ooxml

Novell has turned their downstream build system at OO-Build into a fork of OpenOffice.org into which they are pushing Microsoft’s OOXML support and in which they make improvements to OO.o which aren’t often upstreamed to the main project.

Linux Magazine: "The International Standards Organization (ISO) is up in arms over the fact that documentation for Microsoft's OOXML data format is now publicly available on the Internet."

Given Microsoft's insanely combative nature that for the last 30 years has seen the company fight on and on and on – often past the point of rationality - why would it meekly concede that “ODF has clearly won?” Could it be because it plans is to *co-opt* that victory?

IBM's new “IT Standards Policy” reads like a catalogue of what went wrong with OOXML at the ISO. This means the questions already raised by many about the ISO's role in today's world of increasingly open technical standards have assumed a new urgency; the longer they go unanswered, the sooner an alternative forum is likely to be found.

Information Week: "If MS-OOXML can be approved, I'd like to see what will be rejected in the future. Sorta feels like you're watching an NBA game where the officials have already placed their bets!"

Groklaw: "There is an unexpected reaction from major government IT agencies in six countries condemning the ISO/IEC refusal to act on the four appeals against OOXML, which they say "reflects poorly" on ISO/IEC.

They have signed and sent an open letter to ISO, which I'll show you in full."

Ars technica: "I asked Sutor if he thinks that the murky OOXML process will lead to uncertainty about standards in general.

He doesn't accept that possibility and argued instead that the widespread public scrutiny received by OOXML is a sign that people are beginning to care deeply about open standards."

IT Pro: "Microsoft's problems with OOXML just won't go away. MS-OOXML was supposed to supplant the Open Document Format (ODF), but is becoming an embarrassment.

As a format it betrays its hurried origins, and is over-complex. At best, it has technical problems. At worst, it is barely fit for purpose."

Help defeat Microsoft's OOXML format! The OOXML fight continues: here's one way you can help.

Microsoft has admitted that, despite being one of the dominant names in IT for more than 30 years, it had little or no experience of software standards until the company was mid-way through the process of ...