Harish Pillay wrote: >> Given that we could have a high quality OpenXML spec (although I don't >> think it is there yet) along with the competing ODF spec; this would >> provide a lot of opportunity for improving the interoperability of >> OpenOffice.org and other open source office suites with Microsoft Office >> - in the end making the open source alternatives more competitive. >> > > That is exactly what I have debated at the council. The quality of the > XML is poor based on best practises. I have no issue with multiple > standards describing the same general area - bmp, jpeg, gif, png etc. > These are fully and completely defined and have multiple implementations. > ooxml is not fully defined (a whole lot of binary mappings not being there > yet) and so, it is not easily implementable. > > Harish - who voted disapprove at the ITSC ooxml vote last Friday. >
Yes. Yes. It is similar to what happened in Norway as I understand back in September the Singapore XML TC recommendation was Disapprove wasn't it? This sounds pretty much like an "irregularity" to me. http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/03/31/Norway-asks-to-suspend-its-Yes-vote-on-OOXML_1.html "Isene said that 80 percent of the SN/K 185 committee was against Norway changing its original vote of "No, with comments," cast in September, to a "Yes" vote. However, "the administrative staff of Standard Norge (the Norwegian Standards Institute) retreated to a room after the meeting [about OOXML] and decided Norway's vote -- effectively steamrolling a roomful of experts," Isene said via e-mail." Decisions on making standards like these should IMHO be made on technical grounds not political ones. As Anand was saying << it would be good to have a standard for Office file formats, oh there is one!, so why not have two standards ... >> type rationale is a niave grounds for making a technical decision on whether a document is at the level required to be ratified as an ISO/IEC standard. If the standard can't be assessed appropriately then there should have at least been an "Abstain" vote - although we all know that it should have been "Disapprove" for the document in its current form based on a sound technical assessment. Michael. _______________________________________________ Slugnet mailing list [email protected] http://www.lugs.org.sg/mailman/listinfo/slugnet
