Bonum Certa Men Certa

EIF Scrutinised, ODF Evolves, and Microsoft's OOXML “Lies” Lead to Backlash from Danish Standards Committee

The Danish flag



Summary: Amid the fight against open standards, ODF 1.2 is coming and Microsoft is accused of “lying” about OOXML

GLYN Moody has published this additive post about EIF; check it out.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about what looked like a troubling move away from openness on the part of the European Union. Claims that the leaked European Interoperability Framework wasn't really a draft of version 2 were pretty unconvincing, and I have heard a rumour that the people involved may be starting to backpedal in the face of the outcry. So clearly there's some confusion about what's really happening in Europe in the area of openness.


IBM is the latest party to complain about what companies like Microsoft and/or their lobbyists did to EIF (other complaining parties were mentioned in [1, 2, 3, 4). At the time of proposals, IBM executives urged citizens to enter the arena and make submissions. Such action -- they believed -- would be beneficial to ODF, whose latest version is almost here. Rob Weir (IBM) writes:

A major milestone for ODF 1.2 was reached on Friday. Part 3 of ODF 1.2, which specifies document packaging (how a document's XML, images and metadata are combined into a single file and are optionally encrypted or signed), went out for a 60-day public review period. This public review period will run through January 12th, 2010. A public review is a necessary OASIS procedure before a Committee Draft can be approved as a Committee Specification and then as an OASIS Standard.


ODF is fortunately gaining ground in Denmark and following the OOXML corruptions we find Microsoft slammed by chair of the Danish Standards Committee:

DK: Chair of Denmark's standards committee: 'Microsoft is lying'



Mogens Kühn Pedersen, chair of the Danish Standards Committee, says Microsoft is lying when it says it will implement ISO OOXML in the next version of its suite of office applications.

On Saturday Pedersen accused the software vendor of lying, in an article by the Danish news site Business.dk, part of the newspaper Berlingske Tidene. Pedersen, professor of Informatics at the Copenhagen Business School, on Monday afternoon confirmed his statement: "I realise these are blunt remarks to make as chair of the committee, but when you advise the government you have to tell the truth."


For background on what Microsoft did in Denmark (for OOXML and against ODF), see:



Is OOXML off the menu in Denmark yet?

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