Despite the deadline for appeals having already lapsed, Denmark has become the fourth country (after South Africa, Brazil and India) to appeal the OOXML decision. The reasons cited include that ISO rules were broken, there was no consensus in Denmark, and that the Fast Track process “has been formally annulled for 2 months now – since the 29th of March, where the specification should have been sent to the national standardization organizations. The basis for a fast track procedure is no longer present, and I therefore expect ISO to pick up the case again.”
This article seems to be raising a serious question. If there is no final draft yet, and for unknown reasons there isn’t, and if Microsoft itself is not supporting OOXML yet, and it says it isn’t, how is true interoperability possible? This couldn’t be a deliberate delay game, could it? I hate to think that, but I confess this article has started me thinking in a brand new way about the delay in delivering the final draft. And since currently Microsoft isn’t supporting ODF, only promising to do so someday, where does that leave interoperability? Finally, since ODF 1.1, as I understand it, has issues with spreadsheets and accessibility that are solved in ODF 1.2, why did Microsoft choose to support the version that works less well? Is their goal really interoperability or just the appearance of a willingness to do it someday?
Groklaw has the full story, and more analysis…
Groklaw [via Slashdot]
