ISO takes up Open XML-ODF 'harmonization' as Norwegians protest
Correction done to Alex Brown's affiliation.
The ISO has taken over control of the Open XML specification and started a committee to consider harmonization with the OpenDocument Format (ODF).
Wednesday was the last day that all resolutions to the new standard, called ISO/IEC 29500, were accepted, according to Brian Jones, a program manager for office at Microsoft who has been involved in the standardization process.
Last week, the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) announced that Office Open XML (OOXML) gained enough votes to pass as a standard.
Alex Brown, a member of the U.K.'s national standards body who led the Ballot Resolution Meeting in February, laid out what happens next now that Open XML is a standard in his blog.
Three committees have been formed to usher development of the standard going forward, two of which deal with handling Open XML.
The third is dealing specifically with interoperability between Open XML and ODF.
The most extreme voices in this debate are unhappy about Open XML's standardization.
But people dealing with exchanging documents and writing document-oriented software should take note that interoperability is now part of the ISO's digital documents charter. How that work will interact with other ongoing projects is unclear, but it is now be addressed at the level of national standards bodies.
"The DIN Delegate (DIN is the German national standards body) presented an update on the work that they have been doing around translation between the Open XML formats and ODF. I've discussed this a number of times before as being a key piece of the harmonization work," according to Jones.
Meanwhile, the protested Norway vote did not go down without a demonstration.
On Wednesday, sympathizers of the Norwegian committee that was essentially overruled by Norway's standards body to vote yes on the Open XML ballads staged a protest.
If anyone thinks that standards don't matter, take a look at these photos on Flickr of the event.
These people are protesting the fact that the technical committee tasked with forming Norway's position voted against Open XML ISO certification. Yet, Standards Norway decided to vote for it even though the country's issues were not sufficiently addressed.
One committee member, Geir Isene, wrote a quick summary of the drizzly event in his blog, saying that it was only the second IT-related protest in Norway.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin. 
If not, then perhaps the ISO is not the best place for IT and Web standards. I know that the ISO standard process after this debacle has lost credibility with many.
HTML is an open standard that is W3C certified. It seems that the ISO may not be that important when it comes to the Web. If ODF can become like HTML for the Web platform, then ISO can be for those who want to spend money and want to be locked into proprietary formats. Whereas the Web and W3C can be for those who are educated regarding open formats and protocols.
Alex Brown, a member of the U.K.'s national standards body who led the Ballot Resolution Meeting in February, laid out what happens next now that Open XML is a standard in his blog.
Three committees have been formed to usher development of the standard going forward, two of which deal with handling Open XML.
The third is dealing specifically with interoperability between Open XML and ODF.
The most extreme voices in this debate are unhappy about Open XML's standardization.
But people dealing with exchanging documents and writing document-oriented software should take note that interoperability is now part of the ISO's digital documents charter. How that work will interact with other ongoing projects is unclear, but it is now be addressed at the level of national standards bodies..."
Resulting from the above there remains issues that has to be taken under consideration; and, as a point of reference here is an extract from a 1998 Lotus Development Corporation communication;
"Re: Concerning the issues with 1-2-3 that are talked about in the documentation you gave me, most of the issues are related to converting files between older and newer versions of product and converting documents between Lotus and Microsoft. Anytime a file is saved backwards or saved with an older file format than the format the file was created under, such as saving a 1-2-3 , 97 file for Windows 95 into a WK1 format for DOS, then naturally we are expected to loose certain features due to technology and features that are present now that were not present 8 - 10 years ago. Similarly, if we try to convert a file from Lotus into Excel or Excel into Lotus, due to differences in the products not every feature will be converted perfectly with the file filters that are available. Both Lotus and Microsoft create similar spreadsheet programs; however, there are several differences in both programs and these differences will remain to distinguish the products apart. We do try to design conversion filters that will allow as much of the file formats as possible to be exchanged and converted without disrupting the actual file design and format.
In one of your letters you made mention of the @IRR and @ERR functions in the 1-2-3 product. By design the @IRR (notably "absent" in Open Office) will calculate the Internal Rate of Return; where the @ERR is used in conjunction with other formulas, posted was an "ERR" showing an error was received in the calculations. As far as I can see in the program I cannot find an @ERR function that will allow us to calculate an Economic Rate of Return"
Note carefully from the above - "there are several differences in both programs and these differences will remain to distinguish the products apart..."; so, there we are!!!
- When the Inter-American Development Bank and...
- by Commander_Spock April 11, 2008 10:22 AM PDT
- ... the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) are not the same kettle of "fish"! It's when one knows something that the other does not know. And, when a "standard" is not really a "standard" by certain standards. ;-) M :-$
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Enjoy.
Commander_Spock and Crew!