Naming DIS 29500: The current name of DIS 29500, Office Open XML is seriously misleading in several respects. First, it is not a document format based on XML but rather an XML representation of a legacy document format with particular processing semantics. Second, reference should not be made to commercial products and clearly “Office” in the title of this proposal is meant as a reference to Microsoft Office. Lastly, the proposal is no more or less open than any other ISO proposal and so “Open” is meaningless in this context.
It is suggested that a new name be chosen for the proposal that reflects its goal of representing and continuing a legacy document format as represented in XML. Such a name should not carry an implied reference to a Microsoft product nor should it use the term “open.” One possible name would be: Legacy Document Formats Represented in XML. The principles developed from this effort might well prove effective for other legacy document formats that should be represented in XML.
DIS 29500
ed/te
Proposed Disposition of DIS 29500 Comment US-0270 (Modified: 2008-01-11) Based on the wide industry support of DIS 29500 (see list of implementations below) and the volume of public discussion which references “OOXML” or “Open XML”, we believe there is no confusion regarding what “Ecma Office Open XML file format” identifies, nor is there confusion that “Ecma Office Open XML File Format” overlaps with the existing product “OpenOffice.org.” Further, “Office Open XML” or “OOXML” accurately convey several aspects of DIS 29500. The use of the word “Office” acknowledges DIS 29500’s role as a format designed to represent a large corpus of existing “Office documents”, the word “Open” conveys that this format is an open standard to be used by multiple tools and on multiple platforms, and the word “XML” indicates accurately that DIS 29500 is an XML-based document format. We acknowledge that there may have been some confusion early-on in the process, but, more importantly, that the industry and user community is now largely using “OpenDocument”, “ODF”, “OOXML” or “Open XML” to refer, without confusion, to specific formats. For these reasons, we believe the name “Ecma Office Open XML File Formats” (or “IS 29500:2008 Information technology — Office Open XML File Formats v1.0″ if the standard was to be approved) is appropriate and should not be changed. A growing number of implementations of ECMA-376 are becoming available, including those released by Apple (Mac OS X Leopard, iWork 08, iPhone), Adobe (InDesign), Microsoft (Office 2007, Office 2003, Office XP, Office 2000, Office 2008 Mac OS X), Novell (Suse Open Office) , Google (Search / Preview), Mindjet (MindManager), Intergen, OpenXML/ODF Translator (Open Source project on Sourceforge), Dataviz (DocumentsToGo on Palm OS, MacLinkPlus on Mac OS X Leopard), NeoOffice, Altova (XMLSpy), MarkLogic (XML Content Server), Datawatch (Monarch Pro), QuickOffice (QuickOffice Premier 5.0 on Symbian), Altsoft (XML2PDF Server 2007) and those under development by Corel (WordPerfect), AbiWord, Gnome (GNumeric), Xandros, Linspire, Turbolinux and others. These implementations are now available on many platforms, including Linux, the Macintosh, Windows, and handheld devices (PalmOS, Symbian, Windows Mobile). Note that our response to comments DK-0055 and FR-0034 is to agree to change occurrences of “Open XML” to “Office Open XML”. Similar Comments: AU-0004 , CA-0003 , CL-0216 , GB-0001 , IN-0069 , IR-0055 , KE-0070 , US-0167 , ZA-0002
I’d describe this as a Wrecking Amendment, as it asks for a renaming of the whole proposal. So categorized.
I don’t understand why it “wrecks”. It is just the request for a neutral naming. Sounds pretty reasonable to me.
The “Office” term is rightly requested to be removed, since it’s a reference to the Microsoft Office product. However, the “Open” part can stay (if it’s in ODF, it should also be in OOXML).
I think this is more fluff than wrecking amendment…
It’s not a technical comment, I thought that put it out of the scope of these comments and the BRM. (Are there provisions for NBs to object for nontechnical reasons like this?)
I don’t think it’s a wrecking amendment, there’s no technical reason it couldn’t be JustFixed. Maybe fluff, or new category for non-technical.
ISO uses “DIS29500″ specifically to allow such renaming. The current label, “OOXML” not only causes confusion, but it does so on a purpose. Purposefully causing confusion may be a legal if sleazy marketing tactic, but it should be avoided at all costs in standards.
Doable and justified. Certainly not a Wrecking Amendment — although unlike Just Fix It it would have to be argued for.