One reader is suggesting that there might now be 5 (formal appeals against OOXML); Germany's DIN jumps in to the debate also

The OOXML specification has been both criticized and defended by a number of people, leading many to wonder what the big deal is. This article illustrates the basis of technical, rather than political, objections to treating OOXML as a standard.

Now that Microsoft's attempt to ramrod its semi-open OOXML standard through the ISO standards body has fallen short, writes Bernard Golden, what happens next? Strangely, he says, Microsoft appears to be soft-pedaling its own standard.

It's all over the news today that OOXML will probably be approved as an ISO standard this week. Plenty of links to the coverage in this discussion on Slashdot. As is now common with OOXML, there are also reports of hair-raising irregularities in the voting processes of various countries.

Rob Weir has documented an incredibly simple, telling and fascinatingly descriptive demonstration of exactly why OOXML is such utter crap and should never become a standard in its current format. He shows how a simple formatting rule looks when saved using OOXML or ODF* based applications.

"Even though the JTC1 ballot closes on September 2 on Microsoft’s product description for Microsoft Office, namely OOXML or DIS 29500, this will not become an ISO/IEC standard in 2007."

I shall not complain that much about what happened with OOXML. In fact, the act of standardizing OOXML has not really brought any significant advantages to OOXML. ODF is an ISO standard and so is OOXML.

Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) document format, which was technically approved in April as an international standard (ISO/IEC 29500), may be on its way toward surviving an appeals process -- the last challenge to its legitimacy as a standard.

OOXML might never catch on like its similar predecessor; Italy does ODF