Re: [ITPOLITIK] Høringsvar til Dansk Standard vedr. ISO og OOXML

[Jan Trøjgaard <sslug@sslug>]

Martin Schlander wrote:

> Dansk Standard er blandt de ca. 30 nationale standardiseringsorganer der
> skal afgøre hvorvidt OOXML skal ISO-certificeres. De kører høring frem til
> 2/7.
> 
> Høringssvar skal afleveres på engelsk i en skabelon i et *.doc.
> 
> Jeg har skrevet et udkast som nok er lidt af en tynd kop te, men hvis
> nogen vil læse 6000 sider og komme med sidehenvisninger og konkrete
> ændringsforslag skal de være meget velkomne.
> 
> -----------
> 
> We believe OOXML should not be ISO-certified at all. There's already an
> ISO-standard for document formats. Having two different standards with
> huge overlaps goes against the whole idea of standardization. Doing so
> could damage the credibility of ISO as well as Dansk Standard assuming
> they voted in favour of it.
> 
> Of course the feature set of the formats are not completely identical, but
> it would be better to expand existing standards than to create new ones
> everytime someone needs some feature.
> 
> ISO is a very respected and influential organization. Having two
> ISO-standards for office documtents would effectively mean that all
> developers of office software would have to implement both standards to
> compete in the market place. This would lead to a big waste of resources,
> bad for businesses and more expensive and complex for customers than
> having just one standard. It would also be imbalanced and favour large
> vendors. Having two different ISO-standards would most likely lead to more
> interoperability problems than having only one.
> 
> The market share of Microsoft Office is not a viable argument either. At
> least two gratis 
Gratis = free of charge (Hvis det kun er et spørgsmål om pris. Det går jeg
ud fra)

> plugins that provide ODF-support exist already ? and 
> nothing is stopping Microsoft from implementing native support for the
> existing ISO standard in the field.
> 
> Besides the above points of why two duplicate standards is a bad idea,
> there are a number of reasons why OOXML is a bad format in itself. If an
> ISO certification should happen at least these problems should be
> adressed.
> 
> - The sheer size of the specification is a problem. This complexity means
> it'll be very difficult to implement properly ? perhaps impossible. And
> again it will favour large vendors over smaller ones.
> 
> - The specification has numerous undocumented sections which is well
> known. Apparently for reasons of backwards compatibilty. We must insist
> that these sections be fully documented.
> 
> - OOXML specifies it's own standards instead of re-using existing
> standards, for example wrt. handling calendaring, dates and Mathematical
> Markup Language (MathML). Leading to unnecessary complexity.
> 
> - The best argument for it seems to be the promised backwards
> compatibility
> with existing binary Microsoft document formats, but even this  backwards
> compatibility is questionable.
> 
> -----------
> 
> Hvis man er interesseret i at se formularen som den ser ud pt. kan den
> findes her:
> http://suse.linuxin.dk/sslug-iso-svar.doc
> 
> Her er en howto til at udfylde formularen, jeg synes ikke det 100%
> selvindlysende:
>
http://suse.linuxin.dk/Template_for_comments_and_secretariat_observations_-_User_Guide.pdf
> 
> Her er DS' oplæg til høringen:
> http://www.ds.dk/3654
> 
> Happy feedbackin'
Godt gået, dog et enkelt ord der ikke er oversat.

Med venlig hilsen
Jan Trøjgaard