241 lines
9.0 KiB
HTML
241 lines
9.0 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
|
|
|
|
<html>
|
|
<head>
|
|
<title>FSFE - Six questions to national standardisation bodies about MS-OOXML</title>
|
|
</head>
|
|
|
|
<body>
|
|
<h1>Six questions to national standardisation bodies</h1>
|
|
<center>
|
|
[<a href="msooxml-questions.pdf">Also available as PDF (28k)</a>]
|
|
</center>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
The following six questions relate to the application of the
|
|
ECMA/MS-OOXML format to be accepted as an IEC/ISO standard. Unless a
|
|
national standardisation body has conclusive answers to all of them, it
|
|
should vote no in IEC/ISO and request that Microsoft incorporate its work
|
|
on MS-OOXML into ISO/IEC 26300:2006 (Open Document Format).
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
This is a summary document. More detailed information is available
|
|
online.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<li>
|
|
<a href="http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections">http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections</a>
|
|
</li>
|
|
<li>
|
|
<a href="http://www.xmlopen.org/ooxml-wiki/index.php/DIS_29500_Comments">http://www.xmlopen.org/ooxml-wiki/index.php/DIS_29500_Comments</a>
|
|
</li>
|
|
<li>
|
|
<a href="http://www.noooxml.org/arguments">http://www.noooxml.org/arguments</a>
|
|
</li>
|
|
</ul>
|
|
|
|
<ol>
|
|
<li>
|
|
<h3>Application independence?</h3>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
No standard should ever depend on a certain operating system,
|
|
environment or application. Application and implementation
|
|
independence is one of the most important properties of all
|
|
standards.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<strong>
|
|
Is the MS-OOXML specification free from any references to
|
|
particular products of any vendor and their specific behaviour?
|
|
</strong>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
</li>
|
|
|
|
<li>
|
|
<h3>Supporting pre-existing Open Standards?</h3>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
Whenever applicable and possible, standards should build upon
|
|
previous standardisation efforts and not depend on proprietary,
|
|
vendor-specific technologies.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
MS-OOXML neglects various standards, such as MathML and SVG, which
|
|
are recommendations by the W3C, and uses its own vendor-specific
|
|
formats instead. This puts a substantial burden on all vendors to
|
|
follow Microsoft in its proprietary infrastructure built over the
|
|
past 20 years in order to fully implement MS-OOXML. It seems
|
|
questionable how any third party could ever implement them equally
|
|
well.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<strong>
|
|
What is the benefit of accepting usage of such vendor-specific
|
|
formats at the expense of standardisation in these areas? Where
|
|
will other vendors get competitive, compatible and complete
|
|
implementations for all platforms to avoid prohibitively large
|
|
investments?
|
|
</strong>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
</li>
|
|
|
|
<li>
|
|
<h3>Backward compatibility for all vendors?</h3>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
One of the alledged main advantages of MS-OOXML is its ability to
|
|
allow for backward compatibility, as also referenced in the
|
|
<a href="http://www.ecma-international.org/news/PressReleases/PR_TC45_Dec2006.htm">ECMA International press release</a>.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
For any standard it is essential that it is implementable by any
|
|
third party without necessity of cooperation by another company,
|
|
additional restricted information or legal agreements or
|
|
indemnifications. It is also essential to not require the cooperation
|
|
of any competitor to achieve full and comparable interoperability.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<strong>
|
|
On the grounds of the existing MS-OOXML specification, can any
|
|
third party regardless of business model, without access to
|
|
additional information and without the cooperation of Microsoft
|
|
implement full backward compatibility and conversion of such legacy
|
|
documents into MS-OOXML comparable to what Microsoft can offer?
|
|
</strong>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
</li>
|
|
|
|
<li>
|
|
<h3>Proprietary extensions?</h3>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
Proprietary, application-specific extensions are a known technique
|
|
employed in particular by Microsoft to abuse and leverage its desktop
|
|
monopoly into neighboring markets. It is a technique at the heart of
|
|
the abusive behaviour that was at the core of the decision against
|
|
Microsoft by the European Commission in 2004 and Microsoft is until
|
|
today continuing its refusal to release the necessary
|
|
interoperability information.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
For this reason, it is common understanding that Open Standards
|
|
should not allow such proprietary extensions, and that such
|
|
market-distorting techniques should not be possible on the grounds of
|
|
an Open Standard.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<strong>
|
|
Does MS-OOXML allow proprietary extensions? Is Microsoft's
|
|
implementation of MS-OOXML faithful, i.e. without undocumented
|
|
extensions? Are there safeguards against such abusive behaviour?
|
|
</strong>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
</li>
|
|
|
|
<li>
|
|
<h3>Dual standards?</h3>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
The goal of all standardisation is always to come to one single
|
|
standard, as multiple standards always provide an impediment to
|
|
competition. Seeming competition on the standard is truly a strategic
|
|
measure to gain control over certain segments of a market, as various
|
|
examples in the past have demonstrated.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
There is an existing Open Standard for office documents, namely the
|
|
Open Document Format (ODF) (ISO/IEC 26300:2006). Both MS-OOXML and
|
|
ODF are built upon XML technology, so employ the same base technology
|
|
and thus ultimately have the same theoretical capabilities. Microsoft
|
|
itself is a member of OASIS, the organisation in which the ODF
|
|
standard was developed and is being maintained. It was aware of the
|
|
process and invited to participate.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<strong>
|
|
Why did and does Microsoft refuse to participate in the existing
|
|
standardisation effort? Why does it not submit its technological
|
|
proposals to OASIS for inclusion into ODF?
|
|
</strong>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
</li>
|
|
|
|
<li>
|
|
<h3>Legally safe?</h3>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
Granting all competitors freedom from legal prosecution for
|
|
implementation of a standard is essential. Such a grant needs to be
|
|
clear, reliable and wide enough to cover all activities necessary to
|
|
achieve full interoperability and allow a level playing field for
|
|
true competition on the merits.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
MS-OOXML is accompanied by an unusually complex and narrow "covenant
|
|
not to sue" instead of the typical patent grant. Because of its
|
|
complexity, it does not seem clear how much protection from
|
|
prosecution for compatibility it will truly provide.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
Cursory legal study implies that the covenant does not cover all
|
|
optional features and proprietary formats mandatory for complete
|
|
implementation of MS-OOXML. So freedom of implementation by all
|
|
competitors is not guaranteed for the entire width of the proposed
|
|
MS-OOXML format, and questionable even for the core components.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<strong>
|
|
Does your national standardisation body have its own, independent
|
|
legal analysis about the exact nature of the grant to certify
|
|
whether it truly covers the full spectrum of all possible MS-OOXML
|
|
implementations?
|
|
</strong>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
</li>
|
|
</ol>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
All these questions should have answers that should be provided by the
|
|
national standardisation bodies through independent counsel and experts,
|
|
and in particular not by Microsoft or its business partners, which have a
|
|
direct conflict of interest on this issue.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
If there is no good answer to any one of them, a national body should
|
|
vote no in ISO/IEC.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<h2>Related reading</h2>
|
|
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<li><a href="/documents/msooxml-interoperability.html">Interoperability woes with MS-OOXML</a></li>
|
|
<li><a href="/documents/msooxml-idiosyncrasies.html">DIS-29500: Deprecated before use?</a></li>
|
|
<li><a href="/documents/msooxml-converter-hoax.html">The Converter Hoax</a></li>
|
|
<li><a href="/documents/msooxml-questions-for-ms.html">Questions for Microsoft on Open Formats</a></li>
|
|
</ul>
|
|
</body>
|
|
|
|
<timestamp>$Date$ $Author$</timestamp>
|
|
</html>
|
|
<!--
|
|
Local Variables: ***
|
|
mode: xml ***
|
|
End: ***
|
|
-->
|