Office Open XML- Document Standard – Danish Standards will change Danish vote
On behalf of Denmark, Danish Standards has decided to change the vote on ISO/IEC DIS 29500 OOXML. This implies that Danish Standards will closely follow the incorporation of the accepted Danish comments and changes into a final ISO/IEC standard
03|28|08
The proposal to adopt Office Open XML as an ISO/IEC standard has been a topic for consideration by the international standards bodies, ISO and IEC, since the beginning of 2007. Two major milestones were the Danish vote in September 2007 and the so-called ”Ballot Resolution Group meeting” in February 2008 in Geneva.
Original Danish vote
On the basis of a consensus assessment among the participating parties and the unanimous recommendation of the national standards committee, Danish Standards on behalf of Denmark submitted a vote of "Disapproval with comments" on the original draft. This meant that Danish Standards would seek to obtain approval of Office Open XML as an ISO/IEC standard, on condition that a number of comments were fully addressed.
During the entire process, the Danish strategy has focused on increasing the openness and interoperability of Office Open XML as a prerequisite for adopting the draft as an ISO/IEC standard.
Ballot Resolution Group meeting
At the Ballot Resolution Group meeting on 25 to 29 February in Geneva, the comments presented by Denmark and by all other national standards bodies were considered. The meeting was attended by a Danish delegation appointed by the Danish national standards committee. The Danish mandate was entrusted to the delegation.
During the meeting in Geneva, the delegation accepted that all Danish comments were adopted as changes to ISO/IEC DIS 29500 OOXML, however some modifications were presented at the meeting to the original Danish comments. The modifications were accepted by the delegation.
Subsequent recommendation of the committee
During the process, the cooperation of the committee has been very constructive, and the Danish activities have been based on the strategy of the committee to ensure maximum Danish influence.
After the Ballot Resolution Group meeting the committee was unable to reach consensus as to whether it was decided to incorporate all Danish comments into the final standard. Another point of disagreement was the state of maturity of ISO/IEC DIS 29500 OOXML as an ISO/IEC standard.
The final recommendation of the committee to Danish Standards does not provide consensus on a change of the original Danish vote. The committee has therefore requested Danish Standards to adopt a position on the basis of the technical work as decided by the committee.
Denmark's changed vote
Danish Standards can establish that the 168 Danish comments have been adopted as changes to ISO/IEC DIS 29500 OOXML. On this basis Danish Standards will change the Danish vote to one of "Approval". Danish Standards will closely follow the further process towards the preparation of a final standard and the incorporation of the Danish changes that were accepted.
The recommendation of the committee is available (in Danish) in its entirety here:
Endelig indstilling til DS fra S-142U-34 (417 KB).pdf