Apologies to anyone who has seen this before.
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Subject: [UKUUG] Please help prevent Microsoft creating a bad ISO standard
Date: Monday 22 January 2007 19:26
From: Alain Williams <addw@???>
To: members@???
Summary
The document format used by OpenOffice.org and other applications is an ISO
standard. An open standard has been needed in this area for many years to
allow competition and for a range of tools to be developed that all use a
common data format. Until the ISO standard all we had (in the main) was
de-facto proprietary binary standards.
The ISO standard is now seen as being under threat from a competing standard
proposed by ECMA based on Microsoft Office Open XML. We think that you may
want to object and if you read below, you can find out why and how.
You must act by Friday 26 January.
Detail
An open standard (ISO/IEC 26300:2006) for document formats is currently
implemented by a number of office software suites, probably the most
notable of which is OpenOffice.org
Microsoft played little or no part in the ISO/IEC 26300:2006 process and
subsequently made its own proposal to ECMA (European Computer
Manufacturers' Association) for 'Office Open XML'. That was approved by
ECMA and then submitted to ISO/IEC for ratification as an independent
standard on a fast-track process. A 30-day contradiction period is now
running which terminates on 5th February.
The fast-track proposal severely overlaps the existing ISO standard and
apparently contains numerous technical issues which deserve serious
consideration. There does not appear to have been any effort at providing
a gap analysis to see where the existing standard does not provide support
for proposals in the ECMA document and hence no corresponding effort to
produce a single combined standard to meet the needs of both parties. The
presence of more than one standard covering the same areas will inevitably
lead to confusion amongst users of standards.
Any voting national body (of which the British Standards Institute, BSI,
is one) can register a contradiction with ISO/IEC to cause the fast-track
proposal to be blocked and for a resolution phase to begin.
We have written to the BSI on behalf of UKUUG requesting that they
register a contradiction. It is our belief that the more people who write
to them, the more the effect will be.
We urge any UKUUG member with an interest in this area to read
http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections and then to register
their view with the Chairman of the BSI panel looking into this area:
Francis Cave <francis@???>, objections MUST be received
by 26th January to have effect.
To object to the fast-track procedure is not necessarily to object to the
proposal itself but it will at least cause a pause for thought and may
give time for more detailed scrutiny of the 6,000 page document.
If you do wish to object, please read the objections document and then
write to Francis Cave (copy-and-paste from this letter would be a bad
plan) requesting that the BSI formally object to the fast-track proposal.
--
Alain Williams
UKUUG Chairman
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