Isn't it obvious that M$ did not spend enough bribing people here? So the eventual outcome will be approval, if M$ will just spend more money on bribes.

Joe, I am surprised that you are still surprised by the lack of honesty of the Microsoft Corporation. That is just standard operating policy for them.
---------------------------------------------------

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136711-c,techindustrytrends/article.html

The above link titled; ISO Rejects Microsoft's OOXML as Standard

Quote from the link:

"Microsoft has failed in its attempt to have its Office Open XML document format fast-tracked straight to the status of an international standard by the International Organization for Standardization.

The proposal must now be revised to take into account the negative comments made during the voting process.

Microsoft expects that a second vote early next year will result in approval, it said Tuesday. That is by no means certain, however, given the objections raised by some national standards bodies."

Here is a list of undeniable facts about the whole OOXML story.

Microsoft voted YES for ODF on both the ISO and ANSI certification and never lobbied against the standard. The entire Microsoft.com site does not have a single word against ODF.

IBM has been lobbying fiercely against OOXML immediately after Microsoft came up with their standard. They have been lobbying everywhere. Their goal is simple. Prevent OOXML from being an ISO standard in order to prevent Microsoft Office from being used in governmental agencies. Their position and their fight is driven from self-interest. Contrast this with Microsoft�s behavior on ODF. Microsoft should never had to resort on lobbying, had IBM played fair. The real story behind this, is that IBM, and the rest of the VAM (Vendors Against Microsoft) coalition is getting their bud kicked by Microsoft for so many decades now, when it comes to office software and they found a new way of excluding Microsoft Office from being used. I can only laugh when I hear claims about IBM�s interest in promoting open standards. Everybody knows this
is pure BS. They are afraid of putting up ODF against OOXL and let the market decide on the winner. They know they are going to loose once again..

Sitting technical issues for not voting for OOXL is simply a double standard in comparison with how ODF passed the ISO certification. ODF had as well, significant technical issues at the time of the vote. It was missing significant features. Eight countries actually voted �yes� with comments. That did not stop the ISO committee from adopting the standard. Most countries voted yes, because nobody really gave a damn about this
standard at the time it was voted. ODF actually cruised on the ISO committee and did not receive the scrutiny that OOXXL is receiving. Again, nobody gave a damn about the standard. Preventing OOXML approval based on technical considerations is a double standard. Standards evolve in time and technical issues are being resolved and enhanced in time. That�s what happened with ODF as well.

Finnally, OOXML was voted by 74% from the countries involved. 75% was needed. The OOXML will be a ISO standard in 2008. They only managed to delay it. Then the truth will come and IBM and their open source allies, will have to come up with better software to compete against Microsoft Office instead of litigating and politically working their way through standards bodies in order to compete against Microsoft.

Microsoft's Challenge

The ODF Alliance said while Microsoft has *every* _right_ to seek the ISO label for its format, "The ballot results show it has a long way to go before it earns it and can be considered a truly open, interoperable document format."
http://tinyurl.com/242oxe

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2178975,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594

Link is titled: Botnet Attack Sinks Its Fangs into eBay Accounts

Quote from the link; "Internet Explorer vulnerabilities are on the list of weak spots the eBay botnet is sniffing out."
----------------------------------------------------
Also there is a link for the Monster.com Breach as well.

When will Microsoft get its house in order and make "secure" operating systems like Mac, Linux, BSD, and Sun? These are all Windows problems that the public is forced to endure.

Is there anybody out their, besides the paid shills that actually think that Microsoft does not have the resources to make a safe and secure operating system?

Microsoft has no credibility to lose. Certainly not since submitting this "standards" document.

Evan:
"Microsoft should never had to resort on lobbying, had IBM played fair."
This Microsoft-as-victim line assumes that all standards are equal and that ratification is solely a matter of politics. In fact, the OOXML standard presented by Microsoft has a number of serious technical deficiencies which make it unimplementable by anyone except Microsoft. If you've got a refutation of the serious technical objections raised, I'd love to see it.

Reviewing some of the problems with this 3000-page "standard", it's difficult to fight the suspicion that Microsoft threw something together because they were panicked that ODF would weaken their ability to keep people locked to Word by their proprietary file formats.

Flanagan,
The list of ODF omissions and problems that passed the ISO board is equally or more impressive, Standards evolve in time.
You could not even create a basic spreadsheet on the initial ODF spec that passed the ISO board. ODF is already in version 1.2. Correcting flaws and adding features is an evolutionary process.
The ISO board is more a political and than a technical body. This is the truth. And if the same measures were used, then technical reasons shouldn't have been used to reject OOXML. IBM did a good job. At least they are good in one thing. Making good software is not one of them anymore.

THere's already one document standard: ODF. Having a standard is alone a reason strong enought to reject OOXML.

We don't have two Internet standards, we've one: TCP/IP.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=1382

"Microsoft spins OOXML loss as a win"
"As C|Net’s own Martin Lamonica reports, Microsoft needed two-thirds of the “participating” members in the ISO to vote yes in order to get OOXML declared a standard. It got 17, and 15 voted no. That’s not two-thirds. It’s not even close."

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=694

"Why Microsoft deserved to lose the OOXML standards vote"
"Lobbying is legal. But certain lobbying tactics are not. Microsoft officials admitted that one of the company’s employees behaved inappropriately in Sweden, attempting to influence partners to vote for OOXML approval"

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9770507-7.html

"Some worry that a document format controlled by Microsoft, as opposed to a standards body, could make it difficult for organizations to exchange data, or to access older data at a later date."

"OOXML is an immature documentation of one vendor's proprietary document format which depends on software patents held by this vendor, which block interoperability. It conflicts with existing ISO standards. More than three hundred technical comments have been raised by industry, academics, researchers, and experts. The ISO JTC-1 Directive p.48 section 9.8 requires national bodies to vote "NO with comments" if there remain unanswered technical problems. The accuracy and honesty of the voting process has been questioned in many countries."
http://www.noooxml.org/start

Quote from Marco's link:
""Lobbying is legal. But certain lobbying tactics are not. Microsoft officials admitted that one of the company’s employees behaved inappropriately in Sweden, attempting to influence partners to vote for OOXML approval"
-----------------------------------------------------
Should this not be looked at by the EU, as another attempt, legal or not, by the monopoly Microsoft, to extend, embrace, extinquish? Action needs to be taken by the EU to do more than just fine MS.

http://www.controlscaddy.com/A55A69/bccaddyblog.nsf/plinks/CBYE-76JGCQ

"The adoption of a standard is supposed to be an open, transparent process. Any companies interested in participating in the standard setting process in any significant way have to pay a fee to get a seat at the table. Many companies played by the rules and participated in the process. And it was becoming clear that Microsoft was not getting there way. In the recent vote in Sweden, it looked like Microsoft was going to lose. So what does Microsoft do? They pull the cards out of their sleeve and in a way that competing interests have no time to react. . Out of nowhere, Microsoft Business Partners are ponying up the $US2,444 to get a vote just in time for the vote."

evan:
The list of ODF omissions and problems that passed the ISO board is equally or more impressive, Standards evolve in time.

evan, For your consideration I submit that your arguments fall far short of the truth in this matter.

The technical issues raised by various ratification bodies around the world (see each of the "no" and "no, with comments" items) point undisputably towards the technical and implementation problems inherent within the proposed OOXML 'standard'.

Take the single example of OOXML not supporting a date prior to 1900 within Excel... ...now, if you happen to be a history student doing a thesis on the American Revolution, where exactly does this proposed 'standard' leave your timeline charts? This is one of a number of glaring deficiencies pointed out time and time again during the 'fast track' ratification process.

The fact this proposed 'standard' doesn't validate as XML in more than 10% of the examples provided demonstrates the lack of disclosure on Microsoft's part.

The fact this proposed 'standard' doesn't comply with a number of other already ratified ISO standards should have been a warning to everyone.

Further, Microsoft hasn't provided full disclosure as to implementation; nor have they provided indemnification and irrevocable licence to implement their proposed 'standard'. So what, everyone waits until Microsoft offers to sell us a license to use their 'open' standard? Until this submission becomes truely 'open', Microsoft remains in a very untenable position here.

The fact Microsoft attempted to stuff ballots and influence votes during this process is already well documented. Microsoft has truely suffered a PR black eye here and me thinks some heads will be rolling in Redmond later this week.....

mistere,
I will take your word on it and concede that these are problems with the initial OOXML spec.
However, in comparision, what was ODF's capabilites in the initial version that passed the ISO certification? You could not even create a basic spreadsheet with that ODF spec.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2165652,00.asp
Does it matter to you?
"Don't think it will matter to you as a user? Just wait until you see what the next version of Office is going to cost you once Microsoft has ground its would be competition back into the dirt."

"In all my years working as a journalist, I've never seen any technology company spin information the way Microsoft did today."
Yes Joe;It's just similar to totalitarian governments like China, North Korea or Cuba, MS is moving further away from USA principles.

evan Says:
"I will take your word on it and concede that these are problems with the initial OOXML spec."

@evan:
"Microsoft is trying to push new file formats that are using ZIP and XML."
[...]
"They insist on the fact that, provided you make a valid use of the XML, pretty much changing the content of anything in an existing document can be achieved by sequentially 1) unzipping the content 2) making appropriate changes to one or more XML parts that are compatible with the provided XML schemas and open packaging relationships 3) zipping the content back ."
http://ooxmlisdefectivebydesign.blogspot.com/

@Neil:^?)
Questions to be decided

Does the proposed standard contradict, conflict with or duplicate existing international standards, in particular ISO standards?
Would the existence of OOXML as an International Standard in addition to ISO/IEC 26300 cause user confusion?
Can national bodies reasonably be expected to competently evaluate a proposed standard exceeding 6,000 pages within the time and constraints of fast-track procedures, particularly given the host of issues raised by the particular proposal at issue?
Would the proposed standard create 'obstacles to international trade' within the meaning of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade?
If so, is the proposed standard necessary nonetheless, i.e., is there a market requirement for a duplicative standard that contradicts ISO/IEC 26300, the OpenDocument standard?
Would fast track processing of the proposed standard place JTC-1's reputation at risk?

For all questions, along with an answer and an argument, some degree of impact analysis would be useful. For example, how confused would users be? What is the practical impact?
http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections#Questions_to_be_decided

correction:
@evan:
Questions to be decided
http://tinyurl.com/27ujyj

My bad Nei|:^')

n0ne_n0ne
Why bring me into this, I have said nothing about this matter, and do not intend to as I know nothing about this area.
One thing has gotten though, all the same people came out for this matter ... chips, marco and of n0ne_n0ne.
And that is all I need to say !

Neil, is the taste of your own medicine not that palatable. Perhaps you should think twice before you do the same to others.

Based on your last comments I feel inclined to destroy whatever is left of you credibility, but I leave that job to you as you're doing so well at it on your own.

Quote from William:
Williams reply to Neil; "Based on your last comments I feel inclined to destroy whatever is left of you credibility, but I leave that job to you as you're doing so well at it on your own."
---------------------------------------------------
Come on Williams, what "credibility" are you talking about that he had any left of?

Neil;
I made a correction, it was meant for evan.

Why Microsoft deserved to lose the OOXML standards vote. by Mary Jo Foley

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=694

evan:
ODF had probably still has its weaknesses, mainly that it lack features. That's sort of easy to fix, you can always add later. It's significantly worse to *change* features that are wrongly specified, like the date format bugs, etc.

It's better with incomplete and right first than complete but wrong.

"You could not even create a basic spreadsheet with that ODF spec."

What utter rubbish. Evan you should be ashamed of yourself. Do you work for M$? Try learning some facts before you post:

http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2006/11/the_formula_iss.html

You must have forgotten that Bill Clinton received much less than 50% of the votes yet became President. He too declared a mandate of the populous. So, what is new with this behavior?

> But Microsoft has much to lose by distorting the facts. Its credibility is at risk.

What credibility? As far as I'm aware, Microsoft destroyed whatever credibility it may have once had many years ago and this is just more of the same. It is going to take a great deal of effort for Microsoft to regain any credibility, and I've seen no indication that they have any interest in making that effort.

What I find interesting is that we are talking about standardizing something Microsoft created when there was already something "the rest of the world" created as a standard. Of course they would not adopt the real standard way to do word/spreadsheet/presentation files that was developed by others when they control 95%+ of the market for those tools. Monopoly?

[Microsoft's] credibility is at risk.

I assume your last line was NOT an attempt at humor? In my opinion, every public disclosure of Microsoft's tactics, every dissection of their PR releases, every "independent" review comparing their products to their competitors' products shows that they have no credibility left. Any government body or business that doesn't see that is either hopelessly clueless or is involved in some backroom deal with Microsoft. Is the world so corrupt as to accept Microsoft's actions as business-as-usual and do nothing about it? Are we going to stand idly by and let Microsoft make a sham of ISO standardization? The US failed to reign in this monopolist, the EU (so far) has failed to hold them accountable, so I guess if ISO fails to respond to Microsoft's tactics it will just be par for the course. Of course, ISO may do something yet. Interested parties will be waiting to see...

evan:
You attempt to deflect the conversation at hand.
We're discussing the deficiencies of OOXML here, not ODF... ...but seeing as you've breached the subject - lets do some comparisons, shall we....

ODF was ratified [and continues to develop itself] within an 'open forum' process - involving all stakeholders... ...by comparison, OOXML was developed behind closed doors, by proprietary intersts, and continues to rely upon undocumented proprietary (read Microsoft Office only) binaries / APIs within its implementation.

ODF continues to evolve in full view of all parties... ...the development of OOXML as a standard continues to be held close to the chest by Microsoft and it's invited associates, in an attempt to maintain their 90% monopoly within the business productivity market.

Microsoft and it's partners attempt to garner recognition for OOXML as an de facto 'open standard' (not unlike like PDF), so they can compete for lucrative government contracts in those states which have already legislated the adoption of 'open' document formats for all future business... ...ODF [and PDF] already is an openly published and adopted standard....

ODF, natively extends the XML specification, is self-documenting, and maintains itself in human-readable form... ...to anyone who has actually read the proposed OOXML specification, it plainly falls short in each of these areas.

ODF complies with all existing ISO standards... ...OOXML clearly violates at least 3 that I'm currently aware of.

ODF is usable by everyone, with no implementation restrictions or licensing issues... ...Microsoft has yet to announce an irrovocable license, let alone provide us with full implementation details.
Sorry, but today's business and government leaders are demanding standards which won't lock them into proprietary technologies/licensing, or disappear next week....

ODF is documented within an easily referenced and indexed specification... ...the proposed OOXML specification spans some 6000 pages and reads more like 'War and Peace' than a standards proposal.

The above comments are not heresay, they are based on documented fact. Unless Microsoft is forthcoming with the information needed to properly rectify the many issues identified within the proposed OOXML specification; and prepared to open up the development/documentation process, then they face the prospect of watching OOXML die on the table over the next few months.

My two and a half cents worth....

nobbin :
Firstly, I don't work for MS, I don't even live in the US. Secondly, I did a mistake when I said the you could not even create a basic spreadsheet with the first version of ODF. My mistake was that I forgot that being able to add some numbers some, is what some vendors consider a basic spreadsheet. Thirdly, it seems that using this spec OpenOffice.org and KOffice managed to create incompatible implementations of the spec. GREAT!!!!. This is what I call a good well written standard for ISO approval!!!!
If the ODF spec was complete i really don't understand why it developed from a few thousand pages to a 6k document. BTW, do you work for IBM?

No, I don't work for IBM. :) I'm just correcting out your entirely false statements. As for the rest of your drivel - go and read that link again. You seem to not have understood it the first time.

By 6k, I take it you mean 600 pages?

"Critics Skeptical That Microsoft Will Be Able To _Alter_ Vote On OOXML"

"Losing the fast-track vote may mean Microsoft has missed its best opportunity to get OOXML approved."

http://tinyurl.com/35zkam

My only comment: Remember POSIX and NT. Somebody else did....

Microsoft and Trust cannot exist in the same sentence, and you are a dangerous fool if you think otherwise.

More about OOXML
http://www.effi.org/blog/kai-2007-09-05.en.html

"Corrupt countries were more likely to support the OOXML document format"
"The countries which are perceived to be more corrupt were more likely to vote for the approval than the countries perceived less corrupt"

Link below titled; Open Letter to ISO Calls For Standardization of Process

http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/07/09/07/1230213.shtml

Quote from the link; "It seems ISO is not prepared for a politicized process where a big and influential commercial enterprise will use any means possible to push its own standard through to certification. Committees are flooded by the vendor in support of the standard. Votes are bought and results are hijacked. Several national bodies have flawed and skewed procedures open for corruption."

Evan says:
"Their goal is simple. Prevent OOXML from being an ISO standard in order to prevent Microsoft Office from being used in governmental agencies."

But Microsoft could easily adopt ODF as their open standard and compete on a level playing field with anyone. Microsoft wants to retain their market monopoly by creating a specification that no other vendor can implement due to its obfuscated structure.

Even if a competitor created a product that could implement the OOXML spec, they would make minor changes to it without regard to customers who would adopt the competitor product essentially to kill the competitors implementation.

Microsoft continually use Microsoft's monopoly power to destroy their competition, IE: "the job is not done, until the competitor's product won't run"

I do not see so badly the standard either that they want to implant with because he is so bad? , he is that I do not understand much of this but people speak very badly of which Microsoft tries.I have entered http://www.ooxml.es and it has seemed to me well�

Thanks

when i install suse linux 9.1 professional it says it needs a proposal ?

do not see so badly the standard either that they want to implant with because he is so bad? , he is that I do not understand much of this but people speak very badly of which Microsoft tries.I have entered

I made a correction, it was meant for evan.

The fact this proposed 'standard' doesn't validate as XML in more than 10% of the examples provided demonstrates the lack of disclosure on Microsoft's part.

when i install suse linux 9.1 professional it says it needs a proposal ?

Why isn't Microsoft pouring all of the money they must be spending on getting their "100% compatible" and "Open" OOXML ratified, when they really should be spending it on getting their own Office 2007 software to be "100% Compatible" with previous Office versions?

My company hasn't even been �put off� by the productivity hits our users might experience because of the new ribbon. We even bought into the whole SharePoint 2007 & Office SharePoint Services promises. Unfortunately, that was before we discovered a very high number of content compatibility issues between Office versions. Not only that, there are too many bugs with their compatibility tools. Now we can't reap any of the SharePoint collaboration benefits, because we can't migrate to Office 2007!

It seems to me, that if they would simply focus on getting their Office 2007 product working the way it should (and the way they've advertised that it should), and make it a lot less painful to migrate to it, that OOXML would simply become the de-facto standard... just like the old 97-2003 formats.

Or am I crazy?

"Corrupt countries were more likely to support the OOXML document format"
"The countries which are perceived to be more corrupt were more likely to vote for the approval than the countries perceived less corrupt"

Why bring me into this, I have said nothing about this matter, and do not intend to as I know nothing about this area.
One thing has gotten though, all the same people came out for this matter ... chips, marco and of
And that is all I need to say !

What credibility? As far as I'm aware, Microsoft destroyed whatever credibility it may have once had many years ago and this is just more of the same. It is going to take a great deal of effort for Microsoft to regain any credibility, and I've seen no indication that they have any interest in making that effort

The fact this proposed 'standard' doesn't validate as XML in more than 10% of the examples provided demonstrates the lack of disclosure on Microsoft's part.

when i install suse linux 9.1 professional it says it needs a proposal ? Thanks...

Microsoft and Trust cannot exist in the same sentence, and you are a dangerous fool if you think otherwise.