There has been much discussion in the free software community and in the press about the inadequacy of Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) as a standard, including good analysis of some of the shortcomings of Microsoft's Open Specification Promise (OSP), a promise that is supposed to protect projects from patent risk.

Coming on the heels of its April 28, 2009 release of Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 ("SP 2"), Microsoft has added several versions of the OpenDocument Format standard ("ODF")to its list of specifications covered by the Microsoft Open Specification Promise ("MOSP").

It looks like the OpenID Authentication 2.0 specification has finally been released, along with OpenID Attribute Exchange 1.0. While there are some questionable features in the new specification (namely XRIs), it seems like a worthwhile improvement over the previous specification. It will be interesting to see how quickly the new specification gains adoption.

While this is certainly an important milestone, there are still areas for improvement.

FSF: Last week, Microsoft extended the terms of their Community Promise to implementations of the ECMA 334 and 335 standards. You might think this means it's safe to write your software in C#. However, this promise is full of loopholes, and it's nowhere near enough to make C# safe.

Microsoft irrevocably promises not to assert any Microsoft Necessary Claims against you as an open source software developer ("You") for making, using, importing, or distributing any implementation of a Covered Specification ("Covered Implementation"), subject to the following.

I have not seen any official document summarising the outcome of the OOXML seminar at UNSW last year. However, the main thing that I have heard unofficially in relation to the open specification promise is that pains were taken to compare its wording to the wording of similar promises made by IBM.

Microsoft’s position is hardening as the ISO vote on OOXML (DIS 29500) in Geneva approaches at the end of this month. We know more clearly now how Microsoft and its proxy group, ECMA, will position Microsoft’s OOXML specification in advance of the vote. In short, Microsoft is betting that its influence with National Bodies will allow it to push through a specification which elevates its own interests over that of truly competitive, open international standards. In the end, it will be Microsoft’s own inflexibility that will be its undoing, and that undoing means knocking the OOXML out of approval for ISO status.

The OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) TC has officially and unanimously approved ODF 1.2 as a Committee Specification. The new version of the standard has taken four years to complete and has been adopted by many applications already. Next stage is the official vote within OASIS to adopt this specification as an OASIS standard.

Last week, Microsoft extended the terms of their Community Promise to implementations of the ECMA 334 and 335 standards. You might think this means it's safe to write your software in C#. However, this promise is full of loopholes, and it's nowhere near enough to make C# safe.