Standards and communications

I have tried to follow the discussion about the standardization of the Microsoft Office Open XML document format, or ECMA-376:2006 or ISO/IEC DIS 29500. The fast track process is in the final stage, with the national bodies voting on the approval of the modified specs which came out of the Ballot Resolution Meeting in Geneva.

I have been reading many blogs, which seem to be the preferred communication tool for both parties: those for the approval and those against the approval. Using a handy feature of Google Reader, I have tried to collect all the posts which have been written on the subject since the start of the BRM.

If I were a “normal” user trying to understand if there was something positive for me in the standardization process, I would have probably given up after a few days. I think that it is almost impossible to get a clear picture of what has happened, what is happening and what will happen. Communications, unfortunately, does not seem to be the primary concern of all the people that have been writing on this subject.

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