How open is "open" when Microsoft say it?

David M Williams
Monday, 09 July 2007 10:55

Business IT - Open Source

Actually, no. Ecma is not the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO). It is not a body of the ISO. According to their own web site, "Ecma is the inventor and main practitioner of the concept of "fast tracking" of specifications drafted in international standards format through the process in Global Standards Bodies like the ISO." In other words, Ecma will help those wishing to attain ISO accrediation by managing the red tape and bureacracy and contacts and by pushing through your documents.

The C# language has been submitted to Ecma. C# is Ecma-approved (ECMA TC39/TG2 in fact.) This means any vendor should be able to adopt C#. Yet, does anyone seriously believe anyone other than Microsoft are able to extend the language?

Similarly, OOXML is before Ecma as draft standard TC45. In principle, the world is better with a single document format that works well enough for all vendors and end users. Yet, there is obviously an agenda at hand which is not considering all vendors as equal.

As evidence, consider that Microsoft have now put their Open Paper Specification (OPS) before Ecma. The clear scope put forth for this standard is to be "fully compatible with the Office Open XML Formats" and to "enable the implementation of the Office Open XML Formats." This is quoted from Ecma's TC46 charter.

In other words, Microsoft are deviously using Ecma to ratify as standard a set of document file formats that co-operate with each other but are distinctly Microsoft owned and driven and inter-related - and moreso the standard must align with the product, not the other way around.

Perhaps this may be tolerable if there were no alternatives but it must be understood that the ISO has already approved ODF, the OpenDocument Format, also based on XML. This file format has been standardised and given an ISO number and is backed by heavyweights like IBM. Is there value in having two ISO standards for the same purpose?

Microsoft put forth the argument that OOXML is sufficiently different: ODF is constrained because it needs enhancements to support the detris accumulated over the differing versions of Microsoft Office's evolution - yet OOXML will also need to cater for this. It seems a hollow argument to say an entirely new open specification is required. Given ODF exists, and that PDF is already a de-facto standard for electronic document exchange, one really must question the significance of Ecma-approval and the genuineness of the word "open" in Microsoft's parlance.