Oliver Bell’s weblog

The work with Open XML over the last year has been enlightening in several respects. One of the strangest things I have encountered is how much the conversation about Ecma-376 changes depending upon the environment that I happen to be in, and how little relationship there is between the different modes in which I encounter Open XML.

I’ll give you some examples;

Scenario #1 - Discussing Open XML with Developers and ISVs.There are already a wide array of developers doing work with Open XML today, some building document related apps and others using the custom schema capability to build a wide range of business integration tools. Conversations with these folks tend to be technical, generally very focused on how to just get on with using the existing spec from Ecma. I’ve talked about a few of them in earlier posts on this blog, and there is a lot more work underway in the region.

Scenario #2 - Discussing Open XML with various standards experts and some of the national bodies. As the Regional Technology Officer for Microsoft in Asia I have been a member of conversations in various countries as Open XML slowly progresses through the steps at ISO. Generally I get involved in helping our local teams answer technical or process questions. These conversations are always pretty clear cut, the process of standardization seems to be well understood and everybody seems to know exactly what the rules are and where we are in that process. I have learned over the last year that if I have a question about the ISO process then the definitive source for information is most likely a member of staff of one of the regional national standards bodies.

Scenario #3 - Discussing Open XML in various Internet forums. Frankly as you might expect this varies, the ISO process is a complex one and without the experience of being directly involved some of the terms and modes within which the organization operates can be confusing and appear to be open to some interpretation. The Internet is a place where you can shout and scream, have a bunch of fun doing it and probably meet some like-minded friends along the way. The conversations on blogs, on /. and a number of other forums are generally quite constructive with some obvious (yet still very entertaining) exceptions.

Over the year I’ve gained a great deal of respect for individuals that I’ve worked with in all three of these scenarios, frequently gaining a lot from every conversation.

I have learned that there are clearly experts in all three of these domains, but as I have also said the conversations in each generally seem to head off down different routes and rarely have any direct relationship to each other, beyond the common thread of Open XML.

Now for the part where it starts to become an out of body experience. Every now and again I stumble across events where somebody who has direct experience in one of these scenarios decides to say or post something in another forum that just does not add up given the direct experience or expertise that they have. 

A couple of examples from the last week. Here is somebody who was pretty complementary after his direct experience of the work Microsoft was doing in one of the national standards bodies technical committee meetings here in the region who now appears to have decided that what he has read on the Internet is more likely to be the truth than his own experience. Second is a post from Rob Weir (IBM) a couple of days ago that relates to Ecma’s proposal for the maintenance of Open XML when given his experience I have to assume that he knows full well that the proposal is much more robust than the management of some other document standards, on the same basis I also have to guess that he also knows that a proposal is a proposal and it’s a pretty smart way to begin a conversation.

In some cases there are deep philosophical differences with Microsoft, and I can respect and understand that, as a company we need to prove our intentions which I sincerely hope we will be given a chance to do. In other cases, I have to guess that it is just good fun to make things up and post them on the net to see how much havoc you can cause. Flamebait anyone?

I have been on holiday most of this week so have not really been keeping as close an eye as I could be on happenings in and around the world of technology.

One thing I am curious about is who won the Kayak award, and I can’t find an answer as of yet.

To explain, the owners of the web site nooxml.org worked very hard to rally a community to oppose the ratification of Open XML over the last seven months, and as part of their recruitment efforts they offered a cash prize of 2,500 euros to the team that could cause the most disruption to the process in their given country, the winner gets the cash along with the opportunity to present the details of their hard work at the FFII conference in November.

As yet I’ve not seen who the winner is, I guess we will know very soon now as it is almost conference time.

If you know who the lucky winner is of this 2,500 Euro cash prize please let me know, the suspense is killing me!

I’m also a little curious about where the money for the prize came from, but I guess that has nothing to do with me really, so I will probably never know.