Today we learned that ECMA International has
accepted
Microsofts OpenXML as an ECMA standard, and that it did so against the vote
of IBM. This is bad news for Open Standards, Free Software,
competition and consumers.
As explained in my article Novells "Danaergeschenk" (also on Groklaw),
it is close to impossible that anyone would be able to create an
implementation of OpenXML that would be competitive to
Microsoft's. IBM does not consider it technologically or economically
feasible, as Bob Sutor explained in his
personal blog. This is also why IBM voted against accepting the
OpenXML format in ECMA.
A specification of 6'000 pages is like a diet of 10'000
kilocalories per day. If Weight Watchers were advocating that as a
recommended diet on request of McDonalds, people would wonder what is
going on. Yet this seems quite similar to what he majority of ECMA's
general assembly apparently has just decided to do.
Just like there could be (and are) whole flight simulators hidden
in Microsoft's Office products, there is no telling what kind of hooks
are hidden in this vast amount of documentation. But some hooks are
already known: The containers do not use industry standards, such as
SVG, they are catered to Microsofts proprietary world. So any attempt
to implement OpenXML would require to implement large parts of
Microsofts proprietary world -- and possibly some of its internal
working, which is no doubt heavily patented.
So can OpenXML be a standard? Wikipedia defines standardisation
as
Standardization or standardisation, in the context
related to technologies and industries, is the process of establishing
a technical standard among competing entities in a market,
where this will bring benefits without hurting competition.
The emphasis here is mine to highlight why OpenXML does
not qualify as a standard, much less an Open Standard: OpenXML is
singularily defined and driven by Microsoft. In this it has entered
into complex agreements with other companies that have become
dependent partners of Microsoft on OpenXML -- and are thus no longer
competing on this market.
So OpenXML is neither open, nor is it a standard. It is a one-way
street of migration to Microsoft Office with the promise of dependency
on that proprietary format and implementation in the future.
Other office packages would be well-advised to stay far away from
it, as OpenXML will make their users second-class citizens in a
Microsoft world where they will need to save as OpenXML, and will
encounter numerous problems with documents they get from Microsoft
users.
If given the choice between that scenario and one in which people
send around ODF documents which Microsoft Office cannot open, but
which work perfectly with any other office suite as well as online
services, I know which one I prefer.
It may be time to readjust the receiving end of incompatibility
issues that were forced upon all users by Microsoft.
