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Back in June last year I posted an entry on this blog titled “My way or the highway…” at the time I was exploring the parallels (or lack of them) between the way that we “debate” as a technology community and the way that ministerial and other senior policy makers deal with ambiguity. I was reminded of that post today as I watched the discussion around the implementation of ODF spreadsheet formulas play out on various blogs.

For anybody who has not been following the discussion, you will find a neatly potted history by reading over a few of those posts. Rob Weir’s post on formula interoperability appeared within a few hours of SP2 being released, Doug Mahugh expanded the conversation by outlining how we got to where we are, and PSC’s John Head has a very balanced post titled “And in this corner…” that brings a much needed element of reality back to the conversation.

One of the few press articles I have seen on the subject comes from Victoria Ho at ZDNet Asia.

Finally my colleague Gray Knowlton posted overnight, questioning the motives of the ODF co-chair in this discussion. Personally I don’t agree with Gray’s conclusions or suggested changes, but I do wholeheartedly agree with the premise of his post.

I’ll explain.

I’ve now spent the best part of two decades working with standards organizations, if there is one word I have heard more than any other during that time it is “consensus”. It is in the spirit of consensus that things get done, agreements are made, compromises are reached and standards are developed and published. The standards professionals that I have met are a unique breed of people, often managing to take dramatically different points of view and find middle ground that meets the majority of the goals carried by those participating in the discussion.

At this point my experience of the discussion around ODF is pretty unique when I compare it to many of the other conversations that I find myself involved in that relate to standards development. On the whole standards development and implementation is full of champions, people looking for consensus around complex issues and demonstrating positive support for the standard or technology that they’re passionate about.

The conversation around formula implementation in Office 2007 SP2’s ODS documents epitomizes the one hurdle that I see as a potential stumbling block for ODF’s overall long term success. Bill Gates once joked that many of our competitors were so focused on competing with Microsoft that they were forgetting to innovate and improve their own products – sitting here in Microsoft and watching the debates around our implementation of  ODF I can see some parallels there.

To succeed ODF needs it champions, I know they are out there, I’ve met a few of them, for what it is worth (and contrary to Gray’s view) I believe IBM’s Rob Weir is one of them – on a good day.

I’m pretty sure that some of the louder voices in the ODF community today are helping corporate compete with corporate, I’m not convinced that the broad implementation and success of ODF itself is at the heart of those conversations – it needs to be.