Comments on: British standards body mum on OOXML vote

The British Standards Institution won't divulge who's on its technical committee or discuss the outcome of its vote on OOXML.

[Commander_Spock]

Why....

... should an organisation like "The British Standards Institution" recommend for ISO certification an Office Productivity Suite cannot now reveal that the CONCORDE can be manufactured operated "economically"? Is the world going to experience "falling standards" or what!

Just imagine if the Microsoft Corporation built the aeroplanes that you fly in like they built their Operating Systems... How much "data loss" (virus infection, malware...) can your company tolerate!

[j.trauntvein]

I'm no fan myself but...

I have never been a fan of ms office or, for that matter, most "office" suites. I've yet to see a spreadsheet that can readily accept time series data and I subscribe to Brian Kernighan's statement "What you see is all you get" for most word processors I have had the misfortune of dealing with. I must point out, however, that the standardisation voting taking place is not for the software but, rather, for the file format. I believe that choosing a file format has far greater consequences than that of choosing software that produces that format. That choice should be firmly rooted in questions such as whether there can only be one package that can be used to generate the format and whether the format has the capability of storing the information in a suitable manner.

In my opinion, they should also be looking at how easy it would be to extract information from the documents using common tools such as XSLT and also how easy it would be to produce such a format using the same common tools.

[Commander_Spock]

"Microsoft partners have joined committees around the world...

... at the last minute, which has led critics such as the Free Software Foundation to say that those partners could not possibly be voting from an informed position because the OOXML specification is more than 6,000 pages long. Partners simply would not have had time to review the document, said FSF Europe..." Since it is well know that "experience" is a great teacher; then, just what working experience (with regards to the interoperability of standards format) do "Microsoft partners" bring to the international table. When were all the "testing" done that would ascertain that the OOXML Format Standards would perform as stipulated! Is this not how standards are established in the "aircraft industry" among others. Give Commander_Spock and Team that British Made "Rolls Royce" Engine that is IBM's "OPEN" LOTUS SMARTSUITE With The "SPREAD SHEET" That Will/Would Rock The World - AGAIN!

[Troll Hard]

How ironic

that critics claim that you are not even posting from an informed position. This is actually the same thing you've posted over and over and over again without even reading the OOXML document just like every other Anti-Microsoft Zealot hasn't even bothered to read it.