Weird Moment of the Day
I saw this blog from one of the current chairs of the ODF committee in OASIS: https://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/12/bait-and-switch.html
So, ODF was adopted as an ISO standard about a year ago, and since then there has already been a new version of ODF (1.1) released by OASIS, and they are supposedly close on version 1.2. I believe 1.2 is supposed to be significant as they've promised it will include a formula definition for spreadsheets (although the working group hasn't seen much activity lately if you look at the mailing list archives: https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/office-formula/). So, the maintenance of ODF right now is being handled solely by OASIS, and I'm not sure what their plans are for bringing new drafts to the ISO.
Now, one of the Chairs of the ODF committee (IBM and Sun are now co-chairs of the ODF committee) has a blog post saying that Microsoft is somehow pulling a "bait and switch" because Ecma has proposed to ISO that a joint maintenance agreement be set up once DIS 29500 is approved. We're still months away from approval, but TC45 has already reached out and tried to start a discussion around maintenance.
So it's been a year since Rob's committee had its ISO approval and has since then maintained sole control; and TC45's DIS 29500 still has a few months before approval and they are already trying to establish a maintenance agreement. And this is now called a "bait and switch"?
That's my Weird Moment of the Day.
-Brian
Comments
Anonymous
December 06, 2007
Could it be that something is missing from your summary of Rob Weir's post? Maybe the fact that Microsoft has, on multiple occasions, assured the world that ISO would be the sole maintainer of OOXML? The point is not about who is going to maintain OOXML - the point is that Microsoft has been caught lying about it. I think Rob Weir made that pretty clear, not a lot of room for misunderstandings there. Please post IBMs/SUNs messages to that effect regarding ODF. Otherwise this is just another piece of Microsoft FUD.Anonymous
December 06, 2007
Brian, I admire you for standing up to what must be an almost unrelenting tide of vitriol. Not personal I note thankfully, but directed at your employer. I'm sure that you must be a really nice guy to put up with this charade, but I hope M$ is paying you very well? I guess they must be because I can't understand why anyone would want to work for a company that is a convicted monopolist and has such a bad reputation around the world. I really think that this fiasco with the fast-track of ECMA-376 is going to be the start of a scenario involving a "house-of-cards" and a strong wind... Now there are individuals inside the JTC1 (who was also liaison to TC45) publicly denigrating what M$ has done (http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2007/12/06/commiserations-to-my-successor-ooxml-strikes-again/), I don't believe ISO will be able to ignore it for much longer. Nor will the Governments of this world. Good Luck.Anonymous
December 06, 2007
So Alan Lord admires you. Methinks it is a rather backhanded complement. NickAnonymous
December 06, 2007
@Nick, It wasn't intended to be backhanded at all. I really am impressed by the way Brian conducts himself and makes himself a target. As I said - it is his employer that stinks...Anonymous
December 07, 2007
Alan, so you admire the way Brian conducts himself but not enough to prevent you from being so childish as to write MS as M$? Interesting.Anonymous
December 07, 2007
Brian, you should mention that Ecma drafted this maintenance proposal in July, when they thought they would win the September ballot. Despite this, during July and August Microsoft continued to state publicly that they would be transferring control over to ISO. That is the point I was trying to make -- that Microsoft was promising one thing while simultaneously planning the opposite. You can try to distract and confuse, but the record is quite clear on this. Six days after your people promised at an NCC meeting in London that ISO would own OOXML if approved, Ecma submitted a maintenance plan to JTC1 that asks for Ecma to control the maintenance of OOXML. Microsoft then continues to publicly assert this false promise of ISO control right up until the Sept 2nd ballot.Anonymous
December 07, 2007
@Alan Interpreting Martin Bryan's comments as "publicly denigrating what Microsoft has done" is blatantly untrue. Maybe you should reconsider a career on a tabloid newspaper. He is fed up because the ISO procedural structures cannot cope with the interest in this standard, whether that be generated by Microsoft, or anti-Microsoft camps. He is also complaining about standardization by corporation, so you are shooting yourself in the foot, since this includes the "snoozerollering" of Sun's OpenOffice.org/ODF format as well. What were the meeting minutes for the ODF process then: "yeah, whatever, fine by me. Is it time for lunch yet?" Mr Bryan should, however, be taken to task on his comment that the influx of new P-members are purely pro Open XML supporters. You should be very sure of your facts before committing them to a public document. Even if he is correct, with his position at ISO, this is similar to a judge leading the jury. GarethAnonymous
December 07, 2007
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December 07, 2007
What I find strange is that Rob does avoid the question why the OASIS TC in which he resides has not submitted ODF 1.1 spec for ISO approval. It has been out for one and a half years or so isn't it ? Why if OASIS seem to have full control over next versions of ODF and wihtout ISO playing a part and even when a version is finished does not even bother submitting them to ISO is Rob Weir writing about Ecma. Shouldn't he look at his own specifications and why they are not at ISO right now ?Anonymous
December 07, 2007
hAl, ODF 1.1 was approved as an OASIS Standard on February 2nd, 2007, so less than a year ago. But I'm not sure I see your point. Did we ever promise to hand control of ODF over to ISO? No. In fact, when we submitted ODF to ISO, at that time we negotiated a maintenance plan with JTC1 and ODF was for a ballot by JTC1 under those terms. That's the way PAS submissions work, the maintenance agreement is negotiated at submission time. PAS submitters like OASIS also have a far more rigorous set of criteria they are evaluated against, as an SDO, before they are permitted to enter into such agreements. Ecma, using Fast Track, is not subject to this level of scrutiny. In any case, it should be obvious that submitting anything to SC34 at this time is asking for trouble. The majority of ballots are failing and have been failing for lack of participation. As you may have read, we now have leaders in SC34 suggesting that it may be better to move ISO standards to OASIS, since the climate there is better. So my recommendation is to wait for the OOXML train wreck to be cleared from the tracks before we submit any further ODF work to ISO. When the debris is cleared you'll likely first see some maintenance done on ODF 1.0 followed by a technical revision with new features. That's my recommendation. In the end, OASIS membership decides.Anonymous
December 07, 2007
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December 07, 2007
So, Rob. Given, as you say, that submitters are required to negotiate the maintenance agreement, why are you busting MS and ECMA's chops for doing the exact same thing ODF has done, and you say is required for them to do?Anonymous
December 07, 2007
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December 07, 2007
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December 07, 2007
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December 07, 2007
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December 08, 2007
Brian: you do yourself no favors by understanding opposition to ISO standardization as solely a product of IBM. For example, on your question "Why did you choose to oppose Open XML's adoption in ISO? Why did you do so much work to find issue with Open XML during the fast track process rather than during its development within Ecma?" Irrespective of IBM's comments and Rob's role, you know full well that a lot of the technical issues with OOXML were publicly (and privately) aired during the ECMA process. I know consumer choice in international standards has become the MS marketing mantra here, but for there's another mantra that many of us hold to: one standard. You act as if this is a surprising and irrational position, but it's not. Finally, the issue of maintenance and evolution going forward becomes rather important when you consider the rather tight constraints of the TC45 charter. I personally want to see the ISO process force some cooperation on moving beyond all the heated rhetoric and defiant positions.Anonymous
December 08, 2007
Hi Brian Microsoft has an interest in everything, they choose not to have an interest in the development of ODF for a simple reason, it would not be in the "interest" of protecting its monopoly. If MS had chosen to work on ODF, the format would be more to your liking. Instead, MS took a gamble and is relying on its omnipresent power to get their own way. And all the indications are, this has alienated the ISO committee and reduced MS credibility in other standard areas. Please don't pin this on MS vs IBM, there are many other entities and communities which combined is a much larger force than just IBM, against the ratification of a defacto format as a standard. A format which simply does not qualify as an ISO on many technical levels, questionable patent promises, and hardly meets any of ISO goals/policies. Two standards, one tested, rejected by many is a PROBLEM. But above all OOXML as a ISO standard reinforces unfair competition and paves the way for everything proprietary becoming a standard. David Lane in the previous post made some suggestions, some really are a good start to the beginning of collaboration. Best to youAnonymous
December 08, 2007
Robert Lilly, it's not that simple I'm afraid. MS' overarching design goal for OOXML is to ensure compatibility with the vast majority of the office documents already in existence. You'd have to agree that that is decidedly NOT the goal of ODF. So even if MS were part of the ODF standardization process, there would be an insurmountable impasse. I think this whole debate centres around just that.Anonymous
December 08, 2007
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December 08, 2007
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December 08, 2007
>I'm very proud of this. >That's what motivates me still. brian one tip for you: santa claus doesn't exist http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/2000/PX02991.pdf sorry ;-) marcAnonymous
December 08, 2007
Wizard, I'm sorry you feel that way.
marc, Your link there helps to emphasize my point. I'm very proud of the shifts we've made, and the work we're doing right now. I'm proud to have played an important role in that. Just 3 years ago no-one would have believed we would open the formats like this. Now we've done it, and it completely caught the compatition off guard. They've been scrambling ever since to find ways to spin it as a negative. -Brian
Anonymous
December 08, 2007
Last spring, we saw some positive developments in the file format world. We started to reach a criticalAnonymous
December 08, 2007
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December 08, 2007
Last spring, we saw some positive developments in the file format world. We started to reach a criticalAnonymous
December 08, 2007
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December 09, 2007
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December 09, 2007
>Just 3 years ago no-one would have >believed we would open the formats like this just 3 years ago, no-one in Microsoft would have believed that the openness requeriment ( Massachussets, etc ) would be so strong in governments levels. But this was to late for Microsoft, your reaction was:
- well, we have OOXML, is all we have at this moment ( an Office 2007 is near to be finished ), so, send it to ECMA to rubberstamp it, and then push ISO until get the ISO stamp. The alternative: start with a true open format: reusing standards, implementable, completely defined, simpler, elegant, compact, XML friendly, etc ). But you are Microsoft, you don't like standards and you don't like be truly open. For now... with time you will learn what people is asking you.
- Anonymous
December 09, 2007
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December 09, 2007
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December 10, 2007
Miguel: you're absolutely right for dinging Apple, and in noting that MS documenting OOXML and putting it through a standards process is on the whole a good thing. I've never really had a problem with that. ISO, OTOH, is another matter. I'm not going to get into the totality of this debate again. See Gavin Beckett's comments on a <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2007/12/08/ibm-s-rob-weir-makes-it-clear-he-wants-war.aspx#comments">more recent post</a> are really spot on; much more eloquent and balanced than anybody I've read so far on this issue; including me!