OOXML (Open Office Extensible Markup Language), Microsoft's answer to ODF (Open Document Format) has been in the news lately because Microsoft has been trying to fast-track it through standards commitees so they can get it approved by various governmental agencies as a supported standard.

Here are some links to articles of interest concerning OOXML and ODF:

ANSI INCITS V1 committee fails to recommend OOXML

Massachusetts considering OOXML

Massachusetts approves OOXML

Patent threat looms large over OOXML

Can other vendors successfully implement OOXML? This article highlights the sort of problems OOXML has as a standard, saying that in fact only Microsoft can implement OOXML because it is not a fully specified standard.

ZDNET report of Massachusetts adopting ODF in 2005

Inteview with former Massachusetts CIO about ODF, Microsoft, and IT

California considering adopting open document formats

Texas and Minnesota considering ODF

Brazil says NO to ratifying OOXML as ISO standard

India will vote NO for OOXML at September 2007 meeting of the ISO From the article : US will abstain; China: no; Malaysia, Denmark, Switzerland: yes; Canada, Czech Republic, Iran, Japan, Libya, Cuba, New Zealand, UK: probably no; Belgium, Finland, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Singapore, Korea, France and Australia: probably abstain (but see above Brazil); 123 countries are participating in the vote.

What comes after September 2?

Those who are curious about what OOXML is may download the standard from ECMA. This is not light reading; it is in five parts:

Part 1: Fundamentals                   165 pages
Part 2: Open Packaging Conventions     125 pages
Part 3: Primer                         466 pages
Part 4: Markup Language Reference     5756 pages
Page 5: Markup Compatibility and Extensibility        34 pages

In contrast, the ODF specification weighs in at less than 800 pages. This is about the same size as the combination of HTML and CSS2 specs.