The Norwegian OOXML Scandal
Friday the 28th of March 2008, Norway voted «YES» on OOXML becoming an ISO standard. This is nothing else than a scandal. Here’s why.
Some background information
In Norway, the Norwegian Standards Institute called «Standards Norway», shortened SN, is the organization that makes the decision on Norway’s official vote on what’s becoming an ISO standard. Within SN, there’s a committee called SN K/185, a mirror committee to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34, which is set to discuss IT standards such as ODF and OOXML.
I am a member of SN K/185 and this is my thoughts on the process.
In Norway, SN is not obligated to listen to the committee. The administration of SN is able to make a decision that does not conform with the consensus of the committee.
Unfortunately, a lot of people underestimates the responsibility of SN. A committee like SN K/185 exists because it shall contain expertise that SN theirselves does not possess, so that SN may consult the committee when making decisions like this.
However, the problem in this matter is that the expertise where not listened to at all. In example, both Steve Pepper and Erlend Øverby has been members of SN K/185 since the committee was created in 1995. Both Pepper and Øverby are opponents of OOXML. As far as i know, none of the pro-OOXML members has been in the committee longer than the OOXML process has been running. It is extremely unfortunate and shocking that two of Norway’s experts in XML based standards has been completely rejected in this process.
Furthermore we find several other well-known standardization experts in SN K/185. We have Håkon Wium Lie, the man behind CSS, and Harald Alvestrand, former chair of the IETF. Both Wium Lie and Alvestrand are opponents of OOXML.
If we have a look at the pro-OOXML members, we find Shahzad Rana of Microsoft Norway, Eirik Lae Solberg of Microsoft Norway, Henriette Grønn of Microsoft Norway, Arne Jørgensen of Questpoint (where Shahzad Rana is chairman of the board) and Knut Tungland from StatoilHydro, one of Microsoft Norway’s largest customers. I am not going to discredit these people in any way, but it is obvious that we won’t find the standardization expertise among the pro-OOXML members.
Disregarding the expertise, SN chooses to vote «YES» on OOXML becoming an ISO standard, even though SN admit that OOXML is an immature standard. As a result, Steve Pepper today announced his withdrawal from SN K/185 in protest. When both Steve Pepper and Erlend Øverby after SN’s decision proclaims that 13 years of standardization work has been wasted, and now consider discontinuing their work in SN K/185, there is more than enough reason to investigate this process further.
Implementing ODF
In a recent discussion with one of Microsoft’s lobbyists in my Norwegian web log, I presented some brief information on how much time is needed to implement ODF in an application.
The application I work with on a daily basis has support for importing and exporting ODF as text, ODT. I claimed that implementing ODF is rather simple. Microsoft’s lobbyist asked me how this could be. This is a translation of the IM conversation I had with the developer implementing ODF:
I asked:
Do you know approximately how much time you spent on implementing ODF in the application?
He answered:
I wrote the first functional import / export in two days…
I asked:
Do you recall if there was any challenges related to the implementation?
He answered:
Well… It’s mostly straight-forward. A documented XML format. Trivial, I would say.
I asked:
May I quote you on this?
He answered:
Yes
So, If you’re wondering if implementing ODF in your application is a large and complex task, the answer is no. Of course, time for testing, packaging, etc. must be calculated as well. Furthermore, this is just ODT, so you may calculate on a couple of more days for the other parts of ODF. 
OOXML — The Apple Headache
Up here in Norway, representatives from Microsoft keeps running around spreading the word that OOXML is implemented in several applications, among them several Apple products — or products for the Mac OS X platform — such as iWork ‘08, iPhone and NeoOffice. As an Apple user, I have an iWork ‘08 license, I have an iPhone and I use NeoOffice as my primary office suite. Therefore, I would like to test the allegations.
First of all, I will like to point out that the format of documents produced by Microsoft Office 2007 is not OOXML (Ecma 376). Microsoft Office 2007 documents contains, according to my sources, many elements not specified in Ecma 376, such as binary code, macros, OLE objects, ActiveX, DRM and SharePoint metadata. Even the paper handling does not conform with Ecma 376. The documents produced by Microsoft Office 2007 goes by the name of MSOOXML, but in this article I will call it OOXML. However, this is not the point of this article. My point is to see if the document implementation in either iWork ‘08, iPhone or NeoOffice is usable in other applications.
Who can produce an OOXML document?
If we turn to the Apple website, Apple says the following on Pages ‘08 and compatibility:
Import your Microsoft Word documents into Pages ’08 with ease. Whether they’re Microsoft Office 2007 (Office Open XML) or earlier Word files, Pages will open them.
Great, I can open OOXML documents. But what if I have to make changes in the document, and return it to the sender? Saving documents as OOXML is not supported in any of the iWork ‘08 products. This is the list of supported document types:
Pages
- Apple’s own format (.pages)
- Older iWork versions
- DOC (the old binary format)
- RTF
- Plain text
Numbers
- Apple’s own format (.numbers)
- XLS (the old binary format)
- CSV
Keynote
- Apple’s own format (.key)
- Older iWork versions
- QuickTime
- PPT (the old binary format)
- Pictures
- Flash
- HTML
- iPod
Based on this list, I’m stuck for now. It’s not possible to create OOXML documents with iWork ‘08. What about NeoOffice? Will NeoOffice be able to create OOXML compatible documents?
A simple test document
First, I need to create an OOXML document, with the file extension .docx. With NeoOffice, I’ve produced a very simple document, containing some text and a picture.
I save the document as «Microsoft Word 2007 Document (.docx)». Just to make sure, I save the document as ODF and OOXML.
In Mac OS X
As soon as the document is saved, I find it in Finder, the Mac OS X equivalent to Windows Explorer. I find both the ODF and the OOXML version:
As you can see, OOXML is apparently not fully implemented in Mac OS X. Finder has a preview of the content of known file types, but it does not show the content of the OOXML file, like it does with ODF. The ODF document has the file extension .odt. Mac OS X also has functionality called Quick Look to preview the whole file without opening it. However, that does not work either:
To compare it, the ODF file looks like this:
In Mac OS X applications
OK, we’ve sorted out that OOXML documents is not implemented in Mac OS X, apparently. What about other applications? By double clicking the OOXML document, Mac OS X will open the file in TextEdit, an advanced equivalent of Windows’ Notepad. This is what the document will look like in TextEdit:
I would like to claim that the implementation of OOXML in TextEdit is so defective that it is useless. Furthermore, I do not know anyone that uses TextEdit for word processing.
In iWork ‘08
What happens if I open the document with my iWork ‘08 application, Pages? Here’s the answer:
On the iPhone
What about the iPhone? Will it open my OOXML document? I send it by e-mail, where it appears in the inbox:
I open the e-mail and find the document attached:
Finally, I try to open the document. This is what happens:
Clearly, iPhone is not able to open the OOXML document. I’d like to point out that the document is not password protected.
Conclusion
I do not own a license for Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, and I will not buy one either. It might be possible to open documents produced by Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac with iWork ‘08, iPhone or NeoOffice, but that is irrelevant. One of the major points with interoperability, is vendor independence. If I have to buy a license for Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, Microsoft has succeeded in creating a standard so difficult — not to say impossible — to implement, that users will have to buy Microsoft’s software.
As a final statement, I would like to point out that the allegations on OOXML beeing implemented in iWork ‘08, iPhone and NeoOffice are wrong.
Norway’s official press release on OOXML
As mentioned earlier today, Norway votes no on OOXML. Since this may be of interest for others than those who speak Norwegian, I’ve translated the press release:
«Standard Norge» (The Standardization Organizations in Norway) gives a conditional yes on OOXML ISO/DIS 29500
On a principal level, «Standard Norge» is for a standard that gives the users the best way of access to their existing documents. However, we find too many weaknesses in OOXML to approve the existing documents as a recommendation to an ISO standard.
Many of these weaknesses is anchored in the attempt to unite the old document mass with the needs of future documents. This leads to a complexity that is not appropriate when it comes to openness and interoperability. Norway’s comments and suggestions imply solutions that makes it possible to conduct these needs. The comments reflects the input that we have gathered during the process.
Based on this, and according to ISO’s directives on how a conditional yes have to be expressed, Norway have to say «No, with comments and suggestions for changes».
A ballot resolution meeting in ISO in February next year will work on the comments received, and suggest solutions that accommodate the comments from the member countries. After this meeting, Norway may change their vote to a unconditional yes, If we think that our comments has been adapted.
If the final result of the ballot resolution meeting leads to a plural yes, ISO will release a revised version for the Final Draft International Standard — FDIS.
Norway votes no on OOXML
This morning, Norway voted no to ISO certification of OOXML. I can’t be more satisfied with the result. I’ve translated the important part of the press release:
Based on these facts, and according to ISO’s directives on how a conditional yes have to be expressed, Norway will have to vote «No, with comments».
I will come back with further information as soon as I find time.
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About Martin Bekkelund
This is the personal weblog of the Norwegian web professional Martin Bekkelund. Martin is born in 1977 and works as Senior Solution Architect for an IT company in Oslo, Norway. Martin also runs a Norwegian weblog, as well as a photo gallery. He also likes to speak of himself in third person.
Martin's involved in, and a great fan of Usability, Standards, Methodology, Design, Information Architecture, Project Management, Free Software and Agile Development.
