The Open Road

In what now appears to be a near daily experience, the European Union is investigating Microsoft for antitrust violations related to its attempts to get its Open Office XML file format standard accepted as an international "standard." As the argument goes, Microsoft apparently fought hard to get OOXML ratified as a standard.

Ya think?

European Union antitrust officials have asked Microsoft for information about its activities in the standards-setting process -- an early step in an investigation -- and are stepping up scrutiny of the issue, according to people familiar with the matter. The file format in question is computer code that describes how a document such as a letter or spreadsheet is digitally stored.

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Dave McAllister over at Adobe is suggesting that the ballot for PDF for Draft International Standard ballots are in, and with 93% apparently in favor, things are looking good for ISO 32000 PDF. Reading through Dave's post, it's clear that this is a much better way to create a true "standard" than what happened with OOXML.

OOXML was a case study in bare-knuckled lobbying. PDF? Not at all.

Now this was a lot of effort to pull together. We did follow a "lobby-free" policy with this effort. We did answer concerns when we were asked to clarify. We did log a few air miles when invited to discuss this in public forums. And we also took the PDF specification 1.7, removed any product dependencies, and created a world class draft standard. ...

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(Credit: Electronic Frontier Finland)

The terrible "standards" process for Open Office XML (OOXML) just got a new wrinkle today. Electronic Frontier Finland analyzed the OOXML results and compared them to the Corruptions Perceptions Index. Guess what? There is a material correlation between the two.

Surprise, surprise. Put into logical language, all crooks vote for OOXML. :-)

Of course, the data/correlation needs to be taken with a grain of salt (or maybe the Salt Flats), but the one thing that is probably not at issue is that the process was tainted by corruption, however benevolently some may want to spin it. It's unfortunate that people should stoop so low for a few billion dollars in sales. Integrity isn't worth the price (and I think both sides are probably culpable, though my bias has me seeing more on the Microsoft side).

Microsoft appears to have lost the Open Office XML battle, according to Pamela at Groklaw, but seems destined to win the war, according to the New York Times. But, as Pamela notes, given the fact that the committee members who will be reviewing comments from the disapproving countries are overwhelmingly in favor of Microsoft's latest bid for global monopoly, it's likely just a matter of time (early next year, in fact) before OOXML becomes a "standard."

A standard that smells of money and the taint of corruption. But a "standard" nonetheless.

Now if only the standard actually worked. That would be progress.

You simply must go read Matthew Aslett's passionate, forlorn description of the farce that is the OOXML standardization process. Petty, shallow, and mean.

Unfortunately, I think the ugliness probably goes both ways, as the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. It's no wonder, then, that some (like Sweden) are throwing up their hands in disgust.

To quote Matthew:

Wow. I guess when you have more cash than taste you can afford to buy research reports that say all sorts of nice things about you. Open-source companies have to rely on things like products that please customers; Microsoft can afford to ramrod research down customers' throats.

A great example, as Mary Jo notes on ZDNet, is two new Microsoft-commissioned research reports that (gasp!) find Microsoft Sharepoint is a better investment for systems integrators and that "Office Open XML (is) the format showing the most progressive adoption rates in the marketplace over the next 12 months."

The research is of dubious value given that it's bought and paid for, but what is fascinating is the target of the research: open source.

Arst Design has a probing article on Microsoft's Open Office XML 'standard.' Yeesh. OOXML is even worse than I thought. And to think I wanted to give Microsoft the benefit of a doubt. Fool me once....

Microsoft is trying to push new file formats that are using ZIP and XML. Are those new file formats any good for Office developers ? In other words, should anyone feel safe to make direct access to file parts, and start getting free of running instances of Microsoft Office and its COM object model, usually through VBA?

They insist on the fact that, provided you make a valid use of the XML, pretty much changing the content of anything in an existing document can be achieved by sequentially 1) unzipping the content 2) making appropriate changes to one or more XML parts that are compatible with the provided XML schemas and open packaging relationships 3) zipping the content back.

Unfortunately, Microsoft doth insist too much, as the article points out. The OOXML spec churns out broken code. Try again, Redmond.

First it was China. Now India and Brazil. The rout of Microsoft's Open Office XML (OOXML) standardization efforts is now essentially complete. When the world's fastest growing economies reject Microsoft, Microsoft has a problem.

What am I talking about? I'm talking about India's and Brazil's separate rejections of Microsoft's attempts to standardize its Open Office XML. Microsoft is holding out hope that if it resolves all 200 of India's complaints with its submission, it will have OOXML approved.

Yes, but this largely misses the point.

Rik has some interesting speculation as to what Microsoft's patent/interoperability agreements might be designed for:

The game goes like this: On the one hand, suggest that Linux might infringe on some of [Microsoft's] patents. On the other hand, pay a few Linux distributions [SUSE, Linspire, Xandros] to integrate a technology (OOXML) that people think actually infringes on Microsoft's patents. That makes it easier to convince other people to pay up. Vendors that do not sign agreements will not be compatible with Microsoft documents - which is the one thing that actually impacts end users.

I had never thought of Microsoft's patent FUD as being related to Office, but there may be something to Rik's musings....