[odf-discuss] OOXML: The next step

[Sander Marechal]

Pete Harlow wrote:
> I certainly agree about the need for a conformancy test, and we now
> need to make the distinction between OOXML (as implemented by Office
> 2007) and ISO/IEC 29500 as there will invariably be attempts to
> confuse one with the other. Whilst I disagree about the "wide use"
> statement above, it has to be remembered that the OOXML documents
> that *are* out there are not ISO/IEC 29500.

Unfortunately they are. Sort-of. Remember Yoon Kit's comment on 
OpenMalaysiaBlog that the BRM was not allowed to make changes to 
DIS29500 that would make it incompatible with Ecma-376? That means that 
the stuff MS-Outlook spits out is ISO 29500 compliant.

Sure, it uses all the deprecated parts of ISO 29500. All the parts that 
are not recommended for new applications. But that output compliant.

Note that this doesn't mean that MS-Office understands everything in the 
ISO 29500 standard. It only understands a subset. Office doesn't 
understand all the new tags that were added during the BRM. It just 
understands the (deprecated) tags that it writes.

After all, what good is ISO 29500 for Microsoft if it can't write ISO 
29500 files? It would still exclude them from all the government 
procurements that require an ISO standardized file format.

PS: There's another next step we need to take. Since the ISO 
announcement MS is constantly talking about "Open XML" instead of 
"Office Open XML". Some MS folk were doing that before as well, but now 
they're all doing it. We should nip that in the bud. It's even more 
confusing than "Office Open XML" which was probably deliberately chosen 
to conflict with OpenOffice. I mean, DIS 29500 isn't even valid XML! 
(See 
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2008/03/ooxmls-out-of-control-characters.html)

-- 
Sander Marechal