-MS/Apple platforms, how successful do you really expect the standard to be?

Which in and of itself is a reason ISO should've rejected it in the first place, based on their own requirements... that a proposed open standard have a fully working implementation. No such thing exists for OOXML.

The UKUUG taking legal action over the corruption in the vote doesn't make them look like whiners. It makes them look like learned elders who are about to take a stick to a bunch of delinquents.

No, it looks like they are whining over a decision that didn't go their way.

No, it makes them look like they've loo

Re:

The issue is that OOXML is an inferior "standard", which has been forced through the process using bribery, corruption and ignorance, and all while a superior standard for the same thing already exists. If microsoft were truly interested in standards and i

Re:

what has Microsoft done wrong with this? What has the ISO body done wrong?

Frankly this is obvious to anyone who's read anything about this - I'm going to assume you're a troll if you're still asking the question.

Just in case you're not trolling; ISO stand

OOXML can and has been independently implemented.

Would you care to give an example of such an independent implementation? According to Alex Brown, the person who convened the Ballot Resolution Meeting for ISO/IEC, Microsoft's own current current implementation does not conform to the 'standard' [griffinbrown.co.uk]

Ah, NOW I

Re:I am lost?

what has Microsoft done wrong with this?

Very likely bribed various national delegations so that they'd approve OOXML. In fact, quite a few third-world countries joined the standards process specifically to vote for OOXML, and then do nothing else. Bribery is the only plausible explanation, because approving OOXML otherwise goes strongly against their own self interest (because OOXML is unimplementable by anyone other than (and perhaps even including) Microsoft, and therefore they would be tying themselves to a "standard" controlled by a foreign corporation with no free implementation.

What has the ISO body done wrong?

ISO let the bribery and committee-stuffing happen, fast-tracked the process when there was no good reason to do it and many good reasons not to, completely ignored its own processes and procedures during the approval process, gave woefully too little time for comments and debate, ratified the standard despite voting irregularities in several countries, and ignored the public when they pointed all this shit out!

Any other silly questions?

Re:I am lost?

There is plenty of documentation of voting irregularities, which at the very least should be investigated before OOXML can be ratified.

The fast track process is for existing "defacto standards" that are widely used and implemented, and only really need a rubber stamp. OOXML is not widely implemented nor widely used at this point, it should have gone through the normal process. Perhaps the recent standardisation of PDF as ISO32000 was through the fast track, and would have deserved being fast tracked.

According to ISO guidelines, standards should reuse existing standards, preferably ISO ones... OOXML does not, it does mostly the same thing as ODF but in a completely different way, it also stores dates in a way conflicting with existing ISO standards, stores country codes in a different way, stores measurements in a different way and more. Thus it is in violation of ISO guidelines and should not have been approved.

There are other more specific issues, plenty documented out on the web... But the 3 above show where they have violated ISO rules, which should at the very least be enough to kick ooxml off the fast track and into the regular process.

As for ignoring it, unfortunately microsoft are large enough that they can force their inferior format on the market, so it will be impossible to ignore. If the market were free, and people were able to choose products based on technical merit microsoft wouldn't be anywhere near as big as they are.

Re:

OOXML is not widely implemented nor widely used at this point

In fact, OOXML is not implemented AT ALL in ANY product, according to the leader of ISO Alex Brown: http://www.griffinbrown.co.uk/blog/PermaLink,guid,3e2202cd-59a3-4356-8f30-b8eb79735e1a.aspx [griffinbrown.co.uk]

--Joe

Re:

There are 3 things.

1: The entire coruption problem. Giving money and other benefits for people/companies so they vote for you is not ok.

2: The entire rush is a big problem. The right way for microsoft to design OOXML as a ISO standard for text documents, w

Re:I am lost?

The real problem with ooXML is that its a bad standard. Its bad because it really fails to specify how to encode a document. It fails in essentially two major place. The first could be corrected, its simply that there are a number of ambiguities around the formating(display),percision(display), and storage(document) of non integer numeric values. A spread sheet should calculate and spit out the same results regardless of the software you open it in.

The second issue is ooXML allows large binary blobs of virtually any type to be encoded in the document. Binary in XML and in office documents is not all bad. Certainly for multi-media type things like pictures and sounds its appropriate. I would argue however that there should be limits on WHAT binary formats are allowed. Those should reference other standards. Being able to parse out the stucture of a document only to discover all the content is locked up in some binary format you have no idea what the stucture of is, is downright useless. The reason for standards is so that people can interoperate if you can't do that then the standard is broken.

Before people jump all over me about how being able to interoperate does not mean that you can display he document exactly as it is in Word or whatever let me say "I know that". The content should be accessible though. Rendering should be about how the user wants to display it. A blind person might want a text to speach enginge to read a document to them. The standard should allow them in all cases to dump out the text data from the document. It should be possible to run into the binary objects and have the software say "there is an image here" etc etc. That's usefull "Document, contains unkown data" is not.

Re:This is whiney nerd crap.

Standards are important.
My car is made by $COMPANY1.
I can buy tires for it made by $COMPANY2.
I can put them on wheels made by $COMPANY3.
I can tighten the weelnuts with a wrench from $COMPANY4.

You get the idea?
I'm sure that $COMPANY1 would just love to sell me everything to do with my car from the tires on up, but they can't because it's all STANDARD.
STANDARDS are good for consumers, Monopolies are not.

Re:

This is whiney nerd crap.....10,000 news-worthy things happen every day

But this is "News for Nerds." Are you not aware of what site you are posting a comment on?

Re:Anyone else

Because those of us that have and are sent Word documents in email give a shit.

Because those of us that go to school and are told to type our papers in Word and to turn in .doc files give a shit.

Because those of us who take online classes and have to download Word documents give a shit.

Because those of us that work in governments and want to be able to exchange information with other agencies give a shit.

Because libraries that believe in open and easily accessible information give a shit.

Because those of us that don't want to use MS Word give a shit.

Because those of us that can't afford MS Word give a shit.

Because makers of other office suites give a shit.

Because those of use that use FOSS give a shit.

Because historians don't want to rely on a MS rosetta stone give a shit.

Because I give a shit.

Re:

You also left out the single most important issue because of the importance of international standards in providing standards by which the quality of goods and services can be measured and quantified to ensure reasonable quality and safe use.

The blatant