The head of Google's open-source programs on Monday urged international delegates to vote against certifying Office Open XML as an ISO standard, saying the Microsoft-led effort poses a risk to users who want unfettered access to documents.

There is a lot of discussion around the new Microsoft premise to offer freely documentation about its protocols and interfaces, and to not sue developers who use it to create code for non-commercial goals, even if they violate Microsoft patents. Some people think that this is done to avoid further pressure from the European Commission. It could be so - but there could be also a different rationale for it.

As I write this entry, hundreds of people from around the world are converging on Geneva, Switzerland. 120 will meet behind closed doors to hold the final collaborative discussions that will determine whether OOXML will become an ISO/IEC standard. When their work is complete, not everyone will be pleased with the changes agreed upon, but all will acknowledge that the specification that eventually emerges will be much improved from the version that was originally submitted to Ecma two years ago.

Nobody is buying it. Well. Employees, maybe. Microsoft is once again promising interoperability and adherence to standards, but its own version of each. Interoperability that is safe only for noncommercial software excludes Microsoft's number one competitor, Linux. It is noncommercial and commercial, depending on who is using it. So, right there it tells you that this is a promise to do nothing that matters.

The OOXML specification has been both criticized and defended by a number of people, leading many to wonder what the big deal is. This article illustrates the basis of technical, rather than political, objections to treating OOXML as a standard.

Now before you fire up your trusty keyboard to shoot me down in flames for suggesting this. I want you to think about the continuing challenges that Ubuntu (and Linux in general) face as they compete against Microsoft for a share of the desktop OS market.

Celeste Lyn Paul is Senior Interaction Architect for User-Centered Design, Inc., organizes the KDE Usability Project, and works with open source projects such as KDE, Linux Foundation, OpenUsability, and Ubuntu.