Document Exchange – EU Commission explains how they slapped their citizens in the face

A controversial document has been published by the European Commission DG informatics:

Inter-Institutional Committee for Informatics: Conclusions on document exchange formats following the discussion on office automation platforms

“The minimum requirement is to support XML-based revisable document formats standardised by the International Organization for Standardization, namely:
– Open Document Format for Office Applications, or ODF (ISO/IEC
26300:2006).
– Office Open XML, or OOXML (ISO/IEC 29500:2008).”

further

“2.2. As far as revisable document formats are concerned, XML-based international standards are the preferred approach. Given the fact that:
– on the one hand, OOXML is much more widely used than ODF at the moment, and this situation is not likely to evolve in the foreseeable future; and
– on the other hand, all the Institutions plan to migrate to office automation platforms which will produce XML files natively while providing 100% native support for legacy formats such as Office 2003, the preferred document exchange among the Institutions is OOXML.”

It seems to me the Commission had good reasons to keep this offensive document confidential for so long. Many persons I know are simply outraged when they think back at the OOXML standardization process.

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