A Microsoft 'standard' is like icecream... it comes in many flavours

Spotted yesterday:

Another thing that should be reminded is that having to spend so much time on details because OOXML is poorly designed is just the tip of the iceberg. The reality is that we already have two OOXML variants, and two more are coming when Office 2009 ships.

• OOXML 1.0 (i.e. ECMA 376 today)
• Office 2007 (i.e. OOXML 1.0 + all undocumented bits + all fixes)
• OOXML 1.1 (whatever is the outcome of Feb’s BRM)
• Office 2009 (OOXML 1.1 + undocumented bits)

Implementors will have to implement all 4 or will be unable to open an arbitrary document based on this thing called “OOXML”.

Biased? Inaccurate? Microsoft apparently wishes to agree with Stephane.

"It’s hard for Microsoft to commit to what comes out of Ecma [the European standards group that has already OK’d OOXML] in the coming years, because we don’t know what direction they will take the formats. We’ll of course stay active and propose changes based on where we want to go with Office 14. At the end of the day, though, the other Ecma members could decide to take the spec in a completely different direction. … Since it’s not guaranteed, it would be hard for us to make any sort of official statement."

--Brian Jones, Microsoft

Nice self-nuke there, coming from no mouth other than that of the manager. It joins several other of Microsoft's greatest hits, including Doug Mahugh's frank explanation of OOXML:

"It’s a Simple Matter of [Microsoft’s] Commercial Interests!"

--Doug Mahugh on OOXML