News OOXML doc format gets ISO approval

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/04/03/ooxml_doc_format_gets_iso_approval/1

Microsoft's Office Open XML document format has been given the ISO stamp of approval as an official international standard, much to the dismay of fans of rival ODF.

 

The funny thing is: OpenOffice and NeoOffice (openoffice for OSX) can read and write XML, while MS Office won't read ODF files...

I suppose that now MS can say it doesn't need to bother about adding ODF support to Office, since their proprietary open format (if there's such thing!) is ISO approved!

 

This might help... http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=169337

 

I wonder how much it cost them to buy off the uk and other countries delegations?

 

Cost?

Millions, and Millions, but the money doesn't matter. Congradulations, ECMA, you are the most abusive standards body in the world. I think that Google and IBM need a hug for trying their very best to prevent this, but in the end, Microsoft has a lot more partners than either of them. I am going to try to find a list of those companies which were puppets for MS, so that I know never to recommend their products ever again. I know that HP is on the dark side, as is Novel, but I can't think of any others right now.

 

as obviously wrapped in agendas this is, its purely good news for the 99% of computer users who REALLY need simplicity

 

Quite far from purely good news mate. Its good news if you subscribe to the MS upgrade circus apart from that its pretty much bad.

 

Yes, that's why we already have an ISO document standard... ODF.

Why confuse the market by having two competing standards, one of which isn't even documented properly.

Oh, and one of the standards can be used natively on just about any computer you like, from an EeePC all the way up to the most powerful supercomputers available.

Andy

 

Greetings!

Microsoft money at work:
Another was Norway, whose own mirror technical committee, Groklaw learned yesterday, filed a formal protest with the ISO asking that its country's vote be annulled. It's calling for an investigation into whether the voting representative was acting in the interests of his committee.

 

Apparently, that Norway "yes" vote went against 80% of the committee members "No" recommendation.

MS democracy in action.

Andy