OSIA opposes Endorsement of OOXML as an ISO standard

Submitted on Wed, 01/08/2007 - 9:00am

Brendan Scott, on behalf of Open Source Industry Australia Ltd made this submission to Standards Australia on the matter of endorsing ISO

OSIA suggests that Standards Australia should not support endorsement of the OOXML format as an ISO Standard at this time. OSIA believes endorsement of OOXML as an ISO Standard would create a number of issues including:

(a) the large number of existing contradictions and criticisms of the format are so numerous and are sufficiently serious to warrant rejection;
(b) endorsement will create confusion among Australian consumers of office applications;
(c) endorsement will result in legal issues under s 52 of the Trade Practices Act for Australian businesses making representations about such an endorsement;
(d) endorsement will be unfair to potential implementers;
(e) endorsement will disadvantage Australian vendors; and
(f) endorsement would place Standards Australia in a difficult position.

In addition, to the extent the existence of translators may be argued to alleviate any of these issues, the format is redundant and should be rejected for that reason.

OSIA endorses the issues raised with OOXML by:

(a) the documents referenced at http://www.noooxml.org/arguments under the headings:

(b) the paper 'When is a standard not a standard?' by Edward Macnaughten available from: http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/node/2110;

(c) each of the issues listed at http://www.noooxml.org/ including in respect of:

  • 1900 bug;
  • Muslims;
  • Patents;
  • Accessibility;
  • Global relevance;
  • User needs;
  • Open Standards;
  • Conversion Issues;
  • Rice Pudding; and
  • Tiny Adoption;

For the full submission - download the PDF below. (PDF - 354 KB)


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OSIA-standardsaustralia- 30Jul2007.pdf354.43 KB