Open Source Blog

What next for OOXML?
September 04, 2007

With the huge number of different stories being written about it, it's hard to know where the world stands with OOXML and what the next steps are.

You can rely on Andy Updegrove to explain the situation sensibly and calmly, however, and he's done a great job of outlining the situation over a couple of posts .

First came the excellent entry "The ISO/IEC Voting Process on OOXML Explained (and What Happens Next)" which explains the complicated procedure by which it will be decided if OOXML has been approved as an ISO standard.

Then came "If this were any other JTC1 Proposal, the OOXML Vote Would be Over Now" in which explained the impact that countries changing their status from Observer to Participating member status could have on the vote, and why he thought the last minute changes would mean failure anyway. It appears he was right.

Now he has expanded on that with "Forecast: ISO Will Announce on Tuesday that OOXML Approval has Failed" which is pretty self-explanatory, and includes his thoughts as to why the results so far are a vindication of the standards process.

Thank goodness he finished his holiday in time.

So what next? In short, Microsoft has some 10,000 comments to deal with ahead of he ballot resolution meeting in February.