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.

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.

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
• PDF
• DOC (the old binary format)
• RTF
• Plain text

Numbers

• Apple’s own format (.numbers)
• PDF
• XLS (the old binary format)
• CSV

Keynote

• Apple’s own format (.key)
• Older iWork versions
• QuickTime
• PPT (the old binary format)
• PDF
• 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.

«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.

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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.

What is K 185?

K 185 is a committee in «Standard Norge», the Norwegian Standards Institute. The committee is set to discuss Norway’s official point of view on the ISO certification of OOXML. It is an open process, and anyone can participate. However, it is not a democratic process, as the committee member compound does not reflect the Norwegian people’s opinions. It is solely up to the board of «Standard Norge» to vote on the OOXML certification in ISO, based on the input and comments the board get from the committee members. In the mandate of «Standard Norge», it says that «Standard Norge» has letter of attorney to give Norway’s vote, «with the support of King and Government». An interesting point of view regarding this matter, is that if «Standard Norge» says «Yes» to the ISO certification of OOXML, «Standard Norge» is in conflict of interests with the Norwegian government, as Norway’s government only wants ODF. (Link only in Norwegian.) If «Standard Norge» says «Yes» to the ISO certification of OOXML, «Standard Norge» does not fulfill their mandate.

K 185 is represented by board members of «Standard Norge» as well as several well known faces in the Norwegian IT industry. My self included.

What is OOXML?

OOXML is a document format developed by Microsoft, which has later been accepted as an Ecma standard. OOXML is capable of storing documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Microsoft tries to ISO certify OOXML through their membership in Ecma. The background for this work, is clearly that Microsoft wants to compete with ODF, which is already ISO certified. Despite rumors going around, OOXML is not the default document format of Microsoft Office 2007.

What’s the problem?

Conflicting standards

A political headache for Microsoft and Ecma is that ODF is already ISO certified. Furthermore ISO and WTO has a clause on not having two competing standards that are in conflict of interests. By ISO certifying OOXML we violate this clause and open for equivalent conflict of interests in other areas. As a consequence, ISO certification of OOXML may contribute to undermine the liability of ISO as a standards institute. That’s why Microsoft is putting great effort into convincing «Standard Norge» and ISO that OOXML is not in conflict of interests with ODF.

Microsoft claims that OOXML is not in conflict of interests with ODF, as OOXML is supposedly created to solve different needs than ODF. Microsoft’s arguments claims that OOXML is created to store historical data from old documents. However, this is only a rhetorical argument to avoid ISO’s clause on competing standards and conflict of interests with ODF. These arguments are not valid, and I’ll tell you why.

If you ignore all the rhetorical acrobatics, OOXML is a document standard created to store documents, spreadsheets and presentations, either the data is old or new. ODF is also a document standard created to store documents, spreadsheets and presentations, created for the exact same purpose as OOXML. Simplified, OOXML and ODF fulfills the same needs, and it’s just rhetorical acrobatics that claims otherwise. OOXML is clearly in conflict with the already ISO certified ODF format.

The difference — which according to Microsoft is supposed to be the important matter — is that OOXML is created to store data from old document formats. Microsoft claims that the difference between OOXML and ODF is so big that there are no conflict of interests between the standards, and that they are not competing. However, Microsoft is making a great mistake on this matter. By implementing functionality to store document data from old documents, Microsoft also implements the need for knowing how old Microsoft Office versions worked. This is information no one else that Microsoft has access to, not even with an exclusive appointment with Microsoft. Knowing this, it is impossible to implement OOXML in it’s full for any other vendor than Microsoft. Furthermore, Microsoft also misses on the engineering of OOXML, as features for handling old document data is not supposed to be implemented in the document standard itself, but in separate conversion applications. Microsoft is trying to ISO certify problems created in old versions of Microsoft Office. These arguments where discussed in K 185, but Microsoft did not seem to understand the problem.

If converting data from old documents is a point, Microsoft must also include conversion from other vendors of office applications, which they have not done. There once was a time when WordPerfect was the text editor.

OOXML is not an open standard

OOXML is an acronym for «Office Open XML» and is supposed to be — as indicated by the name — an open standard that anyone can implement without involving Microsoft, or taking on the risk of being sued by Microsoft by implementing the standard. This summer, I’ve been frequenting the Norwegian IT newspaper Computerworld, where I claim that the only thing that’s open by OOXML is the name.

OOXML is a closed, vendor-owned and proprietary standard because it has references to functionality implemented in old versions of Microsoft Office. In the OOXML standard, you can find references like useWord97LineBreakRules and autoSpaceLikeWord95. Directly translated into human, this is code telling me to «do line breaks like Microsoft Word 97» or «do auto-space like Microsoft Word 95». To implement these features I need to know how this is done in Microsoft Word 97 and 95. Furthermore, the OOXML standard is packed with code like this. There is no doubt that no one else than Microsoft knows how this is done. OOXML is provably a closed, vendor-owned and proprietary standard.

Microsoft has however made the specifications on old file formats available, in an erroneous attempt of complying to the criticism on this point, which they of course tried to make a big point of in K 185. However, Steve Pepper pointed out that Microsoft clearly misses the point, as it is not the specifications of the file formats that we need to implement this functionality. We need the algorithms on how the specifications should be treated in the applications that we create. The only way to find this, is to study the source code of Microsoft Word 97 and 95, and that — I can promise you — will Microsoft not give you.

OOXML contains references to VML, a proposed W3C standard developed by Microsoft, among others. The proposal where however rejected and VML never got to be a standard. Old Microsoft Office documents contains VML in a large scale. Those familiar with web standards from W3C probably knows the expression «deprecated». VML is a deprecated standard. ISO should not under any circumstance certify a standard containing references to deprecated standards or standard proposals.

Microsoft understands the marketing value of open standards. Furthermore, Microsoft understands that by making their document formats completely free and open, they open for the use of alternate applications and platforms, and that is what Microsoft is desperately trying to avoid with a closed, proprietary standard, which is only poorly camouflaged by a misleading name.

The public sector does not want competing standards

K 185 has a member from KS, the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities. KS is a national member’s association for municipalities, counties and public enterprises under municipal or county ownership. It is not in the interest of KS and their members to have competing standards. Public sector only want to use one standard that is completely free, open and vendor independent. The member from Software Innovation — a large provider of proprietary software in Norway — claimed that competing standards is good for the market, but seemed to forget that one of their largest customers, KS, was sitting on the other side of the table. He also seemed to forget that Microsoft’s most important argument is that ODF and OOXML is not competing standards. What irony.

Technical errors in the standard

OOXML does not include references to other ISO-standards, as in example the ISO standard for dates and times, ISO 8601. If ISO is going to certify a standard containing dates and times, the standard must comply to existing ISO standards. The reason for OOXML not using ISO 8601, is that old versions of Microsoft Office has a bug related to handling dates. By switching from the existing date handling to ISO 8601, error in data may occur, Microsoft claimed.

There was a lot of buzz in K 185 when several members of the committee defended further use of erroneous date handling. Again, Microsoft and Ecma is trying to ISO certify old problems instead of solving them in third party applications for data converting.

As mentioned earlier, OOXML is an acronym for «Office Open XML». Several committee members, myself included, found it strange that OOXML does not produce valid XML, and claimed that we cannot ISO certify a standard that does not comply with standards it refers to. To produce valid XML, the existing OOXML standard must be re-written, and to do this it has to be taken off «fast track» in ISO by voting «No» to OOXML. There should under no circumstances be made changes to a standards that is in the «fast track», as there’s no time.

OOXML has no implementation

A member of the committee claimed that OOXML has been implemented in several office suites on the market. This where however declined by several other committee members. OOXML has no implementation in any office suite on the market. Microsoft themselves uses a variant that goes by the name of MSOOXML in Microsoft Office 2007. In IETF it is a requirement that a standard must have at least two separate and independent implementations to be IETF certified. IETF is cooperating closely with W3C, IEC and of course ISO. Thus it’s not IETF certification that’s up for discussion, it’s interesting to see that ISO’s partners requires at least two separate and independent implementations, which OOXML does not have.

Håkon Wium Lie from Opera Software and the creator of CSS, thinks that OOXML will never be used as the default document format in any application, not even Microsoft Office. He thinks it could be an option, but that there’s more likely to be used Microsoft Office’s existing format.

What’s needed to get OOXML ISO certified?

To get ISO certified, Ecma and Microsoft needs two thirds of the votes. During the last couple of months, Microsoft has literally bought whole countries to get them to vote «Yes» to ISO certification of OOXML. Based on their previous history on IT and standardization, who would believe that countries like the Ivory Coast has a strong relation to IT standards? If Microsoft is capable of buying whole countries, imagine what power Microsoft possesses. And believe me, they will use it to gain control in the market to what’s in their interests, not what’s in the interests of their customers.

The final vote on DIS 29500 in ISO is on September 2nd, by the members of ISO Standard Committee 34 voting either «No, with comments», «No», «Yes» og «Yes, with comments». It’s also possible to abstain.

What’s the ISO certification worth?

During the meeting in K 185, Microsoft where asked why it’s so important for Microsoft to get OOXML ISO certified. The answer given clearly indicated that they do not have any good, reliable arguments. It where quite clear that Microsoft is only doing this to compete with ODF and gain control in the market. This where of course not mentioned.

Statoil is a Norwegian oil and gas company with substantial international activities, and is a member of the committee. During a break, one of Statoil’s members told me that it’s not too important for Statoil to get OOXML ISO certified, as long as they have a guarantee that their 20 million documents will be accessible in the future. That’s a very interesting point. Statoil is sitting in a meeting with «Standard Norge», defending ISO certification of something that’s not too important for them. That’s nothing else than amazing. What Statoil gets from Microsoft to represent Microsoft’s view in the certification process is only speculations.

For Microsoft, ISO certification probably has no value. Microsoft has never been acknowledged for complying to standards, not even their own, and I don’t think that will change as a result of this process. However, it’s of great market value to Microsoft. ODF is already ISO certified and I believe that we in the future will see that public sector will have a greater focus on the importance of using standardized formats to exchange information. This because it will be important to exchange information on different platforms and applications. Microsoft will by natural causes try to avoid this, by binding their users to their products like Windows and Office, with their closed, proprietary formats. As mentioned earlier, Microsoft is just covering this up by naming their standard «Office Open XML».

What happens if OOXML is (not) ISO certified?

Outsiders may as what all the buzz is about. Why is it so important to Microsoft to get OOXML ISO certified? Why is it so important to others to avoid OOXML of being ISO certified?

If OOXML gets ISO certified, Microsoft will have a huge sales argument on why enterprises and public sector should choose Microsoft Windows and Office, and furthermore tighten their already tight grip on the market. Microsoft already has a de-facto monopoly situation on their operating system and office suite, and it’s not hard to imagine how the situation will be if Microsoft gains even more market share. Increased license costs, sharpened terms of use, reduced freedom in the choice of platform and application freedom, and of course dependencies to other applications or solutions may be the consequences.

If OOXML is not ISO certified, this may be the beginning of the end as Microsoft as we know it. A futuristic scenario may look like this: OOXML is not ISO certified. ODF, which is ISO certified, becomes the preferred standard for storing and exchanging information in public sector in even more countries. At the beginning, Microsoft does not support ODF natively in Microsoft Office, and looses market shares to alternate office suites. People switches to alternate office suites to communicate with public sector. Without Microsoft Office, the users does not see any value of paying for Microsoft Windows, and switches to alternate platforms. Microsoft looses market shares even in the operating system.

Now, you may think that you’re better off with one single vendor, to avoid involving several vendors, and you think your solutions communicate better. What you may not imagine, is that by selecting a vendor of proprietary, closed solutions, the vendor decides how and where you may use your software and the data that you produce with the software. You give away the ownership of your own information. You give away your freedom. For what price your vendor decides. With the functionality that your vendor decides.

The process of «Standard Norge» and K 185

This is my first time participating in meetings with «Standard Norge». Prior to the meeting, I had some expectations on how the process should be. I expected «Standard Norge» to have a clear format on how they’re running their meetings, an agenda for the meeting, and not at least a standardized process for how they deliver information to ISO. My expectations where not met, to put it gently!

The form and agenda of the meeting where discussed initially. «Standard Norge» had no routine on how meetings like this where accomplished. I did not believe what I heard when the Vice President in «Standard Norge» told that the Norwegian vote to ISO can only be given when there is an agreement in the committee for what to vote. I can assure you that in K 185, there would never ever be any agreement what so ever.

Prior to the meeting, committee members had the possibility to comment on the OOXML standard. The comments where gathered by «Standard Norge» and where subject to discussion in K 185. It’s common practice that comments are passed on to ISO. Once again I did not believe what I heard when the VP of «Standard Norge» told that a comment will not be passed on to ISO if the committee did not agree on the comment. All Microsoft needed was to proclaim that they do not agree on a comment to prevent it from being sent to ISO.

Already under discussion of the first comment, it was clear that no comments where going to be passed on to ISO with this outlandish process. I’ve never witnessed a less democratic process in my whole life. Håkon Wium Lie has great experience in the field of certification, among other things from W3C, and pointed out for the VP that the process where unacceptable. The committee agreed that comments could be sent to ISO if the content where discussed in the committee first. No wonder the meeting took almost five hours. With only one break, everybody was exhausted afterwards.

The lack of objectivities in the process

Those against ISO certification of OOXML gathered Tuesday 21st in a meeting to discuss how we intended to accomplish the meeting at «Standard Norge» the following day. I made a point that we had to gather forces in the committee meeting. No disrespect, no lack of objectivities and only hard facts where going to be presented.

However, several committee members presented some highly nonobjective allegations during the committee member. One of the members from Statoil — the one claiming that ISO certification is not important to Statoil — claimed that ODF is an odd format only used in academic environments. I find it horrible that a representative from one of Norway’s larges companies can utter such an erroneous and incompetent opinion.

Software Innovations representative used the word «religion» several times on why the opponents where involved in this process. Furthermore, he also claimed that «it’s obviously trendy to dislike Microsoft». All utterings greatly shows how little knowledge these committee members are possessing, both on OOXML and ODF, as well as their fellow committee members. Personally, I don’t think they show ISO any respect for making ODF a standard. It doesn’t show any respect for other peoples daily work, either.

When one does not understand what one is arguing against, one does probably not understand what one is arguing for either. Many of the committee members where obviously in the process to be Microsoft’s mercenaries, obviously well paid, without having the proper knowledge on document standards.

Now what, Norway?

I believe all committee members left the meeting with a mixed feeling. Personally, I have no feeling on what Norway will vote. At least, noone bought champagne when parts of the committee gathered for a beer after the meeting.

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In the mean time, I’m looking for a nice cell phone and a collaboration application that fits the phone.

However, I own the domain, but have got absolutely no idea of how I should use it. Have you?