First OOXML ISO Standardization Ballot Results

Ecma International submitted Ecma-376 (Office Open XML Standard) to the ISO Fast Track process. After a comment period the ISO held a ballot that closed September 2007. This has been observed to be perhaps the most controversial and unusual ISO ballot ever convened, both in number of comments in opposition, and in unusual actions during the voting process. Various factions have strongly supported and opposed this fast track process: primarily on one side Microsoft affiliated companies in support and on the opposing side free or open source software organizations, IBM and affiliates, SUN Microsystems, and Google.

There have been reports of attempted vote buying, heated verbal confrontations, refusal to come to consensus and other very unusual behavior in national standards bodies. This is said to be unprecidented for standards bodies who usually act together and have generally worked to resolve concerns amiacably.

87 ISO member countries responded to the five-month ballot. There were 51 votes of "approval", 18 votes of "disapproval" and 18 abstentions.

For the measure to pass, 2/3rds of "P" members must approve and less than 1/4 of all voting national members must disapprove. The balloting shows 53% approval by "P" members and 26% disapproval from the total votes.

The following table shows the results by member of the balloting that ended 2 September 2007:

Country	Standards Body	Membership	Vote
Argentina	IRAM	O Member	Abstention
Chile	INN	O Member	Abstention
Israel	SII	O Member	Abstention
Luxembourg	SEE	O Member	Abstention
Mexico	DGN	O Member	Abstention
Peru	INDECOPI	O Member	Abstention
Viet Nam	TCVN	O Member	Abstention
Australia	SA	P Member	Abstention
Belgium	NBN	P Member	Abstention
Finland	SFS	P Member	Abstention
Italy	UNI	P Member	Abstention
Malaysia	DSM	P Member	Abstention
Netherlands	NEN	P Member	Abstention
Slovenia	SIST	P Member	Abstention
Spain	AENOR	P Member	Abstention
Trinidad and Tobago	TTBS	P Member	Abstention
Mauritius	MSB		Abstention
Zimbabwe	SAZ		Abstention
Armenia	SARM	O Member	Approval
Belarus	BELST	O Member	Approval
Costa Rica	INTECO	O Member	Approval
Croatia	HZN	O Member	Approval
Cuba	NC	O Member	Approval
Egypt	EOS	O Member	Approval
Morocco	SNIMA	O Member	Approval
Romania	ASRO	O Member	Approval
Russian Federation	GOST R	O Member	Approval
Serbia	ISS	O Member	Approval
Sri Lanka	SLSI	O Member	Approval
Ukraine	DSSU	O Member	Approval
Azerbaijan	AZSTAND	P Member	Approval
Côte-d'Ivoire	CODINORM	P Member	Approval
Cyprus	CYS	P Member	Approval
Jamaica	JBS	P Member	Approval
Kazakhstan	KAZMEMST	P Member	Approval
Lebanon	LIBNOR	P Member	Approval
Pakistan	PSQCA	P Member	Approval
Saudi Arabia	SASO	P Member	Approval
Bangladesh	BSTI		Approval
Barbados	BNSI		Approval
Bosnia and Herzegovina	BAS		Approval
Congo, The Democratic Republic of	OCC		Approval
Fiji	FTSQCO		Approval
Kuwait	KOWSMD		Approval
Nigeria	SON		Approval
Panama	COPANIT		Approval
Qatar	QS		Approval
Syrian Arab Republic	SASMO		Approval
Tanzania, United Rep. of	TBS		Approval
United Arab Emirates	ESMA		Approval
Uzbekistan	UZSTANDARD		Approval
Austria	ON	O Member	Approval with comments
Bulgaria	BDS	O Member	Approval with comments
Colombia	ICONTEC	O Member	Approval with comments
Greece	ELOT	O Member	Approval with comments
Poland	PKN	O Member	Approval with comments
Portugal	IPQ	O Member	Approval with comments
Tunisia	INNORPI	O Member	Approval with comments
Germany	DIN	P Member	Approval with comments
Kenya	KEBS	P Member	Approval with comments
Malta	MSA	P Member	Approval with comments
Singapore	SPRING SG	P Member	Approval with comments
Switzerland	SNV	P Member	Approval with comments
Turkey	TSE	P Member	Approval with comments
Uruguay	UNIT	P Member	Approval with comments
Venezuela	FONDONORMA	P Member	Approval with comments
USA	ANSI	Secretariat	Approval with comments
Ghana	GSB		Approval with comments
Jordan	JISM		Approval with comments
Brazil	ABNT	O Member	Disapproval
Philippines	BPS	O Member	Disapproval
Thailand	TISI	O Member	Disapproval
Canada	SCC	P Member	Disapproval
China	SAC	P Member	Disapproval
Czech Republic	CNI	P Member	Disapproval
Denmark	DS	P Member	Disapproval
Ecuador	INEN	P Member	Disapproval
France	AFNOR	P Member	Disapproval
India	BIS	P Member	Disapproval
Iran, Islamic Republic of	ISIRI	P Member	Disapproval
Ireland	NSAI	P Member	Disapproval
Japan	JISC	P Member	Disapproval
Korea, Republic of	KATS	P Member	Disapproval
New Zealand	SNZ	P Member	Disapproval
Norway	SN	P Member	Disapproval
South Africa	SABS	P Member	Disapproval
United Kingdom	BSI	P Member	Disapproval

Significant comments by national standards bodies

BR - Brazil - Disapproval comments made by Brazil that are potentially unresolvable center around proprietary Microsoft formats not being available publicly:

• BR Part 4 [1]2.15.3.31 etc "lineWrapLikeWord6"
• BR Part 4 Section 6.4.3.1 and 6.4.2.10 te - support other formats including PNG, OGG
• BR section 7.4.2.5 Pg. 5122 te - windows clipboard values
• BR section 7.4.2.5 Pg. 5122 te - specify GUID and FMTID

example: BR-section-2.15.3-Pg. 1368-te-The “Compatibility Settings” are not available to understand how the document is rendered.-The references in the “Compatibility Settings” section should be made to full publicly available information.

ES - Spain- (sic.) There is no possible to get the necessary consensus in the mirrow comitte to support either of the other positions

FR - France - The 122 pages of disapproval comments by IFNOR begin with a proposal to split the Office Open XML standard into two sections: core functions and legacy file formats and further to merge the Office Open XML standard into the ODF standard. IFNOR also takes issue with the document itself citing numerous internal inconsistencies and lack of adherence to standard. The majority of the comments are technical and many of these again focus on lack of publicly available information on Microsoft proprietary formats used by the Office Open XML standardization document.

example: F4038 Part4, Section 2.15.3.32 mwSmallCaps (Emulate Word 5.x for the Macintosh Small Caps Formatting) page 1427, lines 13-18 te This definition is intrinsically based upon material that is not part of the Office Open XML submission, and that is not part of any known standard either. As such, it cannot be accepted. A proper definition must be provided for the mwSmallCaps feature, or the feature must be removed altogether. Define the mwSmallCaps feature properly or drop it from the Office Open XML proposal.

US - United States - Approval with 44 pages of comments. Since the approval has been given, the significant comments detailed in the ballot do not have to be addressed. Potentially ANSI could reverse their vote if the comments are not addressed, but observers think it unlikely.

example: US ge The use of proprietary file formats within the Office Open XML standard appears to cause potential intellectual property ownership concerns.

BG - Bulgaria - Approval with minor changes requested including compatibility with Date & Time standards, independence from IP, and finally cyrillic characters.

IN - India - BIS the Indian standards national body submits 16 pages of comments with their disapproval vote. Although short in length there are many issues that may not be able to be resolved before the February ISO BRM meeting. BIS requests that all references to proprietary software be removed. BIS requests macros for legacy translation. BIS states 'The document encoding standard is not hundred percent decodable - it should be hundred percent decodable'. Many of the same objections to legacy format behavior are given, again referencing the proprietary Microsoft formats, and requesting that the formats be made publicly available.

BPS(PH) - Phillipines- BPS disapprove comments are comparatively short consisting of 2 pages of comments. They begin with comments about borders, math functions and finally end with the complaint that "exactly how Word 95 autospaces is a Microsoft Company secret". No proposed changes are given in the comments by the BPS.

GB - Great Britain (United Kingdom)- BSI's 98 pages of disapproval comments begins with the observation that the name Office Open XML is much too similar to Open Office XML and should be changed. Further into the document the BSI states that inappropriate PR hyperbole should be removed from the document. After many pages of edit and technical correction suggestions, on page 26 BSI begins suggesting that Office Open XML must interoperate with ODF. On page 34 objections to DrawingML and VML are brought up. On page 39 the BSI says It looks very much like it is mapping directly to the arbitrary choices of a single vendor's application. This clause should be rewritten to express this feature in an application- and platform-neutral way. Much of the remainder of comments are about legacy formats and interoperability problems and edit corrections.

References

• JTC1 SC34 download of ballots (.zip)