Last week, Microsoft published the binary file formats for Office. These formats appear to be almost completely insane. The Excel 97-2003 file format is a 349 page PDF file. But wait, that’s not all there is to it!

ECMA, the international IT standards association, recently published its responses to comments of the ISO National Bodies in response to Microsoft's Office Open XML application for ISO standardization (the actual 2,293-page response is closed to the public). The ECMA proposals will be discussed at a Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM) in Geneva after which the National Bodies may reconsider their original vote. Microsoft's responses make clear that within one year, it will have four different OOXML specifications to implement and interoperate with, and each of those specs will be closed. Under no circumstances should such a flawed specification become an international standard.

Poorer countries more likely to vote for Microsoft format, says a new study from the Digital Standards Organization.

Norbert Bollow, founder of OpenISO.org, has just released the OpenISO.org Call For Participation for creating a "problem report" document about OOXML, that can help ISO/IEC national member bodies with evaluating whether the changes that will be decided at the OOXML "Ballot Resolution Meeting" (BRM) in February are sufficient to address OOXML's most serious problems.

This is the second chapter in a real-time eBook writing project I launched and explained last week. The following is one of a number of stage-setting chapters to follow. Comments, corrections and suggestions gratefully accepted. All Microsoft product names used below are registered trademarks of Microsoft.

The OpenDocument Foundation was formed in 2005, with the mission "to provide a conduit for funding and support for individual contributors to participate in ODF development" at the standards body OASIS.

Lots of goodness has been happening with the Open Document Format. Well, not the format itself, that has been an ISO standard for some time and that kind of implies it gets a bit boring. Fileformats being boring is, much like in governments, a good thing. Boring means stable. And we need a stable Foundation. (bonus points to the people that got the reference ;) )