This document details a number of current, unresolved, technical concerns with DIS 29500 (OOXML) that persist in the specification even after the Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM) in Geneva during the week of February 25th, 2008. While this is not an exhaustive list of outstanding concerns, the following highlight the unsuitability of DIS 29500 for Fast Track consideration. As a whole these unresolved concerns support Oracle’s position that National Bodies should not approve DIS 29500. Instead, National Bodies should request that Ecma and Microsoft take advantage of the normal JTC-1 standards development process for OOXML, given the level of market interest in open and interoperable XML-based document formats.

1) No Mapping of Binary Formats to OOXML
Microsoft claims this issue was resolved by the BRM, but the Ecma proposals responding to comments on binary mapping that passed the paper ballot refused to provide this mapping. No other application supporting OOXML will be able to faithfully or fully recreate the look of Microsoft’s legacy binary documents. Although the binary Office document specifications have been posted by Microsoft, no standardized mappings were offered during the BRM, as requested by the US, United Kingdom, Brazil, and Malaysia, among others. Binary mappings explain how to translate a binary document into OOXML, or provide standardized guidance on how to “represent faithfully” legacy documents. Without standardized mappings, the same binary document source document will produce different OOXML documents in Microsoft Office, Apple iWork, OpenOffice.org, etc., breaking interoperability and preventing the realization of OOXML’s stated goal of preserving legacy documents.

2) Major Changes to XML Schemas
There were several major changes to the XML schemas. These changes were often only partially referenced in Ecma’s proposed dispositions. The current version of the draft standard has three copies of the XML schemas describing the various markup languages that comprise OOXML: Normative XML fragments in the run of the text (to be moved into an appendix), full schemas listed at the end of the Markup Part, and annexes containing copies of the schemas. All of the schemas were duplicated in order to create a strict and transitional schema for each document type (word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation).

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