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Schemas

I can't seem to find the schemas for Office Open XML. Does anyone know where to get them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.7.122.97 (talk) 04:51, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

white papers

http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/odf_ooxml_technical_white_paper

ftp://officeboxsystems.com/odfa_ukag/ODFA%20UKAG%20Technical%20White%20Paper.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.103.114.89 (talk) 08:24, 30 November 2007 (UTC)


Neutrality

This looks like an Advertising article. even the ugly "word art" image. It does not make sense to me that the open information portal per se host something like this that goes against all we know about free information. By the way, I still don't know whats the utility of ooxml I'm not informed by this page as it is right now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.67.114.96 (talk) 06:36, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

This page needs to be reamed out by an edit team.

Stephen Colbert supporters can get blocked for saying elephants tripled in Africa, but Microsoft brownshirts get free reign here?

To Wikipedia editors: for G*d's sake: edit!

This article is in pretty poor state, important sites are censored from the references, and critics are being discredited at every opportunity ("have financial stakes", "lobbied extensively", "advocates" - contrast this to how Microsoft is represented in the support section). The net result is that the page gives an incredible misrepresentation of the controversy about the case.

I tried to add a link I found interesting and important to the technical criticism section, but it was promptly removed by the ever vigilant Microsoft supporters.

Would it be better to have a separate page about the controversy, so that this page could simply discuss the standard itself? And the controversy page could list references to sites that don't pretend to be neutral, without the harassment? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ketil (talk • contribs) 08:47, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

I dont think splitting the article is in the best interests of wikipedia. That would result in 2 articles without a neutral point of view. As it is this article is not neutral and needs a lot of work. WP:NPOV states that an article needs to show all significant views. So far I think this one reads like an advertisement. I dont think a separate page would have any less harassment, in fact it would become a war zone. Kilz 20:56, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough. I still think it would be possible to have a non-controversial page with technical details on the format itself, and relegate teh "war zone" to techncal controversy, process controversy, etc etc. kzm 10:51, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Looking at WP:NPOV, it appears to me that the proper process to reference opinion is to cite a prominent representative - for example, the NoOOXML page - and state that said representative has a particular opinion. It is a fact that the NoOOXML supporters believe that OOXML is a bad thing, just as it is a fact that Microsoft would like us to all use OOXML. tgape 14:32, 12 September (UTC)
Granted, but to me that says there are at least 2 groups who's opinions need to be shown on this page. But so far to me this page reads like an advertisement. Showing off the features and long sections on its benefits and any mention of anything negative is painted as coming from competitors. The excuse of what Wikipedia is not is also overused to limit criticism.Kilz 22:26, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
It would be better if no group's opinions were reflected in the page, and it just stuck to facts that everyone agrees on. Technical details of the standard and votes. It is a self-inflated idea of "balance" that it has to include one's own opinion. It should be enough to say "There has been controversy about the draft standard, relating both to the details of the draft and to processes" with five or ten of the current references, and then remove all the criticism section. Rick Jelliffe 13:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Request for Comment:Opposition, Accessibility, and Criticism

This is a dispute about the removal of sections about criticism of OOXML, accessibility problems with it, and public opposition to it. It relates, though less directly, to previous discussion of the removal of links to articles critical of OOXML. Previous discussion of section removal is here, and of the notability of opposition to OOXML here. Dovi 18:25, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Statements by editors previously involved in dispute
  • Opposition, Accessibility, and Criticism are highly relevant to OOXML and highly notable. NPOV means full presentation of all sides of an issue. Rather than removing information and links critical of OOXML, information and links about both POVs should be made available in a fair fashion. Dovi 18:25, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • There is significant criticism to OOXML that is currently not mentioned in the article. There is a single person, User:HAl, that repeatedly removes edits (not even rephrasing them) that he believes are critical to OOXML. I do not have confidence in his edits on OOXML (or even OpenDocument unless he states convincingly his affiliation. Simosx 18:33, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Comments
  • I've come here based upon the RfC - I have never edited this article and am not associated with either "camp". Skimming the talk page (I'm sorry that I don't have time to read every single comment), it seems that most parties have the correct goal: WP:Neutral point of view, WP:Verifiability, and WP:No original research, although there may be some disagreement about how each of those should be applied. A couple of observations:
    • WP:NPOV is about trying to address significant viewpoints. According to WP:Undue weight, it does not make sense to address every single opinion on a topic. But if there is a significant group of people that share a common opinion, it should be presented in a factual, verifiable manner.
    • To specifically address the Opposition by X sections: it looks to me that there is significant lobbying efforts on both sides, so it seems pretty strange to ignore it completely. At the same time, we must be vigilant that such sections act as summaries and don't get bogged down in every little detail and point, becoming mini-articles themselves. The sections as written could use a little work, but overall seem to walk that fine like acceptably.
    • Congratulations on the Criticism section. It seems extremely well documented, and is well written.

Good luck! —Mrand T-C 19:59, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be confused. The conflicts of interest were evident on the side of Pieterh and Zoobab from the FFII editting the article to support their own site. And your edits seem at least equally biased or even more than hAls. And your unsupported personal attacks don't belong here on wikipedia and probably only strenghten his determination to keep your bias edits out of the article. I will certainly look very carefully to your future edits on this article for a while. 69.73.191.92 20:41, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
It would solve so many issues if the people who edit the most showed in the Open where they come from. You are bashing the edits of Pieterh because he provided his name? What about this guy whose edits still remain? Being anonymous should not be such an advantage in Wikipedia. I am glad you will be attending to my contributions. Simosx 12:30, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Somewhere in the history of the article I see Dovi mentioning that after an edit of his it would now contain both points of view but actually it doesn't. Not at all even. For example there is not a single piece in the article that states that OOXML is better than ODF in some area's or even that it would an improvement on having current 'closed' binary formats or even that it is a big step forwards for MS opening up their formats or in fact anything positive about OOXML. If there was anything positive in on OOXML opponents long ago took it out. It is mostly a summary of factual information on what the OOXML format is and a bunch of critisism. If anything positive was in the article like it having backwards compatibility with binary documents then an opponent adds to it: "According to Microsoft" whilst it is actually also a objective goal described in the format spec. On the other hand when the critisism are added they are presented as fact and not as "according to IBM's Rob Weir" or any such thing. The whole information value of the is totally undermined by opponents changing text to make everything that is positive as being stated or claimed (commenly by Micrsoft) or remove it alltogether whilst the negative is being presented as factual and truthfull even though I already clearly showed in my review of one of the links (a bit higher on the talk page) that it was mostly a bunch of garbage. hAl 22:23, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

My impression is as follows: the current article is unbalanced. In a standard process objections are raised. These objections are "technical comments". You can't say that bug reporting is criticism or bias. A standardisation process is a kind of RFC procedure. The submission to ISO fast-track was controversial an enormous amount of bugs was found and the aggressive "ignore comments" campaigning started. It is a common consent that the specification was premature. I can't see why vendor sites are so much more relevant than sites of critics. These critics are "obscure" and anonymous in the article. It is not really explained why opposition takes place. Imagine the Chinese government to edit Tiananmen and then editors to accuse democrats of "conflict of interest" who want to see the 1989 protests get mentioned. The bias became apparent when the OOXML article was "improved" because microsoft officials felt it was biased. Then it was polluted with marketing garbage. A support argument for instance is the use of ZIP. Well, an "existing" ISO standard provides the same. That is certainly not on the same level than all the technical bugs raised by Kenia but a bogus argument. And then we have a group Voices for Innovation that strongly advocates OOXML adoption at ISO because these SMB offer products. It does not even get mentioned. "Wouter van de Vlugt" has apparently business relations with Microsoft. I would not mind him to edit the article. And what about the anti-IBM slander? The first accusation is a logical fallacy, the second slightly over the top. I just recall that I tried to improve the "policy" section rather than to delete it. I think it is apparent from the edits who promoted bias. "is a blatant attempt to use the standards process to limit choice in the marketplace for ulterior commercial motives" for instance was entered without an indication that it was a quote. Reasonable editors should "write for their enemies", be descriptive. "can and do coexist" is also political language. Offensive language and bias invites your critics to start an edit war. It must be possible to be more descriptive and present (!= promote) OOXML and conflicts.Arebenti 21:24, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Weird. Are you looking at the same article ? This to me looks like one of the articles on wikipedia that has the most critisim in it. I do not see an ignore comments campaign anywhere. I see anti-ooxml campaign lead by IBM and several FOSS organiations which is pathetic. I see references to critisism of competitors IBM, OpenOffice and Sun and by the ODF alliance, the ODF foundation, groklaw and and some obscure group of Malaysian blogger (whihc is just about Yoon Kit who also happenned to write the Kenyan objections together with soemone from IBM). I see how people removed the association of Rob Weir with IBM calling his blog a personal blog. That is just a joke. You state that it is not really evidient why this critisism takes place. I noticed that the article did actually contains several articles stating those for instance from computerworld but they were removed probably because they stated that IBM was behind it in relation to their upcoming Notes 8 release. Also Groklaw has a years long reputation of stating exactly what IBM tells them to. You object to Microsoft references as vendor references but do not have objections to their being multiple competitors polluting the article. Your whole comment here reflects an enormous bias for one side. Why not just extract a short summury of actual (technical) critisism of those listed by the national bodies of which there are also already several in the article and limit the information on the protesting by competitors and ODF supproting organisations to a few selected independant news sources reporting on that protest. Why give those organisations a platform here on wikipedia ? 69.73.191.92 06:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Take a look at the changes. You put forward some strawmen arguments and do name-calling. It doesn't matter who is behind criticism as long as the criticism is valid. No one needs to endorse it. The article was transformed into a Microsoft-marketing gobblespeak article and editing policy of some of the editors was biased and unfair. The goal is a decent article. Editing has not to be guided by stupid anti-IBM conspiracy theories. Arebenti 12:15, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The essense of the critisism and the opponents was not lost. I cleaned up some of it because it was disputed and because it was mostly simular and even identical information that is already in the article. The article looked like a promotional video for opendocment supporters. After cleanup the essential critisism is still in the article as well as the important sources for it. Mayby Dovi is suggesting he is now going to invite someone from Ecma to add an 'advantages of office open xml' section to balance the article ?? 05:33, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

The piece under "Opposition by IBM and its commercial allies" reads very poorly. It reads as though IBM is against all standardisation and that Microsoft is fighting the good fight of standardisation against the evils of big bad IBM. It needs removing or cleaning up. --EvilMonkeySlayer 08:44, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Apparently this is the edit that added the IBM and its commercial allies text.
That piece or the article was cleaned by 69.73.191.92 already together with te ffii en fsf campaign links. That cleanup was before your comment so I am not exactly sure what your are suggesting hAl 13:39, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately I wasn't hitting the refresh button every second to find out whether it had been removed or not. Hence my comment was under the impression it was still up. No worries. --EvilMonkeySlayer 18:08, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Microsoft ...

Parts of the article are written unencyclopedic. Microsoft does this, offers that. Or irrelevant time stamps are added. A wikipedia article is not a press agency from Microsoft. We always need to focus on a description of the file format which is the subject of our article. for instance:

  • "Microsoft stated that Office Open XML would be an open standard, and submitted it to the Ecma standardization process."
  • "In support of the licensing arrangements Microsoft commissioned an analysis from the London legal firm Baker & Mckenzie."

and so on.

  • "Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit released a beta version of a converter to allow document format conversion."

All that sounds like an amateur press release or "cut&paste". The language focuses on activities and usually you find remarks attached why something was done. So the pattern is "Ms does X because of y" where "because of y" is speculation. It is very annoying to find these irrelevant "because of y" marketing claims attached in an unsystematic way. first quote: relevant is standard was submitted by MS to ECMA second quote: Relevant is Baker&McKenzie Third quote: Relevant is the converter. Irrelevant are the activities: "stated", "released", "commissioned".Arebenti 16:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Microsoft is a relavant party in the creation of the format, the patent licensing and the adoption of the format. That is undeniable and their presense in the article is therefore logical. I would however agree that the suggested sentences might be rephrased for instance like this:
"Microsoft submitted the Office Open XML specification to Ecma International for standardization as an open standard"
"An analysis from the London legal firm Baker & Mckenzie on OOXML licensing confirmed that the Office Open XML format can be implemented by anyone." 69.73.191.92 00:25, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
"Microsoft submitted the Office Open XML specification to Ecma International for standardization as an international standard". Arebenti 12:50, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I removed a reference to a grokdoc so called legal analysis. That analysis is based mainly on this statement conclusion: "but the patent claims are not the methods and concepts described therein" to show that Microsoft granting rights on patent claims is like granting nothing. In software patents however the patentclaims really are described methods and concepts. To state the opposite is just making a mockery of legal analysis. A pure joke. And I remember stating this very clearly on Groklaw when this analysis (I think by Marbux) was published but of course those comments of mine were immediatly moderated away as on Groklaw any opinion contrary to theirs is banned !!! hAl 00:55, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Your arguments are invalid. It is not about the validity of the patent claim (which can be disputed) but the validity of the license model. The grokdoc text is pretty long and compiles several concerns by market player. Currently we do not have a real legal analysis which describes the effects of the license models on a worldwide scale. Nobody really knows if different the patent license models can be trusted.84.129.90.247 13:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
The argument I removed only referend a section of the grokdoc text called "The Microsoft covenants not to sue grant no rights". This section centers purely on granting rights on patent claims. For which i already explained the arguments.
Also I disagree on the other concerns on grokdoc being concerns of market players. The grokdoc list is not compiled to be about market issues or by market parties. That list is about a site filled with opponents of Microsoft standardizing the ooxml format collecting possible issues (there is no real verification of these issues and people that do not agree are moderated away or banned from the site) in order to block that standardization and the list therefor consist of mostly findings by groklaw readers who I might (barely) trust to find some obvious editorial and syntax errors but who seem to have a very narrowminded view on ISO directives and legal matters (close to when if it is not FOSS it is illegal). Allthough groklaw writes about legal issues it is just a very onesided opinion side. hAl 14:09, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
And that is exactly the point. We have two sections: support and criticism. Criticism is essentially biased. Grokdok is biased. It is common to find issues, that is what ISO standardisation is all about, review the specification and find issues. For sceptics of ooxml patent licensing Grokdoc may be a key collection, at least it is the most comprehensive one. You need to present criticism in a form that does not "endorse" the view but present it. I think you understand what the CNS and the OSP are. Grant patents to an inventor != grant patent right to a third party. You must be smart enough to get the difference and what the article is about. This is why your argument is invalid or manipulative. A second example: we discuss grokdoc as a source and then you come up with groklaw.Arebenti 16:00, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
The referenced section was actually first part of an Groklaw article (where it is then an unarguable truth)by Marbux and was later moved to the grokdoc listing (which is essentially a groklaw wiki anyways). As I commented on the patent issues in the article it is a logical reference. I do not oppose some bias in the article else I would probably remove more than half of the article. The grokdoc list in fact is already well referenced in the article even allthough I find a quite lot of the issues on it of very poor quality. It is however a good original source of critisism unlike some other sources that just regurgitate the same arguments. However the suggested argument on patent law is just blatently incorrect and because of that I added the information on this talk page so people could verify this claim when I removed it. I personally reinstate it if you can find me a serious patent expert that verifies the Grokdoc conclusion (I'll put in a nice bottle of something as well) that in software patents the patent claims do not contains methods and/or concepts. I actually find that kind of information is seriously misleading as it is presented as a serious legal analysis but show the patent law knowledge of a high school child. I hear ton of so called legal claims on OOXML repeated everywhere because often directly fed from this false information. I would rather see real legal experts do the legal statements. hAl 18:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
It would take very expensive legal research. OOXML is supposed to be used on a worldwide scale. As Microsoft designed these patent models they made the research, however it is not published. Microsoft did not really answer the objections made.Arebenti 00:32, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The whole section on licensing is inadequate thereby probably misleading. It omits any discussion of standards law, the law of deceptive conduct (and fraud), and treaty obligations. As the recent US IP court cases and EU discussions have shown, submission of a standard and statements made by a company at the time of submission have severe impact on their ability to change their licensing terms in a negative way. The material in the current Licensing section seems to apply to considering the CNS and OPC in isolation from the standards process, as if the standards thing was not happening at all. Is there a Wikipedia entry on the law of standards? Andy Updegrove has a page on the subject that goes a little way, but even it is not enough.Rick Jelliffe 13:00, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Edit war

this was disputed: "* Office Open XML is currently the only open document standard to define spreadsheet formulae." a) a reference would be good b) it is a pretty poor argument. It is possible to lie with facts. c) begging the argument: "the only open document" sprays the claim that OOXML is an "open document" which is discussed elsewhere. Why not "Office Open XML defines spreadsheet formulae." Are there "non-open document standards" that define spreadsheet formulae? d) Why was it deleted or disputed?

Actually what was disputed is the define part. Some anonymous editter want to rephrase "define" as "attempt to describe". That was just a ludacrous edit and I reverted that several times. hAl 18:44, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
"describes"? The current bugs do not count. "attempt to describe" is inacceptable imho, the standard is not adopted yet. "define" may be too "formal" in the context of mathematics and formulas.Arebenti 19:43, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, "define" was too formal and this was my objection. hAl initially suggested that these were "a few editorial bugs" but has now conceded that the problems were more than skin deep. OOXML does not "define" enough to be implemented, which means that people looking at the spec must see how Microsoft Office does it and try to replicate that. The result of this is that the "real" OOXML spec is the Microsoft Office source code, not the document that was submitted to ISO. "Defined" is not accurate -- what term would you prefer? 202.160.118.227 10:36, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
You are uttering complete nonsense. The bugs in the spreadsheet formula's (you put in a reference to rob weir post) are all editorial errors and ommisions only and a total of about seven amongst the several hundred formula's and 300 pages of formula defitions in the format specification. Some of them are obvious mistakes and would not confuse any implementer and some are ommitting the value of the variable that is used leaving open whether the specific uses radials or grades but is easy to implement if you. This is minor editorial stuff that can easily be fixed and also stuff that Brian Jones who is in the Ecma technical committee already suggested to be included in the suggested changes for the ISO balot resolution meeting. Suggesting you cannot implement those 300 pages of fomula's specification because of 7 editorial errors is laughable. hAl 12:55, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
1. editorial = orthographic problems, tecnical == specification problems 2. Ecma was supposed to review the standard. these are issues that have to be resolved. Arebenti 00:28, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Which is exactly what Ecma is doing. They are already working on that. Novels Miquel the Icaza (founder of the Gnumeric spreadheet) yesterday said that Novel was the second largest contributor of issues to Ecma with 121 issues and that Ecma already solved 118 of those and continues to work on them. Also he said: I have no access to whatever ISO does or its process so I have no way of telling, but at least from what I can see on the ECMA mailing lists, things are moving forward and issues continue to be addressed. So is is not like the issues aren't resolved and the standard will not improve. 69.73.191.92 11:28, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I am not in the political arena. ECMA submitted a report to ISO that contained many bugs, so many bugs that it gets pretty hard to approve the specification, many objections are raised, also in the ISO process. Many of them were known but ignored. I explained Hal that "technical"!= "editorial". Of course the specification has to improve, that is what the bug reporting (technical comments) is for. When an international standard is buggy you need to either implement the bug, or ignore the bug but then you don't conform. See year 2000 problem.Arebenti 22:37, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I too, found myself unwittingly in an edit war with hAl and tried to address it on his talk page... no response. I went through a 3 day cool off period before I started editing here again.Jonathan888 (talk) 22:23, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

disambiguity

I am just curious: As "Office Open XML" sounds very similar to

- Open Office (OO.org)

- OpenOffice Bacher EDV

- Open Document Format - a direct competitor

and maybe potential other products, does Microsoft risk trademark infringement or may become subject to other competition/consumer regulations? Arebenti 12:49, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I do not think it sounds that simular. There is similarities with openoffice but that shocking. Also the when you use common words like open and office and xml then trademarks become very weak. and I do not hear any simularites with Open document formt at all. That is just funny.
I hope you are kidding. That is like stating that everything with "open" in it would have possible trademark conflict with each other.
Seriously, people that confuse Office Open XML with Open Document Format because of similarities in text or sound are definitly already purely focussed on OOXML vs ODF rather than seeing OOXML as a seperate entity and have narrowed their view already considerably. hAl 13:23, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, at least some users and media confuse it, see above discussion. I wonder if that was intentional. Trademark law could be nasty sometimes. People who are focused on OOXML and ODF will understand that these are two distinct formats. Ordinary market players could get confused. ODF and OOXML are direct competitors, although they serve different needs and philosophies. Arebenti 14:35, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Besides the similarity of names, what about the meaning of the word, "open". OOXML does not appear to be open because it references closed file formats... Does OOXML not conflict with the idea of open standards? Is there not a conflict between ODF and OOXML because of that? In the market, an ingenuous end-user may feel OOXML is a good choice because it is open and not realize that it is closed. If the proposed standard were Office Closed XML it would be more distinctive. This is complicated by the fact that the closed parts are not essentially a part of a modern file standard but an attempt to standardize past practices. Can standards be retrospective? Certainly an organisation can use a practice and propose the practice as a standard, but the practice must be opened and well documented. Saying something should work the way a closed proprietary package works is not a reasonable part of an open standard and OOXML should not have "open" in its name.Pogson 16:11, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
"Open" is part of a marketing name. The format would be officially ISO 26500. Sure "open standard" is another point. HAl argued that OOXML was an EU Open Standard as you can find in the article while others think it fulfills only "minimal characteristics". See below. Arebenti 19:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
HAl do you really mean to imply there is no ambiguity between Office Open XML and Open Office ODF. OOXML is clearly an attempt to confuse. It is less unambiguous than Windows and Lindows. Yet MS sued over that for exactly that reason. Microsoft is often this way, crying foul when someone uses their own tactics against them. I'm not confused by "Office Open" and "Open Office", but many people will be, because they are not familiar with FOSS.Celtic hackr 20:35, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
There is no ambiguity with OpenDocument and Office Open XML in the way that the wiki could accidentally lead you the wrong article and the earlier suggestion they might sound simular was even ridiculous. For a wikipedia search on "open office" I can see some ambiguity in the wikipedia search results so that tag seems a valid option. Microsofts namechoice might be dubieus but was made possible by OASIS renaming their Open Office XML format to Opendocument just so that it would match the proposed name in EU's reports on which is also dubieus. I bet that MS was furieus when the OpenOffice suite was first release under that name for their namechoice. hAl 21:27, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Hal, Hal, Hal. Firstly, OpenOffice existed long before MS came out with Office Open XML. Secondly, when I speak of ambiguity, I speak of ambiguity for those who may be looking for a word processing format to save their documents in. An uneducated non-wikipedia Windows desktop person may be in Word and need to save in Open Office format, for someone who requested the document be in Open Office format. Now an unknowing user, might be confused by Open Office/Office Open. Not everyone is as computer literate as you, nor does everyone turn to wikipedia whenever they have a question about something. When I speak of ambiguous, I am speaking about in the world at large, not in the narrow confines of our Ivory Tower. Surely, you must see this, or you have MS blinders on. Again, I have no quarrel with MS or FOSS. I make my money on support, and there more need for support in MS products than in FOSS. Celtic hackr 06:47, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
As noted in another discussion further down the page on the same topic of similar names this issue is the first comment issue in Great Britain's BIS - disapprove with comments ballot. If it's important enough for BIS to list, it's important enough for Wikipedia to list.Jonathan888 (talk) 22:21, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
I spoke to the MS fellow who claimed to have named the format. His view was that it had "Office" in the name because of MS Office ("Office" is not a trademark, btw), and it had "Open" in the name because they were trying to open it their formats. He was not thinking about Open Office in particular, IIRC. People usually just say "Open XML" or OOXML to avoid confusion. The BRM will be discussing renaming the ISO standard, by the way. Rick Jelliffe 13:13, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Marketing kludge

"According to Microsoft, Office Open XML [file format ]is backward compatible with Microsoft Office versions 2000, XP and 2003 [products *] using Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack.[5]"

1. The sentence is misleading. The format is not "backwards compatible" but earlier versions of MS Office support the new format read/write using a "compatibility pack". Which is good news that needs to be spread. ... "is backwards compatible" is just a very complicated description that should be improved.

2."backward compatibility" of the format is said to be achieved by deprecated elements, so conversion of older binary document to OOXML is simplified. That is a semantic issue. The new format can express everything that was expressed by earlier MS format. We could also descrieb that as deprecated slack. Nothing bad per se for document preservation. But is no real "backwards compatibility", see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_compatibilityArebenti 14:52, 16 August 2007 (UTC) (*) Cmp: "How to use earlier versions of Excel, PowerPoint, and Word to open and save files from 2007 Office programs"

The term "backwards" compatible need to be used with care, because different people expect it to mean different things. The new format is not binary compatible with old formats. And it is not limited to only containing analogs for things found in previous versions but has some new capabilities. However it clearly is backwards compatible, since it is designed to cater for the structures generated or required by previous versions of the Office applications. For the comment 1) I think you may be talking about "forward compatibility" of old applications, not backwards compatability of new formats. For comment 2) there are really four levels of compatability: i) standard conformance means just that application would be able to open the ZIP file, load the XML, navigate around using OPC, and generate XML that is valid against the schemas (conformance is "purely syntactic"); ii) then there is application conformance where an application follows or implements the typical semantics (as much of them as it needs to, almost all elements are optional); iii) then there are compatibility elements which relate to reproducing features of older versions of Word, Word Perfect etc.; iv) finally there are deprecated elements which relate to flagging documents that may contain some kind of bug of previous versions of applications: these would conceivably be useful for someone trying to exactly reverse engineer the behaviour of some old application, but are probably not even implemented in Office 2007 (these are the most nichey of niche cases, yet have become the favoured bogeymen of some, a great example of lack of proportion.) Rick Jelliffe 13:45, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Editing style and poor description of standardisation benefits

===Arguments in support=== Organizations and individuals supporting Office Open XML have provided arguments for standardization<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.openxmlcommunity.org/summary.aspx | title=Hear what Ecma has to say about Open XML (paragraph: Key benefits of Open XML) | author=Open XML community | publisher=OpenXMLcommunity.org }}</ref>.

  • We have a reference but the reference it false.
  • overgeneralisation: "organisations and individuals"
  • The reference refers to OpenXMLcommunity, a vendor community site from Microsoft
  • But the article just quotes from an ECMA paper: "Hear what Ecma has to say about Open XML"
  • Quote: "Hear what Ecma has to say about Open XML, The following is a summary from "Office Open XML Overview", by Ecma International. OpenXML_White_Paper.pdf"
  • the article explains the features of OOXML but does not advocate for (ISO) standardisation. It also mentions the ECMA process for standardisation. It is clear that the arguments for OOXML are distinct from arguments for the standardisation of XML.

====Key benefits arguments==== ECMA has provided the following key benefits arguments for standardization [http://www.ecma-international.org/news/TC45_current_work/OpenXML%20White%20Paper.pdf Ecma international. Office Open XML Overview]: High Fidelity Migration to Open Formats, Enhanced Interoperability, Compactness, Low Barriers to Developer Adoption, Integration with Business Data, Internationalization, Room for Innovation, Accessibility, and Long Term Document Preservation. See also [http://www.ecma-international.org/news/TC45_current_work/Ecma%20responses.pdf -Response Document- National Body Comments from 30-Day Review of the Fast Track Ballot for ISO/IEC DIS 29500 (ECMA-376) Office Open XML File Formats]

  • here again the same source, the Office Open XML overview.
  • and then these long links that are added in an inappropriate fashion (see also ....)
  • the arguments are not explained. what is "high-fidelity Migration" or "room for innovation"?

Conclusion:

  • A key document for the defense of OOXML is provided by ECMA and mentions some marketing argument, the OpenXML Whitepaper.
  • We also have the document TC45 response paper as a source that needs to be considered.
  • the first link should get removed as it is unsourced.
  • It is not clear why ISO standardisation is wanted.
  • We need to separate arguments about the benefits of the format and the benefits of ISO approval/standardisation.

Additional remarks:

  • above the bogus argument is made: ISO standardisation because an EU committee asked for it.
  • It is apparent that a key to the conflict is the ISO standardisation procedure of two competing XML-document formats.
  • what is at stake in that competition for Microsoft? Cui bono? What is the warmap for a strategist? I am speaking about rational interests, not emotional or technical arguments.
  • What does ISO approval really mean? what are the effects of OOXML becoming an ISO standard instead of an ECMA standard? E.g. are ISO standards binding for some users? Would some users be forced to switch to ISO 26300 if DIS 26500 gets rejected? Would ISO standardisation help in antitrust?
  • I have seen no commercial analysis of interests. E.g. why Microsoft wants ISO standardisation. And I don't mean room for high-fidelity user surplus. Or why IBM apparently does not want it. We find accusations but no description. Arebenti 22:17, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I changed the key benefits section as it indeed was rubbish with a more clear one taken from Microsoft overview on the format. I see you looked only at the pro arguments section ? Looking at the critisism section I see a legal section that does not contain any valid legal argument but writes that the scope of the patent licensing does not cover the entire spec like it is a fact, a statement which of course is not supported by any reference from a legal expert. I see a reference to Government bodies but it is only one and then merely a very brief ballot statement that is more about showing their concerns and ignorance then about critisisms (what binary information in the standard are they talking of ??? I looked at nearly all 6000 pages and did not see that). 69.73.191.92 07:12, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
The "binary" that for example Google's "comments" mention are not binary sections but binary numbers: used for font matching. The term "binary" by itself is misleading. And, actually, these do follow an ISO standard, the standard for ISO Open Font which ironically is a co-standard between SC34 and another SC at ISO. It is marvelous that in such a large and needy draft as DIS29500 that so many people manage to pick an non-problem; the correct response in the case of font matching is to say "The standard needs to reference the other standard adequately" not "The standard must not use this" or "The standard is EVIL and must be stopped." Rick Jelliffe 13:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Full protection

I've fully protected this page because of edit warring. Please take this to dispute resolution.--Hu12 22:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

That was me and Hal. He's been removing the EU terminology for a week now, so it'll be good to see if we can resolve this. I think talking about it here to see what others think is a good start. 202.135.231.49 22:24, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Can't you just block 202.135.231.49 who is trying to bold edit 'minimal charateristics' in the EU definition section every time ? It has no specific value whatsoever. It is also all the characteristics the EU has ever uttered on Openstandards and you could therefore also qualify this als 'the entire set of EU characteristics for an open standard'. Also it is actually a set of characteristics that is bigger than most conventional open standards definitions which seldomly require royalty free licensing. Adding that clause makes the EU definition quite a severe definition in itself. 69.73.191.92 22:43, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Wow... 69.73.191.92 wrote a lot of words but when you dig into it the edits in question are still the ones I stated. So it's not just putting it in bold as they say, it's still about including "minimal characteristics" at all that's the question (they deleted it regardless of being bold, and in their haste they often removed the wrong parts leaving nonsensical sentences -- eg, "EU of an Open Standard"; check the edit history for many more mistakes from 69.73.191.92 and Hal).
The EU qualification as per the cited document is valuable and accurate and those who think it's a severe definition should take that up with the EU -- it was their words entirely. As 69.73.191.92 says the EU haven't made a formal definition of Open Standards we shouldn't take it as such -- it's only those who want to make their statement about more than minimal characteristics that have a problem with this clarification.
Hope this helps clarify my ideas :) 202.135.231.49 01:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
The qualification minimal is not relevant in the section about EU open standard definitions as OOXML qualifies for all items that the EU documents state. I think the minimal characteristic is added by some ODF fanboy to diminish the value or significance of supporting the full EU definitions of an open standard. hAl 10:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Another question is if it is an open standard according to the EU definition. According to what they claim, it is. But some people question possible binary data in the format and the patent licensing conditions. EU demand is RF, not RAND while ISO also lets RAND slip through. A pragmatic problem is also that Microsoft tries to undermine proper multipartisan review. I expect these open questions to get resolved. I think that it is very useful to have the edit lock now. Discussions belong on the talk page, please avoid edit wars. As far as I understand minimal characteristics was meant by the EU to strengthen the definition. However it is absolutely sufficient to satisfy the definition. Some parties propose other Open Standards++ such as free GPL reference implementations. for me it is not really relevant if "minimal characteristics" gets mentioned or not. Please don't insult. The advantage of odf over ooxml would be: a) clarity reg. RF patent terms b) open multipartisan development process while OOXML was only recently "communitized" and we have to hope that no tricks are played. The question is relevance, I don't doubt that the EU conditions can be satisfied. Arebenti 15:53, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Hal wrote that "minimal characteristics" is not relevant in the section because it meets the criteria. You'll notice that Hal is trying to steer the argument their way towards whether OOXML complies, rather than the focus of this thread's dispute resolution which is about the removal of the "minimal characteristics" term and whether it's an appropriate description. The actual document says, "To attain interoperability in the context of pan-European eGovernment services, guidance needs to focus on open standards. The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an open standard: [and then the bulleted terms quoted in the Wikipedia OOXML entry]". It's now clear that meeting all of the minimal characteristics of an open standard does not make it more than the minimal characteristics -- which the point entirely. 202.135.231.49 00:42, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Indeed the argument is about the compliance. Adding minimal suggests there is more EU open standaard characteristics defined which is not true. So actually effectivly minimal characterictics is equivilant to all characterictics. We could therefore also support the text stating "all characteristics". The only reason to add minimal is to focus away from the stated compliance. hAl 06:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Hal, you're trying to rewrite what the EU stated. They said that their list were the "minimal characteristics" (which indeed does imply more characteristics to come). You apparently want to state that the words the European Union carefully used to describe their "minimal characteristics" list mean something else. The EU chose words to describe their stance and we should respectfully reproduce that. "All characteristics" is not what they said, they said "minimal characteristics" 202.135.231.49 06:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
...and I might add that I hope it's clear now to Hu12 what the argument is about (not about compliance, but about accurate EU terminology and not overstating what they were careful to phrase). I'd like to resolve this dispute but it seems that there's not much middle ground when HAl wants to argue about two words. And Hal, you've been fairly consistent and I doubt that we'll reach agreement here -- I think we should progress this dispute resolution process because unfortunately we're just repeating the same arguments again and again, without reaching consensus. The "minimal characteristics" text is accurate -- you should allow it. If you continue to disagree, I think that perhaps we should follow the "Discuss with third parties" ideas as per the dispute resolution guidelines 202.160.118.227 08:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
...another day, another post. I take it from HAls silence that he/she is unwilling to discuss this (although HAl would spend all day reverting the EU clarification this dispute process apparently isn't worth the same effort). HAl, please, we need to discuss this in order to reach a consensus and if you're going to remaing silent we can't continue the dispute process. 202.160.118.227 05:26, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I am intensely interested in the outcome of this dispute. Is this ever going to DR? Please start concluding some of these disputes so that the page can be unlocked. It's falling farther out-of date, and other grammar/wording corrections need to take place. For example, India just recently voted against; I believe that Malaysia has voted for, and Switzerland isn't even in the chart!! As far as this particular issue goes, I would side on using the EU statement verbatim (or at least not paraphrasing "minimal characteristics" to "all characteristics"), as that feels more like a "reference material" approach. Perhaps a clarification paragraph after their statement could discuss the above issues, or better, "EU open standard" could be it's own article. This article is about OOXML; hence, a discussion of that which defines that "minimal characteristics" of "EU open standards" should be covered on a page about the EU open standardization process. I would be more interested, *here*, in what particular characteristics apply to the particular format this article discusses. Folks; figure this out!!! 65.112.197.16 19:50, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
It was important as meeting the EU open standards definition is very important for adoption in the public sector. Critics question the anglosaxon patent model. Arebenti 19:20, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
HAl has began the edit war again and he/she is not following the disputes process. I'm now taking this to arbitration and asking for HAl to be diciplined. 202.160.118.227 00:09, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. I say you started an edit war by adding meaningless adjectives to a part of the article I added. However you probalby do not know how it is to add real information to an article seeing as you haven't done so up till now. hAl 22:40, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


Locked again. Everyone, please take this to dispute resolution. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hu12 (talk • contribs) 00:20, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Hu12. Hal hasn't been engaging the process which means many of the disputes resolution processes can't be used. I don't know what we can do other than to request arbitration as I've done. If this is not the correct process please let me know. Assuming that it is, then people please add your statements to the arbitration page. 202.160.118.227 00:26, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I reverted your edit several times and I agree with hAl. You are a troll only editting the article because you are some kind of Opendocument fanboy. There is not a singly constructive edit by you done to the article. Your only intent seeing from your edits it to an anti OOXML. Every time you have editted the article you have editted in "minimal" related to the conformance of OOXML the EU definition of an open standard in bold and in the section definition. Not even the wikipedai article on Open Standards does that. it is also correct to state that OOXML conforms to all characteristic or fully conforms to the EU definition and I support that the section will be altered to reflect those changes again that I added and that that user [[User:202.160.118.227|202.160.118.227] has now reworded in a very ugly way. 69.73.191.92 07:40, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Just go away with your antics. You added nothing meaningfull to the article but requests for protection blocks. hAl 22:40, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the request for arbitration in question, and would recommend an article request for comment, as detailed on Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Request comment on articles, as your next step in dispute resolution, since it seems discussion here is not going anywhere. Picaroon (t) 01:53, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Needs rewording

When the article is unprotected this needs to be reworded:

Non-standard, inflexible paper size naming. For example, book 4 sections 3.3.1.61 define a "paperSize" attribute for which values 1 through 68 are predefined standard paper sizes such as A4 paper.[16]

As it stands, it's confusing since it talks about non-standard paper sizes but then goes on to talk about standard paper sizes. Reading the reference, the point that's being made is that it specifically defines and names 68 paper size, some of which are not really international standards (like letter, A4 extra etc). On the other hand, ODF simply requires the paper dimensions be specified and leaves it up to the user interface on what paper sizes to offer and how to name them Nil Einne 16:48, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. It is a valid point of criticism that was made. A trivial bug. It is about a code table with 68 entries. The corresponding international codes for paper size ISO 216, ISO 269) have to be used. That has nothing to do with a scalable attribute 'pagesize' where size is measured in millimeters. But you cannot say kind of "pagesize is "5" (and 5 is specified as C6 = 114x162mm)". Arebenti 18:49, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Allthough people might consider it an issue it hardly looks very relevant. Even ISO knows that it's paper formats aren't exclusivly used. Using a code table for papaer formats seems pretty inflexible however I is also a list that is fairly stable and determined by the existing printerbase. Flexibility is not really needed and printersupport for a lot of the more exotic ISO format sizes autside the A3,A4,A5 paper sizes is minimal to none. In fasttracking it is about standardizing a standard based on an industry use. Clearly the use papersizes is determined by printer and paper manifacturers and Office Open XML will not have any troubles supporting current formats that office printers use. Having the extra flexibility in OpenDocument only makes it harder for implementations as effectifly there won't be many implementations that will stray from the list in Office Open XML as there are no printers it. hAl 06:57, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Formally the appropriate solution is to remove it and fully rely on mm x mm in the Format. It is sufficient if the application assigns all formats to paper sizes internally. "In fasttracking it is about standardizing a standard based on an industry use."-- No, not at all. Arebenti 12:44, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
What is fast-tracking about: Having a body as ECMA who prepares a standard that does not require discussions and can be taken AS-IS. Unfortunately the ECMA draft was not ready. And that is the problem now. Arebenti 19:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
An ISO standard does not have to be perfect or complete in its first incarnation. It merely has to meet a market requirement and the particular concerns of national bodies. For example, ODF 1.0's accessibility was not good, a serious flaw, but because it was seen to have other benefits, and to be part of a living tradition, it was standardized as ISO ODF. ODF 1.2 was much better in this, and will sometime be voted as the new version of ISO ODF I expect. Many of these details will change in a few months from the Ballot Resolution Meeting at ISO: in particular there are many cases where there are closed lists (enumerations) of values that should be replaced by open lists (token types): this degrades validatability but improves maintainability and openness. On the issue of how it should be treated, it would be better to allow both names and measures IMHO. I don't know why it improves the article much to have much detail on things that may change: it seems a short-term approach, but that is not a criticism. I wish people would spend more time doing serious review of DIS29500 and report problems to the editors and their standards bodies: there is a whole elaborate forum and process that is designed to get things fixed: lobbying through Wikipedia is not a way to get change. Rick Jelliffe 14:06, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Voting procedure

{{editprotected}} The articles section 'Voting procedures' states:

Votes are taken only of those present at the meeting, and "P-members" for the purposes of this clause are P-members of JTC 1 (not SC 34); votes from the five-month ballot are not carried forward to the BRM. [citation needed].

This seemed strange to me because it might eliminate the opinion of voting members that are not present at the ballot resolution meeeting. So I tried to verify this at several sources. According to this blog comment by Jason Matusow this seems incorrect: http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonmatusow/archive/2007/08/19/open-xml-us-vote-progress-continues.aspx#4484268 This is relevant because it suggest that any votes made prior to the 2 september 5-month ballot deadline will be taken into the ballot resulotuion as well even those that are not represented at the actual ballot meeting. The article could now suggest that voting before that deadline is of no use unless you attend the actual meeting. Therefore I suggest that this line be removed. hAl 12:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

It is important to substantiate the claim by references to the ISO/IEC rules of procedure. A blogger as Matusow is not a credible source here, givin all the procedural fighting. Arebenti 12:47, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
The original line is unsubstantiated by any ISO directives. It was listed as uncited. I already questioned it's validity when it was entered in to the article. So now I ask for it to be removed and give a reason and a reference. If you have any valid reason for this strange and uncited information to stay than please inform us. 15:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by HAl (talk • contribs).
To me mind the procedural description is true but please ask at the ISO secreteriat. In international polics it is common that voting requires presence. Afaik ISO is not different here. Afaik you cannot submit a letter vote. Arebenti 18:59, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
The article's not actually protected; I removed the expired protection tag. Also, this talk page is in desperate need of archiving. Cheers. --MZMcBride 22:58, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I created a second archive, and fixed the archive box code, but a third page is probably needed Kilz 15:08, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
It is important to distinguish between the BRM vote (which is concerned with adopting a text), and the approval vote for DIS 29500 (which is about approving the text for publication as a standard). Votes at the BRM are indeed of those present at the meeting, and previous votes are not carried over from the ballot for these votes on the text. On the wider question of approving DIS 29500, the results of the 2 September ballot are still "in effect", but (maybe as a result of the BRM's deliberations) NBs have an opportunity to modify this vote after the BRM. Alexbrn 17:16, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Remembering also that a NB can nominate a proxy, of course. Even poor NBs who cannot afford to send someone themselves can nominate an NB's delegation member (or co-opt an available expert) to act as proxy. Rick Jelliffe 14:12, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Why do we even have a description of the voting process here? Shouldn't that be on its own page? The ISO voting process is not specific to OOXML. tgape 14:20, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

+1 Rick Jelliffe 14:12, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Reference 8

  1. ^ How to use earlier versions of Excel, PowerPoint, and Word to open and save files from 2007 Office programs. Microsoft. Retrieved on 2007-02-09

--> Is the "Office 2007 format" the very same as OOXML? Arebenti 21:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

MS Office 2007 default saves files in Office Open XML. hAl 05:46, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Really? But office2007 includes binary, no? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arebenti (talk • contribs) 19:21, August 25, 2007 (UTC)
Office Open XML is the default format but naturally MS Office 2007 also supports binary formats. And if you download the Microsoft plugin for PDF and XPS filesyou can also save in PDF and XPS format hAl 22:48, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

OPC = kind of file system?

"Office Open XML files conform to the Open Packaging Convention and different applications have characteristic directory structures and file names within these packages. An OPC-aware application will use the relationships files rather than directory names and file names to locate individual files. In OPC terminology, a file is a part. A part also has accompanying metadata, in particular MIME metadata."

--- Do metadata/relationship parts include redundant info? I understand that we have the ZIP container and then a kind of XML file system which makes the OPC (?). As a professional I would say: I want to see the data to be consistent, redundant information usually creates an inconsistency hell and it would be pretty easy to corrupt the files with third party tools and all kinds of dirty hacks. My questions: a) What is the advantage of having that XML index b) Does OOXML have special standard interpretation methods on how to deal with corrupted/inconsistent data, I am told that problem occurs with the old legacy format as well. Pls let me know.Arebenti 22:08, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The use of relationships is explained in the article. It is not redundant as the XML markup files only contain relationship IDs and the relationship files contain the references to the actual files in the package. Redundancy is for instance what OpenDocument uses for spreadsheets cell data, having both value-properties as value-tekst for the same cell. hAl 05:52, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
XML is a profile of SGML (IS8879:1986) for use on the WWW. When we made XML we removed parts of SGML that were aimed at easing production and maintenance of large document sets, which ISO SGML excels at. In particular, the entity mechanism was simplified: entities act in some cases like macros or file inclusions, and in other cases like links. They allow compound documents. XML still has this simplified entity mechanism, but they are part of the DOCTYPE declaration. The DOCTYPE declaration is used to invoke DTDs (Document Type Definitions) which are simple schemas. DTDs have fallen out of favour because of more modern schema languages, such as W3C XML Schemas and ISO Schematron. As DTDs have gone, there is no equivalent of the entity mechanism, though XLink compound links come perhaps the closest. One of the functions of entity declarations was to move specific URLs into a header. So the reference to an object uses the name of the entity, and that entity is defined to correspond to a URL. This means that, when you have a large document distributed between many files, you can localize all references in one file, what some people now call a linkbase. Entity declarations in SGML can also have attributes ("data attributes") and notation information (e.g. the equivalent of MIME types). What OPC does is to largely recreate the functionality of SGML entity declarations but in the context of ZIP, XML, URLs and MIME. It is one of the distinguishing design principles in OOXML (compared to ODF, for example) that OOXML tries to split itself into as many small component files as possible, so that access to individual information does not require large files to be loaded. It makes some kinds of maintenance and document assembly functions much easier; on the other hand it makes other operations more cumbersome compared to direct reference; probably it will look strange to people who don't have SGML experience, but it resolves of the problems with XML (XML is being used for so many things it was not designed for.)Rick Jelliffe 07:56, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Rick, I would really like to see some debates on the OPC format. Does it mean that Open XML is "more SGML" than XML?Arebenti 12:21, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
More SGML than XML? In the sense that XML was designed for the Web, therefore any non-web considerations are likely to have SGML precedents, perhaps. But mansized problems require mansized techniques, if you will pardon the expression. I have been looking through the ACORD documentation this week: it is a life insurance interchange format and is 3000 pages, most of which is not reflected in the schema. It has referencing mechanisms too, but referencing (objects in previous versions of) documents in a document base not inside a single file format. There is a lot of XML that goes beyond the simple AJAX style of POX (plain old XML) but that is not a bad thing, just a thing. Rick Jelliffe 14:29, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Non-adoption?

The section on 'adoption' is good, but what about 'non-adoption'? In the last couple of days I seem to have read that both India and Brazil[1] have rejected it. Other high profile rejections would be interesting to note. Stevage 14:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually the adoption section is about implementations. What you are referrring to is the standardization proces in which several ISO national bodies have decided to give a ballot vote of "Disapproval with comments". Countries like Brasil and India. Most countries like for instance the United States and Germany so far have votes for "Approval with Comments" and a few have abstained. That is all part of the standardization process which is currently in the 5-month ballot period. It however has nothing to do with adoption of the standard in implementations. The total outcome of the ISO standardization proces could have an effect on adoption but that is something that will emerge in about 5 months or so. Starting on 2 september the national bodies ballots have to be in and a proces starts to resolve the outstanding comment and improve the standard format so that it will satisfy as many of the national bodies in ISO as possible. Mayby then even India and/or Brasil or other disapproval votes will change their ballotvote to an approval. What is fairly certain is that the standard will see a lot of changes (mostly minor) made to it in the next few months. Those minor changes will of course improve the quality but it is probalby only a dozen or so specific issues that will influence the voting. A bit longish explanation of adoption vs standardization but since the article is locked anyways... hAl 15:35, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Good, HAl, then please let's think about a better phrase than "adoption" Arebenti 17:35, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Also, when talking about the acceptance of a standard at ISO, it is important to realize that (for IT standards) these are technical standards, not laws or requirements or regulations. It is up to the regulators in each country to decide whether they will make regulations to mandate or encourage or allow or disallow etc any standard (or just to leave it up to people to use whatever standard they need): ISO is not a law-making body and nations do not delegate any authority to ISO for making laws or regulations. Last month ISO put out a document emphasizing this. Rick Jelliffe 14:35, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Requests For Citation

69.73.191.92 has made some unsupported claims to the 4.8.1 Complaints Surface About Some National Bodies section. I have added requests for citations to back up those claims from reliable sources. If the citations are not added I will be removing the claims. While 69.73.191.92 appears to have posted a link on my talk to a page that gives some support, it does not support all. They also need to be on the article, not my talk page.Kilz 22:00, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

You want me to add a Swedish article reference to the english wikipedia ? Or links to a bunch of companies websites showing partnerships ? I gave you the info on your talk page to show it is verifiable. However full referencing was not a good option because of practical reasons. 69.73.191.92 22:10, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
From WP:VERIFY
"The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation. The source should be cited clearly and precisely to enable readers to find the text that supports the article content in question."
You cant just post references on my talk page, it needs to be in the article. The reference needs to be to pages that backup the claims you have made, not to a bunch of companies pages about from those that were involved. If the claims cant be backed up they need to be removed. The claims as I see it.
  • the FFII planned a countermove by joining the ISO group
  • with one more member to create a disapproval on the standardization
  • which included 4 IBM partners as well
  • Google paid a 17.000 SEK (2444 USD) fee to join the committee and were allowed to vote at the last minute.
Someone has already changed 2 other problems. But I suggest backing up the claims before they get removed. Also do not replace the other things removed without references to back them up from a reliable source. You can find a list of reliable sources here WP:VERIFY. Kilz 14:23, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


The information is verifiable but it would be ugly to put all refences in the article.

Firstly you just need to read what is already in the article Info about google being one of the late additions http://www.os2world.com/content/view/14868/2/ (yes, that is already a reference in the article but Kilz does not read references, just asks for them) But feel free to pick: At least 4 companies that not only partner MS but also IBM: Strand Interconnect IBM http://www-304.ibm.com/jct09002c/gsdod/solutiondetails.do?solution=24718&expand=true&lc=en KnowIT IBM+Oracle http://www.knowit.se/KIT_templates/Page____1749.aspx Sogeti IBM+Oracle http://www.sogeti.se/templates/Sogeti_LokalStartsida____2214.aspx Module1 IBM partner http://www.modul1.se/modul1/templates/Page____255.aspx there could be more. Info about FFII wanting to join with 8 new members themselves: http://nyteknik.se/art/52005

Which references would you prefer to be added to the article ? 69.73.191.92 20:11, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
You are going to have to add the references to the article. I have removed the one for Google joining late as http://www.os2world.com/content/view/14868/2/ which is already there proves that. It is hidden in a block of names. Also You should also make it clear that the 4 are partners of both Microsoft and IBM.
But while you are at it, You may as well provide a reliable source for this edit. The one source you have is from a blog. Blogs are not reliable sources as they are self published sourcesWP:SPS.
Uh, that blog is a bit more, Jason Matusow is a director at Microsoft. Somebody removed a link to a computer magazine and replaced it with a link to this blog, which I consider really dishonest. I've kept the references to him, but tried to make clear that they represent MS opinion.
They can be used to back up other non self published sources only. I have provided a verifiable source for the claims I placed. Please provide a reliable source.Kilz 22:13, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
A link from arstechnica directly citing from anti-MS propaganda site Groklaw which themselves are citing from the blog of anti-OOXML activist Rui Seabra is hardly an example of an objective citation. It is just deferring the source farther trying to make the source unclear. 69.73.191.92 11:58, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Right - I didn't look beyound the AT article. I've read groklaw and the notes, and it's not clear to me what the optimal choice woudl be. Perhaps referring to groklaw, which people will know is (ahem) a bit opinionated? I can't find anything clear about whether the member limit was due to MS pressure (as the article now indicates), or a general thing for Portuguese ISO committees or whatever, nor a clear list of members and affiliation. kzm 13:09, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I put in the meeting log of Rui Seabra and added his association to ANSOL which is an associate organisation of FSF europa and of course is fierce opposing OOXML standardization. His story and that of Jason Matusaw do not conflict that much. The interpretation however a lot. In fact Rui says: (20 seating spots -- this isn't true, 24 people were seating at the beggining and there were still chairs in the room) making it clear that a 20 seats argument was used but not nescesarily physical chairs as he then interprets it. 69.73.191.92 13:21, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I've added the groklaw link (even labelled it as opposing), and left the link to Rui open to interpretation, noting the two different ones. I think the paragraph now is supported by the sources such as they are, and fairly NPOV. kzm 13:37, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
The thing is, arstechnica is not a self published source. It has editorial review. It matters not who Jason Matusow is, the rules of Wikipedia are clear. You cant rely on self published sources. WP:SPS, especially ones that may have a bias in what they are reporting. They can be used as secondary sources of information only if you have a non sps to back them up.
Another problem is that the section has some original research WP:NOR. In other words we need to find sources like arstechnica that are not blogs that sum up what has happened. We cant provide links to facts and then come to conclusions.
I have given a lot of time after the pointing out the need for references, for the references to be placed. Later today I plan on editing out any claims not supported by references in the section. Kilz 14:29, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I interpret the blog by a senior exec at MS as representing the company, and as such a bit more that self-published. Groklaw I guess is a "sorta" editorial site. Bot are quite POV. I agree AT is an editorial publication, but I think they may misrepresent the case here, and it is better to provide POV sources directly - at least in addition. Just stating my opinion, I'll await further edits at this point. kzm 06:53, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Maybe you are right that pov is best posted from the original source. But I think we agree that a secondary source may be needed to back it up. I honestly dont see the error in the AT page. Perhaps I missed it. Its just that sometimes links to editorial publications are hard to come by on some information. Im going to do a little editing now as I thing I have given way more than enough time for references to be placed. Kilz 14:41, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

It appears HAl has removed a request for citation without placing a citation. His edit claimed that the one reference was enough. The claim that 4 were ibm partners is not proven by the reference, only that they are Microsoft partners. We also have no idea who in that list it is. So it is impossible to tell who is a Microsoft and IBM partner. I replaced the request for citation. As I placed it there , no one should remove it without placing a reference or removing the claim. Kilz 20:45, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

But you already know well and true that there are 4 IBM partners as someone listed that references only a couple of lines above. And it is easy to look up material if it needs verifying. Not every little thing in the article requires citation.
From Wp:cite: Wikipedia:Verifiability, which is policy, says that attribution is required for direct quotes and for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged.
Is anybody anywhere seriously challenging that there were at least 4 IBM partners that voted for approval in that vote ? hAl 21:44, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I am, 69.73.191.92 claims that 4 are IBM partners. But they are also Microsoft partners. None of the references in the article now states which partners are IBM partners. It is also original research WP:NOR. Where is the reference that says 4 of the group were IBM partners? The listings above may prove they are, but it is against WP:NOR to gather facts and make conclusions. If the reference exists that says 4 of the group were IBM partners, please add the reference. Then we can edit the article to say that they were both Microsoft and IBM partners. Otherwise the claim should be removed. Kilz 01:12, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Original research (OR) is a term used in Wikipedia to refer to unpublished facts. You already know these are published facts. You still challenge verifiability. That is completly ignoring wikipedia spirit. How would you consider it if someone added fact tags to every word you ever uttered on wikipedia even when knowing the info you wrote is correct and easily verifiable anyways. hAl 18:49, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
You might have missed the second part, WP:NOR per the page;
  • "Original research (OR) is a term used in Wikipedia to refer to unpublished facts, arguments, concepts, statements, or theories. The term also applies to any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that appears to advance a position"
That is from the top of the page. It isnt just unpublished facts. No Original Research means that you cant take facts and come to conclusions if they dont already exist some place else. Thats the theories, arguments, unpublished analysis or synthesis part.
You also are blurring verifiability into no original research. Every fact or claim can be challenged, That is Wikipedia, the 3 main core policies WP:VERIFY, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV. In fact I always add references to things I add just because of WP:VERIFY. If someone challenges something , it isnt an attack, its a way of making Wikipedia better. I dont think the information was easy to find, a reference was all that was needed. Kilz 21:57, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Rodiguez criticism

I added the following to the section about criticism:

  • In August 2007, a number of issues with OOXML were published,<rref>Stéphane Rodriguez (August 28, 2007). "OOXML is defective by design".</ref> such as:
    • The spreadsheet format has a large number of internal dependencies, which requires many changes in different parts of the XML data for changes to a single data cell, and multiple different ways to represent semantically identical cell data.
    • Numbers are stored with arbitrary floating-point rounding errors.
    • Locale conventions (such as decimal points, date formats, and character settings) are inconsistent. For example, SpreadsheetML documents are internally represented in the US English locale, but font types such as "bold" can be specified in any language (e.g. "gras" in French), even though the specification does not provide a list of equivalent words in different languages.

And it was immediately reverted by HAI with the comment "Office 2007 critisism belong in Office 2007 article". I don't see the point of that. The reference was specifically addressing ambiguities in the OOXML specification, although I agree that the issue about floating-point rounding might be an implementation issue. And I think that HAI, when removing text with such an edit summary, should actually move the text to the appropriate article, rather than simply deleting properly referenced statements. Han-Kwang (t) 22:58, 31 August 2007 (UTC) By the way, the ref is definitely notable in case anyone is wondering about that. The author claims that he gets 300 thousand hits per day on that page during the last couple of days. Han-Kwang (t) 23:15, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

If it is a valid referenced criticism it should stay. Perhaps it should be on both articles. But removing referenced criticism is not following WP:NPOV. Kilz 01:18, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
How about putting it in the "Adoption" section? That section implies there exist a lot of implementations of OOXML, while the link demonstrates that currently, MS Office is limited to read files written by MS Office. The whole point of "open" office formats is interchange of documents, and that OOXML doesn't provide this in reality is IMHO a central argument of its critics that is not reflected by the page. kzm 06:45, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
the question is, does he talk about OOXML or about the Office2007 format and implementation. should get added to the Office07 article. But HAl said OOXML is identical with word07 format. Let's see what changes will be made by ISO that could well render OOXML incompatible with Office07 format Arebenti 15:22, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
This is what Novels Miquel de Icaza says about the piece: [2] hAl 06:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I know. I don't think Miguel was able to debunk it but I think the core problem of the Rodriguez article is that he criticises the Microsoft implementation, not the format as such. Arebenti 17:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed tag

Can anyone please explain
1. Exactly why this tag is in place?
2. Why it doesn't link to a discussion about the problems that cause the tag to be in place?
3. Why it should remain? Kilz 01:31, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I put the tag there. This article is the product of repeated removals (despite lack of consensus) of nearly everything related to worldwide opposition to OOXML, a topic which is not covered fairly in the article to the extent that its notablility requires. Information and links have been repeatedly removed, always with one of two spurious claims:

  • That anything not directly related to the technical aspects of the spec is tangential and therefore not encyclopedic.
  • That various arguments against OOMXL represented in the article and then deleted, or links to them which are then deleted, are poorly made arguments and not of encyclopedic quality. This claim, of course, is the very essense of "original research."

On all of this, see previous discussions (which I see have already been archived though they are only from mid-summer), discussions which never had any impact on the aggressive pro-Microsoft editors who went ahead and did as they pleased, repeatedly, and are still doing so. The essense of their behaviour is to remove POVs and then call it "balance" because Wikipedia is NPOV. What they ignore, of course, is that NPOV requires ALL positions to be fairly represented according to their notability. This article does not do that in any way.

In any case, I have given up trying to contribute to this article. Too much uncivil behavior has been tolerated here, and I haven't the time or energy deal with it. I see that you have in some good efforts, so do as you please with the tag, and good luck!Dovi 07:24, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

It is indeed sad if that is what happened. WP:NPOV should not be used like that. It means all pov should have equal coverage. By removing any significant POV it unballances the rest. But any claims need to be referenced, once referenced it makes it easier to request help.
I have a hand in archiving a lot. The page was huge and needed to be archived. That does not mean that a continuation of any of those sections can not still happen. A new section with a link to the old can be added by anyone wanting to continue it.
I dont want to see Wikipedia abused, if it means taking something all the way to Arbitration where the 5 pillars WILL be upheld I will do it. I am just a lone editor though. Kilz 09:27, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
The whole article looks like a slander cmapaing aginast OOXML. Rarely you see articles that are so vandalised by opponents of in this case OOXML. It seems like the perceived link between MS and OOXML brings out the worst in a lot of wikipedians. 90% of edits are just to slander ooxml ( mostly following articles on groklaw or slashdot) by people that have not contributed a single actual information item about OOXML but just repeat what some blog tells them in general without any substantiations to back them up. More than half the article seems to be written about critisism, protests and block ISO standardization. Very little is done to improve information about the Office Open XML format itself. hAl 11:52, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
If half the article is pro and the other con at least its WP:NPOV. All information about ooxml needs to be in the article, not just dry facts about its design. But , yes all claims need to be referenced. Sadly it appears people are removing references and links to sites just because they personally dont like them or agree with them. Kilz 12:18, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Kilz; it's OK to just be one lone editor. Arbitration is not where to go now. One arbitration request has already been sent back because no "request for comments" procedure had been run. That is exactly what is needed now. Please spend a few minutes to summarize each point of contention (EU open standards minimal characteristics, examples of POV-whitewashing, etc). Look for examples of Pro-OOXML and Anti-OOXML edits that violate policy. After you've done that, run an RFC. We expect that editors will be civil on the talk page and not disrupt each other's comments. Once consensus for agreement is gathered, then we can take action in regards to content. If that fails due to lack of professionality and nastiness, then arbitration is the next step. RFC can make it very clear what the driving issues are that lie behind an especially heated debate. I'm especially disturbed by claims that challenging edits, challenging removal of requests for citation, and that the presence of content that contrasts both sides of POV, is all somehow wasted time or part of a concerted smear campaign. I don't understand that perspective and it seems very unfair and non-wikipedian to refuse to discuss these issues in a structured way. Slugging it out on the talk page and reverting each other, to the point of locking the page, is ridiculous. So, Kilz, if you want to restore order, a staged process is the way to go: stage 1, figure out all the issues, stage 2, list one independently in an RFC section, stage 3, replicate this last step for each point of contention. As WP:RFC says, a bot will take care of the rest. Don't be afraid to ask for a third opinion. This can often help cut through pathos-related arguments. Good luck, and don't give up! 65.112.197.16 17:45, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I was gone for a few days and it looks like a minefield. Already there is a section on this talk page about removing complaints. If that happens I will start it faster. Kilz 21:59, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't want to get into a war of biblical proportions over OOXML as I don't care much about the subject. I have a programmer friend and he's told me about the battles over OOXML. So, although I don't care too much about the subject, I have some familiarity with it. I visited here because of recent news on CNN and wanted to see what Wikipedia said about OOXML. I was struck by 1) the artificially favorable tone of the article, and 2) it's “too many chefs in the kitchen” style—the product of many intense edits by many editors without a single, guiding hand to pull it into a coherent progression and organization. I doubt much can be done about this second problem since it would be understandably discouraging for any individual to invest the great time and effort, only to have it subverted by what attorney's call “a moron in a hurry." Passions run high when the topic of Microsoft comes up.
However, on the first issue: the artificially favorable tone of the article, it is unacceptable for a Wikipedia article to omit a balanced and comprehensive treatment of the controversies surrounding OOXML. It is unconscionable for any editor to serve as the censor who deletes such information because “anything not directly related to the technical aspects of the spec is tangential and therefore not encyclopedic.” That argument is a metric ton of weapons-grade bullonium and should not be tolerated. Something is not at all “right” here. There wasn't even a proper mentioning of what a competing standard to OOXML was; I had to add that myself an hour or so ago. Greg L (my talk) 19:19, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Unbalanced / NPOV

I've swapped {{totallydisputed}} with {{unbalanced}}. Totallydisputed seems overkill unless there's some actual factual errors. Unbalanced seems to match with the above, but good old {{NPOV}} would do just as well. --h2g2bob (talk) 03:24, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

{{totallydisputed}} seems to be intended. {{NPOV}} and {{unbalanced}} assumes benevolent editors Arebenti 17:42, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

noooxml

It looks to me like this link is being removed without a good reason. It is clearly part of the story, though against ooxml. Removal imho is against WP:NPOV;"All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly and without bias all significant views". Its one link is in the external links in a section labeled OOXML criticism. Why is it being removed? Kilz 12:18, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

As already listed in other reactions that site does not present a new view. It only bundles view already represented in the critisism section and links and adds to that a campaign against OOXML. To it does not add new views but adds a protest site. A site that tries to gain extra momentum by linkspamming shown by the people behind this site repeatedly adding this link. Wikipedia is not ment as a platform for linkspamming and protestsites that want to gain votes. The motivation for putting the site on wikipedia seems to get more petition votes and that is not what wikipedia is for. I have litte doubt that the people adding the links to this site are people motivated by getting a high vote count on a pettition and trying to draw wikipedia traffic. In actual critsims cited info that site is behind the sites of grokdoc and rob weir already listed in the article or the comments by the national bodies. 69.73.191.92 13:18, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
The NoOOXML site significantly extends coverage of views beyond those listed in the criticism section, and is by no means a simple linkspam/petition site - it is a severe mischaracterisation to say so. I agree completely that Wikipedia is not a site for linkspamming, and I would ask you not to impute motives that you cannot know for including the NoOOXML site. May I also suggest that you register an account with WIkipedia rather than using an IP address. Thanks, WLDtalk|edits 14:37, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
The noooxml site was editted in by several people which zoobab and pieterh who are the webmaster of the site and the president of FFII. Only an idiot would fail to see that that is pure selfpromotion for the petitionsite. I do not think the sites coverage of the critisism goes beyond that of the other sites. The only thing they produce more info on is their campiagn against ooxml and listing when some national body is influenced enoug by them to vote no. That however is not information encyclopic worth. When we want to count votes we can look at the upcoming ISO JCT1 report of the ballot resolution phase. That is the objective information that is relevant for the voting. It wil show the votes and the comments. There is no need to revert to some campaign sites that prefers no votes only and cites a riot on every vote that isn't no. And I have seen on this page before how people are treated by anti-ooxml campaigners so I expecially log-out of my account on wikipedia especially before coming to this page !!! I do not wish to expose myself to the anti-ooxml fanatics. I would suggest everybody that edits in remotly neutral or ooxml favourable edits do this anonomously 69.73.191.92 15:32, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) I have placed back the link to noooxml.org. I'm not affiliated; until a few weeks ago I knew next to nothing about ooxml. I think the site belongs there, under criticism. Indeed, the site is biased, but all sites both under criticism and under support are biased. There is lots of information there and most there is actually referenced; I mean, it's not a crackpot site or something. Han-Kwang (t) 16:24, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary, it is a crackpot site. There are constant claims of bias, with no evidence. For example [3] is entirely scurilous, if not outright racist. It repeats rumours such as [4] then treats them in aggregate as if they have any substance. Rick Jelliffe 07:09, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
The site is a pure slander campaing on OOXML. Allthough I have no doubt that MS tried to influence the voting to approval, on that particular site every country that voted for approval is looked upon as corrupted. Probably they have such a narrow view on things that cannot even imagine that anyone would vote for OOXML out of their own free choice. They suggest that the late additions to sweden is a sign of corruption trying to influence the vote by all entering the committee as late as possible but also call the refusal of the late addition of opponents to the portugal proces as MS corruption. That the two incidents show similar tactics on both parties seems to completly escape their view. 69.73.191.92 11:30, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
It's notable enough I think and the stats behind the EFFI (Finland) study seem sound and an interesting correlation but we would need a non-partisan secondary source that reports this as the EFFI work is a primary source and noooxml is probably deemed a partisan source in this case when it comes to reporting other sources. Noooxml is reliable though in it's own right for stuff it says - just what it reports what other say can be argued about. Ttiotsw 20:51, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't see a resolution of consensus here about linking to no-ooxml, hal is claiming there was a decision made here in talk and it has once again been removed after being added by an anonymous ip.Jonathan888 (talk) 17:29, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

NoOOXML exists and correctly collects a number of facts, rumors, blogs about and mostly against OOXML. I agree that technical criticism from national bodies shall come before, but discarding FFII contribution tout-court is not done even by the European Parliament, and is not advisable from a NPOV. Since adding an external link in this page is considered linkspamming by some, I add it in Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure#Campaigns and only link to that page from the Criticism section here. ale 08:26, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Table of votes?

Could somebody more in the know add a table showing which countries have voted what and what's the situation atm? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.214.20.122 (talk) 13:20, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

No need for impatience. This is not a hot news site. The votes have only value in this article in a complete listing (not meaning a fulll list in the article itself but a vote count with a reference to the official document by ISO). So why not wait untill a complete list is available. The preliminary voting should probably be made available by the JCT1 secretariat in a couple of weeks. 69.73.191.92 13:25, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
There are links now in the article and a separate page with current results: OOXML Ballot Results Jonathan888 (talk) 22:15, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Criticism - support

There currently is an edit war about a link in the external links sections. I move the two sections here, and would like to see some discussion, BEFORE they get added again.

OOXML criticism

OOXML support

OASIS. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.112.92.82 (talk) 04:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

First, Wikipedia is not a linkfarm, we are writing an encyclopedia here. Some external links are OK, but it is in general better to use references or content. This seems to be a topic that should be discussed in the text, not with external links. If the pro's and con's have to be in the external links sections, it should be even, not 6 against, 2 in favour.

Furthermore, wikipedia is not a soapbox. Also for that, I would suggest that these both sections should go, and that a neutral, though clear section in the text should be written. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:16, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

If you want references/deeplinks to criticisms on the NoOOXML site, that's easily done:
That comments one is really funny as it shows an example embedding of an external binary file in the package. Even simpletons on OOXM and ODF will know besides embeddingbinary files in an Office document package that in both OOXM as in ODF you can actually embed binary data within the XML as bas64encoded data. Suggesting that the spec is bad because it can embed binary files in the package is just plain funny. Nice of you to put it in here cause it can make people laugh hAl 21:37, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Some of these are pretty meritless - the Rice Pudding and Tiny Adoption links, but most, if not all of the rest are substantive technical issues with OOXML. I don't think that the article should have a host of links, one per issue, but a link to a round up (such as the mainlink to the NoOOXML site) is beneficial. The links to the BSI Wiki and the Dansk Standard comments were added by me as well - I certainly don't think deeplinking each and every issue is necessary or desirable.
The technical issues with OOXML are not simply point-of-view based material - they are factual, and repeatedly removing links that give brief examples of the issues can only be a bad thing, in my opinion.
As for 'balance', it is by no means necessary for the number of links for each side of a debate to be the same. Cheers. WLDtalk|edits 17:32, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
These are derived technical issues taken from other sites. It does not add anthing but a laugh for some of them hAl 21:37, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
With regards to the "topic should be discussed in text" suggestion, it's worth noting a comment posted on the talk page of the Noooxml article by the author of that article. 80.233.255.7 17:40, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


The text contains a whole section on pro's and con's .. why exactly do we need these also stated in the external links section (which is even a linkfarm without these links), using blogs and propaganda sites (see also our external links guideline)? If Noooxml.com is noteworthy, then it might be good to just state that in the text, the wiki-article exists, and the external link can be there. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:52, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
The Noooxml article looks fated to be deleted, which means an internal link in Wikipedia is not possible, leaving us with an external link. I'm not (personally) convinced that the Noooxml article falls foul of the soapbox policy, but I'm no expert on that particular Wikipedia policy, so my opinion most likely counts for little. I feel considerably more certain that the OOXML article should have a link to the NoOOXML site simply to demonstrate (if nothing else) the strong opposition (from some quarters) to OOXML becoming an ISO standard. It appears undeniable that there is controversy, and certainly encyclopaedic to document the existence of such controversy. The Scientology article has a link to Operation Clambake, after all. WLDtalk|edits 17:59, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
I think both sections should stay, that giving pro and con external links in important. We cant deny the existence of the sites in the article. They exist. That some people disagree with them is understandable. But we as editors should look past our own bias ans leave in information we may not agree with personally. Kilz 18:11, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
I see your point WLD. The problem lies in having a link "simply to demonstrate (if nothing else) the strong opposition". This why there are inclusion criteria. Wikipedia is WP:NOT a soapbox for Propaganda, advocacy, or recruitment of any kind, commercial, political, religious, or otherwise. Including Opinion pieces and Advertising. noooxml.org fails to be a resource about the subject. This is an encyclopedia, and that applies to pro-ooxml content as well. The article for NoOOXML states itself that its "a campaign". That fails WP:NOTABILITY and WP:NOT. If it was notable (not to be confused with "fame", "importance", or "popularity"), and was encyclopedic in nature, that would be great. Kilz, it has nothing to do with bias or dissagreement. It has everything to do with Wikipedia being an encyclopedia and WP:NOT a soapbox. --Hu12 18:46, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. You may note the 13 deep-links above into the NoOOXML site that (mostly) document, in readable prose, substantive technical issues with the proposed standard. I certainly endorse the WP:NOT view. The NoOOXML is a resource, as is (I'll mention again) the Operation Clambake site - so to link to the NoOOXML site is not simply to demonstrate opposition. I would say that I've seen little, if any, substantive arguments in favour of adoption OOXML. There are many in favour of adopting XML based document formats, and indeed for specifying or documenting the formats used by Microsoft office software documents (both of which are good, but not OOXML specific), but precious few that specifically give technical reasons why OOXML should be adopted in parallel to other standards. WLDtalk|edits 19:03, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
An ISO standard only needs two components: first, someone has to think it would be useful (a "market requirement") and second the draft has to meet editorial and technical standards. That some other people don't want to use the technology, or do not like the technology, or do not like the champions of the standard, or don't think the market requirement is important in the scheme of things, presents no block for a standard. In fact, it is rather assumed that not everyone can agree on everything. For OOXML, the market requirement is the constant calls in our industry for two decades for MS to XML-ize and standardize their technology, plus the explicit calls by the EU that is widely cited, plus that Office is the most popular commercial application in the world. If there is not a market requirement for Office's format to be standardized, it is difficult to see that any other format should be! On the issue of editorial and technical standard, there has been a year long process at ECMA, now the year-long review at ISO ending with the BRM which all credible insiders have expected from the beginning. It has now had extensive review, and the page rate for issues is about 1 per six pages, which, for a spec with at least 50% boilerplate text and format fluff, is not too far from the 1 per three pages of issues that, for example, the standard that I edited had. Rick Jelliffe 15:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I miss the point here, you define the discussion as being encyclopedic (I do concur with that part). But the Noooxml-article is not encyclopedic, and therefore we need the link? I am sorry, but that is a thing that does not hold. Also the reason that Scientology has a link to Operation Clambake is a non-reason. If the 13 links mentioned are suitable, reliable sources, then why not use them as a reference, instead of linking to the frontpage. I guess that would certainly help the encyclopedic value of the page (the pro's and con's are merely summarized, hardly discussed). --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:32, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
A brief conversation would be so much better than text. Sigh. Okay, here goes. I would much prefer to link internally to the NoOOXML article, which as said above, could itself link to the NoOOXML site. As it looks likely that the NoOOXML article will be deleted, on (at least partially) the basis that is was created by someone closely associated with the NoOOXML site itself, it means the options are likely to be (1) no link or (2) an external link. (There is another option - that somebody not associated with the NoOOXML site create the article - unfortunately, if I were to do that, I'm certain I would be incorrectly tarred by 'association with the NoOOXML cause' and not successfully create/retain the article). The Operation Clambake example is an example of a site that is highly critical of the subject of the main article (in this case Scientology), so a critical site per se does not mean the link should not be there - it is definitely and emphatically not a WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS example, although I'm unsurprised that it has been taken that way (I certainly don't think Operation Clambake is 'crap'). The point is that external links to sites highly critical of an article's content are not immediate candidates for removal. The NoOOXML site has relevant content, accessible to non-expert readers. It happens to be critical of OOXML. The 64 pages of comments from Dansk Standard highlight the many technical shortcomings of the proposed OOXML standard, but being in an Adobe Acrobat document cannot be linked to individually. Both enhance the value of this article. I fail to see why a link to the NoOOXML site is not relevant to the article. Wikipedia isn't paper, so it's not for space saving reasons. WLDtalk|edits 21:35, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
The nooxml site is purely about votes and about sending letter to ISO member to make them change their vote. It relies on other sites to get its issues from and only bring new when it is about somebody voting no or kicing ar riot when someone doesn't. The sites on which most of its issues are based are already in the article and the protest campaing does not belong in wikipedia. I just noticed that the president of FFII actually made an article his own website. How pathetic are these people for getting some extra hits and gathering more petition votes ??? hAl 21:56, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
That is a severe mischaracterisation of the NoOOXML site and does not belong in a reasoned debate.WLDtalk|edits 23:06, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
I merely linked to WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS (or better, WP:WAX/what about article X), because that is just a non-argument. The link is inappropriate, it is a soapbox site, I don't care about other links on other pages, we are discussing this link. The page contains information, yes. But that information can be incorporated (which apparently has already been done), and the information then used as a reference (although I doubt if this site is a primary source, as said above, it relies on other sites, and it may very well fail WP:RS (as it is an opinion site I expect the information not to be independent). But the link goes to the mainpage, which is obviously the wrong place, do you expect me to search the site for the good information (no, our external links guideline states that the link should be directly to the information that is relevant to the article, and the frontpage does not seem that). That the vote on Noooxml seems to go to deletion means also that it does not go to rewrite, or stub down, which also are possible outcomes on pages which are created under a COI. And deletion probably means that the site is not notable enough, and hence, there is no reason to link.
Now, instead of the discussion what I hoped for, an open and good discussion about which links should be here, and if they should be here, or that the controversy is discussed enough in the text, we are only discussing this link. What about the other sites linked, especially the blogs and the wiki, as far as I can see, only the wired.com and the LinuxWorld are meritable sites, the others seem to fail [WP:EL|the external links guideline]] and/or the reliable source guideline as well. --Dirk Beetstra T C 22:21, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, you kicked off that aspect now. Grin. WLDtalk|edits 23:06, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
the only site I find credible is the site of IBM's Rob Weir. He is a known partisan against OOXML but IBM is responsible for most of the worldwide issues submitted against OOXML and his team seems to be the place where all those comments all seem to come from. He is also involved in the ODF standardisation. Sun Peter Korn is an expert in accesibility for ODF and allthough it plays some part in the OOXML format discussions it is not a major issue probably since most existing accesibility tooling is already build for its predecesoor binary formats applications and will work with the new formats as well. The blog of microsofts Brain Jones is a more usefull for its technical background info on the format than as a support ooxml site for which you are better of with Doug Magugh blog site.. The other sites aren't worth a comment on. hAl 22:40, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
HaL - can you substantiate your assertion "IBM is responsible for most of the worldwide issues submitted against OOXML"? I'd be interested in factual citations rather than apparently baseless assertions. Grateful for any links you can supply. Thanks WLDtalk|edits
I think this whole debate illustrates a problem with referencing blogs. Where the interested reader is not an expert in the topic being discussed, he or she has to rely on the opinions of credible experts in the field and it is difficult to determine who is credible and who is not. Rob Weir, Brian Jones, Doug Mahugh, Jason Matusow are all likely to be regarded as partisan; and Rick Jelliffe lost credibility with some/many (not all) after being paid by Microsoft to attempt to provide a balance in this very article. The technical criticisms documented in the BSI Wiki and Dansk Standard comments submitted with their vote are verifiable, and generated by subject matter experts: it may actually be sensible to not have links to any blog in this article. That said, I certainly respect Peter Korn's views on accessibility. That is not to disparage the other gentlemen mentioned, but Peter doesn't seem to have any particular axe to grind on the OOXML standardisation issue: rather he wants whatever format to support accessibility, which is a noble cause. It does seem to me that we are attempting to get the NPOV policy (which is a good policy, in my opinion) to cover external links as well, which is difficult to apply. External links are there to give the interested reader further places to go to get more info - they are not references supporting assertions made int he text, so I think it is reasonable that external sites are not necessarily neutral. A warning in the link describing the site as partisan should be sufficient, rather than arguing whether a link should be in the article or not. That is a somewhat inclusionist view, but I tend towards inclusionism anyway. I've said enough on this topic, so I'll toddle off.WLDtalk|edits 23:06, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
(off-topic) Am I really supposed to care what card-carrying idiots think about my credibility? ;-) My support from my peers has been constant and heartening, even (indeed, especially) when they don't agree with me on particular aspects. Indeed, the standards process requires people who prepared to speak their mind even when it goes against conventional wisdom; standards are an agreement, and agreements require conversations, and conversations require civility and perhaps respect. Which is not to say that I am always right. Rick Jelliffe 16:24, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
As it is in this article certain people require verification for every tiny bit of info that goes in to the article even in the technical description. As this info is only displayed on MS blog sites it would be hard to even contemplate the entire article then without using those as a reference. However it is a lot different when it comes to opinion about Office Open XML. Support or critisism. That is pure POV vs POV edits. Even the objective comments of the ISO national bodies are severaly tainted by this discussion on pro and anti site with them often containing literal copies of issues mentioned on those blogs. So the influence of the blogs seems real. Especially influential as a source is the blog of Rob Weir who is the main source for IBM critisism and is a member of the US national body as well as a participant in the development of ODF formulas. I saw you ask hAl about the IBM comments. I seen a bit about that as well. Allthough I can't show you worldwide figures I saw the number for the US committee on Jason Matusaw's blog. 230 techincal comments of which 83% (!!!!) came from IBM. IBM outreviews the entire US interested parties in critisism on OOXML by a margin of 5-1. They must indeed have quite a team on reviewing the spec. As for worldwide figures I have little doubt that IBM has entered those same comments in other NB where they are represented as well. this can be seen by the simularities in the comments (or even identical versions). So the rest of critisisms does indeed look pale in the face of that effort by IBM. 69.73.191.92 08:43, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't really matter where they come from. If a committee endorses together a bug report it is "theirs". Those IBM specialists are well-respected in the industry and among their opponents. If you find a bug, nationality is irrelevant. A bug in the US is a bug in Kenya. When I looked at the comments submitted to ISO, endorsed IBM comments were a minor fraction. Despite that the expertise of IBM was pretty good.Arebenti 12:34, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
I have said it before, so I'll say it again. It is an utter mistake to think of the ISO process in terms of courtrooms and contests. The whole process is geared to getting agreement. The parties who will "lose" are the parties who are inflexible, not the parties who are wrong or right. For example, lets look at the issue of page sizes: if ECMA are inflexible on one list, and some NBs are inflexible about the need for another list, all that will happen is that a compromise will occur where the standard allows any string for the page size. But it will by a Phyrric victory because in the real world everyone will fit into what the original draft said, because it accords with what Office produces and accepts. Who loses from that? Only the users might think that a fixed list is preferable for validation (and they are wrong in this case IMHO: it should belong to a different layer of validation than in the primary schema.) That a NB does not have procedures that prevent even contradictory comments (e.g. in the US case) does not mean either that all comments should not be treated seriously or that all comments should be given more credibility than they deserve; take the UK comments for example, they seem to have punted so that everyone's comments are passed on to the ISO level; contrast this with Australia's fine comments (some of which I submitted) where they made a concerted effort to avoid parrotry. Rick Jelliffe 15:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

swedish vote... the Microsoft parnters that joined lately to vote "yes"...

for memories, here are the company that join lately and voted "yes" : Camako Data AB (Microsoft Gold Certified Partner), Connecta AB (Microsoft Gold Certified Partner), Cornerstone Sweden AB (Microsoft Gold Certified Partner), Cybernetics (Microsoft Gold Certified Partner), Emric AB, Exor AB (Microsoft Certified Partner), Fishbone Systems AB (Microsoft Gold Certified Partner), Formpipe Software (Microsoft Gold Certified Partner), FS System AB, Google, HP (Microsoft Gold Certified Partner), IBizkit AB (Microsoft Certified Partner), IDE Nätverkskonsulterna (Microsoft Gold Certified Partner), IT-Vision AB, Know IT (Microsoft Gold Certified Partner), Modul1 (Microsoft Gold Certified Partner), Nordic Station AB (Microsoft Certified Partner), ReadSoft AB (Microsoft Certified Partner), Sogeti (Microsoft Gold Certified Partner), Solid Park AB (Microsoft Gold Certified Partner), SourceTech AB, Strand Interconnect AB (Microsoft Gold Certified Partner) and TietoEnator (Microsoft Gold Certified Partner). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.228.207.5 (talk) 21:25, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Where's that info coming from? As far as I know, Google voted NO: Google's position on OOXML. 80.233.255.7 23:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

iso reject ooxml

"ISO votes to reject Microsoft's OOXML as standard" http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136711-c,techindustrytrends/article.html --87.127.117.246 13:14, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Strange header by PCworld. It is only an intermediate vote that does not reject anything yet. Only a unanouos vote of approval wuithout comments would have guaranteed the standard to be agreed upon immediatly. The article suggest that that somthing is rejected but this of course is not corredct at all. Currently it seems (allthough I have not seen the ãn official ballot intermediate result on the ISO site yet) that the Office Open XML submission did not get enough votes in this phase to be assured of a favourable vote in the ballot resoloution phase. That means several ISO members have to be persuaded by changes in the specification to change their vote in favor of approval during the next 6 months. I think PCworld want a catchy header for their article. However they might look up the meaning of the word rejected in their dictionary. Only if an insurpassable majority of the votes would have been disapproval the proposed standard would have been likely to be rejected. As it is now I think Ecma and Microsoft are probably dissappointed but on the other hand they seemed to have gained 50 votes for approval as well and that might give them a basis of hope for a better result in the future. hAl 13:32, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes. As far as I understand it, the process now moves towards the Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM). If sufficient National Bodies (NBs) had voted 'Yes' (with or without comments) at this stage, the proposal would have moved forward to becoming an ISO standard without the need for a BRM (at least, that is my understanding). The objective for those wishing OOXML (excuse the shorthand here) to become an ISO standard is now to gain sufficient 'Yes' votes before or during the BRM. This is normally achieved by addressing the comments submitted with the 'No, with comments' votes - an NB whose comments are adequately addressed (in that NB's opinion) then changes their vote from 'No, with comments' to 'Yes'. However, as I understand it, if a sufficient number of NBs believe no changes are necessary, then the comments will not necessarily be addressed. I think this means that it is possible that an NB can change their vote even without the comments being addressed. In addition, I think the number of participating National Bodies can increase between now and the BRM - and if new participating NBs are of the opinion that 'Yes' is the correct vote, again, OOXML may become a standard without comments being addressed. I expect that ECMA will address the comments, and various interested parties will lobby NBs in parallel. The BRM may well be a non-event if sufficient NBs are of the opinion that a 'Yes' vote is the correct one beforehand. In toto this is not an outright rejection of OOXML, but simply another stage in its presumed eventual transition to an ISO standard. WLDtalk|edits 13:55, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Skipping a BRM in the ballot resolution phase has only happened in cases with unanamous votes of approval or when disapproval was so big that the standard proposal was withdrawn. Only in the anti-OOXML camp has ever been suggested that a sufficient number of approval votes could lead to a skipping of the BRM meeting. This of course because they did not want people to vote approval with comments suggesting a threat of the their comments not be dealt with in a BRM even allthough several early disapproval vvotes already guaranteed that a BRM would be held. hAl 14:15, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Rather amusing after reading the PCworld article is the complete opposite Micrsoft reaction in their pressrelease on the result of the 5-month ballot voting period This pressrelease almost suggests it to be a vistory when it evidently is not a victory. clealry Ecma and Microsoft still need to do a lot of work on the format specification to gain enoug h support during the next 6 months. hAl 13:50, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, OOXML failed to get approval now, but that doesn't stop it from becoming an ISO standard later. And the sheer number of "Yes" votes is impressive. Note that I didn't say 'approval' votes, as 'No' votes are conditional approval in any case. WLDtalk|edits 13:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
It's my understanding that the only thing that "failed" here was the motion for ISO fast-track. ISO is not in the business of preventing standards from happening... this vote was only ever intended to determine whether or not the format reference was immediately ready for the standardization approval process. It's essentially a foregone conclusion that OOXML will be ISO-standardized. The variable here is exactly what it will look like when it gets there, after revision and further specification is furnished. My personal view is that MS pushed hard to get the format fast-tracked because they've already put some effort into writing code to the version of the spec that they submitted, and that changing the spec to pass ISO will cost them lots of money in software revision. Were I them, I, too, would have pushed hard to get my reference implementation passed. That being said, I think they'll play ball from here on out. Lots of standards aren't fast-tracked; like EVERY standard before 1986, for example (including ISO country codes and ISBN's for books). 65.112.197.16 18:13, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Well said. The level of debate, argument, argumentation and lobbying between now and the end of the BRM is likely to be high, so we will have our work cut out to keep this article high-quality and Neutral Point of View. It's going to be a long haul. WLDtalk|edits 08:10, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
You write that, "It's essentially a foregone conclusion that OOXML will be ISO-standardized." Why would you think that? My impression is that the commonly accepted view is that OOXML is nothing but a scam to create the appearance that a proprietary format is an open format as well. Why should it be a foregone conclusion that the scam will work? And if you are going to make such incendiary remarks, why don't you post with a userid? -- Hyperion 10:12, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
It is very difficult for a technology that is submitted following the due process not to be standardized, if there is positive interest in it. Negative interest generally does not count, because ISO standards are not about creating monopolies: ISO is there to foster agreements among parties who want to agree, not to allow parties who disagree to stymie matters. So all ECMA need to do is patiently follow procedure, engage in information programs, be prepared to fix issues that come up, and in the normal run of events they would get their standard. Same as with ISO ODF or ISO PDF or ISO HTML. That this has been politicized, and that much of the politicization is really commercial, makes it an unusual case, but it will be a test for the ISO procedures, and (given that this is not the first controversial standard) I expect that the process will work the way it was designed to: to help get a standard agreed on if possible. (To understand why standards bodies are like this, read up on anti-trust law for standards bodies: it is actually illegal in the US for a standards body to be used by one group of vendors to lock out competitors.) Rick Jelliffe 15:21, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
AFAICR, the only way that the standard could be completely doomed would be if ECMA TC45 (and thusly Microsoft & office partners, by proxy) absolutely refuse to work with JTC1 and choose to not resolve issues with the standard. But then OOXML would not earn standards approval, and ODF would be the only modern document format with such approval. Plus, at least Microsoft, possibly others, have invested significant engineering resources to implement OOXML (albeit, not a standardized version of it). So their interest in the format shouldn't go away soon (or at least "shame on them", if it does). It's important to realize that simply having standards approval doesn't grant OOXML any mystical powers. I suspect that its eventual market usage will have far more to do with Microsoft's business dominance than its technical merit, for better or worse, but that's sheer prognostication, for my part. Hyperion: my comment was certainly not incendiary to anyone familiar with the ISO standardization process. Additionally, spotlighting the fact that I post anonymously doesn't help elucidate your point, nor provide information to the discussion. I've not contributed one edit to the main article, so far, due to the controversy. Were I to do so, it would certainly utilize a user-id. Besides, what if I were a Chinese citizen, trying to contribute without bringing the law down on my head? :-) 65.112.197.16 (talk) 22:05, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

ISO has made a press release stating the result of the voting. 193.183.46.253 16:28, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The more I read about the technical details of this standard, the more I hate it. But it looks like ISO will approve it anyway in the end. Because only Microsoft can ever implement this standard, this will mean the death of non-Microsoft office applications. Not necessarily right away, but eventually. JIP | Talk 07:43, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Instead of reading *about* it, why not actually read it? Most of it is well-written, well-organized, complete, useful and straightforward, with many examples. And remember that it is still a draft, not a final version. Rick Jelliffe 05:54, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

There is a systematic problem with the current article, in that it does not distinguish between OOXML the technology (format) and OOXML the draft document. The contradictions vote was more about the technology (which is why comments on particular technical issues were at the wrong time) and this five month review is about the draft (technical and editorial). So the article should make it clear that it was the *draft* that was (rightly) disapproved not the technology; everyone involved has known that there would be a ballot resolution period (my blog March 13 for example). And, as Japan commented in its contradiction-period submission, I expect it will be approved after the BRM. So the concrete changes I suggest are: section September 2007 ballot result change "this format has not" to "this draft has not". Change "during the five month ballot period" to "as it stands at the five month ballot."Rick Jelliffe —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rick Jelliffe (talk • contribs) 07:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

"distinguish" template, redux

There was a dispute (now archived) about whether the name "Office Open XML" might be confused with "Open Office." The result was to keep the "distinguish" template because searching Wikipedia for "open office" turns up this article first. More evidence for the record: an example of a mainstream (AP) journalist confounded by the ambiguity. —Fleminra 19:22, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I do not see the confusion that you suggest ? 64.191.125.249 20:33, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
That's nice, but given you're posting via an open proxy and you are not disputing the evidence Fleminra posted, I feel safe ignoring your opinion. --h2g2bob (talk) 20:38, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
That I have to spell this out is telling: "Open Office XML" != "Office Open XML". The former (which is cited by the AP article) is a colloquial synonym for the XML-based format used by the suite widely called "Open Office"; the latter is the anagrammatic title of a Microsoft effort to hype-jack a trend toward open data formats. —Fleminra 21:30, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
A non-discussion. The example show disambiguety the other way. That is relvant voor adding a disamb tag on the Open Office article (which is there already). Also when accidentally using Open Office XML as a target on wikipedia you actually get the Office Open XML as a first result. Also the tag on this article is already there for Open Office as a result from an earlier discussion on this page. Mostly any remaining discusion was about confusion between the terms OpenDocument en Office Open XML. Those aren't remotly similar and to go on wikipedia with the term OpenDocument and ending up in this article not having found the OpenDocument article would be a major achievement. 69.73.191.92 08:43, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
69.73.191.92, you are using an anonymous proxy. Your comment is not taken into account. Simosx 13:57, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
You are a troll but that does not stop you does it ? I explained in an earlier reaction on this page that anonimity is preferrrable on editting this page. And you are one of the reasons why !!! 69.73.191.92 07:41, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
It is apparent that since the Associated Press article, you read everywhere about this "Open Office XML". The start of the page should explain that the correct name is "Office Open XML", and not "Open Office XML". Simosx 13:47, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
More still: Google News: "open office xml". Also, this article itself is a case in point of using the name "Open Office XML" in reference to ODF. —Fleminra 17:47, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
What i find strange is that you suggest alterastion to this article wheras these examples of confusion on OOXML might would mostly lead people mistakingly to the OpenOffice.org article and should be rerouted to this one. 69.73.191.92 07:41, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
The OpenOffice article already has a disambiguity tag for such a case. hAl 11:27, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Also some national comments to ISO highlighted a potential naming problem. --Arebenti 17:20, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The previous consensus on including a distinguish template pointing to "OpenOffice.org" was based on the fact that searching Wikipedia for "Open Office" incorrectly yielded this article as the first result. User:69.73.191.92 points out that searching Wikipedia for "Open Office XML" also incorrectly yields this article as the first result. The two search phrases in question already have redirects to the correct articles, but in both cases the Search function incorrectly leads users here. Therefore, I propose this "distinguish" template: "Not to be confused with OpenOffice.org (an unrelated office suite) or 'Open Office XML' (a colloquial synonym for OpenDocument)." Or "nominal predecessor" instead of "colloquial synonym." —Fleminra 20:42, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

You are creating ambiguity with a non existing name and then leading it to a different article. that is actually adding to the confusion and suggest Open Office XML might actually be an existing name for Opendocument. That is creating confusion rather than solving it !! hAl 11:25, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I'm completely confused by your first sentence. Is "creating disambiguity" logically the same as "destroying ambiguity"? If so, then I have achieved my goal. "Open Office XML" is an existing (if historical) name for OpenDocument, evidenced by the Open Office XML redirect to OpenDocument, the use of "Open Office XML" in Office Open XML#Background, as well as your own earlier comment in #disambiguity. —Fleminra 20:06, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Even the Opendocument article does not recognize that it used to be called Open Office XML because OpenDocument wants to loose it's connection to being an OpenOffice related format. Try adding in that article first that is is also known by its colloquial name Open Office XML. It won't last a day. hAl 18:49, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Since it is the very first comment in Great Britain's disapprove with comments ballot, I would suggest that it is VERY worthy of consideration in this article198.50.4.4 21:06, 11 September 2007 (UTC)Jonathan888 (talk) 21:08, 11 September 2007 (UTC)(logged in to sign my comment)
There might be a ambiguity with Open Office which was already in the article with a disambiguity tag. Fleminra however suggest there is also a ambiguity with Opendocument. However there is no ambiguity with Opendocument. The suggested extra ambiguity is with "Open Office XML" but that 99% mistakes for people meaning Office Open XML and then this is the correct article. Adding a disambiguity tag leading them to opendocument is therefore extra confusing. Especially since when they arrive at opendocument there isn't a mention of that name whatsoever. So when the confusion in the media is between Office Open XML en Open Office XML I think it is utterly ridiculous to use that as an argument to place in a link to OpenDocument. hAl 07:24, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
In all of your comments, by "disambiguity," you mean "ambiguity," right? It turns out they have opposite meanings. You might have noticed, but I have invited comments about adding a "history" section to the OpenDocument article to address your concern — naturally you're welcome to explain there why such an addition would detract from that article. Personally though, it's just frustrating to me why you would be so strongly opposed to having this article emphasize that the correct name of this standard is "Office Open XML," not "Open Office XML," when there's clearly a lot of confusion about it.. or are you saying that, to you, the terms are equally correct, and interchangeable names for this format. —Fleminra 08:20, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
I do confuse disambiguity and ambiguity quite often when looking back at it. Just stupidly copied/pasted it from another reaction as I do not like to retype difficult wordslike that. I'll change. Does not change view though. The media confusion ís not leading people to wrong article but adding open office xml as a colloquial name for opendocument to the the distinguish tag actually is doing just that and therefor adding the the confusion rather than solving any. hAl 09:17, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The distinguish tag could point to Open Office XML, a redirect to OpenOffice.org XML, which I hadn't realized had its own article. —Fleminra 01:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Alexbrn has removed the reference to Open Office XML, noting that it is "waay to tenuous to need a tag." Alex: I see that you don't have any experience with Wikipedia outside this article, but that's how Wikipedia works. The link between Paris and Paris, Idaho is pretty tenuous too, but you can "get there from here" via the distinguish tag. —Fleminra 19:32, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Fleminra interesting you switch straight into ad hominem mode. And the Paris example is not comparable. I have read Wikipedia's guidelines on disambiguation and I think this tag is inappropriate here. Lots of people mistakenly call "Office Open XML" "Open Office XML" (including MS and Ecma people). People searching for something to do with openoffice.org might mistakenly find this article -- this (genuine) problem is handled by the first disambig tag. But can anybody reasonably think "Open Office XML" is OpenDocument Format? Are you saying people think "Open Office XML" means "the XML format used by the openoffice.org application". If so, surely such an edge case misunderstanding is not deserving of a disambig tag -- there are many other edge cases we could put in too in that case: I saw an email from somebody the other day who was wondering about the relationship between ODA (Open Document Architecture) and ODF/OOXML ... do we put a disambig tag in for them too? By your logic should the ODF article have a disambig tag for OOXML? Alexbrn 20:57, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Alexbrn, which disambiguation guidelines did you read? This type is about articles with deceptively similar titles. Simosx 21:57, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
@ Simosx, in what way is the title "Office Open XML" deceptively similar to the title "OpenDocument" ? (I agree about OpenOffice.org being similar, but that's disambiguated already ...) Alexbrn 06:41, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
@ Simosx, on reflection looking at this, I withdraw my objection. Alexbrn 06:58, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Alexbrn: type "Open Office XML" in the search box to the left, click "Search", and click on any of the first 10+ articles that comes up. Good point w.r.t. Open Document Architecture vs. OpenDocument; I have added distinguish tags to OpenOffice.org XML and OpenDocument, but feel free in the future to bring your own talents to bear beyond the OOXML article. Regarding these questions:

But can anybody reasonably think "Open Office XML" is OpenDocument Format? Are you saying people think "Open Office XML" means "the XML format used by the openoffice.org application".

Pat yourself on the back, again — that's exactly what I'm saying. Actually, there was a time not long ago that everyone thought that "Open Office XML" referred to "the XML format used by the openoffice.org." Apparently only Microsoft was so brilliantly ignorant of "Open Office XML" to confusingly name their new format "Office Open XML" — or am I giving them too much credit? As for your suggestion that OpenDocument prominently and clearly state that it's not related to OOXML, I have no objection; I am not here to preserve the masses' ignorance of the existence of competing products and formats. —Fleminra 00:05, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
If that is what you are saying than the ditinghuish tag should only list Openoffice.org. Because if people think about the format used by openoffice.org than that is already in the distinguish tag. Also your suggested confusion is hardly confirmed because the media confusion is about people saying Open Office XML when meaning Office Open XML and therefore needing to be at this article if they need information. hAl 07:49, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
The collective efforts of the pantheon of Scrabble champions and a team of liquored-up monkeys playing Magnetic Poetry could not have produced a name more similar to "Open Office XML" than "Office Open XML." What part of this is so hard to understand? For the second time: are you proposing that "Open Office XML" now properly refers to "Office Open XML"? If so, I suggest you take your argument to Talk:Open Office XML. Let me try to put it succinctly: undisputedly, people are presently confusing "Open Office XML" and "Office Open XML." All the distinguish tag does, is say: "don't confuse them - they're not the same thing." It's really, honestly not there to pass judgment, or make Microsoft feel inferior. —Fleminra 10:02, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
@ Fleminra, on reflection looking at this, I withdraw my objection. Hopefully down the track the format will get renamed, which will solve this problem once and for all ... Alexbrn 06:58, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

69.73.191.92 is greyproxy.com (anonymous proxy)

Has also edited exclusively the OOXML article. Is that any issue according to Wikipedia policies? Simosx 13:45, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Anyone can edit Wikipedia with or without an account; but editing through open proxies is not allowed for obvious reasons. I've reported it to WP:AIV, so someone should block the account. --h2g2bob (talk) 16:06, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, the account has now been blocked. Now there is the issue of examining those edits and rectifying the content. Simosx 22:18, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
The edits look ok to me: there's no need to revert unless they look iffy --h2g2bob (talk) 00:07, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Factual errors tag

I've changed {{totallydisputed}} to a {{POV}} because I still can't see any factual errors in the piece. When placing the totallydisputed tag, 81.101.137.204 (talk · contribs) said:

I don't agree. The comments about IBM unreasonably trying to stop OOXML is certainly inaccurate, and the article's neutrality is certainly disputed. Should stay

IBM is only mentioned in a few places, so I guess this is referring to Office Open XML#Policy arguments, which says "Microsoft attacked IBM's fundamental opposition to the Open XML standardization process". That's simply badly worded - it's Microsoft's opinion. I'll try and reword it.

I'm very happy to help fix errors, but only if I know what they are (that is, just placing disputed at the top of the page is not very helpful). In future, please use {{disputed-section}} next to the relevant section if possible; and post on the talk page.

Please post below with any other problems --h2g2bob (talk) 00:05, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I think you should have waited a week after suggesting that the tag be removed before editing it if you did not place the tag. Removal of this tag, without talking about it was a bad idea.Kilz 22:05, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Merge

A merge tag was added to this page for a merge with Microsoft Office 2007 file extensions, but I think a merge between different office formats may be more appropriate. I'll go into more detail at Talk:Microsoft Office 2007 file extensions. It'll probably be best to post there to keep the discussion in one place. --h2g2bob (talk) 23:59, 11 September 2007 (UTC)~

I think that the article should be kept more clear of MS Office related clutter. MS Office is relevant only as an historic source for the format developement and MS Office 2007 only relevant as the main current implementation of the format. hAl 07:29, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with hAl that bringing more side references into the article won't help, it's hard enough to follow as it is... links are good, more expansion of the article, not good.Jonathan888 (talk) 17:13, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Removed merge tag --h2g2bob (talk) 05:58, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Propose removal of natinal bodyt activity section

National body activity has resulted in comments submitted and is no longer realy relevant how they are gathering those comments. Their submitted comments can be found on the relevant jct1 sc34 page which is also in the article and is as such the only relevant source of comments by ISO members.

Mayby leave the complaints about the national bodies proces as a seperate section as it seems a favorite topic of opponents of OOXML. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HAl (talk • contribs) 07:57, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it seems good to analyze what the comments will mean for the format and how to format will get improved. As far as I can see it will be a tough job for ECMA to provide a compromise. And another important aspect is the French plan.Arebenti 12:27, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
how about incorporating the info into the Office Open XML Ballot Results and providing a link from here to there?Jonathan888 (talk) 17:15, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Or, we could make a separate section that is purely about the standardization process, and leave this article for the Office Open XML standard itself, there was a move to do that during the voting on RfD OOXML ballot results.Jonathan888 (talk) 17:26, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
I am for a deletion of the ballot result article. It does not belong into wikipedia. --Arebenti 17:13, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
The discussion is actually already completed on the proposal to delete Office Open XML Ballot Results Jonathan888 (talk) 20:57, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

They should be left as a separate section attempting to hide or disperse the information is not a good idea. There is a section on the activities of the national boodies, there should be a section about the complaints about the same. Kilz 21:47, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Part about standardization is much too long

This article explains almost nothing about what is the OOXML file format, preferring to deal in depths about its standardization (plus there's so much details that this is nearly cryptic for the reader, even there). The problem is that the title is not "Office Open XML standardization", but just "Office Open XML" (and it's necessary to explain such a HUGE file format specification, about 6000 pages). So what readers should find in this article is not there. Plus this is NOT a standard for the moment, and judging by the developments on this area, there's a chance it may never be one. So my proposal is to create a new article titled : Office Open XML standardization, and put almost the whole article in it, and explain what is Office Open XML in this article (that should have been done first). Hervegirod 13:44, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I dont think splitting up the page would be a good idea. The notability of the document structure is aligned with its discussion of standardization imho. Few pages exist just about its structure outside of Microsoft that do not discuss standardization. Perhaps the section about the structure needs to be enhanced, but it can be done in this article. Kilz 17:13, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I was in favor of splitting the article when the idea was first proposed, this article is unweildy in it's length. However, having given it more thought, it is very likely that readers and new editors would come here looking for information about the standardization and where the process is currently. Also, we don't want to give the appearance of trying to hide information. Currently I'm weakly in favor of keeping the article intact, based on the idea that if it was split editors would put the information back in this article anyway not realizing there was a separate Office Open XML standardization article - more confusion is not good.Jonathan888 (talk) 16:57, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

The standardization section can be greatly reduced in lenght in februari when the ISO descision on Office Open XML falls and just state whether or not the it will become an IOS standard. hAl 17:59, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Why not try to shorten it and focus on the upcoming steps. Arebenti 17:15, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I think splitting out the standardization and controversy material would be a good thing. Especially so that main article can concentrate on stating what OOXML is rather than what other people think it should be. Rick Jelliffe 15:25, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

OOXML = no database support

Which OpenDocument has. I thought I'd throw that out to the editors here. Masterhomer File:Yin yang.png 23:35, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually as far as I know OpenDocument does not have database support either. hAl 06:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
If OOXML does not have database support, would it be misleading then if it was implied as having database support? Simosx 08:31, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
It might but at least this Office Open Office article does not imply database support at all. The Opendocument article however in it's first sentence suggests that it support databases even though it does not do that nor has a planned version that will contain database support. You would like to call that misleading ? hAl 10:19, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
When reading about "Halal Hub Open XML System", the first thing that comes to mind is that MSOOXML has database properties. Is this a naming error, or is there something more concrete in it? Simosx 11:09, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
I am not sure what you mean. The article you reference does not even contain the word Office nor the word database and even if it would I am not sure what the relevance is to this article which certainly does not mention that Office Open XML supports a database markup language. Unlike the Opendocument article which does suggest that even though it does not support that either. hAl 11:19, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
It is the third paragraph. Simosx 11:31, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
No, it is actually the first paragrapgh of the Opendocument article that is factually incorrect. hAl 14:15, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
I counted again, it is the third paragraph. The project is called "Halal Hub Open XML System", which is weird to have Open XML in the name of the project. Is this a naming abuse? Why would Open XML be used in a project name? Is Open XML more than a document format in this major project? Simosx 16:48, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
As I read that - the "Open" and "XML" are to make it buzz-word compliant and the two words are not intended to be read as "Open XML" but a system that is both "open" and uses "XML". Sounds just like a XML message gateway and object broker and usual stuff. I guess once they speed up message flows maybe they can then work on killing the animals faster but I doubt it. Ttiotsw 17:18, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
It appears to me that there is more for an attempt to associate with "Open XML", unless there is general confusion on this. For example, Ministry still undecided on Open XML talks specifically on "Open XML" as one word. See the third paragraph in that article that talks about The Open XML system rose to prominence in May when Microsoft Malaysia, in partnership with the Halal Industry Development Corporation (HDC), undertook to develop a system for producers of halal goods and services to carry out their activities on the Internet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Simosx (talk • contribs) 17:39, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
What I still notice is that the Opendocument article falsely suggest that the format supports databases and the Office Open XML article does not. As that is the relvant topic of discusion I suggest the person adding this section on the talk page quickly edits the Opendocument article to remove those false claims hAl 00:03, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

False reference spam again

Many of the national bodies comments seem to be word-for-word identical and are supposed to be either the result of NB sharing results or of larger multi-national organisations feeding their pooled comments to the national bodies <ref>{{cite web | url=http://adjb.net/index.php?entry=entry070909-104641 | title=OOXML ballot comments | author=Alex Brown | date=2007-09-09 | accessdate=2007-09-11}}</ref>

First of all, I had a look at the comments and think that this is not true. Surprisingly the national comments are very diverse. But what makes me angry again is that the article provided as a reference does not support the message. These injections of unfounded claims are unacceptable. further it includes speculation as the " larger multi-national organisations feeding their pooled comments". A national commitee is free to endorse any comments it likes and vote on them. In fact Rob Weir bug reports were endorsed by some players. However, look at the source, look at the comments submitted. Extraordinary many comments and less dublicates that you might expect. So the unfounded sentence creates a wrong impression. This is why I removed the sentence. --Arebenti 17:11, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, when I first read the comment and saw a reference, I falsely assumed that the statement had merit; however, having taken time to actually read comments from various national standards bodies I see similarity in content but very little verbatim. What is of concern is that this statement is from the blog of the DIS 29500 convenor, Alex Brown - I hope he's not standing by this characterization of the ballot comments. Jonathan888 (talk) 19:01, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
This is what he wrote: "Glancing through them, I am struck by how much is word-for-word identical between countries. Maybe countries shared comments (and certainly the open Wiki for UK comments may have been a source), or maybe some of the larger multi-national organisations reviewing DIS 29500 fed their pooled comments down to many different nations. Ultimately, though, the source of comments does not matter; what matters is whether they have technical merit." As the source is Alex Brown we could use his original quote or WP:NPOV it just a bit.Arebenti 22:23, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Guys, the kind of thing that made me say there were duplicates are a number of similar ODF compatibility requests. Take the comment:
It is desired to have improved interoperability between ODF and OOXML.
However, OOXML's "vert" attribute only allows text to be rotated 270 degrees,
whereas ODF's equivalent allows text rotation by 90 or 270 degrees.

You can find this phrase verbatim in the submissions from the United States, Greece and Colombia. You can also find these variations:

"OpenOffice is attempting to add support for OOXML. However OOXML lacks support for a feature of OpenOffice, namely : an option to rotate the text by 90 as well as 270 degrees." (Chile)

"OOXML lacks support for a feature of OpenOffice, namely: an option to rotate the text by 90 as well as 270 degrees." (New Zealand)

"It is desired to have improved interoperability between ODF and OOXML. However, OOXML lacks the following feature: an option to rotate the text by 90 or 270 degrees." (United Kingdom)

Since ISO ballot comments are usually completely textually distinct, any duplicated content surprises me! However this is just an observation, not (as some people seem to be reading it) a complaint.

Arebenti - I did not claim there was anything wrong with this, indeed I wrote in my blog "the source of comments does not matter; what matters is whether they have technical merit".

If you want to include something on this in Wikipedia, I think the noteworthy thing is that - unusually - countries did not generate comments in isolation, but that somehow or other there was cross-talk/commonality. You might not want to speculate how stuff got shared (as I did) - that's okay on my blog, but perhaps not right for Wikipedia. Alexbrn 15:51, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Good point, and thanks for the examples... I didn't read all of the comments from all of the countries and my reading was getting a bit blurry and or bleary eyed after about 30 of them, so I'm sure there are more examples than those you point out. I misunderstood and got the false impression that some countries had submitted commented ballots that were identical line for line - mea culpa, sorry, I apologize for mischaracterizing your statement. Jonathan888 (talk) 21:28, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
True, very good. A good page for the "mapping discussions" is the ODF-converter page. I assume that this was the original source: http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/features.html - Honestly, what I expected was far more "cut'n paste similarity" because the same dossiers where sent to all delegations. Then I read the comments and were quite surprised. Arebenti 10:02, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Of the approx 3500 issues, it seems that approx 2500 of them are repeats. These 2500 represent an enormous waste of energy: they are fake reviews and little credit to the National Bodies who sent them, who have allowed their agenda to be dictated by campaigns. Rick Jelliffe 15:29, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

deletion proposal

We discussed above the possibility to shorten the article part about the ECMA and DIS process. I found this here

"The TC45 committee is chaired by Microsoft;[20] it also includes members from Apple, Canon, Intel, NextPage, Novell, Pioneer, Statoil ASA, Toshiba and The United States Library of Congress.[1]"

I think internals of ECMA are not really important at the current stage anymore. Further an odd name as TC45 is "dropped in" but not explained. 2 Month ago the response would have been to explain the function of ECMA TC45 but honestly, that is not the purpose of the article. It is also understood that some persons want the membership list because it indicates that ECMA is not just a Microsoft proxy but other parties were involved. And others wanted to stress that Microsoft chairs the ECMA committee, so the spin from the first sentences is contrasted by the spin of the second. I think it's time to get rid off spin that does not belong here. --Arebenti 22:18, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the mentioning of the other Ecma participants has merit especialy as many people suggest that the whole spec is written by Microsoft only. It is very relevant when for instance certain item (like the very contested legacy tagging) originate from the Ecma technical committee rather then from Microsoft.
I suggest dropping the section about the 30-contradictions phase and to drop any associated comments from grokdoc that were gathered in that period to show contradictions as that phase of the standardadisation is a long time in the past and we now have ballot comments from national bodies which are mote relevant. hAl 00:00, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
I understand that this is the legitimate rationale behind. But why does this message be worded like this, by mentioning all ECMA members. Editing should be direct, not tactical. As I understand it, ECMA had the obligation to provide a document format that is fully compatible and inside ECMA the other parties commented which were addressed and also requested more information which was provided. Miguel's standard example is formulas. do we have good references for how the ECMA committee work was? when the article tries to imply that an allegation, namely a "ECMA just rubberstamped the MS-Format", is unfounded, it gets political, even when it is factual. ...and you can lie with facts, a great misconception of positivism! Can't the message be written explicitely?Arebenti 10:14, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

English plox

Can this article be translated into English or at least be written for the Simple Wikipedia so ordinary people can understand it?

plox? lolz... nub! ur n0 haxxOr!1!!1 Let me summarize for you (grain of salt here please, these are broad brush strokes) Microsoft introduces a standard for international use with the potential to make documents completely compatible - not only internationally but also with old Microsoft Office generated documents. The standard gets approved by a committee and then put on 'fast-track' for international acceptance. Several parties including IBM oppose this standard as it is written for a variety of reasons including standardizing parts that only Microsoft has the templates for (the old documents). Much discussion ensues: a vote is taken, consensus needed to pass for fast approval is not reached, a meeting is scheduled to see if concerns and issues can be worked out. Succinct enough? Jonathan888 (talk) 21:40, 20 September 2007 (UTC)


HAl reverts

http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Office_Open_XML&diff=159433733&oldid=159433637

That’s the second revert of my edits so far today - The page linked, http://www.ecma-international.org/memento/index.html does not mention copyright restrictions at all (the title of that ref is What is Ecma International ). As such, the reference should sit after ECMA International. Additionally, for the text to say “free without copyright restrictions”, we require facts. The page does not contain that either, so please explain the problem. -- johndrinkwater 18:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually the page states as the aim of Ecma:
To publish these Standards and Technical Reports in electronic and printed form; the publications can be freely copied by all interested parties without restrictions. And that is exactly what copyrights are. The rights to publish and copy a work, in this case standards and technical reports. You move references without explaining why you move them and then ask for refrences to the ones you just move. The only way to give those is to revert your edits. If you do not want that than do not ask for the reference that you just moved. ;-) hAl 18:34, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
freely copied is not the same as without copyright restrictions, because copyright covers an awful lot more than gratis reproduction. Should we ammend the paragraph? The first time I moved it was not in the summary, it was part of a larger edit, I am sure you can understand. The revert did however mention the point I raised above -- johndrinkwater 19:01, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
You are not reading it properly. They publish a standard and let it be copied for free and WITHOUT RESTRICTIONS by anyone intersted. You state that that is not the same as without "copyright restrictions". What exact copyright restriction would you as an interested person be still under ? It is actually one of the most free copyrights licensing clauses that I have ever seen. hAl 19:46, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
So you’re happy that we adjust the line to quote their statement, rather than use a different meaning -- johndrinkwater 20:00, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I was happier with the original line as for many people they want to read the word "copyrigths" when reading a section about licensing. I won't adjust your as it is still stating the same but I do think that what there before would have been more clear to readers than the direct citation of the Ecma site. hAl 21:00, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Relevant is here the Berne convention (copyright/droit d'auteur). Specs as documents are developed by multiple parties, just as in Wikipedia (where "You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL"). The spec is usually formally owned by the standards body, so no claims of the parties that participated in development or submission can be asserted. the second question is what the standards body does with the spec. It is very common for National bodies to charge a fee for the printed standard, an income source. But ECMA distributes the spec royalty-free. Of course this does not apply to patents. "Copyright restrictions" still exist because formally the spec is owned by ECMA and it is not public domain.Arebenti 10:24, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

CNS OSP relation

"The format can therefore be used under the Covenant Not to Sue or the Open Specification Promise" Is it a "or" or a "and"? --Arebenti 10:33, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

It is an or. MS would probably suggest you use the OSP. But they did however promised the irrevocable CNS on the format before the OSP so as it is irrevocale you can use that. I would think they might drop the CNS for future versions and only put up the OSP licensing as they use that licensing form for several open format Microsoft provides patent rights for and just the OSP would seem to satify any Ecma or ISO required RAND licensing fine. hAl 11:03, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
The other aspect is that any representation made by company officials during the standardization process is potentially useful. The OSP or CNS are not the strict limits of the license, *once* the format is an ISO standard. There have been multiple and repeated statements right to the top-levels of the company about this, and the OSP and CNS will be construed in the light of those statements. Just trying to cheese-pare problems from OSP and CNS is somewhat mischievous, because other aspects of the law of standards comes into play: including anti-trust, treaty obligations, deceptive conduct (and even fraud) issues, as well as the public policy aspects that make courts necessarily friendly towards properly conducted standards organizations and processes. However, if standardization fails, then indeed the CNS and OSP would become more important. Rick Jelliffe 15:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

OOXML's "own XML"?

"Office Open XML uses its own XML markup language in fileparts that are placed in an Open Packaging Convention file container." -- sounds as if OOXML was not XML compliant. As XML is a meta language I wonder how to word it. The sentence bears a bias against the format. Also adoption of OOXML-Terminology as "fileparts" and "file container" should be questioned.Arebenti 10:38, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

That is reworded rather poorly mayby. I think it means that the main markup languages like WordprocessingML in Office Open XML are described as "its own XML markup languages". I know there was some critisism by opponents of the spec on the XML used in the deprecated VML part of the spec however that was actually found to be similar on the XML use in w3c standard SVG and it would be rather weird suggesting that w3c standards are using non-compiant XML... hAl 11:10, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
It is reworded rather poorly, but is still better than it was. It is meant to say, uses it’s own schema based upon the XML markup language. If you can make that terse… edit it already :) -- johndrinkwater 12:17, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Other changes I made to the document structure section were to avoid OOXML terminology, because they are confusing. You have the OOXML file, the files which are parts, and folder/directory misuse. Whereas I replaced OOXML file with “package”, part with file (because they are still files in the container), and folder with directory -- johndrinkwater 12:17, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
I amd also not so sure on the part that says: Office Open XML packages have characteristically different directory structures and names depending on the type of document as this blog post suggests that the directory structure in the open specification package used by OOXML is a lot more flexible and a lot less characteristic than this line suggests. hAl 11:10, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
The statement is meant to point out different applications customise the layout (as they do, there is a per-application directory, one for word processing, one for spreadsheets etc), which are characteristically different depending on the type of document -- johndrinkwater 12:17, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps it might be better to say that OOXML is a "family" of document formats, which use ZIP for packaging, XML for data representation, and which share various schema components and structures. Rick Jelliffe 15:41, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Microsofts refusal to commit to its own standard

Im just wondering where exactly the information presented here would best fit into the article. I think its important information that Microsoft isnt committing to the standard it itself is trying to get adopted. Im just not sure where it would best fit into the article. Kilz 19:18, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

That is not so strange. It was about a question why Micrsoft does not give upfront licensing for all future versions of Office Open XML. That would be like loooking into the future. Microsoft does not own Ecma or ISO. If Ecma for instance on an advice of ISO drops some part of the spec that MS considers to be vital for MS Office then they won't support that version with MS Office. Micrsoft would likely also not support if the ISO national bodies would require Micrsoft not just to license their patentrights but to legaly invalidate their related patent rights (an unheared of requirement but actually to be found in one of the iso national bodies comments). Something similar applies to Opendocument. For instance the patentlicensing by Sun whose format Opendocument was based on applies on to versons Sun contributed to themselves. That is not eternal either. So if Sun leaves the OASIS TC their commitments to ODF ends. hAl 21:11, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes that does look like an admission that the pushing for the standardisation isn't a commitment to stay with the standard (or for that matter any standards) as it evolves. The claims that the ECMA would take the standard and change it is a disingenuous claim: what the heck does Microsoft think ECMA or ISO will actually do with such a standard especially given changes are discussed and voted on by committees from the industry ? hAl view misses the whole point of adopting standards but simply rehashes the Microsoft view very clearly - "Microsoft does not own Ecma or ISO.". The whole point of having standards is that it is commonly accepted and adopted without one company having a monopoly control. It does look like they are leaving open the option to switch in what feels like a "bait and switch". Is the commentary in the Techworld article from a notable enough person ? Ttiotsw 01:53, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
I think so, from the page "Frank Hayes is Computerworld’s senior news columnist." he is also quoting Brian Jones, a Microsoft manager who has worked on OOXML for six years. Kilz 03:43, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
I do not understand your point. Changes are normal. The point however is that the you can't predict changes over a long period of time. Micrsoft also commits to its customers. If the format would be changed in such a way that the effect would be negative for their customers they would most likely not support it. They wouldn't be in business otherwise. Microsoft has a need in future as well to improve and enhance their Office products. Customers will have a need for that. It is remotly possible for other organisations (like competitors) that have no direct financial interest in the format to seize control of the Ecma committee and to block any changes or suggest changes to remove item from the spec to make it less usefull. Oh and by the way. Talking about spin. A nice edit by that author on the citation from the blog reaction:
“At the end of the day, though, the other Ecma members could decide to take the spec in a completely different direction. ... Since it’s not guaranteed, it would be hard for us to make any sort of official statement.”
And on the blog:
At the end of the day though, the other Ecma members could decide to take the spec in a completely different direction. Now my impression is that won't happen, as the folks on the TC all have pretty similar visions for the future of the spec, but since it's not guaranteed it would be hard for us to make any sort of official statement. In terms of licensing, we can't provide licenses for new stuff Ecma adds, since Ecma owns it. Our license applies to everything we've submitted, and if we submit anything new we would probably just use the same license. hAl 06:16, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
Talk about spin. You yourself asked a 2 part question hAl. "Also It would be good if Microsoft would state offically it's intent to support future development and improvement of the standard in Ecma of new version of the format and that it intents those version to get simular open licensing." Then you took 2 separate answers , took out part and made it look like it says something different here. Here is Brian Jones Comment, no spin. It in fact says that Microsoft wont commit to OOXML There is a break between the commitment and the licensing, its a 2 part answer to a 2 part question.Kilz 12:26, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
Actually the first part of the question that Microsoft would support future developement was answered quite clearly positivly by Brian Jones by stating that Micrsoft would stay active in Ecma and propose changes based on where they would like to go with Office development in future. The second part on the licensing he stays he does not confirm anything else that when they contribute something they wil license that (which is as I stated similar to the CNS by Sun). hAl 15:17, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
Again you left something out, Ill print the whole answer so we end the spin .
"To your last point, it's hard for Microsoft to commit to what comes out of Ecma in the coming years, because we don't know what direction they will take the formats. We'll of course stay active and propose changes based on where we want to go with Office 14. At the end of the day though, the other Ecma members could decide to take the spec in a completely different direction. Now my impression is that won't happen, as the folks on the TC all have pretty similar visions for the future of the spec, but since it's not guaranteed it would be hard for us to make any sort of official statement."
No amount of spin is going to change the meaning of the words. More than one person sees it, Microsoft is leaving open a way out by not committing to use the standard they themselves want as a standard. I started this section not to debate on the spinnability of the words. The clear meaning of them ends that. But where do you think it should be placed in the article. Kilz 22:14, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
A blogarticle about an interpretable comment on another blog. You should write a gossip column to publish it there mayby? hAl 06:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
I dont think the classification of the article is a blog is correct. It is appearing in a news site, one with editorial oversight. There are some news sites that seek comments. That does not make the information any less usable. Secondly the Blog it was taken from is on MSDN from a Microsoft manager who has been working on OOXML for the last 6 years. One you must think speaks for Microsoft because of the questions you yourself asked him. Kilz 12:26, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
This edit on the non-commital of MS appears to show bias and is apologetic at best. Simosx 21:52, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
If you might have read it more clearly my edit is much closer to an exact citation of what the MS employee said than the original edit. The bias is in the blog article that cites him and that Kilz uses as a reference. Of course you would agree with that blog and think a negative interpretation of that citation is best but the actually my edit that restores most of the original citation is a lot less bias than that reference. But if you want I can alter it and totally remove the bias reference and direct the reference directly to the MS blog that the citation was taken from to remove bias. You have a completly warped idea of bias if you think that the original text is bias but an interpretation isn't. The interpretation will always be more bias than the infor direct form the citation. hAl 19:01, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Agreed that it does not appear to be from a neutral point of view. I did remove the word radically which was not in the original comment. But it needs some work. It may also be a problem because it uses an almost word for word quote of Brian Jones without quotation marks.Kilz 00:53, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

The flow of the above section is wrong as my comment came first at about 1am by the time stamp, hal at about 7pm. I think what hal added was biased in that he added things not in the original quote. Making it seem that "radical" change was necessary for Microsoft to stop using the specification. Its not, in fact there is no qualified answer to how long they will use the specification. My original edit simply stated "Even if the OOXML standard is approved Microsoft has not committed to use OOXML on their products for any length of time." As non biased as possible, that they have not committed to how long the specification will be used. I did a little more work, and left in all of the things hal added. But I did add some more that appears in the article. Kilz 19:53, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
I also think that the reference should not be replaced with one to the Brian Jones blog. Blogs are not creditable where there is no editorial oversight. WP:SPS states that self published sources with no editorial oversight is not a creditable source. The Brian Jones blog is his own words and he controls it. That is why I used the Techworld link It is a online publication with editorial oversight. Granted some blogs from news sites may be used as note 5 on the WP:VERIFY page states. But only those with editorial oversight. This is something that needs to be addressed on this page as there are references that are to blogs that do not pass WP:SPS.Kilz 20:13, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Hal has just removed referenced material from the article. With this Edit This is vandalism. I have reverted it to pre vandalism. The claim was backed up and referenced. Removing referenced claims completely is Blanking per WP:VAND . From the Techworld article referenced in the section "But to organisations that need a well-defined, XML-based format to manage huge numbers of documents that may be archived for decades, this is important." Kilz 13:21, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

--

Interesting point because it raises again my question: What is OOXML? Is it the default format of Office2007 or ECMA 376?, HAl wrote : "It was about a question why Micrsoft does not give upfront licensing for all future versions of Office Open XML. That would be like loooking into the future. Microsoft does not own Ecma or ISO. If Ecma for instance on an advice of ISO drops some part of the spec that MS considers to be vital for MS Office then they won't support that version with MS Office.", an I believe he is misleading here. The point is if Microsoft would comply application-wise to a potential international standard or not. So again the question is "what OOXML"? -- Arebenti 19:48, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

They would if it was what their customers want. However if they would not if it ment sacraficing their MS Office to become a second rate office suite. Office open XML has a lot of features that makes it usefull for MS Office like being optimised for high performance spreadsheet use. MS Office customers also want that performance. They would not settle for a newer version if it was deliberatly made slower or if otherwise MS Office functionality would have to be sacrificed as that is not in their customers interest and that is who they sell the licenses to. They already have a usefull version in the current version that can be used and they will certainly use the improvemetns coming from the current ISO standardisation that will go into a newer version as Microsoft in Ecma are actually working hard on those improvements. There is not a single indication whatsoever they will not be using OOXML for the next 10, 20 or more years. Even Kilz cannot find any such indication. However who knows how Ecma will be in 20 years or even if the current office standard will be relevant anymore or even if XML is relevant stil then. IBM will not give you written guarantees that they will support ODF in their products for a few decades either nor will any company. Making statements on an uncertain future is just a way to get legal claims hAl 23:25, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
Interesting. When you standardize you leave your power to the standard body. Maybe that is the fundamental problem they still need to realize. "There is not a single indication whatsoever they will not be using OOXML for the next 10, 20 or more years." Exactly but will it be ISO or "improved ISO", meaning a ISO derivate unreadable and unspecified for competitors? Arebenti 11:35, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but I think there are other nuances. All ISO standards for IT are "voluntary standards", which means that no-one is compelled to implement them or use them, even if they submitted the draft themselves. What MS has given up is the ability to completely control the technology in DIS29500 which people will call ISO Office Open XML. However, MS still controls what Office produces and accepts and they can do any dialect of variant they like. It is just like a C++ compiler maker: GCC for example has extensions that no-one else supports, but you choose which variant you use by a switch. What standardization does is allow users (e.g. government procurement officers) to say "Products must (generate or accept documents which) conform to the ISO standard" and it is this added tool for leverage that produces the power shift. Furthermore, I think there will be a strong premium that ODF and OOXML will actually evolve as new products come along: standards are living things that do change and grow, though there tends to be a lot of hysteresis to the process. But I expect that in 10 years time, ODF 2.0 will be good enough that even MS will want to adopt it. Formats don't last forever. Rick Jelliffe 15:51, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Kilz vandalism

Kilz reverted an edit of mine in which I firstly removed an uncited 'concern' claim as his source does not reveal any concern by anybody actually using the OOXML format and I also removed an editted citation and replaced it by a copy and edit of the ORIGINAL citation. I think it is vandalism to revert the placement of original edits (actual copy paste from the source) and replace them by your own preference edit of that citation. hAl 17:04, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

No it isnt vandalism to undo vandalism (Blanking). You removed a referenced claim. Removing wsnt your only option. If you felt the claim was unreferenced you could have used a fact tag. The reference is explained in the section above. I am going to revert it again. I am also going to place a warning on your talk page that undoing it again will violate the 3 revert rule. Kilz 17:51, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
Looking at the history Kilz started reverting an edit by hAl. You may not agree with his edit but it was not a revert. Your edits however are reverts. 63.247.91.50 19:25, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
I have reported the 3rd revert in part. All it takes is a revert of another editor in part. Hal has reverted the section below line 494 3 times in 24 hours. I have not reverted anything 3 times. Kilz 20:23, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
With this Edit You blanked an entire claim This is vandalism (Blanking). The claim was backed up and referenced. Removing referenced claims completely is Blanking per WP:VAND . From the Techworld article referenced in the section "But to organisations that need a well-defined, XML-based format to manage huge numbers of documents that may be archived for decades, this is important." Had you read the above section I copied here before Blanking it again I would not have had to give a 3 revert rule warning Kilz 18:02, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
Your reference does not say anthing of the sort. The current Office Open XML format is a well defined open format and is is the current default format of MS Office. So your reference only confirmes that the current situation is good. It does not state any concern but just confirms the importance of wel using Office Open XML for the future. You are suggesting organisations are concerned which your source is not stating AT ALL. Where in your reference is the word concern ? Where in your reference is there an organisation stating concern ? You are making stuff up as you go and then reverting when people remove your bullshit conclusions. hAl 19:11, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
From the Techworld article referenced in the section "But to organisations that need a well-defined, XML-based format to manage huge numbers of documents that may be archived for decades, this is important." Kilz 21:01, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
To add to that you again removed an original copy and paste of a citation and replaced it with an editted version of the sdame citation which is just ridiculous. hAl 19:13, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
and thirdly you are the person reverting first. I removed an uncited claim and corrected an citatition. that is a valid edit and you have now reverted that edit several times hAl 19:14, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I have filed a 3 revert rule violation against Hal for a partial revert below section line 494. In that he reverted in part the section below line 494 3 times within 24 hours , even after being warned. Kilz 20:25, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Clearly as anyone can see in the history is that you are the person that started the reverting. You are just a sad little person. I clearly editted out your totally unfounded statment about organisation having concern which was totally not supported by any reference and I restored the actualy edit of Brian Jones which you totally mutilated in the article and then you reverted those twice and I reverted you reverts twice. Mutilating a citation to apply your view and drawing your own personal conclusions from cited references is not what wikipedia is about. Also making false accusations is not a way to behave on wikipedia. hAl 21:57, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
That is negative. I edited, I added to, you have consistently removed the same thing over and over. At which point I replaced what you removed. You have now made it personal by not sticking to the subject and instead commenting on me personally, violating WP:NPA. The reference is in place yet you consistently remove the edit, reverting it to how it was before. Your edits show a clear pro Microsoft bias in a criticism section. There doesnt need to be anything but the reference sited. If you thougth more was needed you could have asked for another citation. Instead you show bias by removing it completely. Looking at your talk page shows a pattern. You remove what you dont agree with, even things that have been referenced. Kilz —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 22:35, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
No, you I editted out only that what was fabricated by you. You stating 'concern' was totally fabricated. You reference did not state that at all. And I actually restored the exact citation by Brian Jones. You call that bias but I think that making up your own conclusions and using reedits of citation shows your bias. I am still waiting for you to explain why you want to state 'concern' where your reference does not say that or why you use editted citation to prove your point. Also you might wander why you are actually trying to edit this in the article as there is no organisation anywhere committed to any formut for an infinite time. this is an article about OOXML and not your petty little MS crusade. hAl 23:09, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
Exact words dont have to be used as the reference, important, concern, same difference. You are editing it to make it seem that there needs to be a reason for Microsoft to stop using it, Brian Jones comments are non committal at best. There is no commitment for any length of time to use the standard. Thats why someone with lots of documents would think its important that there was a commitment. That that would be a concern of someone with those documents since it was important. The reference states this, there need not be as you suggest exact names , only that the reference uses it and it backs up what was written here. You have repeatedly removed in part those comments time after time. You also have a history looking at your talk page of doing just that. This is a wikipedia article, it has editors of every opinion, wikipedia is a collaboration. It is not your article to dictate what should and shouldnt be in it. You are showing bias with each word, this is not a crusade, and neither should it be yours to play head editor on a wikipedia article.Kilz 23:31, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
you say "You are editing it to make it seem that there needs to be a reason for Microsoft to stop using it". Of course I am. Because that is obvious to anyone with a brain. Thay are spending enourmous amount of money and effort in standardizing their format. That is not because they want to stop using the format but because that want to continue to use the format for a long time to come. They are committed to this format in a big way making it the default format for MS Office. That can't just drop that and start making new formats every other year. The customenrs woulod not like that very much. They want stability and compatibility. All your edits smell of distain against Microsoft but even the stupidest anti-MS person should understand that Micrsoft is putting a lot of effort in the format not to just move on to antoher format next week. Suggesting otherwise is plainly ridiculous and you know it. That is why no organizations have any concern for the future like you are suggesting. Every decent brain understands that Micrsoft wants to continue with OOXML and is already working on improving the current version in Ecma for the ISO standardization. It would be rather foolish trying to gain ISO standardization and then drop the format on the next. That would likely cost them customers and would also make their current effort rather unexplainable. Only warped minds seems to think you spend millions on creating a format and standardising it so on the next version you leave the standardised version and confuse your entire customersbase. The whole concept is a joke. hAl 00:06, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't think your fallacy of the majority is going to cut much ice: For Microsoft "millions" is chump change. MS Office generated $11.5 billion in revenue in fiscal '05. If they spent just 1/10th of a percent (say $11 Million) of that revenue stream towards protecting future revenues then it is a Cheap Deal (TM). Only warped minds would think that they wouldn't spend that tiny percentage of revenues to protect those revenues. Microsoft is foremost a business and like any business what is done with standards is a business tactic. That makes it notable enough for commentary here on how this standard (OOXML) is used as a tactic of their business.Ttiotsw 09:13, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I thought I would never say it, but here it is. These are comments of a Microsoft zealot. You talk of how MS works as if you have first-hand experience, yet you try to appear you are not associated with them. Do you have first-hand experience or are all that part of your imagination? Simosx 00:24, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
HAl, there are organizations that have to have documents available for decades. My church is one of them. There is concern about what format they are in, and if its going to be readable 10, 20, 50, or 100 years from now. Thats just one, there are others , like the government of Massachusetts . Since Microsoft has not committed to useing the format for any length of time, and since the format of almost all versions of office changes with each version. You are suggesting that people who have documents they have to keep for decades are not interested in microsofts commitment? Brian Jones comments are non committal at best. Is a lot of words that say nothing firm. You need to look at the edit and see that suggesting that the wishy washy answer he gave is a commitment is wrong. It isnt.
Clearly as the current format is well and truly open your church can use MS Office 2007 and be certain that we all still can acces the information. MS is not opening up their format and standardising their format for nothing. It is what their curstomers are asking for or demanding. That won't suddenly change. So the same will also apply to any future format. Whether a next version of OOXML or a next version of ODF or even a new merge format or soemthing else entirily. On the one hand opponents state that MS is only standardising because they want to keep marketshare and they need to have their format standard to stay in busines and then you go and suggest they might leave that standard just like that. That is totally opposite to logic. hAl 11:17, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
All SGML-based standards (such as XML) do is explain how to convert a stream of bytes into a structure of information (a document): they do not guarantee that in 50 years time there will be any COTS software that can read that format or produce the exact pages with guaranteed fidelity. A regular program of file updates to the latest standard formats and media will always be necessary. Rick Jelliffe 15:58, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Your edits show a pro Microsoft bias. This comment is in a criticism section. Please look at the edits you have made, and try to see if you may have that bias. It may even be so far as a conflict of interest. Be advised I am reading up on the steps to solve disagreements. I will do everything in my power to make sure the 5 pillars are upheld, including mediation and arbitration if necessary. This article is not owned by anyone and needs to be WP:NPOV at present parts look like an advertisement. You dont have the right to remove referenced claims just because you dont like them. All views, both positive and negative need to be included. Kilz 06:11, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
At least I have still contibuted information to this article about the format itself, its background and the markup languages. You have not contibuted anyhting but anti format info. If there is bias then you should take a big look in the mirror first before looking at people that actuallhave contributed normal neutral info on the format and have ectual knowledge on the subject. And that a comment is in a critisism section does not mean you should make up your own conclusions about concerns of unnamed/uncited organizations or edit original citations by MS employeees to make a comment more critical then what it was. The basis of your critical comments is that MS has not committed on future versions but in the real world that you apperently seem to hav missed there not a single organisation that has an unlimited commitment to any document format so in reality your critisism is only a reflection of what is commen and normal that you try to make like it is a severe critisism. hAl 11:17, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Your words show a pro bias again. Seeking to call others point of view "anti info. You should be following WP:NPOV that says all vaild points of view need to be given. People who have added criticisms have contributed just as much as those that add positive things. This isnt about making OOXML shine. But that the article gives all information, both positive and negative. That Wikipedia shines. Kilz 13:35, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Nice of you to drown your arguments in wiki references however you fabricated your own conclusions into the article. That is not a significant view according to WP:NPOV. Mayby my changes were not really were not significant views either (and feel free to edit them) but you at least could have just changed your edit to reflect only conclusions that there in your reference in stead of making up your own conclusions and put them in. The problem is what you want to suggest is just not the case. The deeper MS gets in the standardization proces the more bound and committed to using the OOXML format for a longer period of time they get. It is not like MS can just go and turn back the clock. Open formats are there and they won't just go away. For MS it would be unexplainable and unsellable to their customers when they go from an open ISO format back to a closed MS format. Why would any government ever buy an Office version to go from an open ISO format to a closed MS format. That just won't happpen. If they ever replace OOXML for another format it will also have to be an open standard format because their customer will no longer accept anything else. Mayby it will be a merge between OOXML and ODF but on the other hand it might also not be a XML format anymore if in ten years time somebody develops a successor to XML that is much better. That is the future. An uncertain area... hAl 15:10, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
The deeper MS gets in the standardization proces the more bound and committed to using the OOXML format for a longer period of time they get. That's an interesting view. The current state of EOOXML appears to be that it is some sort of translation from the binary formats. Whether the translation has completeness or not is debatable, and in the current state of EOOXML, MS does not appear to care because they already claim conformance in MSOffice. In this respect, fast-tracking EOOXML as is as an ISO standard will stop any further involvement of MS in open document formats. If you are really into open standards, fast tracking EOOXML to ISO is the wrong way to go to get MS into open standards. Simosx 17:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
The conclusions were referenced. They were not made up. You are imho editing and reverting with bais. Kilz 17:12, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality of Criticism section

I have placed a neutrality tag on the criticism section. In that the edit on commitment is apoligetic. It uses weasel words to take the truth away. The section is in the middle of an edit war. This is an attempt to obtain consensus. At present the article states.

  • Microsoft, whose products use the current version of Office Open XML has not committed to use the future versions of the Office open XML specification if development of by Ecma goes in complety different direction. Hiowever the current version of Office Open xml format is already an xml format that allows for documents to be accessed for decades in the future[1] Brian Jones, the Microsoft manager working on OOXML in his blog stated "the other Ecma members could decide to take the spec in a completely different direction. Now my impression is that won't happen, as the folks on the TC all have pretty similar visions for the future of the spec, but since it's not guaranteed it would be hard for us to make any sort of official statement.”

The section is about the commitment of microsoft to continue using the ooxml format it is trying to get approved. This section dose not sound like a criticism, but an apology to excuse away the reference. The reference states that it is important that commitment be in place.
"But to organisations that need a well-defined, XML-based format to manage huge numbers of documents that may be archived for decades, this is important. These customers want a standard that Microsoft will promise to use - even if it’s not convenient for the company’s plans. "
The reference and the edit by HAl do not match up. The reference is saying its a consern and they want it backed up. HAls edit says it is already backed up. This is a bias'd edit. I suggest replacing the bias with a word for word quote from the reference.and other edits to make this section into a critisism and not an apology. WP:NPOV should be followed in that a criticism section needs to be a criticism. At present there is no promise or commitment to use the standerd for any length of time. The Brian jones quote si non committal at best.Kilz 20:08, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
The section would look like this.

  • Microsoft, whose products use the current version of Office Open XML has not committed to use the specification for any length of time. But according to a Techworld article "But to organisations that need a well-defined, XML-based format to manage huge numbers of documents that may be archived for decades, this is important. These customers want a standard that Microsoft will promise to use - even if it’s not convenient for the company’s plans."[2] Brian Jones, the Microsoft manager working on OOXML in his blog stated "the other Ecma members could decide to take the spec in a completely different direction. Now my impression is that won't happen, as the folks on the TC all have pretty similar visions for the future of the spec, but since it's not guaranteed it would be hard for us to make any sort of official statement.”


I dont think its perfect , but its a start.Kilz 20:32, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you hAl for placing the edit. I only added a paragraph break to make the page look better, the section was a run on. I am removing the tag. Kilz 12:58, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Isn't all this speculation about what Microsoft may or may not do with possible future versions of a possible standard, completely out-of-place in this article? Alexbrn 08:22, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Apperantly some people feel a strong need to add anything that is remotly negative on ooxml and especially if it also involves MS. hAl 12:33, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Alexbrn, It is not speculation that Microsoft has not committed to the standard it is trying to get passed. I totaly think that the wishy washy reply as to why it isnt is out of place. But in the interest of stopping an edit war I have no choice but to leave it in. Kilz 22:09, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Amount of non-Microsoft work in EOOXML?

Is there a place that one can see exactly the addition/changes that took place on EOOXML, so that it is easy to distinguish which contributions do not come from MS? What this requires is the original files of the submission to ECMA. Are these available online? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Simosx (talk • contribs) 17:43, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The Ecma 1.3 draft (the first one to go to ISO as a preview for the IOS members) is still on line here. Can't find older drafts or the original submissions. hAl 18:39, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
I tried to diff the two versions (draft, EOOXML). It is just too difficult. How can people provide comments on it, let alone implement this? Simosx 21:34, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
The implementing is actually fairly easy as it already has an familiar implemented format as a basis. It is no rocket science, just a lot of work. hAl 06:28, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
It might be familiar with those involved in the legacy format but what help would it be for new implementers? Simosx 10:25, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

It is worthwhile also making the distinction that there are changes to with editorial issues (what is in the draft, how things are expressed) and changes with the technology. Changes to drafts are easy and big changes are common; changes to underlying technologies are hard (when the technology is deployed) and big changes are rare and perhaps never occur. To understand this, think of the ISO standard for Linux: there is also an ISO standard for POSIX and they contradict in a few places: but the value of the LINUX standard is that it reflect what LINUX does and how it differs from POSIX, and it is not a conspiracy or "ramming through" for the LINUX standard to describe what LINUX actually does rather than allowing any armchair standardizer to say "I don't like this API it should be changed". Because the mechanism of harmonization may be *after* standardization and *because* of standardization not *prior* to standardization. Rick Jelliffe 16:04, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Adoption problems in OOXML

The first issue is with the language that hAl uses, in this case in the comment of the edit. This person has been prone to such language which in some respects explains his need for anonymity. I would like to see such attitude out of Wikipedia. Simosx 09:41, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

The second issue is with Gnumeric, under the adoption section. There is an overall problem in the adoption section that little information is available on how good that support is. Unlike Opendocument that has done a good job here. In Gnumeric there is a reference (ref) that points to the home page of the program. That reference is not needed as there is already a wikipedia Gnumeric page. One of the authors of Gnumeric, the person that did the OOXML work responded to criticism on the level of support, however he did not refute the claim that the support was lacking. Simosx 09:41, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, I took a look at the link in the coments in the first placement, there is no refute that Gnumeric only has partial support in that link, only that the support is ahead of the support for other formats. The reference would have to say full support not that it has improved. Also not simply a link to Gnumeric's front page, then a link to a reference in a edit comment. Kilz 13:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
As implementation of Office open XML parts optional just about any implementation will be limited. There is no requirement for full support so there is no need te state that support is limited. Gnumeric supports the the format. The amount of support is up to them. There is not requirement they extend their support or any claim they have full support. OpenOffice for instance offers limited support for ODF. That is because noone offers full support for ODF. the whole concenpt of limited support does not mean anything as the amount of suypport that people want to offers is variable by nature. hAl 14:47, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
The difference is that Gnumeric's support is very limited. Kilz 16:44, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
In fact the link you give gives no information that the OOXML format is even implemented yet. A list of supported formats from the site dose not list it.Kilz 17:12, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
What about less pathetic wording? When we talk of adoption problems of the format we clearly don't speak of irrelevant applications that start to implement support with the aid of Microsoft. Again: which format.. ECMA 376, Office07 or an upcoming ISO standard? Arebenti 11:29, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
But of course we are not talking about adoption problems but just about adoption, period. There is no reason write about the extent of support. Support will be variable by nature as some aplication have fuller support than others. And limited does not mean anything. When does it stop being limited support? And to link the adoption reference for gnumeric to a critical blogpost by IBM is just plain ridiculous bias. hAl 18:03, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
I think there is a need to write about the extent of support when that support is much lower than other implementations. Simply opening a document with half the document missing isnt support. Suggesting it is is not the truth. Maybe the link is there to show that the support is indeed less than other application which use the format. As for when is support support, how about when an excel document is saved in excell in both the ooxml and older binary formats looks the same.Kilz 20:57, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

This conversation — arguing over meaning of the word "support" — is like trying to decide "what the meaning of the word 'is' is". If it's so contentious, how about just making a table, in this article or elsewhere, showing what aspects of OOXML are supported by what applications? Some will say that's too much detail, or "unencyclopedic," but letting raw, uninterpreted facts speak for themselves is probably the only way to resolve this to everyone's satisfaction. —Fleminra 01:08, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest Editing by Microsoft

This Edit was done by an IP belonging to the Microsoft Corporation. As such it is a Conflict of Interest. WP:COI. I recommend we all watch out for IP 131.107.0.73 or any of the block editing this article. Kilz 01:29, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. However as Office Open XML is an open standard owned by Ecma internetional and it is questionalbe if this qualifies subject to a conflict of interest. Microsoft might be a strong supporter of the OOXML format and as such biased in fovor of OOXML but a lot of people in ICT might be either supporter or opponent fo the format. Also the edit did not involve information that was about Microsoft or Microsoft related which also does not make it qualify for a conflict of interest warning. It looks however to be an edit of mine that was reverted back and so the information in that edit did not even come from Microsoft but was provided by me earlier and reverted by someone. So in no area it seems qualifies to as WP:COI. It might wel be bias as MS is OOXML supporter but a bias against ooxml could also be found in every edit you are doing here as well. hAl 14:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Your defense in this area is not surprising. While you dont se it as a conflict of interest, Im sure others will. As such I have reported this edit to the Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard. That someone at Microsoft is removing criticism from what is essentially standard created by Microsoft, developed by Microsoft, and submitted by Microsoft is a Conflict of interest. In an attempt to show that there is support with no reference to back it up. Why they would choose that exact thing is questionable, and I wonder if someone didnt point them there. Secondly, suggesting someone is editing with bias without proof goes against WP:AGF consider this a friendly warning that it is not tolerated. Kilz 14:39, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Actually your contibutions speak forthemselves don't they. All your edits consist of contributing negative information on Office open XML and removing positive and even neutral information. Also your above comments speaks volumes. Microsoft strongly particpated in creating the standard but the standard is now Ecma's to control and it just isn't an MS standard but an Ecma one. Also the edit was not removing critisism on OOXML but on an unfounded critisism on a Open source implemention of OOXML. Limited support does not mean anything in the context of OOXML as by nature it is a standard that will mostly be used in partial support. When adding a software/application link stating support/adoption it is common practise in every ict article on wikipedia to list a link to the webisite of the application. Here certain people decide to link such a support link to the blog by a competitor. Such direction of and adaption link to a blog by a competitor is just an embarrasment to this article. The whole anti-ooxml attitude of this article is a big disgrace and you are one of the key people responsible for the negative attitude in this article. Your bias drips from EVERY SINGLE EDIT you have made to this article. You have not contributed anything but negative information making this one of the most negative articles on a ICT format subject in wikipedia. You friendly warning is noted but ignored. You are biased against OOXML to the bone in your edits !!! And it is for all to read in Special:Contributions/Kilz. hAl 15:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Bias in the case of Wikipedia isnt bias as you are suggesting. But bias that hurts the neutrality of Wikipedia. That the things I have added so far may by you be considered negative is not important. But that the article shows all significant points of view. While I have added some things. I have not as some, removed things based purely on the fact that it is positive. But that the link you placed did not prove its reference. That the site did not give the information. Please follow WP:AGF, if not I will be forced to take this to the next level. Realize that there are points of view other than your own and they deserve just as much to be included.Kilz 15:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
The partial support is important when it is looked at from the point of view of the support of the previous .xls format. Partial refers , at least to me that it isnt even up to the support of the last excel format, even partialy. Even so, again your link provided no proof to its claim , so partial is a mute point. The article as it reads now is getting closer to neutral. It still reads like an advertisement in sections. Could this be because Microsoft has employees with a pro bias editing it? Kilz 15:53, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
The gnumeric support is as full as that of other spreadsheets on the point that matters most in spreadsheets, the use of values and formulas. hAl 16:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
It looks strange why someone from Microsoft, while at work, would make such an edit. However, what's stranger is the comment they put on the revert, more Rob Weir.The views of hAl's and the Microsoft edit are peculiarly aligned. Simosx 20:41, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I would actually suggest that your edits reflect the views of IBM Simosx. You added a link to a known anti ooxml IBM blogger replacing a standard gnumeric adoption link and then shaded with the blog post of the IBM blogger on a reverted edit on the opendocument document. Why are you dumping on my edits to the independant sites of gnumeric and to an interview with the president of the opendocument foundation whilst only suggesting IBM anti ooxml blog links in stead. Am I aligned with gnumeric ? Am I aligned with the Opendocument foundation ? I guess not but are you aligned with IBM or with their blogger Rob Weir ? hAl 23:00, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I am repeating for the third time that the ref to the Gnumeric website was not needed because there is page for Gnumeric on Wikipedia. If you really want to talk about affiliations, potential conflicts of interest, issues about bias, am all for it. Simosx 00:01, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
I placed a warning on the talk page for 131.107.0.73. It has the standard disclaimer that the ip address is shared between multiple users. It is also on last warning for vandalism from September. Jonathan888 (talk) 02:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Closer examination shows that the ip in question may have been mistakenly put on last warning for block (this time).Jonathan888 (talk) 02:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

SC 34 now stalled due to so many new P memberships.

We should add some text like....

In the period leading up to the vote for OOXML within the SC 34 committee of the JTC1, an extraordinary number of members altered their membership from Observer (O) to Principal (P). (ref)http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20071016092352827 (/ref) Under JTC1 rules at least 50% of the P members eligible to vote must return a ballot. A member is permitted to return a ballot of "Abstain" and inadequate review to form an opinion is accepted as a valid reason to abstain. Returning a vote of "abstain" is viewed at best as a minimal level of "good citizenship".(ibid consortiuminfo.org) The SC 34 committee handles many proposed standards and the three recent ballots after the OOXML ballot have failed due to insufficient response from the SC 34 participating members (ref) http://www.jtc1sc34.org/repository/0902.htm , http://www.jtc1sc34.org/repository/0909.htm , http://www.jtc1sc34.org/repository/0910.htm (/ref). Only one recent P member responded to a single ballot even though some ballots had been reissued for a second or third time. (ibid consortiuminfo.org )

or something similar. I think that is fairly neutral in that I haven't even mentioned Microsoft or any country. Ttiotsw 09:10, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I would say that that has nothing to do with OOXML. It might be relevant in an article on SC34 'though. Just my opinion. WLDtalk|edits 11:49, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
My ref ties this to OOXML activity plus I guess there is enough notability for JTC1/SC 34 to get its own article given the OOXML related notoriety. Ttiotsw 15:56, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Actually it seems more than 50% has to vote on a ballot as the jct link you listed showx. So mayby you should add your info to the Opendocument article that those ballots would have even failed with memberships sizes back to the start of 2007 (original thirty I just read on Andies blog). Apperantly several members that joined prior to the opendocument voting in may 2006 are not so active either... . I wonder why you and Andy were not so bothered by P-member activity before? hAl 12:16, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Numerous errors in your comments here.
  • I cannot add it to the "Opendocument" for the obvious reason as that fails WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. I need a ref to do this. Can you provide that for me ?.
  • The "at least" 50% of the P members I cut+paste from the link I provided i.e. I didn't make that up. That ref I think is reliable enough.
  • The Directives 9.1.10 explicitly indicates "if more than 50% of the P-members have not voted, the vote will have failed.". As the ref says the >50% means that if at least 50% of the members have voted then it is impossible for more than 50% to have not voted as 50% would have voted and 50% would have not voted but not more than 50% would have not voted so 50% that have voted is the boundary. Again I'm quoting my ref. Is this ref unreliable ?
  • Did the other members who joined around the opendocument cause any claims of "extraordinary" or can you show reference to claims that standards have stalled due to those that joined around the time of opendocument ? Again it would be WP:OR to dig for this unless you can find someone else to do this for you so I can't really do that.
  • Who are you and Andy ? Is this like "Withnail and I" ? I loved that movie. I also place Rita, Sue and Bob Too in the same category. Brilliant.
Personally to me, XML is XML is XML and given the DTD it can be validate and parsed. There isn't any need for a standards track if you stick a suitable license on it and whack it into Sourceforge or something like zillions of other bits of code. But given the nuances of SC34 and OOXML and the issues related to the voting process these are unfortunately all inextricably linked so the fallout from SC34 I feel can go in. OOXML isn't a technical standard but appears to be a political move.
Please discuss the text I have provided as that is what I will insert on the grounds that my ref conflates OOXML and SC34, not me. Ttiotsw 15:56, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
The text that you provided shows several ballots that would have failed even without the influx of p-members that joined prior to the OOXML ballot. So the comments from Andy Upgroves blog about the new members blocking descision making is ridiculous. Those new members may worsen an already bad the ballot situation but it is obvious that this problem started earlier (guess when). Andy Upgrove is trying to relate the sc34 ballot problem to OOXML related member influx. However it is obvious that the p-membership prior to the ooxml voting are not regularly making a 50% voting effort. Something Andy conveniently forgets to mention on his blog. If you read his blog that way of concluding something negative about ooxml based on half the facts is easy to be read in a lot of his blogposts. I guess laywers are always used to presenting only one side of the facts anyways. (and certain other websites that of course copy this kind of interpreted news 'facts') hAl 18:50, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
It is interesting to note that the rules of membership state that if P members miss two votes and then do not respond they are returned to O status and then can apply again to be P members after 12 months. Rules 1.7.4 and 1.7.5 ISO membership rules SC 34 may soon be 24 P members smaller. Note that this does NOT directly affect the outcome of DIS 29500 as that is an ISO ballot not a committee issue. Also, hAl, you incorrectly state that not enough older members voted to pass the votes taken - note that an 'Abstain' vote is still a vote and that subsequently SC 34 872 and SC 34 N 874 would have passed by the votes of the old P members. Regardless, Andy Upgrove's blog does not take into account that there are rules in place to remove non-participating P members Jonathan888 (talk) 22:54, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Actually the membership was 30 according to the same blog. Ballot votes of 8 and 14 members do no contitute 50% of 30 and the other vote was only exactly 15 which meant normal independent growth of one p-member would also have caused that to fail hAl 06:29, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
....thus hAl is wrongly claiming that "several ballots that would have failed" and so it's unclear what Hal's objection is to the suggested text. I'm guessing the text is OK then. Ttiotsw 00:14, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Guess again. And I am not wrongly claiming that several of those ballot would have failed anyways. hAl 06:29, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Nope, sorry but you're not making yourself very clear. What exactly is wrong with the example text I have written at the beginning ? Ideally try and quote your refs in double quotes so I can easily search the text; for example you mention something a few paras above in a blog but provide a broken link and the link doesn't have the number "30" or "thirty" in the text of what I think is the closest link. We shouldn't have to guess this. Ttiotsw 08:39, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Weird with the link. It seems the blog is not functioning correctly at the moment anyways. I found a link on google to show what Andy Upgrove wrote link. It states: and I have reported recently (here and here) that there has been a sudden surge of interest among ISO members in upgrading their privileges to "P" status, which will entitle to them (just in time) to a more influential vote on OOXML. When I first noted that I had heard concerns over upgrading at the global vote level,. only two nations had upgraded. When I wrote about it the second time, that number had risen to six. It's now only a few days later, and the number has risen to nine (bear in mind that the original number was only thirty). hAl 15:00, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Err OK, but still have no idea what your issue is with my suggested text. Please make it clear what you want. The blog is still working and I have ref'd it here and used that in my text. The issue is the fallout from the new members stalling the work of the SC 34 rather than stuff that happened a few months ago. Ttiotsw 15:51, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Go somewhere else with your lines. You try to connect something to office Open XML whilst it is evident from the examples you showed that the sc34 member activity issue is not casused by the Office Open XML standardization but predates the OOXML fasttrack proces because those examples would have failed then as well. Why don't you start an article on the ISO SC34 committee? hAl 18:19, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't think JTC1/SC34 is notable enough for its own article as its notability is tied to OOXML right now. I still don't understand your reasoning on the SC34 committee and you haven't provided any references. Ttiotsw 13:36, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
I provided plenty reference to show that the suggested stalling of SC34 ballots is something that has happened already by inactivity by p-members that were p-member prior to the ooxml balloting. That means you should look for a cause that happend before the ooxml submission and if you try a little you can easily see how that are the inactive countries that voted on the Opendocument ballot in 2006. It is easy to notice that the prior to that vote only about 8-12 p-members ever voted on anything but only on the dis26300 vote there were suddenly 25 p-member voters (of then 27 p-members) and after that never any ballot vote seems to have made more than 15 voting p-members. So obviously the inactivity stems from that opendocument ballot vote source mainly. Even more participants on the ODF vote are inactive than there actually are new members this year. So mayby it is time to remove some of the most inactives. I guess the most longest inactive ones are nearly all inactive since the opendocument vote and all voted for odf then... hAl 12:43, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Reference to SC34 committee issues is utterly out of scope for a general article on Office Open XML: the SC34 balloting does not impact the OOXML process at all. There are new members of SC34 and they don't know their exact obligations or haven't sorted out their processes: big deal. (That the anti-OOXML side are relatively worse than the pro-OOXML is irrelevant, too.) As an invited expert to SC34, and participant on and off for about 13 years, I am happy that people are interested in SC34, but this article is simply not the place! In particular I am concerned that there is an effort to smear ISO processes, lead by some on the anti-OOXML: it is a sour grapes exercise: realizing that they will probably lose the ultimate vote (because the BRM will be a good process) they then try to smear ISO and NBs and the process. I hope the Wikipedia editors are well aware that selectively adding unnecessary detail that is all from one perspective will subvert NPOV. For example, the whole section on Complaints on National Body Processes is out of place and should be removed: I was told that last week at the ISO/IEC JTC1 meeting they looked into all allegations about national body process and found no example of where due procedure had not been followed. It is not a NPOV to fill up a page on a technical subject with weak allegations about a side-issue of a technical voting process: what an earth does some Norwegians not signing a form letter have to do with NB procedures or with OOXML? It doesn't even deserve a sentence. Rick Jelliffe 12:41, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Ah Rick, I noticed you even wrote an article about this. I guess it won't be slashdotted like Andies blog as it seems slashdotting is nearly always only for anti-ooxml newsarticles but i can reference it here to show the situation more clearly http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2007/10/name_em_and_shame_em_nonvoters.html hAl 12:46, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but there is an utter disconnect between what Andy Updegrove actually wrote and what people have taken it to mean. It is an interesting phenomenon. I think his article's title is a little odd: who is getting payback for what? But the result is just more of the same: Chinese Whispers in (Colbert's) Echo Chamber. It shows the dangers of linking to secondary web pages. Rick Jelliffe 16:12, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Rick Jelliffe per your talk you have stated that you were being paid by Microsoft to edit. This may be a conflict of interest. WP:COI Kilz 18:59, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I certainly was paid by them to correct any errors that I saw, which I have done, and I billed them for 4 days work, thank you MS. I went through the right channels at Wikipedia which was to use these discussion pages and not make direct edits. However, that was about six months ago, so I don't see how there can be a conflict of interest that would prevent me from editing the pages directly now, under the Wikipedia rules. I have done editing and consulting and advocacy for lots of organizations over the years, and have my own independent record. I don't have any current arrangement with MS. 203.111.164.74 14:21, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I was going to add this patent into the article but decided it would be best to see if I can get input from a patent expert before doing so.

Could a patent expert reveiw whether this Microsoft patent has any ramifications for OOXML? SteveSims 03:30, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

As Microsoft has provided patent licensing for OOXML, such MS patents have no ramifications for people implementing OOXML. It could therefore only influence other implementations of wordprocessing applications that use a different XML language. Also it contains a claim for storing images against the xml schema in binaryencoding which is something the wordprocessing 2003 files can do 9and odf for instance) but afaik is removed from ooxml that stores them only seperatly in the zip container. So I guess it was a wordprocessing 2003 format related patent. hAl 05:48, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Microsoft's licensing only permits royalty-free use for OOXML implementation. Thus, we can't improve OOXML outside the specification (for example, if OpenOffice decided to first embrace OOXML, then extend it with its own open-source upgrades and use them to extinguish MS-OOXML) or optimize it for non-Microsoft word processors. Of course, an advantage to standards is that everyone uses the same one, but this is bad if the standard is optimized for one particular word processor. SteveSims 21:36, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
This reads like you have no idea what OOXML actually is. You can't extend official standards with your own 'open-source upgrade'. Only a relevant standards body can alter a standard. However Office Open XML has already built in extensibility that implementations can use for purpose made extensions to the format if needed without neededing to extend the standard itself.
So OpenOffice cannot change the standard and neither can Microsoft allthough of course Microsoft is part of the Ecma committee that can actually can change the standard. But any party using Office Open XML can extend the documentformat using the standards built in extensibility. hAl 22:37, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
But of course Microsoft could stop using the standard at any time and change things without any worry about their own patents used against them. A small commercial software developer couldnt do that without the fear that Microsoft could file a patent suit because the standard isnt followed to a T.Kilz 03:16, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Why would a small software developer stop using the standard and create a different one that violates MS patents? But any commercial developer could always choose to go and use ODF or CDF or UOF or stick with the ooxml version they were already using and extend it withing the formats spec itself. That is exactly what constitutes choice in formats. hAl 06:46, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
An example. 6 months from now small software developer spends a lot of money advertising the fact that its product can read the xml format in office 2007 (the ooxml standard). Since the application is low cost, people start to buy it. Microsoft at the same time decides that it will modify the ooxml format to make it just slightly incompatible with the standard through a security patch. The changes are not implemented in the ooxml standard. Since they have millions of installs and the patent, it doesnt hurt Microsoft. Its just another patch everyone will install. But the small developer who spent tons of cash is now made to look like a liar, it cant read the files. It cant implement the changes (that Microsoft made) because they have patents encumbering them. Kilz 01:07, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
You are not really aware of how standards work ? If Micrsoft changes the format in such a way that it no longer OOXML then their patent claims do not apply any longer however in that case Micrasoft also does not support an open standard anymore. If Microsofts OOXML becomes an ISO standard then governments will not accept new Office versions that chnage from using an ISO version to a propriety version and will just keep using the same format. This is actually one of the important argument for ISO standardisation. It will lock in Micrsoft to their own format and make sure that they cannot spring sudden changes upon other vendors as they will have to go trough a standardisation proces before those changes become effective. This will give all other office document implementation a lot more information on new additions to this format. So your argument I would actually consider a good reason why you should be in favor of ISO standardisation. Because with ISO standardisation for OOXML a scenario like you describe where MS can easily change to a new not standard format becomes nearly impossible. hAl 07:44, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
But Microsoft can, like they so often, change there implementation without documenting the intent of changing the standard, and get away with it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.243.163.103 (talk) 02:34, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I know how open standards are supposed to work. I also know there is nothing stopping Microsoft from doing exactly what I suggested in my last post. Once the install base of Office 2007 is large no matter what format it uses. some people will be forced to use it. Whether it is a standard or not. I think that the idea that Microsoft is tied to any standard is shot down in that they have not committed to the standard for any length of time. Kilz 15:49, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Support, subsection "...key benefits..." should be removed

After having read the reference which it points, I intend to remove the subsection to Support entitled "Microsoft key benefits arguments" http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/ha102058151033.aspx

The reference lists points that make claims about being "smaller", "safer" and "easier" but the only hint as to what it is smaller, safer and easier than, is in the first paragraph where it seems the comparisons is against MS Word's own current binary format: "...Distinct from the binary-based file format that has been a mainstay of past Microsoft Office releases..."

Clearly a comparison between OOXML and the current Office binary format is irrelevant in the discussion about whether OOXML should be accepted as a ISO standard. Therefore, I think it stands that the subsection should be removed completely.

Since my first change to that subsection was reverted twice by HAl I will wait to make the change until tomorrow to see if anyone has any comments about this proposal.

Andy 04:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it is aboslutly interesting to remove that entire section including the critisisms. Firstly why are you (and other people as well I noticed) editing Microsoft arguments to claims and not editing critisism arguments by opponents to claims ? Why would you require benefits to compare to another format ? There is no format that is both open and has compatibility with the current binary formats so the combinations benefit can be compared to any format. Weirdly enough your above comments shows that you are actually capable of comparing these benefits to an existing format. Briljant because that is indeed what you can do with a list of benefits. So you can do a comparison if needed. I can add a lot of items to such a comparisons which are all unique to OOXML. If you want to do a feature / quality comparison with specificly named other formats then by all means start a new article (though I must say that such an article existed an was removed a while ago). hAl 07:34, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
When one uses a comparison word like "safer", that word must have a target or it is meaningless. That is why. That there doesnt exist something appropriate to compare OOXML to, clearly, does not make comparing it to something inappropriate like the current MSOffice binary format a valid thing to do. If there is nothing valid to compare to then the benefits need to be described directly. Instead of calling it "safer", the safety features should be described. Instead of being called "easier" the ease of use features should be described. et cetera. I dont have any interest in doing the research necessary to write this section (or to write a comparison article). However, that I wouldnt replace it with something else should not keep it from being removed if it shouldn't be there.
It seems that you feel that people are being unfairly critical of Microsoft. This is probably true, but that doesn't change the fact that this section is not appropriate here. Also, I feel that your tone is rather accusatory. I think we can have much more productive discussion if we try to keep the tone at least a little more friendly.
Andy 15:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
I dont think that the link to a Microsoft site, about the benefits of the file format used in a Microsoft product passes WP:SOURCES or in fact any of the other sources policies. I think that if this section has any chance of remaining each of the claims should be referenced by a 3rd party. In fact the section reads like an advertisement. Kilz 16:00, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, should we then also remove links with critisism on the file format by organisations that develop or support software using a competing file format in their product? hAl 17:03, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
If they sound like an advertisement supporting their product, yes. If it is someone pointing out the flaws of a product or specification that they do not rely on, no. A self published source is questionable, especially one that promotes its own products.WP:NOT#ADVERTISING Wikipedia is not Advertising! Kilz 04:10, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
It would only be advertising it is was about a product they sell. However the benefits do not mention a product like MS Office. They are about a document format and MS does not sell documents formats. They just use them in their product.
Thats wrong Hal, the format is developed by Microsoft , used by Microsoft, and promoted to be a standard by Microsoft. The idea that is is somehow separate is shot down in that the link referencing it is from a Microsoft site advertising the benefits of its use in Microsoft Office. They are using the format they created to sell a product. The descriptions in that section, in fact the whole section reads like advertising, with a link to the product thrown in. Kilz 12:40, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I dont think the fact that it links to a Microsoft site is relevant. If it had appropriate information and was a Microsoft reference it would be fine. I expect that most of the valid/useful support information *would* come from Microsoft considering it's their proposal. Furthermore I would think if you consider in this case Microsoft to be a questionable source I think it would fall under section 2.1 of the policy you linked.
The only problem here is that this particular content is not relevant.
Andy 18:10, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
If there is no further comment I will go ahead and remove the subsection. Andy 21:52, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
The information is relevant and as such I will put it back. I am still unsure why you call it irrelevant. Before you stated that Instead of calling it "safer", the safety features should be described. Instead of being called "easier" the ease of use features should be described. et cetera. Describing the benefits is exactly what the reference does. You state that a comparison with the older binary format is useless which is weird as those are the current 'de facto' standard and as such a baseline to any document format. If there are no benefits to the binary formats there would be no need for standardization of OOXML at all because then it would be better to standardize the binary fgormats themselves. Also benefits like integration of business information within document (of course using the custom data features of OOXML) and compatibility with older MS Office document formats are benefits that are also favorably comparable to for instance a ODF which does not have those same benefits. hAl 10:50, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I have repeatedly explained myself in stating that:
  1. Comparison words like "safer" need a target. End of story.
  2. The apparent target (which is not stated inside this subsection) is the current MS Office binary format, the comparison against which is not relevant as to whether OOXML should become an ISO standard.
#1 is simply a language correctness rule. There really can be no debate that I can see.
I cant conceive of why #2 would be incorrect, but if you would like to explain to me, I would appreciate it.
Andy 22:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
The section on key benefits is clearly relevant and belongs in the article to help explain to readers reasons why OOXML has been developed (e.g., Why not just stick with the older binary formats?). However, the arguments should be expanded and clarified.
It's not clear what the neutrality beef is with the policy arguments section because it consists entirely of direct published quotes by the participants.
There is a whole community centered around Microsoft that is working on OOXML and there is little doubt that it will become the dominant defacto document standard was well as an ECMA official standard regardless of what ISO does in Feb. or later on. A big issue is going to be whether ODF documents can be completely and fully accurately converted into OOXML. This issue needs to be addressed somewhere in the Wikipedia.
--AnotherLiveAndLetLive 05:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Agree with Andy on this, and have added an infobox to identify the section in dispute. Instead of a revert war, identifying the disputed section as such may be a useful third way. --Jeffmcneill talk contribs 23:50, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I am willing to support leaving this section put, but it needs expanding. It currently provides no information other than enumerating a list of buzzwords without any explanation. Others could claim that it's esoteric and only understandable to the marketing geniuses who wrote it. This section is analogous to putting something like this in an article about automobiles:
Automobile benefits
* faster
* safer
* more comfortable
I'm using an analogy to try to keep the whole "you're trying to bias the article" objections out of my point and demonstrate that in any other article this section would be absolutely useless. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.248.134.150 (talk) 06:46, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Brian Jones (Microsoft ECMA OOXML representative) FAQ on OOXML

Brian Jones has been working on the XML functionality and file formats in Office for about 6 years now. He has a blog with a FAQ with some of his answers to many of the criticisms in the OOXML#Criticism section. Should it be referenced in the section?--67.169.176.226 (talk) 05:36, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Is there editorial oversight of the page? or is it a personal site and or has limited oversight and checking of what is published on it? Per WP:SPS "blogs are largely not acceptable as sources". Sites used as references must be able to pass WP:VERIFY Kilz 05:36, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I think the relevant points are "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so." and "Material from self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources in articles about themselves, so long as". As it's a blog by a recognised Microsoft expert on the subject, it'll probably be sufficient to mention Microsoft's view on the subject, if used with care. Nil Einne (talk) 21:35, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
In a hotly edited article as this the words " may, in some circumstances, be acceptable" will come into play. Because if the information is at all challenged the person placing it will need to find other sources to back up those statements. It may be a better idea to find those third party sources and avoid such problems that may lead to edit wars. Kilz (talk) 14:12, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
In any case, I think someome needs to go through the article and references with a fine tooth comb. There appears to be a lot of use of blogs and the like. Some of them are fine, others may be a bit more dubious. For example this one while I have no doubt it's correct, doesn't exactly seem a RS [5] "and expressions in the Open Malaysia blog are rightly each blogger's own" Nil Einne (talk) 21:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Case on point to my above comment, you may challenged the blog entry. To back up that reference someone could use this reference from a third party with editorial oversight. Kilz (talk) 14:30, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

My edit war with HAl

http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Office_Open_XML&diff=177853477&oldid=177839043

I don't see why anything mentioned in the "criticism" section cannot be mentioned elsewhere in the article. This whole section appears to just be a copy from the EMCA summary "features list", and I was trying to improve it with references to the actual spec. HAl didn't respond to what I wrote on his talk page, which I'll repeat here for convenience:

You are trying to add a critisism in an inappropriate place and duplicating information already in the article. From the article The criticism is twofold; only dates after the nonexistent Gregorian date 1900-02-29 can be used, and it ignores the ISO 8601 standard for the representation of time and date. hAl (talk) 06:19, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

The valid date range in spreadsheets is part of the standard, not a criticism.

Apperantly other people see that differently as they added it to the critisim section. hAl (talk) 06:19, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I thought saying it supports various calendars was misleading, since support for, say, Gregorian would presumably include dates before 1900 in spreadsheets. The standard explicitly says that these dates are invalid in spreadsheets. This isn't a criticism, although you apparently do think it's undesirable. The text you keep reverting it to is: "In WordprocessingML (Book 4 §2.18.7) and SpreadsheetML (Book 4 §3.18.5), calendar dates can be written using Gregorian [etc]..."

That refers to the method of interpreting a date so you can represent another international date using the the internal date format unlike iso 8601 which is alway representing gregorion dates. By nature such a method is alway limited to a subset of these dates as those international dates represent different time aeras and have different times for starting their date count. hAl (talk) 06:19, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

This isn't true. "1850-01-28" is a perfectly fine Gregorian date, but cannot be written in SpreadsheetML (§3.18.5).

Yes, and the article already mentions that. Just read it next time when I repeatedly ask you to. hAl (talk) 06:19, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
If you agree it's not true, why do you want it in the article? I have read the entire article, and I know it's also mentioned elsewhere. I just don't see why that means it absolutely must not be mentioned in this perfectly relevant place. Cibumamo (talk) 21:19, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

If I try to re-insert this, HAl reverts it with no further explanation, perhaps it can stay in after some discussion. Cibumamo (talk) 05:36, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

No further explanation was needed. As I said, you were duplicating info already in the article and I told you in what section it was. That should have sufficed. hAl (talk) 06:19, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

You know, HAl, changing the title of this section to something ad hominem is a little ridiculous. Cibumamo (talk) 21:19, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Please enough of this silliness! Let's keep this page as NPOV as possible and leave mudslinging to Slashdot and forums. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.112.92.82 (talk) 07:07, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

distinguish, round 3

Dear Mr. or Ms. 92.82: please read #"distinguish" template, redux, and the definition of the word "distinguish". (Hint: "distinguish" in this context does not mean "'Office Open XML' has something to do with 'Open Office XML'" — quite the opposite). So I'm adding it back, because this was discussed ad nauseum before. If you think that the "distinguish" template is strictly a tool for slinging mud, you have a lot of ground to cover, starting with OpenOffice.org XML. If the distinguish template is inappropriate here, it's equally inappropriate there. Fleminra (talk) 09:44, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Dear Mr. or Ms. 192.186: Is that you, Hal, dialing in from the Netherlands? Did you forget to log in? Have you given up on the anonymous proxies yet?
No it isn't. Your suggestions are ridiculous. hAl (talk) 10:03, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Anyway, we've had this discussion before. You said in your edit summary:

People using Open Office XML always mean Office Open XML and not some obscure colloquial name of which no serieus connection can be found to Open Office XML

Well, people typing "Open Office XML" in the Wikipedia search box end up at

OpenOffice.org XML, so there's that.

Now that you bring this issue up here again I will reply. The connection you suggest using the search box is actually also caused by a distinguish tag and not because of any other logical connection. So actually the distinguish tag is creating a link that is not logically present otherwise. The distinguish tag is meant to stop confusion but your use of it is actually what is causing confusion. I find your suggestion that "Open Office XML" is "a colloquial synonym for OpenOffice.org XML" farcical but feel free to re-add it as I have long given up arguing about it with you anymore. hAl (talk) 10:03, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Are you saying the "obscure colloquial name ['Open Office XML'] has no serieus (sic.) connection to 'Open Office XML?'" Are you even reading what you write? Do you have trouble remembering the first part of a sentence by the time you get to the last part? Has Microsoft not yet blessed Internet Explorer with a spell checker, or is it that Microsoft make users of Dutch Windows pay extra for some "English language pack?" —Fleminra (talk) 23:57, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I wasn't saying anything but your attitude towards foreign language Wikipedia users is unpleasant. Dutch users are very active contributors to Wikipedia and although their spelling and grammar may not be up to the highest standards it is probably the information they provide that is most important. As you do not seem to contribute anything useful to this article except for ramblings about the distinguish tag maybe I would prefer my countrymen removing your flawlessly spelled suggestions. hAl (talk) 10:03, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
The attitude you refer to is not towards foreign-language Wikipedia users; it's frankly towards Microsoft, who is apparently greedily hoarding language data (dictionaries), and who retains dominant web browser market share despite this and other deficiencies (see Comparison of web browsers#Browser features), and towards knowledgeable users who yet cling to IE. Your spelling in English is certainly better than plenty of native English speakers; I sympathize, and indeed lean on the spell checker myself. Regarding my ramblings: I believe I've concisely made my points numerous times over, and haven't seen anyone address them. When you say "The connection … is actually also caused by a distinguish tag" above, do you mean "redirect command" instead of "distinguish tag"? Otherwise I don't follow you. I don't otherwise contribute to this article because I don't use office productivity applications; I do write software that generates and manipulates Excel documents and resent having to license third-party software to do so (reverse-engineered free software alternatives are insufficient, through no fault of their own). The distinguish tag essentially says "OOXML is not related to these two other things" (that have similar names). Can you elaborate on how you think this confuses (misleads?) users? Especially OpenOffice.org XML is a very similar name to "Office Open XML", and they're certainly not related; this seems like the intended situation for the distinguish tag. —Fleminra (talk) 18:24, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Protection of Commercial Interests

This whole section consists of the "quote" that, according to the person it is attributed to, was never uttered. Why does Wikipedia have to perpetuate something that was misattributed and, most likely, not true in the first place? Sounds very much POV to me. 71.112.92.82 (talk) 23:54, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

"something that was misattributed and, most likely, not true in the first place" -- that is POV; where is your source that is was misattributed and not likely true? Why do you believe the MS rep. more than the person who quoted him? Neutral means presenting the both the quote and the subsequent denial. No-one disputes that he was quoted as having said this, and no one disputes that he denied having said it. Therefore, nothing in the section is disputed. Dovi (talk) 16:39, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
My source is a basic logic: (1) the quote was attributed to Doug by someone with a lot of zeal against OOXML, and not by a source known for publishing unbiased and verifiable news; (2) Doug posted that he did not say these words. Consider this: if I quote you saying that "Wikipedia must become spearhead of epic fight against the evils of MSOOXML", are we supposed to add my quote to all your edits to OOXML-related pages together with your rebuttal of ever saying these words? I think it is silly, Wikipedia is the source of verifiable information, not the collection of Internet bickering and namecalling. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.112.92.82 (talk) 05:40, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
basic logic would also suggest that someone, even with an agenda, would have to go through a lot more trouble inventing that quote and attributing it to Doug than Doug would need to refute it. Basic logic also suggests that, since Microsoft is pushing this standard as being 'for the benefit of humanity' rather than 'for the benefit of Microsoft,' that Doug would have much to lose if he affirmed this statement which is obviously against that corporate policy.
However, slips of the tongue still occur. ZDNet has quoted Microsoft's senior director of interoperability and IP policy, Nicos Tsilas saying "IBM have asked governments to have an open-source, exclusive purchasing policy. Our competitors have targeted this one product — mandating one document format over others to harm Microsoft's profit stream." As the article's author observes, a senior Microsoft exec has just admitted that Microsoft is trying to protect their monopoly: if Microsoft is ISO-standardising OOXML only to benefit end users, why is Microsoft concerned about the effect that ODF is having on its profit stream?
Can we at least agree that this article is 'verifiable'?
On a personal note, I know from experience that you can only support a lie for so long as the truth pours down on it. Eventually, the lie will collapse. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.248.133.222 (talk) 05:42, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
HAI had demanded that we do not submit quotations from what he considers unverifiable sources. I yielded to his request when I readded this section and yet he feels that it is okay to add, then readd, to that quotation when both times he has not sourced it. He further adds highly speculative commentary to the quotation which, again, has no factual basis. Will HAI kindly follow the standards that he has demanded everyone else to yield to?!

Round three: Sun is considering standarts their strategic weapon. 71.112.92.82 (talk) 11:08, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

About hAl -- admin intervention needed

HAI: your name appears frequently in edit wars and your edits have an indisputable POV favouring Microsoft. To avoid having formal complaints tabled against you, please disclose your interest, stake, and/or association with OOXML, its developers, and Microsoft. It is important that we understand why you are rewriting the article in Microsoft's favour so that we can end these edit wars. I cannot claim neutrality in the controversy because I support, although am not affiliated, with organisations which are trying to defeat OOXML standardisation. Even so, I feel that I am evaluating your edits reasonably and I cannot see any educated, neutral person agreeing that your edits fairly reflect the facts and the controversy. This is your opportunity to co-operate with the other editors. DominusSuus —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.234.66.219 (talk) 07:26, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I second this request as an absolute minimum. It has already been requested several times in the past.
In my opinion, user hAl has displayed absolute disregard for neutrality and a total refusal to acknowledge numerous valid points made by a great many contributors over at least the past six months. Most blatantly, he unabashedly deletes information in a one-sided way, and has done so many dozens of times. In all such cases, hAl simply reverts until others give up. I am absolutely shocked that an administrator has not intervened long before now, and my personal opinion is that hAl should long ago have been banned from editing this and all related articles. No discussion of the issue can even begin without a thorough review of all hAl's edits, reverts, and disputes from at least the first half of 2007.
Disclosure: Though I am also personally against ISO standardization for OOXML (as a consumer with no affiliation to anything), I support arguments both pro and con being in the text, notes, and links of this article. hAl on the other hand has consistently worked against any such balance. Not everything that myself and especially a great many other users have suggested, and hAl has worked against, was perfect, but the large majority of it was indisputably NPOV and relevant to the article.
If an administrator does not intervene, then I suggest that other contributors disregard hAl's edits, revert them where necessary (no matter how many times), and do not bother with him on the talk page. Dovi (talk) 08:55, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Bla bla. In this case it is not hard to have to reedit the article in favour of Micrsoft because a lot of edits are made by member with for instance affiliations with the FFII and other organizations that oppose OOXML. As I am unaffiliated I have little problems removing those edits. It is significant that you yourself state this after an edit where you actually removed my edit on invalid grounds (claiming a quote was not in the webcitation whilst it actually was) and where you overinterprete the interview to show your views whilst my edit was actually much more in line with what the views of the Microsoft employee who is interviewed and that you now have editted again to reflect your interpretation on that interview. It would be a whole lot better if the opponents of OOXML and OOXML standardization stayed away from wikipedia trying to influence opinion on the article. I would actually support a suggestion for an admin to come in and remove ALL opinionated elements from this article (both in support and as critisism). Most critisisms are not very relevant after this months BRM anyways as they will be resolved by the already submitted text amendments in the BRM meeting.
As for neutrality. I have actually contibuted to every part of this article als writing about the file format, the OPC, drawingML, MathML and the licensing sections of the article. however strangly enough I always get critisised only by people that have not contributed anything to the information on OOXML itself but only by people trying to add critisisms from and remove support arguments. I have actually been keeping a sort of balance in the critisism and support arguments even allthough a lot of those critisism in the article are what I would call of very little significance (like MS path used in format examples). People with critisism should not focus on trying to add a list of non significant crap items like that but in stead focus on the things they actually mean. You should also notice that I actually support informational edits to the artikel like the edits by Alex Brown the ISO appointed BRM convenor on the standard proces which is exactly what above complainers never do because they seem uninterested in information about the format itself but only interested in information against the format. hAl (talk) 10:40, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
It appears that HAL would rather this article go through arbitration than co-operate with the other editors. If that be the wish, I'll support him. HAL has again evaded disclosing his interests in this article, rather trying to convince us that he is the only neutral editor when that is obviously not so. His belittling of other editor's contributions is also unnecessary. It is also interesting that, in a casual browsing of MSDN blogs, a user with a handle identical to yours frequently comments on them trying to refute any dissenting opinion on the OOXML. The language is similar to yours as is the point of view. However, this is all irrelevant if you choose to fight with us.
I respectfully disagree, I my observations hAl removes unverifiable information on both sides. It happens that anti-OOXML crowd is more proactive than pro-OOXML, hence you see more hAl's reverts of anti-OOXML edits. Please do some research. 71.112.92.82 (talk) 05:49, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5Archive 6→Archive 10
  1. ^ "Microsoft won't commit to the open document standard it's pushing so hard".
  2. ^ "Microsoft won't commit to the open document standard it's pushing so hard".
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