Mountain View (CA) - Google has released a statement praising the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) for not approving the new Open Office XML standard.

The OOXML standard (DIS 29500) failed to meet the approval guidelines from the ISO, which would have required 2/3 of the participating members to vote positively, and have less than 1/4 vote negatively.  Neither of these criteria was met.

Google said there were numerous factors that made the format less than ideal, including too much dependency on other Microsoft proprietary formats and the high cost of implementing multiple standards.  It also noted that there was not enough time to fully review the specification and that there are too many undocumented features, which prevents other vendors from implemented OOXML.

Another open-source standard, ODF, has been more widely praised by industry insiders, and during the same process it was approved 23-0 by ISO participating members.

"Technical standards should be arrived at transparently, openly, and based on technical merit," wrote Zaheda Bhorat from Google's Open Source Team on the site's official blog.  "Google supports one open document format and calls on industry participants to collaboratively work on ODF."

Nice

Sep 17, 2007 10:35     

It is nice to know that there are still some instances where money and lobbyists can't buy something that isn't deserved. I wish there were more cases like this where technical excellence gains the victory over money.
Patrick report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

apparently ISO does not stand for International Org...

Sep 17, 2007 11:17     

apparently ISO does not stand for International Organization for Standardization. It is actually literally the greek word iso, which means "same." That's what some teacher I had told me anyway.
somedeaddude report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Go Google go!!!

Sep 17, 2007 11:48     

M$ shouldn't control standards for open office. Lets not repeat history this time. Lets have an equal playing field....
William report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

I like what Mark Shuttleworth said in his blog

Sep 17, 2007 12:26     

Nice to see that sanity wins a few. HTML is a standard and it works very well as a standard that lets different browsers with different operating systems all play together. HTML was an internationally agreed upon standard. I have no difficulty with the common Office file standards being treated the same way. The idea that MS could push a competing standard ( so now 2 HTMLs??) is so obviously tilted towards it's own proprietary interest it's completely unfunny. Bad MS!

Pete Dixon report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Wooohooo!!

Sep 17, 2007 12:29     

The beast finally been slowed!! Now if we could get some legislation like the EU here in the states we could cage the beast as well!
Jeff report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Good to hear

Sep 17, 2007 18:40     

Two standards is always problematic, and ODF is a superior format for the form of standardization. Should be a no-brainer. Now Microsoft needs to follow through and make their stuff compatible with ODF.
Jason report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

ISO

Sep 25, 2007 20:05     

they call it iso for the greek word "same"
kevbo report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

RE: Cage the Beast

Jan 28, 2008 15:14     

Jeff, you're dreaming if you think Congress is ever going to make laws regarding Microsoft's monopoly. Congress operates as it's always has, taking money from the rich and giving them favors. As you probably know, Microsoft is one of the cash-richest companies in the world.
Cypherdude report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0