[odf-discuss] France switches vote... to Abstain (and Japan to Yes)

[marbux]

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 1:10 PM, Ian Lynch <ian.lynch at zmsl.com> wrote:

> I wonder if it would be possible to get some countries to say publicly
> that they won't recognise any ISO standard derived from OOXML because
> the procedures in the fast track process were not fit for purpose.


>From a legal standpoint, yes and no respectively. That is, adoption of
DIS-29500 as an international standard does not mean that it automatically
becomes a valid standard for national technical regulations and government
procurement specifications. But the grounds you suggest are not in the legal
criteria for excluding it in such decisions.

The allowable grounds are identified in a short article on the topic here. <
http://www.universal-interop-council.org/node/24>.

I'll add to what I said there by noting that ODF has already been adopted as
a technical regulation and  technical specification by many governments
globally. So in those governments, Microsoft's task will become persuading
officials to specify OOXML as well.

I anticipate Microsoft arguments that OOXML is the only international
standard for conversion of legacy binary office productivity software
documents to XML and for use in enterprise business processes, subjects not
addressed in the ODF spec's purpose and TC charter. I also suspect we will
see arguments that OOXML approval, should that happen, represents a decision
by participating and observer NBs that a second set of formats is necessary
to achieve competition in the relevant software market. That's a perversion
of the ATBT, but I'm fairly certain that will be the argument, which is only
a change in context to the argument Microsoft has been making since it
initiated the Ecma 376 process.

Best regards,

Paul
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