Promises have been made. Assurances have been given. Commitments have been proffered. But far less has been delivered.<\/p>\n
Let’s review the record.<\/p>\n
We start with the Ecma whitepaper, “Office Open XML Overview<\/a>” [pdf] which was included in their submission to ISO:<\/p>\n Standardizing the format specification and maintaining it over time ensure that multiple parties can safely rely on it, confident that further evolution will enjoy the checks and balances afforded by an open standards process.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n OK. So we were told that if OOXML is standardized its future evolution will be in an open standards process,with checks and balances.<\/p>\n Brian Jones, from a mid 2006 blog post<\/a>:<\/p>\n There has also been talk though of taking the formats to ISO once they have been approved by Ecma, which would mean that if ISO chooses to adopt the Open XML formats the stewardship of the formats would be theirs. We’ve had a number of governments indicate that they would like the formats to be given to ISO, and it’s likely that after the Ecma approval that will be the next step.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Again, saying that if approval by ISO is tantamount to transferring custody of the format to ISO.<\/p>\n Six months later, Brian wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n Some feedback that we got primarily from governments was that they wanted to see these formats not just fully documented, but that the stewardship and maintenance of that documentation should be handed over to an international standards body. OK. Not exactly a signed-in-blood promise, but still a clear, leading indication that the feedback they received from customers was for stewardship and maintenance and even ownership of OOXML to be handed over to ISO.<\/p>\n As the OOXML (DIS 29500) ballot drew nearer to a close, these vague intimations became outright promises. We heard over and over again that we should approve OOXML because that was the only way to ensure that the format would remain open. The first version might be a mess, but if we approve it just this once, all future versions will be developed in openness and transparency.<\/p>\n For example, John Scholes<\/a> writes of a Microsoft promise made at an National Computing Centre (NCC) file format debate held in London on July 4th:<\/p>\n Would the maintenance of the standard be carried out by Ecma (assuming OpenXML became an ISO\/IEC standard) or would it be carried out by JTC1? No question, JTC1. But would the detail be delegated to Ecma? No, it would all be beyond MS\u2019 control in JTC1. Well at this point there was apparently some sotto voce discussion between Stephen and Stijn, followed by a little backtracking, but it came across loud and clear in subsequent discussions in the margins that Stephen and Jerry believed this was for real. MS was handing over control of OpenXML to JTC1 (or trying to). <\/p><\/blockquote>\n I participated in this debate as well, and I can confirm that it occurred exactly as John relates. I even asked a follow-up question to make sure that I hadn’t misunderstand what Microsoft was saying. They were adamant. ISO would control OOXML.<\/p>\n Jerry Fishenden, Microsoft’s lead spokesman in the UK wrote two week’s later<\/a>:<\/p>\n There’s an easy question to consider here: would you prefer the Microsoft file formats to continue to be proprietary and under Microsoft’s exclusive control? Or would you prefer them to be under the control and maintenance of an independent, open standards organisation? I think for most users, customers and partners that’s a pretty easy question to answer: they’d prefer control and maintenance to be independent of Microsoft. And the good news is that the Open XML file formats are already precisely that: currently under the control of Ecma International (as Ecma-376) and, if the current voting process is positive, eventually under the control of ISO\/IEC. Many major and significant UK organisations have already made clear that they support this move for Open XML to become an ISO\/IEC standard. The United States vote is one step in the direction to put Open XML under the control of the ISO\/IEC standards body.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So Jerry is stating in no uncertain terms that approval of OOXML puts it under ISO control. This statement was repeated on an August 24th update<\/a> on Microsoft’s “Open XML Community” web site.<\/p>\n (I’ve heard many second-hand reports of additional repetitions of this promise made at NB meetings around the world, in the run up to the Sept. 2nd ballot. If anyone participated in such a meeting and heard such assurances first hand, feel free to add the details as a comment.)<\/p>\n So much for the promises. What makes this story worthy of a blog post is that we now know that, even as these promises were be made to NB’s, at that same time Ecma was planning something that contradicted their public assurances. Ecma’s “Proposal for a Joint Maintenance Plan<\/a>” [pdf] outlines quite a different vision for how OOXML will be maintained.<\/p>\n A summary of the proposed terms:<\/p>\n A critical point to note is that “maintenance” in ISO terms is not the same thing as what the average software engineer thinks of as “maintenance”. The work of producing new features or enhancements is not maintenance. The act of creating OOXML 1.1 or OOXML 2.0 is not maintenance. What is maintenance is the publication of errata documents for OOXML 1.0, a task that must be completed within 3 years.<\/p>\n So what Ecma is offering SC34 is nothing close to what was promised. Ecma is really seeking to transfer to SC34 the responsibility of spending the next 3 years fixing errors in OOXML 1.0, while future versions of OOXML (“technical revisions”) are controlled by Microsoft, in Ecma, in a process without transparency, and as should now be obvious to all, without sufficient quality controls.<\/p>\n This maintenance proposal is on the agenda<\/a> for the JTC1\/SC34 Plenary meeting, in Kyoto on December 8th. I think this one-sided proposal should be firmly opposed. <\/p>\n
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Obviously, a great way to guarantee the long term availability of OpenXML, and the confidence that it won’t change is for an organization like ISO to take ownership of the spec.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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