NO to the Microsoft Office format as an ISO standard

[morristhecat]

Let's start voting!!! Here is the link...

http://www.noooxml.org/petition

[yabbadabbadont]

There is already a thread about this... you should search before you post. :D

[Alterax]

For it to be an ISO standard, won't they have to open the standard? If so, then I'm fine with that, though I prefer the open document formats we have now.

--Alterax

[karellen]

signed :D
(even if I think it won't solve anything)

[LookTJ]

Signed.

[steven8]

Signed.

[BoyOfDestiny]

There is already a thread about this... you should search before you post. :D

Can a moderator merge the threads.

Anyway, signed petition and left comment.

[laxmanb]

WHy should we say no?? I don't mind the competition to ODF.... and they're not gonna start using ODF if this doesn't become an ISO standard.

I think OOXML is better than DOC/XLS formats which were something of a trade secret...

[Jenda]

For it to be an ISO standard, won't they have to open the standard? If so, then I'm fine with that, though I prefer the open document formats we have now.

--Alterax


There is no provable implementation of the OOXML specification: Microsoft Office 2007 produces a special version of OOXML, not a file format which complies with the OOXML specification;

They aren't going to open the standard, they'll EEE. The move is pure smokescreen.

[jiminycricket]

Here's the thing about the standard. It refers to such infamous things as "autoSpaceLikeWord95", yet it doesn't tell you what you need to do to accomplish that, bar reverse enginerring Word 95. So MS documents will always look better in an MS program that you have to pay for; JUST the situation we have today with the .doc formats.

Also, so far the only people talking about implementing OOXML are people who have obtained Microsoft "intellectual property" royalty agreements, like Novell, Corel, Xandros, Linspire, etc. Compare that to all the freely available open source projects that implement ODF; now that scares me, what IP is in OOXML? Microsoft can't even get their Mac division to pump out an OOXML converter because it relies on UNRELEASED, unspecified, and likely patented Internet Explorer and Windows technology like VML and WMF.

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/business_applications/the_pointless_office_converter_delay.html



In a blog post two weeks ago, Jones explained that Office 2004 OOXML converters wouldn't be available until after the release of Office 2008 for the Mac. However, "some of the newer functionality expressed in the formats will naturally only be available in Office 2008." Naturally?

Existing Office 2004 users are getting short-shrift treatment from Microsoft on two fronts: There is no full set of beta OOXML converters available now, and there won't be fully interoperable capabilities later on.


It also tries to leverage the keyword "backwards compatibility with billions of documents", yet re-implements the spreadsheet math so much that Nature and Science magazines have refused to take in OOXML formatted documents. It is the converter's job to implement backward compatibility, not implement hundreds of obscure calls that no one can figure out except MS.

How Microsoft really feels about opening document formats (from antitrust discovery), and why it shows that this 'standard' is really a joke:


From: Bill Gates

“One thing we have got to change is our strategy allowing Office documents
to be rendered very well by other peoples browsers is one of the most
destructive things we could do to the company.
We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office
documents very well depends on PROPRIETARY IE capabilities.
Anything else is suicide for our platform. This is a case where Office has to
avoid doing something to destroy Windows.

Proprietary IE = unspecified, referenced VML in the OOXML specification.

[Circus-Killer]

as stated by other, i would support this if they opened up the technology, and it became truely an open standard. this wont happen.

but if in a fairy-tale land MS did decide to open up the technology, i think it would be a good thing, the more bridging between platforms, the better.