Looking back on OOXML: SC 34 Recommends ISO “Reforms”

November 23, 2008 by Andy Updegrove |

Although much of the brouhaha of the OOXML adoption process has abated, the post-partum process of reviewing how SC 34 gave birth to IS 29500 continues. SC 34 is the committee in ISO/IEC that adopted both ODF and OOXML. SC 34 continues to hold meetings in which a variety of related matters are being considered, including the ongoing maintenance of each standard, and whether and how the Directives that control the deliberations of JTC1 committees might profitably be amended to address the concerns that arose during the consideration of these two overlapping document format standards.

Most recently, SC 34 met in Nara, Japan to review these weighty matters. As has been the case in the past, a variety of those directly involved in the ODF/OOXML saga wrote about the results of this latest meeting, including three bloggers who attended the Ballot Resolution Meeting that served as the climax of the OOXML adoptive process: Alex Brown, Rick Jelliffe and Tim Bray (only Alex was present at the Nara meeting). I did not attend the gathering in Nara, but I have read the recommendations made at that meeting (as well as Alex’s, Rick’s and Tim’s commentaries on them), and ruminated a bit on the recommendations and the events that inspired them. Here is my own sense of what others have also observed, and I don’t particularly like what I see.

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  • Andy Updegrove

    Andy Updegrove

    Andy Updegrove is a partner and founder of Gesmer Updegrove LLP, a Boston-based technology law firm, and has represented and helped structure more than 80 worldwide standard setting, open source, promotional and advocacy consortia over the past 20 years. He has also represented hundreds of both emerging as well as established technology companies, and is the founder and editor of both the popular website http://www.consortiuminfo.org and the widely-read Standards Blog

  • Karen Copenhaver

    Karen Copenhaver

    Karen Copenhaver is a partner in Choate, Hall & Stewart LLP ‘s Business & Technology practice focusing on technology transfer and licensing of intellectual property with a specific emphasis on open source business models. Most recently, Copenhaver was executive vice president and general counsel at Black Duck Software, Inc.