Microsoft under fire for trying to "fake" Open XML grassroots support
By John Pospisil
Microsoft has been criticized by the Open Source Consortium for its latest effort, an online petition, to fast track the ratification of its Office Open XML (OOXML) document format as an official international standard.
Ratification of OOXML as a standard by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electromechanical Commission (IEC) would make it easier for Microsoft to do business with governments that prefer ISO certification of electronic document formats. An alternative standard, OpenDocument Format (ODF), is backed by IBM.
The petition calls on the British Standards Institute to support the fast tracking of the ratification of the Open XML formats as an “international open standard for documents, spreadsheets, and presentations”.
However, Microsoft’s latest effort to garner support for Open XML has come under fire by Mark Taylor, the founder of the Open Source Consortium.
“In the open-source world, there’s clearly a massive grassroots thing. One of the lessons Microsoft has been trying to learn from open source is that — but they have to fake it. If there was any grassroots support behind it, the time to have done (the petition) would have been ages ago,” Taylor told ZDNet.
“We already have an international standard, the OpenDocument format, and governments are increasingly adopting it. Having a second standard is utterly unnecessary.”
The ratification of OOXML as a standard is facing hostility from both the open source community and Microsoft’s competitors.
In February Microsoft posted an open letter on its web site, lashing out at IBM for trying to derail the standardization of OOXML.
“This campaign to stop even the consideration of Open XML in ISO/IEC JTC1 is a blatant attempt to use the standards process to limit choice in the marketplace for ulterior commercial motives – and without regard for the negative impact on consumer choice and technological innovation,” fumed Microsoft.
While the controversy continues, the good news for Microsoft is that the ISO has recently announced that the that OOXML ratification process has moved to the next phase, which involves a five-month ballot ending on 2 September 2007.
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