● 05.07.08

●● Verdict: Microsoft’s OOXML is Not a Standard

Posted in ISO, Microsoft, Office Suites, Open XML, Windows at 7:38 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

So says the definition of a standard

Rob Weir has taken a look at some semantics and considered again what it is that the world calls a “standard”:

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So, it is a document, a written description, not an embodiment in the form of a product, that is standardized. Its aims are the “achievement of optimum degree of order” and “promotion of optimum community benefits”, and it is achieved through consensus and consolidation.

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Unless this consensus is allowed to be ‘bought’ by a pack of coercing partners (sub-sub-population), that last condition is not met by OOXML.

Unless OOXML does not contain Microsoft-specific (Office- and Windows-specific) elements, that first condition cannot be met, either.

As for that bit in the middle, unless by “community” we refer to an isolated ecosystem (some government delegates might even say a "cult"), OOXML is none of the above.

OOXML is, to summarise it all, the antithesis of standards. It was called “Greatest Scam of Computing History” and the process surrounding it called “Brutal and Corrupt”. OOXML can still be yanked by ISO while the its ‘sibling’, the BSI, is already being sued. This is far from over. ISO should do the right thing. █

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