[LINK] Office 'Open' XML

[Glen Turner]

On Wed, 2007-09-05 at 12:11 +1000, Brendan Scott wrote:
> Howard Lowndes wrote:
> > Don't hold you breath until ISO declares it so.
> 
> http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1070
> 
> A ballot on whether to publish the draft standard ISO/IEC DIS 29500, Information technology ? Office Open XML file formats, as an International Standard by ISO (International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) has not achieved the required number of votes for approval.

"Approval" here is a jargon word.  It means "approval for immediate
publication as-is".  That is what has failed.

The OOXML Draft now goes to a Ballot Resolution Meeting -- essentially
a working group -- where all of the Comments made during the voting
are collated by the group. The submitter of the specification --
nominally ECMA but really Microsoft -- then addresses each of the
Comments.  A vote is then taken. If that vote fails then the Draft
is discarded without prejudice. If that vote succeeds then the Draft
is updated with the Comment Resolutions and published.

This process is designed for a collegiate atmosphere where Drafts
of high quality lead to a small number of Comments being raised
(for example, a National Body may point out some localisation
quirk).

The process is going to come under a lot of stress. Microsoft is
already stacking the attendees of the Ballot Resolution Meeting.
It's also plain that some Comments are well outside those the
process is designed to deal with -- such as France's Comment
advocating the merger of ODF and OOXML. 

Cheers, Glen