Microsoft OOXML / ECMA376

Get The Facts

This doc version: v1.3
Author: Anand Vaidya

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 Goals of this document
● To prove that one .ISO standard is adequate and in
fact desirable (ODF / ISO26300)
● To demonstrate the substantial technical
deficiencies of MS-OOXML / ECMA376
● To debunk some of the fallacies being circulated
● To provide our inputs to the Singapore's council
which will vote in the .ISO JTC1 regarding
ECMA376's fate

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 Unacceptable Technical Flaws
in ECMA376 / MS-OOXML

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 What are the objections?
● ECMA376 / MS-OOXML has been shown to
contain many flaws, including:
● Poor XML, Hex number handling
● Propogating bugs in MS-Office into the standard
● Proprietary units
● References to proprietary, confidential tags
● Internal Inconsistencies
● Unclear IP, Patent rights
● These slides list only a few, there are just too many
flaws
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 Flaws: Invalid Date calculations
● Treats 1900 as leap year – an old bug in Excel (as
per MS: Inherited from Lotus 1-2-3)
● This contradicts the Gregorian calendar, ISO 8601
and the civil calendar adopted by most nations of
the world.
● Gregorian Calendar says: Years divisible by 100
are leap years only if they are also divisible by 400,
which 1900 is not, clearly.
● Unacceptable to propagate ancient bugs into a
forward looking proposed standard.

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 Flaws: Invalid Date calc
● Please read
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2006/10/chernobyl-design-pattern.html for
more details
● MS claims that this is no problem.
● Well, this bug derails Malysia's history (calculation
of dates). Please refer to the following webpage for
an indepth analysis:
http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2007/06/malaysias_histo.html

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 Formula for failure
● let's take the trigonometric functions, SIN (Part 4,
Section 3.17.7.287), COS (Part 4, Section
3.17.7.50) and TAN (Part 4, Section 3.17.7.313).
OOXML - fails to state whether their arguments are
angle expressed as radians or degrees
● Same problem for the return value of the inverse
functions, ASIN (Part 4, Section 3.17.7.12), ACOS
(Part 4, Section 3.17.7.4), ATAN (Part 4, Section
3.17.7.14), and ATAN2 (Part 4, Section 3.17.7.15).
● It is hard to have interoperable versions of these
functions if the units are not specified.

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 Formula for failure
● The AVEDEV function (Part 4, Section 3.17.7.17)
should return the average deviation of a list of
values.
● However, the formula given for this function is
actually for calculating the number of combinations
of n things taken k at a time.
● But anyone using an OOXML spreadsheet
application that follows this standard will be
perplexed at the values returned by their AVEDEV
function.
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/07/formula-for-failure.html

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 Formula for failure
● The CONVERT function (Part 4, Section 3.17.7.48)
converts from one unit to another. Some
conversions explicitly allowed include liquid
measure conversions such as from liters to cups or
tablespoons. But whose cup and whose
tablespoon? Traditional liquid measures vary from
country to country.
● In the US, a cup is 8oz, except for FDA labeling
purposes when a cup is 240ml. But in Australia a
cup is 250ml and in the UK it is 285ml. Similarly a
tablespoon has various definitions. OOXML is
silent on what assumptions an application should
make.Certainly do not calculate medical doses!
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 OOXML contradicts ISO639
● ISO 639 is the set of ISO standards that lists short
codes for language names
● OOXML uses its own fixed list of numbers (ECMA
376 section 2.18.52 page 2530, ST_LangCode)
● Data interchange is affected when communicating
with non-MS software which are written to adhere
to standards
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004065.html

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 Conflicts ISO8632
● ISO/IEC 8632 is the ISO standard for computer
graphics metafiles: "2D graphical (pictorial)
information" consisting of "vector graphics", "raster
graphics", and "text" (NIST, 1998).
● OOXML recommends Windows Metafiles or
Enhanced Metafiles instead of using ISO/IEC 8632
or W3C SVG.
● WMF are Windows-only proprietary formats. They
are not approved .ISO standard
● Why use a proprietary standard when an
International standard exists?
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 Conflicts W3C SVG
● W3C SVG is the W3C standard "for describing
two-dimensional vector and mixed vector/raster
graphics in XML".
● Ecma 376 section 14 page 132, "DrawingML"
defines a vector drawing XML format in conflict with
the industry standard W3C SVG.
● Ecma 376 section 8.6.2 page 24, "VML", requires
support for another drawing XML format in conflict
with W3C SVG. Note that VML was proposed by
Microsoft as a W3C standard in 1998, but was
rejected in favour of SVG.
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 Conflicts W3C MathML
● MathML is the W3C standard for "describing
mathematical notation and capturing both its
structure and content".
● Ecma 376 section 7.1 "Math" (page 747) covers
mathematical expressions, and defines a format in
conflict and incompatible with the W3C
Recommendation MathML.
● Note: MathML is included in the ISO/IEC 26300
standard (OpenDocument Format) in section 12.5
"Mathematical Content". As a result, Ecma 376
conflicts with an ISO specification for mathematical
notation.
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 Hash and Encryption
● OOXML ignores ISO/IEC 10118-3, W3C XML-
ENC, and other cryptographic hash standards
● Ecma 376 ignores accepted standards for
cryptographic hashes and defies expert standards
for cryptography, by proposing its own hash
algorithms which are almost certainly flawed.
● Cryptography is a hard subject, algorithms &
implementations need to go through expert- and
peer-review to be considered safe for use.
● See what Bruce Schneier, well known security
expert has to say: http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9904.html
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 Hash, Encryption contd...
● ISO has chosen the "Whirlpool" algorithm as standard ISO
10118-3.
● The W3C, in its XML-ENC standard, includes a list of
algorithms: SHA1, SHA256, SHA512, RIPEMD-160.
● The European NESSIE project recommends: ISO 10118-3
("Whirlpool"), SHA-256, SHA-384 and SHA-512.
● In the USA, NIST recommends SHA1, SHA224, SHA256,
SHA384, and SHA512.
● Japan: CRYPTREC recommends: MD5, RIPEMD-160,
SHA1, SHA256, SHA384, and SHA512.

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 OOXML and Encryption
● Ecma 376 section 2.15.1.28 (page 1941) does not
follow the advice of any of these organizations.
Instead, it defines new hashing algorithms that
have not undergone scrutiny by the cryptographic
community.
● Section 2.15.1.28 (page 1941) defines one;
Sections 3.3.1.69 (page 2786) "protectedRange"
and 3.2.29 (page 2698) define another very similar
algorithm. Nowhere is there clear notification that
these algorithms are likely to be extremely flawed
and thus should not be used in new applications.

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 Conflicts W3C SMIL
● Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language,
SMIL is the W3C standard for "synchronized
multimedia presentation". As the Recommendation
states, with SMIL an author can:
– Describe the temporal behavior of the presentation.
– Describe the layout of the presentation on a screen.
– Associate hyperlinks with media objects.
● Ecma 376 section 4.4 "Animation" (page 565)
covers presentation animations (slide transitions),
in conflict with the W3C Recommendation SMIL.

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 Proprietary UoM
● ECMA376 Fabricates units of measurement
● Many attributes throughout the ECMA 376 spec
take values in "English Metric Units" (EMU). For
example, attributes of type ST_PositiveCoordinate
(5.1.12.42, page 4505) are measured in EMUs.
This is not a known unit in existing literature. It is
only defined inside a paragraph in section 5.9.2.1
page 655, so that "91440 EMUs/U.S. inch, 36000
EMUs/cm".
● Similarly, (2.18.105, page 1836 ) specifies
"twips"—twentieths of a point (1/1440th of an inch).
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 Internal inconsistencies
● The w:sz element is an example of major internal
inconsistencies in the specifications
measurements:
● For fonts, the w:sz element specifies the size in
half points (2.3.2.36, page 1013).
● For frameset, the w:sz element has a string value
that could be a relative value, a percentage, or a
number of pixels (2.15.2.39, page 2136). The
examples on page 2138 do not refer to w:sz at all.
● However, as the child of rPr (3.4.11, page 2846),
its value is in points.

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 Internal inconsistencies and omissions:
ST_Border
● Section 2.18.4 page 2414 lists numerous styles
such as apples, scaredCat, heebieJeebies, etc.
However, the specification does not fully define
these styles (e.g missing height, width, color-depth,
orientation).
● The style basicThinLine describes behavior for
horizontal, vertical and corner scenarios but many
styles (e.g babyRattle, balloonsHotair, etc) provide
no such details. The problem with this is that a
single style can be interpreted differently by
different vendors/implementors. Also, these styles
provide no generality.
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 Messes Up Hex numbers
● Confusing and inconsistent definitions of lengths
of hexadecimal numbers
● Ecma 376 uses confusing and inconsistent
definitions of values with hexadecimal numbers.
For example, section 2.18.52 page 2531,
ST_LangCode, is defined on the text as a "two digit
hexadecimal code". But the values given cannot be
represented by only two hexadecimal digits, but
needs four.

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 Flawed: Plain Text
● Unspecified terms exist for “plain text”
● Ecma 376 section 11.3.1 ((page 38) "Alternative
Format Import Part", allows content in "plain text".
The encoding for "plain text" is not specified (is it 7-
bit ASCII? ISO 8859-1? UTF-8?). As specified it
will not allow international interoperable use.
● This is serious problem since XML document
standards may be used by non-US -English
implementations

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 Poor XML
● Poor names and inconsistent naming conventions
for elements and attributes
● Ecma 376 contradicts the goals of XML which are:
– 6. XML documents should be human-legible and
reasonably clear.
– 10.Terseness in XML markup is of minimal importance.
● Instead, Ecma 376 often uses unclear names and
inconsistent naming conventions. These include
unnecessary vowel removals, name truncations,
and unusual abbreviations. See examples in next
slide:
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 Poor XML: Examples
● in VML (5.1.10.45, page 4413) "outerShdw (Outer
Shadow Effect)" has its second word devoid of
vowels. And yet its Child Elements and Attributes
have different naming conventions, e.g. scrgbClr,
algn, blurRad, dir, dist, rotWithShape
● in WordprocessingML (2.15.1.78, page 2020)
"settings(Document Settings)" has a large list of
Child Elements, and within that it has significant
contradictory naming conventions, e.g.
ActiveWritingStyle, attachedSchema,
documentType, docVars, endnotePr,
hdrShapeDefaults.
http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2007/01/ooxml_has_poor_.html
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 OOXML: Non-XML Codes
● In Section 2.16.5.79 page 2355 "XE" (full name not
defined) defines 'b', 'i' as bold and italic, which is
contrary to XML and CSS.
● Similarly for other sections in 2.16.5, such as
2.16.5.76–2.16.5.78 (p. 2353–2354), which define
"\* Caps", "\* FirstCap", "\* Lower", and "\* Upper"
to format the capitalization of preceding text.

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 Inflexible numbering format
● Section 2.18.66 page 2554, ST_NumberFormat,
Numbering Format for number lists (2.9.18 page
1581), footnotes (2.11.17 page 1645), endnotes
(2.11.18 page 1646), captions (2.15.1.16 page
1912) and Page numbers (2.6.12 page 1412).
● Fixed to a few countries. Many regions are not
included.
● Contradicts W3C XSLT which ISO 26300 uses.
● Contradicts Unicode ISO 10646.

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 Problems with %ages
● Inflexible notation for percentages
● Ecma 376 uses four inconsistent notations for
percentage units, at least one of which is
particularly inflexible:
● Section 2.18.85 (p. 2583) uses predefined symbols
(like "pct15" for 15%) in 5 or 2.5 percent
increments (which is inflexible and difficult to
process with standard XML tools, compared to a
generic number-valued field)
● Section 2.15.1.95 (p. 2053) uses a decimal number
giving the percentage
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 Problems with %ages
● (Section 2.18.97 (p. 2608) uses a number in 50ths
of a percent
● Section 5.1.12.41 (p. 4505) uses a number in
1000ths of a percent
● In contrast, for example, the W3C SVG and W3C
CSS standards both consistently use a single
notation—decimal percentages followed by the "%"
symbol—s described in section 7.10 of the W3C
SVG 1.1 specification and section 4.3.3 of the CSS
2.1 specification.

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 More Vendor specific stuff..
● Uses a Microsoft-specific namespace
● Section 6.2.3.23 page 5197 Attribute "href"
(Hyperlink Target) uses a Namespace
"urn:schemas.microsoft.com:office:office".
● An Ecma standard must not reference company-
specific namespaces. This should be replaced by
an Ecma namespace.

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 No Chinese Characters in URLs
● Another standard that Microsoft does not support,
is the RFC 3987 specification, which defines UTF-8
capable Internet addresses. Consequently,
OOXML does not support the use of Chinese
characters within a Web address.
● Will have a major impact for Singapore with
Chinese majority population

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 Problems for Muslim Countries
● Considerations for users in Israel and many Muslim
countries were excluded in the specification of
OOXML.
● For any locale, the function 'Networkdays()' will
always return Saturday and Sunday as the
weekend (fine for USA).
● However, this is wrong for Iraq, Algeria, Sudan,
Bahrain, Qatar, Bangladesh, Israel, Jordan, Libya,
Pakistan, Syria and the United Arab Emirates.
● ODF handles this correctly.

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 Proprietary Advantage
● Ecma 376 relies on undisclosed information
● Undisclosed proprietary specifications
● Section 6.2.3.17 "Embedded Object Alternate
Image Requests Types" (page 5679) requires
implementors to support the proprietary Windows
Metafiles.

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 Proprietary Stuff...
● Cloning the behaviour of proprietary applications
● Several sections require the implementor to clone
the behaviour of a proprietary product, where the
behaviour to clone is not specified. For example:
– Section 2.15.3.6 page 2161, autoSpaceLikeWord95.
– Section 2.15.3.26 page 2199, footnoteLayoutLikeWW8.
– Section 2.15.3.31 page 2209, lineWrapLikeWord6.
– Section 2.15.3.32 page 2210, mwSmallCaps.
– Section 2.15.3.41 page 2225, shapeLayoutLikeWW8.
– Section 2.15.3.51 page 2245, suppressTopSpacingWP.

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 Redefines Colours
● Emca 376 redefines standard color values
● Ecma 376 section 2.18.46 (page 2521) contradicts
the standard SVG Color Keyword Names's
hexadecimal RGB values for given color names.
● Color Name SVG Ecma 376
● Dark blue 00008B 000080
● Dark cyan 008B8B 008080
● Dark gray A9A9A9 808080
● Dark green 006400 008000
● Dark red 8B0000 800000
● Light gray D3D3D3 C0C0C0
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 Many Many Flaws
● Nonstandard, inflexible paper-size naming
● Ecma 376 uses bitmasks, inhibiting extensibility
and use of standard XML tools, cause validation
problems, conflicts with ECMA TC45 charter

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 ECMA376 / MS-OOXML
Procedural and Real World Problems

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 Don't Reinvent Wheels
● ISO/IEC 26300:2006 (OpenDocument Format
for Office Applications)
● ISO/IEC 26300 OpenDocument is the ISO/IEC
standard for office productivity applications. It
covers the functionality needed for text documents,
spreadsheets, drawings and presentations for office
applications.

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 OOXML vs ODF
● ODF is already an approved standard. MS, (if it
needs and willing) can enhance and contribute to
ODF instead of inventing another format
● How about having twenty HTTP standards? How
about having 10-different colour schemes for traffic
signals? Will the web and driving be the same
again?
● ODF is 600+ pages, since it reuses existing .ISO
standards
● OOXML is 6000+ pages, primarily due to
duplication of ISO/IEC standards with MS
proprietary formats
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 These Flaws are not serious
● OOXML supporters claim: Oh come-on, these are
meant for XML doc only, they will not cause much
harm...
● Similar thinking led to Y2K crisis with billions of
dollars lost and endless trouble for organizations

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 What About Innovation?
● MS claims OOXML will enable people to innovate
● My response:
– ODF also can “enable innovation”
– HTTP has enabled enormous innovation on the web, so
will ODF
– There are thousands of innovative electrical devices
working off the same lone 220v/50Hz standard
– One Standard, Many competing impementations are the
key to true Innovation

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 No Duplication
● I use the analogy of power supply. Having a single
standardized voltage and socket makes it easy for
designers, mfrs, users and PSB. What if SG had 3
different (one of them ambiguously defined)
voltage standards? Will there be chaos? Sure!
● MS counters that USA has 110V. So it is
acceptable to have multiple voltages
● My argument: MS argument is a strawman. Does
that fact make it easy or difficult for travellers?
Device manufacturers? Standards bodies?

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 No Duplication
● OOXML supporters can quote countless
duplication efforts and duplicate “standards” in
existence.
● But we are discussing about formats and standards
for the next 20-50 years, not propogating today's
and yesterday's problems into tomorrow. We are
working on cleaning up mess created by
unmanaged growth in the past

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 OOXML: Immature and Inconsistent
● Even in the limited time available for public review
of more than 6,000 pages, a large number of
inconsistencies and flaws have become apparent
in the ECMA 376 specification, in addition to the
major omissions and disregard for existing
standards described elsewhere in this document.
● Although any one of these flaws, taken
individually, is easily corrected, together they
demonstrate the undue haste and lack of care that
went into the rapid drafting of this proposed
standard.

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 A feat in speed...
● 6000 pages reviewed in 30 days @200pages /day?
- Amazing
● No thorough analysis exists except this:
http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections
● ECMA 376 was prepared hastily, with a calculated
page review/edit/approve rate approximately 20
times faster than other markup standards.
● Insufficient time was available for review of the
enormous specification; it was finalized by ECMA
on December 7 and submitted to JTC-1 less than
30 days later
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 MS Proprietary
● The work plan of the ECMA technical commitee
that developed ECMA 376 specifically required
compatibility with pre-existing proprietary file
formats of a single vendor (Microsoft) that are
incorporated by reference but whose specifications
are not available.
● This restriction, the unavailability of the
specifications for those (older) formats, and the
lack of suitable reference applications blocks
review and evaluation of ECMA 376's success in
achieving its core goal of compatibility with those
legacy binary file formats.
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 Fails Stability Test
● ISO/IEC JTC 1 Directives, Edition 5, Version 2.0
states that in relation to PAS submissions: "The
specification shall have had sufficient review over
an extended time period to characterise it as being
stable." (JTC1 Directives, Annex M The
Transposition of Publicly Available Specifications
into International Standards - A Management
Guide, M.7.4.1.3)
● Since the specification was submitted for fast-track
resolution almost immediately after its
development, and its development was behind
closed doors, this requirement has not been met.
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 More Objections
● Ecma 376 cannot be reasonably implemented by
other vendors
● Ecma 376 requires implementation of undisclosed
specifications
● The "compatibility with legacy formats" can only be
implemented by Microsoft
● Patent rights to implement the Ecma 376
specification have not been granted
● The Microsoft covenants not to sue grant no rights
● Microsoft licensing terms are ambiguous
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 Objections...(contd)
● End-User License Agreements (EULAs) may forbid
full implementation
● The Microsoft Open Specification Promise is
ambiguous
● many Microsoft legacy file formats are also
required by the specification to be implemented
and are "merely referenced." Rob Weir of IBM has
collected and referenced several such instances
and discussed them in the context of conflicting
provisions of the specification that both require and
forbid their implementation.
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/01/calling-captain-kirk.html
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● The Microsoft Covenant Not to Sue is irrelevant
and ambiguous in any event : No one should ever
be even threatened with a lawsuit for implementing
.ISO standard
● Ecma 376 is a vendor lock-in specification:
Adoption of Ecma 376 in its current state would
frustrate the ISO goal of "one standard, one test,
and one conformity assessment procedure
accepted everywhere.” Yet Microsoft's Alan Yates
has freely admitted that the primarily goal of Ecma
376's sponsor is to have two standards instead of
one
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20051215014700305

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 The Spanish Story
● Spain and OOXML:where the government of
Andalusia has now sent an official letter of protest
to the president of the technical committee
deciding whether or not to accept OOXML as an
ISO standard, denouncing what it called an attempt
by Microsoft to manipulate the process by
selectively quoting from a letter from the
Andalusian government back in January as if it
were an endorsement of OOXML as an ISO
standard today. That January letter, Andalusia
says, was not intended to indicate that it felt there
should be an acceptance of OOXML by the
technical committee.
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 No more chairs for you!
● From Portugal: We've seen now reports from Italy
and Portugal of what some are describing as a kind
of ballot-stuffing on the part of Microsoft and
supporters to get Ecma-376 approved as an ISO
standard.
● Both Sun and IBM were told there was no room for
them to join the committee in Portugal and so they
were not allowed to attend the July 16th meeting.
● Because there were no more chairs !
● As reported on groklaw.net

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 Portugal
● the meeting in Portugal to decide the fate of
OOXML as an ISO standard and Portuguese
National Standard was presided over by a
presentative from Microsoft, was attended by
Microsoft business partners and the decision
reached in the meeting was to adopt consensus for
any proposal even if there is a strong opposition!

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 While In India....
● From India: where the technical committee there is
still considering Ecma-376 issues.
● Read the enlightening Issue Sheet:
http://www.odfalliance.in/files/Issues%20sheet%20June%2030-with-
replies%20from%20Nagarjuna.pdf
● Economic Times reports:
(http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/MS_IBM_fight_to_own_office_
docs_heats_up/articleshow/2263811.cms)

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 While In India....
● ODF advocate IIT-Delhi assistant Prof P
Vigneshwara IIavarasan :
● ... confirms Sun Microsystems claims that a MS
Word document is not fully interoperable with Open
Office (by ODF) and hence not an open standard.
● A converter or translator has to be downloaded to
convert one format to another. Experts say that
adopting OOXML will make India locked into a
particular vendor.
● India decided unanimously to reject OOXML
(23/8/2007)
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 While In India....
● India decided unanimously to reject OOXML
(23/8/2007)
http://osindia.blogspot.com/2007/08/india-votes-no-against-ooxml.html

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 China...
● China has designed its own document format
“UDF” (some refer to it as UOF) Unified Office
Document Format
● "Microsoft's move to make its OOXML format the
international standard is an extension of its goal to
maintain its monopoly in the world's software
market," said Ni Guangnan, an academic from the
Chinese Academy of Engineering. "We are calling
on the government to veto the OOXML format at
the International Organization for Standardization
(ISO)."
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90778/6233604.html
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 China..
● Both Sun Micro and Microsoft have been trying to
woo China.
● But I would think UOF-ODF are more compatible
that UOF-OOXML. More over China could just
implement ODF with no issues on IP etc.

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 MS OOXML fails in USA
● On Friday July 13th, INCITS V1 met via
teleconference for 3 hours but failed to reach a 2/3
consensus necessary to recommend an "Approval,
with comments" position on Microsoft "Office Open
XML" (OOXML) document specification.
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/07/ooxml-fails-to-gain-
approval-in-us.html

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 High Pressure on TCs
● More troubling than the technical problems of OOXML is
the extent to which the standardization process is being
subverted to the favor of Microsoft. Rob Weir states in his
blog post that:
● An important factor in the V1 vote was the large number of
members who joined very late in the process. At the start
of the year, V1 had only 7 voting members. But by Friday's
meeting V1 had 26 voting members. There was a clear
pattern in the voting where the long-time V1 members
voted for the "Disapproval, with comments" position as
well as "Abstention, with comments" while the newer
members voted overwhelmingly "Yes, with comments" and
against "Abstention with comments." This is not surprising
since the new members were largely Microsoft business
partners.
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 In Italy...
● The voting in Italy was scheduled to end the 13 of
July, for members enrolled on or before 8th July.
● Strange things started to happen, not unlike other
member bodies' situations abroad. Up and until
mid-may the members of the relevant Uninfo
committee (JTC1) were five: IBM, Microsoft,
CEDEO (Leonardo Chiariglione), the PLIO
organization (Openoffice.org in Italy) and HP. Then
new members started flocking. At the last count,
voters were 83 [0].

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 In Italy
● Actually it is quite impressing seeing how the voting
panel was formed. Particularly noteworthy is the
fact that among those favouring the adoption of the
standard without reservation a large majority is
made of business partners of the proposing entity,
a law firm retained by the latter, the official certified
business partners association of the proposing
entity ...
● Ref:
http://www.piana.eu/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view
&id=52&Itemid=1

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 Swiss Experience
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-15521/swiss-cheese
Just yesterday I was sitting in the relevant meeting of
SNV/UK14 (http://www.snv.ch/), that decides how
Switzerland will vote. The chairman (Hans-Rudolf
Thomann) explained the following rules:
- we are here to create standards, not to reject them
- if we reach consensus (>=75%) to vote for Microsoft, we
will vote for Microsoft
- if we only reach a majority (>=50%) to vote for Microsoft,
we will vote for Microsoft
- if we reach a majority to vote against Microsoft, we will vote
for Microsoft
- if we reach consensus to vote against MS, we will abstain
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 Swiss Experience
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-15521/swiss-cheese
Quotes from the above webpage:
● The present spin doctors of Microsoft and ECMA managed
to convince Mr. Thomann to reject every serious technical
and general concern we had regarding OOMXL by
pointing to compatibility reasons. At the end we had a
majority _against_ Microsoft but which (giving the unfair
rules) results in a Swiss vote _for_ Microsoft.
● Mr. Thomann was fretting and fuming at the end of the
meeting how it can be that successful international
companies (we had representatives from IBM, Google, …)
vote against the best interest of their customers and
themselves!
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 Brazil to Vote Against
● After a very difficult and inconclusive meeting in
ABNT (Brazilian Technical Standards Organization)
office last tuesday, the standards process director
had to analyze the audio recording of all the
meeting, review some facts, review again all 63+2
comments produced by the technical group about
the ECMA specification, and conclude that a NO
for OOXML is the correct position for Brazil in ISO
Fast Track process.
● Brazil will fill the ISO form with a NO and will attach
the 63+2 technical comments to it.
http://avi.alkalay.net/2007/08/ooxml-brazil-says-no.html

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 So, How About ODF / ISO26300?

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 Gartner: 50 percent of governments and 20
percent of commercial organizations will
require ODF by 2010 (0.7
probability)
Ref:
http://www.gartner.com/resources/140100/140101/iso_approva
l_of_oasis_opendo_140101.pdf

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 Rumours, False “facts”
● Many rumours, false “facts” are being spread
against ODF.
● Some of them are:
– Accessibility (Handicapped people)
– Minority Market share
– ODF is immature
● We will debunk all of these in the next few slides

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 ODF Accepted
● JAPAN: Japan Interoperability Framework
recognized ODF
http://www.odfalliance.org/press/Release20070710.pdf
● NORWAY: recommends mandatory use of ODF, PDF
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?st
ory=20070513180219689

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 Malaysia: ODF Winning
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,62030781,00.htm
● The Malaysian government today announced plans to
adopt open standards and the Open Document Format
(ODF) within the country's public sector.
● MAMPU issued a tender for a nine-month study to
evaluate the usage of open standards in its info-comm
deployment. The study will also look into how the
Malaysian public sector should migrate to open standards
and the ODF, according to the Malaysia Open Source
Software Alliance (MOSSA).
● The country began looking at Open Standards in 2006,
which was on hold for a while due to intense lobbying by
MS (against ODF) and IBM (for ODF)
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 South Africa
http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=1641
● SABS (SA Bureau of Standards) will vote “NO” for
OOXML being accepted as ISO-standard
● TC voted 13-4 (no=13, 4=yes)

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 UN Call for adopting ODF
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39380446,00.htm (08-
Aug-2006)

● SINGAPORE-An official from the United Nations

(U.N.) has called for countries in the Asia-Pacific
region to embrace the OpenDocument format.
● Sunil Abraham, manager of the International Open
Source Network (IOSN) at the U.N., told ZDNet
Asia that most governments in the region have
already stated their support for open standards,
through their respective government
interoperability frameworks.

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 Handicapped Users
● The Adaptive Resource Technology Centre in
Toronto, Canada has published a Paper thoroughly
documenting the accessibility problems with
OOXML, while demolishing myths that OOXML
automatically facilitates Accessibility by
handicapped users:
http://atrc.utoronto.ca/index.php?option=com_content&sectio
nid=14&task=view&hidemainmenu=1&id=371
● The summary from ATRC follows:

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 Handicapped Users (contd...)
● There are grave issues with respect to the accessibility of
Office Open XML as a format and potential standard that
should preclude its adoption at present. It may be the case that
OOXML can be improved to ameliorate some of the more
specific technical concerns, but it is most likely too late for the
higher-level issues, especially those inherent in the process by
which OOXML was developed.
● We suggest that energy would be better spent in the ongoing
effort to improve the existing ISO ODF standard (with which
OOXML would overlap and compete if it is adopted). In any
event, decisions with respect to standardized document
formats should be made in consultation with members of
disability communities, disabilities experts and developers of
assistive technologies, with universal accessibility as a core
requirement as opposed to an ad hoc afterthought.
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 Handicapped Users
● Microsoft's acceptance of ODF will mean device
manufacturers and software writers will port or
write assistive technolgies for ODF and MS-Office.
● ODF will immediately gain superior assistive
technologies.
● Refusing to work with ISO26300 makes everyone's
work more complex.

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 Google and ODF
● Google will bundle Sun Microsystems' StarOffice
as part of “Google Pack” software offering
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2170958,00.asp
● Google needs no introduction, right?

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 ODF Alliance
● ODF Alliance is a vendor independent body
established to promote the adoption of ISO26300.
● 350+ members as of Dec2006 and growing
● Has published a guide to voting councils:
http://www.odfalliance.org/resources/JTCI%20Voting%20Guide
%20for%20National%20Bodies.pdf

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 Market Share
● MS and MS-supporters have been pressing the
point that MS-Office is used by 95% of the people
and hence ODF is irrelevant , OOXML must
become the next default format for the world
● I would like to debunk these claims

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 Market Share
● Roughly 80% of humanity has no access to
computer
● OLPC is expected to bring computing to those
underprivileged people – OLPC runs linux and
ODF will become the default here.
● The possibility / threat that ODF/OO will submerge
MSOffice exists
● Today's market share is no guarantee of retaining
the monopoly tomorrow (eg: Digital, compaq, Lotus
, Wordstar, dBase)

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 Market Share
● MS claims OOXML has 95% market share: Not
true .
● There are millions of Office95, Office 97 users who
cannot use MS-OOXML/ECMA376
● So the real market share of OOXML today are
really users of latest Office package – which could
be <5% of the total installed base!
● The 90+% market share is for ancient MSoffice
software, which may never be upgraded (esp.
since OpenOffice is free and can read/write
Office95/97 formats quite well)
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 Market Share
● Linux has a very healthy market share among
server OS and growing faster than all competitors
including MS (well known fact) – This fact
considers only paid copies of Linux.
● When free Linux (eg: Fedora , Debian , Ubuntu ,
openSuse, CentOS) are added, the market share
picture will change rather drastically.
● Linux users can and do install many copies from
the same CD . (eg: I have installed over 500
servers with CentOS) – None of them are counted
in any market share data. There are tens of
millions of such machines.
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 Linux is accelerating – All will use ODF!
● Extremadura-Spain 80000+, Munich (14000),
French Parliament
● Oracle, Novell, IBM, HP, Sun etc internal desktop
use (combined >100K desktops)
● OLPC (One laptop per child) – runs linux expected
deployment in 100s of millions
● Many large org standardizing on Linux eg: LIC India
, U of Delhi (5000), Elcot (TN, India) -40000
● Fedora reached download count of 1m in 74 days
● Ubuntu downloaded 8m+ (very conservative
estimate), ignoring mirrors and redistributions
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 Market Share
● All these desktops will run OpenOffice & ODF
● ODF/OpenOffice is available on all MinDef,
Singapore desktops alongside MSOffice
● About 100m downloads of OpenOffice
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Market_Share_Analysis
● From the above page, we can conclude ODF
market share is very large, approaching 100m,
probably more, and can only increase (OLPC)
● Being license-free software, exact counts are hard
to get, unlike MSOffice where each license is
counted and tracked
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 Market Share: ODF leads OOXML
● http://www.odf-eag.eu/odf-metrics
● Developers & Interested Parties at Aug 07 working
with:
– OOXML = 600 (Source: Microsoft July 31st [Brian Jones])
– ODF = 2.4mil (Source: Elance + SourceForge (Also includes some
OOXML Interop projects)
● Aug2007: Binary Files handled by ODF Found On
The Web:
– .doc, .xls, .ppt: 39m, 15m, 15m
– .xlxs, .pptx, .docs: 175, 732 and 964
– .odt, .ods, .odp: 92700, 21300 and 50500

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 Wide Support
● ODF is supported by IT industry giants:
– Sun, Google, IBM, Oracle, Redhat, Novell, UNDP-
APDIP OSN
– Just too many ! (Dec2006 : 350+)
● ODF Implemented by: KDE/KOffice, Google Inc,
OpenOffice, Staroffice, IBM Lotus workplace,
Zohowriter etc
● Converters exists for MS Office (sun, novell)

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 Summary and Conclusions
● I hope the previous slides and references provide
enough proof that ECMA376 / MS-OOXML does
not deserve to be accepted as a duplicate .ISO
standard and must be rejected

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 Resources
● ODF Alliance: http://www.odfalliance.org
● Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument_software
● GrokLaw: http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections
● Language Log:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004065.html

● OpenOffice: http://www.openoffice.org
● Standards News Portal: http://www.consortiuminfo.org/news/
● Open Malaysia: http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/
● Rob Weir: http://www.robweir.com/blog/
● Bob Sutor: http://www.sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/
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 Resources
● Jason Matusow's blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonmatusow/
● Jonathan (MS) blog: http://technologypolicyblog.com/default.aspx
● ODF/OpenOffice Marketshare Analysis:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Market_Share_Analysis
● ODF Metrics: http://www.odf-eag.eu/odf-metrics
● Standards Blog: http://www.consortiuminfo.org/

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● Change Log:
● Added Brazil and India deciding to vote No. 24-Aug-2007
● v1.4: expanded India, Added China, S.Africa, started this change log
● v1.3: corrections suggested by many people included, added google, expanded market share argument
● v1.2: Polished to submit to SG TC XMLWG
● v1.0, v1.1: My ancient draft

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 Misc Slides
● 9-Dec-2005 , David Berlind's interview with Ecma's
Secretarie General:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?page_id=2259
 Acknowledgements & Copying
● This material is based on my experience as well as material
collected from sites listed in “Resources” slide.

● This presentation can be redistributed as follows:

➢ No commercial re-distribution: eg, as part of a for-profit
CDROM or as part of your sales pitch. Seek my permission
first. Must not be used by a commercial company in any way
➢ Must attribute the document creator (Anand Vaidya).
➢ Share alike: If you use this document and enhance it or
modify, share the modifications or the modified document
with me & the world
➢ Which means I apply: Creative Commons License,
➢ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
 The End
● Thanks for your time. If you have any feedback, corrections
or questions please contact me: Anand Vaidya,
vaidya.anand@gmail.com

● This document was created with OpenOffice on Linux.