OOXML: from Russia with love?
On Thursday, a letter from an organization opposing the adoption of the Microsoft Office Open XML file format (MSOOXML) as an international ISO standard fell into my mailbox. The history of this format has been going on for many months, passing the peaks and troughs of active development. The latest rise in popularity of the topic happened when Microsoft failed to convince the ISO to approve OOXML at the September 2 vote after the FastTrack procedure passed with a squeak. This procedure is usually used to recognize the already de facto universally accepted industrial standards, in the detailed consideration of which the bureaucracy does not need. The initially controversial decision to launch this procedure with respect to frankly raw OOXML led, admittedly, to a natural outcome. But Microsoft does not give up : the final fate of OOXML will be decided by the conference, which will be held February 25-29 in Geneva.
Since September, the entertaining effect of the persistence of the Redmond corporation has manifested itself: the Third World countries, attracted to the ISO committee by some “invisible power”, voted very vividly in an important vote for Microsoft. However, they didn’t seem to be going to take part in other work of the committee, which practically paralyzed him.
Russia, on the way to September, behaved outwardly almost imperceptibly. However, she voted "for" without a single remark. Why did it happen, who is responsible for it and who decides how the country will vote in February? This is what I tried to find out.
A rather short series of calls to GOST officials, whose contacts can be found on the Rostechregulirovaniye website, led me to a conversation with Askold Nikolayevich Pyavchenko, deputy director of the FSUE Scientific Research Institute for Quality and the chairman of the Technical Committee of the 22 GOST involved in IT.
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The role of the committee is to discuss professionally the proposed specifications for standardization and to make its conclusions on them for the persons in charge of Rostechreguli. Thus, without taking a final decision in reviewing the draft standard, TK-22 should provide all the necessary materials for an unambiguous yes / no decision or recommend further discussion. In this case, GOST may postpone the adoption of an internal standard or abstain from voting on international standards. “Abstain” ( English “abstain” ) - the same manifestation of their attitude, like approval or disapproval, designed to sift out “raw” projects.
According to Askold Nikolaevich, such a TK-22 conclusion would have been issued before the vote in September, if he had been informed of the need for a decision. However, no interest from the management of Rostekhregulirovania was shown, despite the rather active work of the OOXML project committee (ISO / IEC DIS 29500 in the official classification). On it, seminars were held at the Faculty of VMIK MSU with the participation of representatives of Microsoft, a subcommittee of 12 "serious scientists in electronic document management" worked. “It’s not serious to think that in such a short time such a voluminous document can be studied,” notes Mr. Pyavchenko of the OOXML 6,500-page specification, which has become famous for its size.
Today, the committee is still in its opinion: the discussion of the DIS 29500 must continue. “A lot of” obvious remarks have already been accumulated, until the elimination of which, talking about voting on it is simply meaningless. The Russian offices of Microsoft and IBM acting as an implacable opponent for this issue agree to take further part in the seminars.
At the same time, Askold Nikolaevich notes that ODF, in comparison with a respected PDF, deserves much more detailed discussion than what it was before it was adopted as an ISO standard. To him, TC also has a lot of comments. At the same time, he believes that the question of competition between OOXML and ODF "is not a matter of principle." “OOXML,” he says, “is needed as a commercial product that is well integrated into Microsoft’s popular commercial office suite.” And adds that "the main thing is that there are no obstacles to the use of third-party packages and third-party formats."
On the question of who will represent our country in Geneva and who will bring the arguments of our specialists to ISO, Mr. Pyavchenko remarked with a smile that these would be those who have money for such foreign business trips, and more specifically, representatives of local offices IBM and Microsoft. For the answer to the same question, I wanted to turn to the person who made the decision to vote “for” on behalf of Rostechregulirovanie at the September vote - to the deputy head of department, Yevgeny Robertovich Petrosyan.
However, as it turned out, “catching” Mr. Petrosyan on a work phone is not so simple: either an urgent meeting of the government, or he is not sitting at the table where the telephone is on and, correspondingly, cannot pick up the phone.
At the end of September, one of the participants of the OpenNet forum under the nickname Alexandr still achieved a conversation with this high official. Then Evgeny Robertovich said that by voting “for” OOXML, he was guided by concern for progress: TK-22 did not recommend voting “against”, and abstaining from voting would stop progress, he said.
The whole story is enveloped in a steady fog of politics and backstage arrangements. There is almost no doubt that in February Russia will again say “yes”, and there is almost no doubt that this will be “yes” of Rostekhregulirovaniya officials, and not specialists who have studied the draft standard ...
Since September, the entertaining effect of the persistence of the Redmond corporation has manifested itself: the Third World countries, attracted to the ISO committee by some “invisible power”, voted very vividly in an important vote for Microsoft. However, they didn’t seem to be going to take part in other work of the committee, which practically paralyzed him.
Russia, on the way to September, behaved outwardly almost imperceptibly. However, she voted "for" without a single remark. Why did it happen, who is responsible for it and who decides how the country will vote in February? This is what I tried to find out.
A rather short series of calls to GOST officials, whose contacts can be found on the Rostechregulirovaniye website, led me to a conversation with Askold Nikolayevich Pyavchenko, deputy director of the FSUE Scientific Research Institute for Quality and the chairman of the Technical Committee of the 22 GOST involved in IT.
')
The role of the committee is to discuss professionally the proposed specifications for standardization and to make its conclusions on them for the persons in charge of Rostechreguli. Thus, without taking a final decision in reviewing the draft standard, TK-22 should provide all the necessary materials for an unambiguous yes / no decision or recommend further discussion. In this case, GOST may postpone the adoption of an internal standard or abstain from voting on international standards. “Abstain” ( English “abstain” ) - the same manifestation of their attitude, like approval or disapproval, designed to sift out “raw” projects.
According to Askold Nikolaevich, such a TK-22 conclusion would have been issued before the vote in September, if he had been informed of the need for a decision. However, no interest from the management of Rostekhregulirovania was shown, despite the rather active work of the OOXML project committee (ISO / IEC DIS 29500 in the official classification). On it, seminars were held at the Faculty of VMIK MSU with the participation of representatives of Microsoft, a subcommittee of 12 "serious scientists in electronic document management" worked. “It’s not serious to think that in such a short time such a voluminous document can be studied,” notes Mr. Pyavchenko of the OOXML 6,500-page specification, which has become famous for its size.
Today, the committee is still in its opinion: the discussion of the DIS 29500 must continue. “A lot of” obvious remarks have already been accumulated, until the elimination of which, talking about voting on it is simply meaningless. The Russian offices of Microsoft and IBM acting as an implacable opponent for this issue agree to take further part in the seminars.
At the same time, Askold Nikolaevich notes that ODF, in comparison with a respected PDF, deserves much more detailed discussion than what it was before it was adopted as an ISO standard. To him, TC also has a lot of comments. At the same time, he believes that the question of competition between OOXML and ODF "is not a matter of principle." “OOXML,” he says, “is needed as a commercial product that is well integrated into Microsoft’s popular commercial office suite.” And adds that "the main thing is that there are no obstacles to the use of third-party packages and third-party formats."
On the question of who will represent our country in Geneva and who will bring the arguments of our specialists to ISO, Mr. Pyavchenko remarked with a smile that these would be those who have money for such foreign business trips, and more specifically, representatives of local offices IBM and Microsoft. For the answer to the same question, I wanted to turn to the person who made the decision to vote “for” on behalf of Rostechregulirovanie at the September vote - to the deputy head of department, Yevgeny Robertovich Petrosyan.
However, as it turned out, “catching” Mr. Petrosyan on a work phone is not so simple: either an urgent meeting of the government, or he is not sitting at the table where the telephone is on and, correspondingly, cannot pick up the phone.
At the end of September, one of the participants of the OpenNet forum under the nickname Alexandr still achieved a conversation with this high official. Then Evgeny Robertovich said that by voting “for” OOXML, he was guided by concern for progress: TK-22 did not recommend voting “against”, and abstaining from voting would stop progress, he said.
The whole story is enveloped in a steady fog of politics and backstage arrangements. There is almost no doubt that in February Russia will again say “yes”, and there is almost no doubt that this will be “yes” of Rostekhregulirovaniya officials, and not specialists who have studied the draft standard ...
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/17337/
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