OOXML appeals "processed no further"

 

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By Matthew Sparkes

Posted on 11 Jul 2008 at 16:18

The International Standards Organisation (ISO) appears to have rejected the appeals of four countries to the approval of Microsoft's OOXML XML-based document standard.

"The appeals should not be processed further," states a document from the ISO, which leaked online today.

The governments of South Africa, India, Venezuela and Brazil all appealed the decision earlier this year by the ISO to ratify the OOXML standard under a fast track procedure, although detailed explanations of all four appeals didn't emerge.

Complaints at the time of the vote explained that the fast track procedure and its voting methods were muddled and confused.

Critics of the standard suggest that the format is not open enough, and that documents cannot be translated easily enough from it into other formats. However, the ratification of OOXML will enable Microsoft to win larger contracts.

Earlier in the year a UK Unix users group took the British Standard's Institution to court in an attempt to force the organisation to drop its support for OOXML, claiming that the organisation went from making 635 comments on the standard to openly supporting it without due consideration.