[Fsf-friends] Say NO to the Microsoft Office format as an ISO standard

Anivar Aravind anivar.aravind@[EMAIL-PROTECTED]
Sun Jul 1 16:14:57 IST 2007


microsoft is now on the similar kind of lobbying with BIS (Beuro of 
Indian Standards) to make OOXML as a standard. I feel FSF must campaign 
on this.

Anivar

Say NO to the Microsoft Office format as an ISO standard

http://www.noooxml.org/petition


    1. There is already a standard ISO26300 named Open Document Format 
(ODF): a dual standard adds costs, uncertainty and confusion to 
industry, government and citizens;
    2. There is no provable implementation of the OOXML specification: 
Microsoft Office 2007 produces a special version of OOXML, not a file 
format which complies with the OOXML specification;
    3. There is missing information from the specification document, for 
example how to do a autoSpaceLikeWord95 or useWord97LineBreakRules;
    4. More than 10% of the examples mentioned in the proposed standard 
do not validate as XML;
    5. There is no guarantee that anybody can write a software that 
fully or partially implements the OOXML specification without being 
liable to patent damages or patent license fees by Microsoft;
    6. This standard proposal conflicts with other ISO standards, such 
as ISO 8601 (Representation of dates and times), ISO 639 (Codes for the 
Representation of Names and Languages) or ISO/IEC 10118-3 (cryptographic 
hash);
    7. There is a bug in the spreadsheet file format which forbids to 
enter any date before the year 1900: such bugs affects the OOXML 
specification as well as software versions such as Microsoft Excel 2000, 
XP, 2003 or 2007.
    8. This standard proposal has not been created by bringing together 
the experience and expertise of all interested parties (such as the 
producers, sellers, buyers, users and regulators), but by Microsoft alone.




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