Sign a petition against Microsoft’s Office OpenXML becoming an ISO standard

I ask the national members of ISO to vote “NO” in the ballot of ISO DIS 29500 (Office OpenXML or OOXML format) for the following reasons:

There is already a standard ISO26300 named Open Document Format (ODF): a dual standard adds costs, uncertainty and confusion to industry, government and citizens;
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;
There is information missing from the specification document, for example how to do a autoSpaceLikeWord95 or useWord97LineBreakRules;
More than 10% of the examples mentioned in the proposed standard do not validate as XML;
There is no guarantee that anybody can write software that fully or partially implements the OOXML specification without being liable to patent lawsuits or patent license fees by Microsoft;

Tags: format, ooxml, specification, standard, vote

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