Open XML - US Vote Progress Continues

Article
08/20/2007

I have spent the past 2 weeks looking at really big trees and getting my perspective reset as it applies to scale and time. Yet, as I come back to email and industry news, things are still moving along with Open XML. I have been in touch with a bunch of people over the past 24 hours and here are some thoughts on the US vote and the status of a few things in general.

US INCITS Vote

Even though there were early predictions of doom for Open XML from Andy Updegrove and Rob Weir (and others), the US vote is likely to be either a “Yes with comments” or “Abstain” – not a ”No” vote. While the parties opposed to ISO adoption of Open XML have gone quiet on the US vote in the blogosphere, I think it is worth taking a close look at this key vote. In order to clarify my opinion – here are the details as I understand them.

The INCITS Executive Board voted on July 19 to distribute a ballot on Open XML with “Yes with Comments” as the US position. This was not the final vote of the US National Body for submission to ISO, only one step in the procedure to get to the US position. Votes were submitted and reviewed in another meeting of the EB on Wed, August 15. The first round of voting had resulted in 8 “yes,” 7 “no,” and 1 “abstain” vote (the only three options on the motion before the EB). The individuals who voted “No” discussed the basis for their votes, and the meeting progressed as the group worked on resolving some of these issues. By the end of the meeting enough of those who originally cast a “No” vote indicated likely support for a second “Yes with Comments” ballot to begin on Thursday August 16. Thus, the ballot will move to the next phase as “Yes with Comments” heading into a Resolution Meeting on August 29. At that meeting, if Open XML gets 10 supporting votes, the US position on Open XML will be “Yes with Comments.” If it does not get the 10 needed votes, the EB is being asked to consider “Abstain with Comments” as its fall-back position. At this point, it seems a “No with Comments” is off the table.

IBM’s Motivations

If it has been unclear as to why IBM is so interested in keeping Open XML from being an ISO standard, the recent release of IBM Notes and Domino 8 continue to underline the fact that IBM has development investment, product sales, and consulting practice interests in the success of ODF. (I find it interesting that in their press release for Notes 8 they talk about ODF but NOT ISO ODF - why then so much concern about ISO Open XML from them?)

OK, that is fine – they should be interested in the success of their products, but this interest also drives the desire to have ODF / Open XML and ISO/IEC standardization as a differentiator. Given this self-interest, the irony is not lost on me that they are generating numerous technical comments for Open XML and advocating to National Bodies that these issues warrant a “No” vote even as IBM and Sun are working hard at OASIS on ODF to fix its many technical issues. Should ODF 1.0 not have been approved as an ISO standard because it was submitted prematurely in order for the interested parties to get a market competitive differentiator? (Keep in mind, the Massachusetts ETRM policy does NOT specify the ISO spec for ODF – they specify the OASIS spec because the ISO version is no longer current.)

The Standard Works

Even more important than the clash of the titans I keep referring to with IBM and Microsoft is the number of Open XML implementations already being delivered to market. Open XML is being widely adopted on Linux, Mac, and other platforms for office productivity products:

OpenOffice Novell Edition
OpenOffice Linspire edition
open-source spreadsheet project Gnumeric
Xandros has announced its intent to implement Open XML on desktop Linux solutions
Neo-Office 2.1 (based on OpenOffice.org) for the Mac platform
Apple’s support in iWork ’08, as well as on the iPhone
Palm ‘Documents to Go’ from Dataviz

A big question raised by the detractors of Open XML has been about only one vendor doing an implementation of the specification. There are HUNDREDS of organizations doing this already and the specification has been and Ecma standard for less than a year. The process of opening the doc format through the standards process is doing what it is supposed to do – the standard works.

Accusations Will Fly

The rhetoric is going to heat up as we move through the beginning of September. There will be wrangling over process, over technical changes, over business strategy, etc., etc. Keep in mind, the actual outcome of this standardization effort will not be known until after the formal ISO/IEC JTC 1 Ballot Resolution Meeting sometime in early 2008. Everyone with a vested interest in this – both pro and con – are working with all of the tools available to them. No matter what people argue about, though – at the heart of this remains the idea that making document formats more open is a good thing.

Comments

Anonymous
August 19, 2007
PingBack from http://msdnrss.thecoderblogs.com/2007/08/20/open-xml-us-vote-progress-continues/
Anonymous
August 19, 2007
Jason has news of what's been happening in the US' INCITS Executive Board which is very positive. ..
Anonymous
August 20, 2007
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 20, 2007
Hal - I will follow up on these two and get back to this thread (and maybe do a top-level posting on the first question). thx Jason
Anonymous
August 20, 2007
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 20, 2007
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 21, 2007
The September 2 vote on DIS 29500 is rapidly approaching, and Jason Matusow has posted a wrap-up of where
Anonymous
August 21, 2007
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 21, 2007
Andre -

I have talked at length about the participation in these committees. I think you should look very carefully at the behavior of both pro and con sides here before casting aspersions. People with vested interests are participating - that is a good thing. Around the world committees have rules and are working hard to adhere to those rules. Some had rules changes made just to make it harder for this spec to be approved (IBM's effective work to change the rules in Itally for example) will make it harder for all specifications going through this process. I have said it again and again, both sides are working hard to acheive their goals. We should all be very clear on that.
On the self interest front - yep, that is how it works when private orgs participate in standards bodies. I write what I do about IBM because they wrap themselves in a flag of goodness and light for society when in effect, they are seeking to reduce their customers' choices in favor of thier own interests. That is why I focus on their behavior. Microsoft clearly has an interest in this as well and I have never said anything different on that point. our customers, partners, and competitors all asked us to open up the document format....we did.
Why do we want it to be an ISO/IEC standard - because our customers, partners, competitors, and governments have asked us to standardize the format (which has been accomplished), and in this case, taking it to the international standards level was the right thing to do. Not all standards go this route, but Ecma decided that considering the attention and focus on this, and the feedback received, this was the right move for Open XML.
For most, the fact that something is standardized by ISO/IEC is not critical - rather they focus on the implementation, the documentation, the support, partners, price, performance, etc. etc. of the product. Also, technology moves more quickly than the standards bodies do. The MA ETRM policy doesn't even specify the ISO/IEC spec for ODF - they focus on OASIS as it represents the more current work on that format. Thx for the comments. Jason

Anonymous
August 21, 2007
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 22, 2007
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 22, 2007
Andrew - I have not seen the same consistency you have for the choice discussion from IBM. In Minnesota this past summer as they were lobbying for the ODF preference legislation - they argued that PDF was ok because it served a different purpose. Yet, it is a document format. It is a document format for an application that is competing in the marketplace for office automation. Adobe would argue that the format represents the unique innovations of their products. I do not think that they are making arguments in bad faith - just in faith that meets their business needs. Microsoft's motivations are to do what is best for its business as well. But, in this case - that happens to be based upon significant requests to go down this path. Customers have told us they want this choice. This is why I keep saying that everyone with vested interests are working hard to see their point of view succeed. Italy - the rules changes happend shortly before the balloting process began for Open XML. Thx - Jason
Anonymous
August 22, 2007
Rick - thanks for the clarification on the BRM process. Jason
Anonymous
August 22, 2007
Jason, As usual I'd like to move on to a deeper point which I think underpins the issue we're talking about here. I've not been able to find anything as concise as a mission statement on the ISO's website, but my instinct would be to make it something along the lines of "to find and publicising the right solution to problems faced by consumers"; the key point in that definition is that it implies a 1:1 mapping from problems to solutions (because either one solution is better than the other, or there's no difference so you can just pick one arbitrarily). I get the impression that you'd give them a mission statement more like "to document known solutions to problems so as to enable the free market to choose the best result"; the key point there is that the ISO should act like a referee, ensuring the game is played fairly without affecting the result. Although the above argument has very broad implications, it relates specifically to the discussion of IBM's behaviour because I can only understand your above comment if your implicit premise is that the whole business of standardisation is just a way of helping the market along (rather than a way of deciding the winning solution). I'm not making a criticism of that position, I'd just like to understand it.
- Andrew
Anonymous
August 22, 2007
Germany just announced that their vote for Open XML will be “YES with comments”. The INCITS Executive
Anonymous
August 22, 2007
Jason, As usual I'd like to move on to a deeper point which I think underpins the issue we're talking about here. I've not been able to find anything as concise as a mission statement on the ISO's website, but my instinct would be to make it something along the lines of "to find and publicising the right solution to problems faced by consumers"; the key point in that definition is that it implies a 1:1 mapping from problems to solutions (because either one solution is better than the other, or there's no difference so you can just pick one arbitrarily). I get the impression that you'd give them a mission statement more like "to document known solutions to problems so as to enable the free market to choose the best result"; the key point there is that the ISO should act like a referee, ensuring the game is played fairly without affecting the result. Although the above argument has very broad implications, it relates specifically to the discussion of IBM's behaviour because I can only understand your above comment if your implicit premise is that the whole business of standardisation is just a way of helping the market along (rather than a way of deciding the winning solution). I'm not making a criticism of that position, I'd just like to understand it.
- Andrew
Anonymous
August 22, 2007
Germany just announced that their vote for Open XML will be “YES with comments”. The INCITS Executive
Anonymous
August 22, 2007
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 23, 2007
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 23, 2007
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 23, 2007
As an addendum to my previous comment, does the following accurately reflect your opinion: "the ISO's job is comparable to food hygiene agencies - to verify that a product is safe to consume. Arguing that the ISO should require office workers to unify around one format or other is as like arguing that the government should require meat-eaters to unify around beef".
- Andrew
Anonymous
August 23, 2007
Andrew - I'd like to share a beer with you sometime (I may have expressed that already). There are parts I agree with, and disagree with. Because it is late:

I don't know that I agree on the IP thought for ISO - clearly a company like Qualcomm would disagree completely with it. Microsoft has been very liberal with IP in the standards arena throughout our history as we rarely (extremely) seek royalties from standards. Our business is about selling binaries - not charging for IP. IP licensing is something we are doing more of today than in the past - but it is approximatley 1/10th of what we pay out annually in IP licenses to other companies. The Microsoft OSP - www.microsoft.com/interop/osp - is something worth looking at if you have not.
I don't know that I would characterize ISO as a tool of the free market. Implementations of ISO standards certainly compete in the free market - but standards bodies, particularly international standards bodies, have a complex relationship to the marketplace. It is not out of the scope of reason to say that some governments see international standards bodies as an adjunct to regulatory oversight powers. I would say that industry consortia would be more of a free market example of standards...again, complex stuff.
Office automation is just getting off the ground. Software is in its early childhood at best. Web services, ubiquitous connectivity, massive proccessing power, miniaturization, mobilization....how many factors do you think will have an effect on how we produce and use docs/spreadsheets/presentations/desktop publishing tools? The format is the discussion of the day - but the real power, competition, and investment is in the apps. THAT is what is at stake here. Jason

Anonymous
August 26, 2007
Let me know next time you're in London (or Cambridge I guess, if you ever visit the MSR lab there), and I'll try to make it down - I can't promise beer, but I'd love to chat. I'm starting to understand now why the ISO doesn't have a mission statement - there are so many conflicting approaches dragging it around that any such attempt would be instant poison for the organisation. That said, I think I'm starting to get a grip on the issues involved. I've recently asked Brian Jones about whether revisions to Office Open XML will try to find general solutions rather than specific ones. It seemed more appropriate to ask him as it's a development process question rather than a standards question, but I suspect his answer will trigger the creation of a set of opinions I'll end up inflicting on you ;) This post is mainly an explanation for why I've gone quiet, but there is one question I have: you've said before that you felt multiple standards weren't appropriate in safety - could you expand on that a little? I don't think you're saying that safety standards should follow a completely different set of rules to other standards, so I'd be interested to know what factors you're weighing up differently in that context.
- Andrew
Anonymous
August 27, 2007
Generally speaking, safety standards are considered a different class than interop standards. Best to only have one standard for red/yellow/green on traffic lights. Whereas inteorp is possible to be acheived many ways. Standards are just one piece of the puzzle and effective data interchange (for example) may not require parity of standards vs. other mechanisms such as translation. Jason
Anonymous
August 28, 2007
So you're saying that the underlying purpose of a safety standard is to reduce risk, and since safety standards are usually about drilling very simple messages into people's heads, it's important to avoid a proliferation of messages? And by contrast, you'd say that the purpose of an interoperability standard is to lay the ground for interoperation between different products, by making sufficient information available through a permissive legal framework?
- Andrew
Anonymous
August 28, 2007
"Everyone with a vested interest in this – both pro and con – are working with all of the tools available to them" tell me jason - I am just a dumb user that has a vested interest into not buying your products. what tools do I have that even compare to your company's that I can use. please let me know because I would love to use. ODF is the standard and truly open unlike your so called open xml standard. two standards does expand my choices - it limits them. one standard puts everyone on an even playing field and that is what your company truly wants to avoid because then you would have to actually compete and we all know who would win when the actual product is compared and not forced on us dumb users.
Anonymous
August 28, 2007
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 28, 2007
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 30, 2007
Jason, This conversation has been really useful for me - I don't feel like I'm any closer to knowing what makes a good standard, but I'm starting to understand what the question means, and why it's so hard to answer. The process of creating a standard is a transaction between a variety of parties with different interests, all of whom are looking for a way to further their own ends. Since the parties involved are different for every standard, every standard will have a different value equation. It seems like this discussion has gone as far as the comments section of a blog can go in terms of looking at the ISO's input and processes, so I'd like to ask about its output. What measurable effects on the world does, or should, ISO certification have? One obvious answer in the case of Office Open XML is that governments will be more willing to use it for legal reasons. Another is that the specification will be stronger thanks to the increased peer review. What are the other common or important effects of ISO certification?
- Andrew
Anonymous
August 30, 2007
Andrew - right, a "good" standard is a highly relative measure. If you want an interesting example, look at SNIA - the Storage Network Industry Association. The issues around the specs bring about an entirely different set of issues that pit the idea of specs vs. implementations even further. There is a HUGE question still to be answered about the role of open source software and standards. Conformity, modification, IP rights, contributions, etc. at become very interesting questions. In that case a chunck of an existing commercial product was open sourced, and then the implementation itself was referred to as the standard in order to make a product competition play. Your second set of questions about the output is worth a top-level post. I will hold off and get to that. Jason
Anonymous
August 31, 2007
"The point about choice in formats is that if you believe that all formats should be locked down to just ODF - you are creating an innovation dead zone for apps development. Should Adobe abandon its format?" Uh? who said anything about anyone abandoning their format? why don't you compare apples to apples. I don't see adobe nudging their "Gold" partners to vote for a flawed and mathematically incorrect standard. Just to put a open standard stamp on their product as a selling point. ODF is everything but a app "dead zone" their are tons of innovation going on with ODF. I think you you owe your customers the support they deserve and your company should support ODF natively with your products instead of half-working translators. I do enjoy the product I chose to use. The problem is when your products are forced on me by other people and I am forced to use them because of your back room software assurance deals. Why should I have to send my resume in doc format just because some company made a back room deal with your company and they are forced to use your product which forces everyone they deal with to use your product just so they can see the information and how it is suppose to look in a document. Heck you earlier doc formats aren't even compatible with your new products. Talk about application lock-in. This is what a single standard is about - and that is not an app "dead zone" - I call that an app "alive zone" where competition flourishes and the consumer chooses products not standards.
Anonymous
August 31, 2007
Jason, I take it you're referring to the Disk Data Format (http://www.snia.org/standards/home/SNIA-DDFv1.2.pdf), and that the source code in question was released under what I read as a broadly LGPL-like license (http://www.snia.org/smi/developers/open_source/). I agree that it brings up a whole host of questions, and suggests a whole host of possibilities for how to make better standards - going back to something we discussed before, these are issues that could never have existed in physical standards, because you can't make a standard for VHS tapes by submitting a cassette to the ISO. James, When a smart person appears to say something dumb, it's usually just a miscommunication. Your earlier argument is that there should only be one document format (ODF). Jason's question is that since PDF is also a document format, do you advocate deprecating it in favour of ODF? It sounds like you don't, so what rule are you following that says that Office Open XML conflicts with ODF but PDF doesn't?
- Andrew
Anonymous
August 31, 2007
Given the methods applied by Microsoft to force this standard through, (e.g. the scandal in Sweden), I think the only way Microsoft can make OOXML a truly respected standard is to take down the pressure on its partners down three notches, fire (not reprimand) anybody who appears to have attempted to improperly influence the standards bodies, voluntarily take OOXML off the fast track, and actually spend the year or two extra time it takes to deal with all the comments. Of course, Microsoft can barrel ahead as it's been doing, admitting no wrongdoing, and probably will. Not only will that result in a flawed standard, but the hard feelings it engenders will help produce a whole new crop of religious extremists bitterly opposed to everything Microsoftian. Your choice, guys. What'll it be?
Anonymous
September 04, 2007
"When a smart person appears to say something dumb, it's usually just a miscommunication. Your earlier argument is that there should only be one document format (ODF)." yes you are right. Is pdf an ISO standard? Don't really see a conflict.
Anonymous
September 04, 2007
James, Your question is really for Jason, although I suspect he's quite busy at the minute, so it'll probably be a while before he replies. I'm answering here strictly as a facilitator, not making any claims about the veracity of any argument. According to Wikipedia, "proper subsets of PDF have been, or are being, standardized under ISO" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pdf#Subsets has more details. PDF, ODF and Office Open XML are all file formats for storing documents. They all specify ways of displaying text. Ordinary programmers are intended to be able to write programs that create and consume them. When I write a letter, I can save it in any one of them. Therefore, the rule "there should only be one document format (ODF)" implies that neither PDF nor Office Open XML should be a standard document format. If you believe that PDF should be an ISO format (which you may or may not), then the above interpretation of your argument leads to a contradiction. I might be wrong about this, but my guess is that you're using the term "document format" to mean something different to the above, which would explain why Jason sees a contradiction and you don't.
- Andrew
Anonymous
September 04, 2007
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
September 06, 2007
Jason, I'm holding off on standards questions until you've had a chance to put a top-level post together, but reading your response made me think of something. Are you envisaging a world where each organisation picks one office package, which might differ from other organisations? Are you therefore thinking that translation between formats will be something that happens to a file at most once a day, and at most half a dozen times during its lifetime? I ask because translation between two formats will never be perfect (or else they'd be the same format), and the importance of minor issues in translation like speed or loss of information depends greatly on how common a task translation is.
- Andrew
Anonymous
September 11, 2007
""According to Wikipedia, "proper subsets of PDF have been, or are being, standardized under ISO" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pdf#Subsets has more details." Andrew," If you listen to your own arguments you will actually see what I am trying to say. Okay parts of PDF is an ISO standard - do we have a competing PDF ISO standard? XML and PDF are two different items. This is the problem when microsoft argues their points. They always shift reality a little bit to make look like they are reasonable and get people to think like they do. They are really pretty good at it and have pretty much all their customers fooled. Why doesn't microsoft come up with a competing PDF standard? We should all be working on improving ODF instead of a different competing standard. But in a way I am glad microsoft is doing what they are doing. It will give my company a chance to really save money and stick with a true ISO standard.
Anonymous
September 11, 2007
James, So you're saying that there should only be one XML-based document format, and that non-XML formats are in a different category? Microsoft actually are trying to standardise a format that competes with PDF (the XML Paper Specification - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_Paper_Specification). Would you say that the ISO should be comparing it to ODF and Office Open XML (becuase it's an XML-based format for displaying documents), to PDF (because they're direct competitors), neither, or both?
- Andrew

Partager via

Open XML - US Vote Progress Continues

Comments

Ressources supplémentaires