chrisbray.co.uk

Some of you may be aware that Microsoft are proposing their Open OfficeXML (OOXML) as an ISO standard. Now, I'm involved in producing an international standard (see my blog about it over at http://www.diggsml.com) and I know what's involved.

This standardisation process MUST NOT be done by one company, simply releasing what they have and calling it a standard does not make it the correct answer, there needs to be much wider industry comment and review.

This is before you see that:

1. There is already an ISO standard for documents, ISO26300 called Open Document Format (ODF)
2. There is no provable implementation of OOXML! Even Microsoft's own Office 2007 does not properly implement it!
3. The specification is incomplete, there is a lot missing from it.
4. 10% of the "examples" proposed do not even validate as XML!
5. There is no guarantee that anyone can ever implement OOXML without being liable for (or breaking the rules on) patent fees on patents owned by Microsoft!
6. This standard proposal conflicts with other ISO standards, such as ISO 8601 (Representation of dates and times), ISO 639 (Codes for the Representation of Names and Languages) or ISO/IEC 10118-3 (cryptographic hash), this is proof of how ill-thought out OOXML is.
7. There is a bug in OOXML that forbids any date prior to 1900
8. Most importantly this standard proposal has NOT been created by bringing together the experience and expertise of all interested parties (such as the producers, sellers, buyers, users and regulators), but by Microsoft alone.

Please, please, support this petition opposing the introduction of Open OfficeXML as an ISO standard, it only takes a minute of your time.

http://www.noooxml.org/petition/