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The UK Unix & Open Systems User Group said on Thursday that the British Standards Institution's controversial decision to vote for approval of OOXML in a recent International Organization for Standardization ballot followed a flawed decision-making process.
The UKUUG is also folding in many other complaints about Office Open XML (OOXML), such as unresolved patent issues and a lack of completion in the specification's documentation, and is calling for the High Court of Justice to force a judicial review of the BSI's decision. The UKUUG is hoping a judicial review would find the BSI decision to be flawed and reverse it.
OOXML is Microsoft's answer to the OpenDocument Format (ODF), an established ISO standard based entirely on open specifications. OOXML is also theoretically open, but central to the UKUUG's legal action is ISO's fast-tracking of the format into standardization without properly addressing its many unresolved technical flaws--an issue exacerbated by OOXML's extraordinary length as a specification, at 6,000 pages.
Following a highly contentious vote among national standards bodies, ISO announced on April 2 that OOXML was to become an official standard. There is, however, a two-month window following that date, during which the process can be derailed if one of the national standards bodies makes a formal appeal.
Serious objections have been raised within the decision-making community about the approval vote--notably in Norway, by the head of that country's technical committee--but none yet has come officially from any country's national standards body.
The UKUUG has been in existence for 32 years and is, according to Mark Taylor, the head of the Open Source Consortium (OSC), a "venerable organization of men with long grey beards."
"It is a testament to the feeling of injustice here," he told ZDNet UK on Thursday. "This is the first time they've done something like this."
Speaking to ZDNet UK on Thursday, UKUUG head Alain Williams said his group's objection was that ISO and the BSI were "trying to put forward something that is not fit for purpose."
"Microsoft is trying to game the standards process because they don't want a standard that can be implemented by other people," he said. "If they had wanted that, they could have gone with the ODF format (but), if they adopt something like that, they begin to lose their stranglehold on the desktop."
"Something that had that high a level of contention is not suitable for fast-tracking," Williams added.
Williams claimed the official backing of OOXML would harm not only the UK IT industry, by virtue of perpetuating Microsoft's "monopoly," but the country as a whole by not using an open standard that is guaranteed to be usable into the distant future. "If you're talking about reading documents in one or two hundred years' time, you would have great problems in doing it (with documents based on OOXML)," he said.
The OSC's Taylor told ZDNet UK that the UKUUG's action carried with it "prima facie evidence that the BSI's processes have not been complied with or done in a very strange way."
"A lot of us believe there are questions to be answered," said Taylor. "The remedy that is being sought is a mandatory order to withdraw the BSI's vote approving (OOXML). The BSI hasn't followed its own processes. For example, the (claim) that it was unanimously decided to pass (OOXML)--it wasn't. People will be called as witnesses to show there are serious problems with the BSI's processes."
Taylor, however, did not express confidence in the ability of the action--if successful--to reverse the ISO vote without similar actions being launched in other countries. "I don't believe the BSI on its own would be sufficient to pull the vote back, but it would certainly make a dent in it," he said. "Should there be others, it would certainly change the percentages (in the ISO tally)."
The BSI had not commented on the UKUUG's legal action at the time of writing.
David Meyer of ZDNet UK reported from London.
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OpenDocument Format,
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- de jure
- de facto
Additionally, when you say "people" you have to make at least the distinction between corporate, corporate and home users.
-RFH
It needs to be looked at to see if the system was flawed or rigged.
Standards are mandatory in governments. Government users are the largest group in many countries (not in the USA, though). Many corporation do business with governments, thus affecting their own use -or lack of- of standards.
and so on...
-RFH
Hey, we are talking here about "standards" - are we not! ;-)
whether or not it is flawed. Europe wants proper and truly open
standards - not proprietary, monopolist strangleholds.
For starters, I know Microsoft did a better job putting OOXML together than many of the standards that are out there - why - because I was the first person to write the documentation for public consumption on the MS websites. I had to dig through the spec, work with the developers, and try to make heads and tails out of what I was seeing. Compared to S1000D, it's a masterpiece. It's not perfect, but it sure as heck is better than RTF (the native format used internally by Word). But, if you want to protect your little fiefdom, go ahead and gripe. I've been working in XML for many years (SGML too by the way). There are pros and cons to everything. So what. Is it worth what you're doing? I think not. Let the world RECOGNIZE OOXML as a standard. It will help it grow. Many eyes will find the faults - which is expected - and because it's intended to be a spec, MS will make the necessary changes to make it better. Look at S1000D. Have you seen the number of CPFs in the queue? Change is inevitable - and it's usually for the better. Standing in the way of it only makes YOU look bad. So get a grip and get out of our way.
The very idea that only one company can produce a product that fully implements a given standard means that the standard....well, isn't much of a standard.
We should all encourage Microsoft to fully support the existing ISO digital document standard, in addition to their own proprietary standard, so that users of any brand software can exchange documents with users of their products. This is especially important as the world moves to OS agnostic, web based computing.