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OOXML Reaffirmed, ISO/IEC Reject Appeals
8/18/2008
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The boards of the ISO and IEC standards bodies Friday rejected the appeals of four participating members (Brazil, India, South Africa, and Venezuela) that had questioned the process by which Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) document format specification was approved as an international standard, called "ISO/IEC 29500."
Questions arose about whether participating members had sufficient time to see the final revisions to the spec, and even if members saw the final revisions before voting on it. However, the ruling had been anticipated.
Without elaboration, ISO/IEC said in a press release that the claims of the four participating members had not convinced the board members.
"None of the appeals from Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela received the support for further processing of two-thirds of the members of the ISO Technical Management Board and IEC Standardization Management Board, as required by ISO/IEC rules governing the work of their joint technical committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology."
The decision clears the way for ISO/IEC 29500 to be published as a standard "in the next few weeks," the statement added, with some preconditions.
"This is expected to take place within the next few weeks on completion of final processing of the document, and subject to no further appeals against the decision."
Microsoft expressed satisfaction with the process in a statement issued by e-mail.
"An unprecedented number of National Bodies engaged collaboratively and constructively in the Open XML standardization process, with 61 countries voting to approve Open XML as an international standard (IS 29500).," the statement said. "We look forward to IS 29500 being published and we will continue to support the ISO/IEC process in every way that we can."
Microsoft had originally shepherded its XML-based document format spec used in Office 2007 through the ECMA standards body. ECMA approved the spec as ECMA 376 and then forwarded it to ISO/IEC, proposing it as a candidate to become an international standard. ISO/IEC then put the spec, called DIS 29500, on a fast-track process toward becoming an international standard.
In April, ISO/IEC announced that DIS 29500 was formally approved. Under ISO Joint Technical Committee rules, appeals are allowed, during which time the standard isn't published.
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