Office applications Toolkit

Story: Google: OOXML 'insufficient and unnecessary'

Posted by: Marbux (Saturday 1 March 2008, 3:29 PM)

You've got to be kidding, Albert

Albert said:

That is why OOXML is a much better choice for people wanting the functionality the MS Office provided or the compatiblity with the existing filebase. That way we have a documented format in stead of tons of undocument propriety extensions.

By my count, Part 4 of the OOXML specification identifies separate 573 extension points whose functionality is unspecified. Grep for extLst. This is "documented?" Indeed, the only reason Microsoft can claim conformance is that the spec is so poor that it allows vendor-specific extensions to be deemed conformant. ODF suffers from the same fundamental flaw.

If Microsoft and Sun want to play feature war games with their file formats, that's their right. But they are not legally entitled to do so under the guise of creating or implementing an international standard.

No specified conformity requirements essential to achieve interoperability and no demonstrated interoperable implementations equals an illegal international standard. No interoperability equals no competition equals a violation of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. It doesn't matter whether it is Microsoft's spec, Sun's spec, or anyone else's. Interoperability is the law.

You are failing to grasp that legally, interoperability comes first in international standards and technical regulations. Other factors cannot even be considered unless that threshold requirement is first met. Everything you have raised in this conversation has been excuses for ingoring the interoperability issue.

Are you even attempting to have an intelligent conversation with me? You are really coming across like a Microsoft astroturfer or a troll.

--Buck ("Marbux") Martin
Universal Interoperability Council

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