New Zealand and OpenXML

New Zealand and OpenXML 09 Aug 2007 14:37

I see Chris and the crew at Intergen are just about to put out some bits on Codeplex leveraging the flexibility afforded us now with Office OpenXML (OOXML) and dragging down IIS log files into Excel :) Great stuff guys!

This reminded me that there is an impending vote about OpenXML being certified as an ISO standard. For those of you who havnt heard about ISO certifications and voting, basically the standards bodys of all countries consider a submission for a new standard and then vote it either in or out. All countries are equal so its not a biased approach.

Currently the submission is pending "fast-track" approval, and sadly Standards New Zealand seems set to reject the submission on behalf of New Zealand on the grounds that ODF already got through first as a standard.

Personally I think this is quite sad for the industry as clearly OOXML is a huge step forwards in terms of openness of the key file formats in the business industry and even if it lacks ISO support in the short term is still set to become a de-facto standard anyway.

The New Zealand vote is happening at a workshop in Welly later this month - so if you care about this, speak out about it :)

Ian Lynch - @ 25 Aug 2007 07:15
There is only a need for one ISO standard. All, including Microsoft should support it. Just because something might or might not become a de facto standard is no reason for it to bean ISO standard. ISO standard have certain requirements and OOXML does not meet them so Standards New Zealand is doing the right thing.

Matthew Cruickshank - @ 28 Aug 2007 12:05
Hi, I was at the workshop last week here in Wellington. It was a good turn out from lots of people in the industry. The actual vote didn't happen at then -- the workshop was more about Standards NZ hearing comments from people in the industry, and the vote will happen later. I've been posting quite a bit of content the OOXML format at http://nzoss.org.nz/ so have a read if you're interested. What most impressed me about everyone is that it wasn't a debate amongst zealots. There were a lot of good comments, concessions, and consensus from all. Cheers,

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