OOXML: So what *should* happen now?

[Jonathan Robie <jonathan.robie@redhat.com>]

OOXML didn't make it in the first round balloting for fast track 
acceptance. What should happen now?

As far as I can tell, everyone agrees that OOXML is a Good Thing, and 
giving it clear intellectual property rights is a Good Thing. I think 
there is some disagreement as to whether it should be a standard, and if 
so, whether fast track processes are appropriate.

 From discussion so far, I think I see (at least) the following points 
of view:

1. OOXML should be accepted as a standard in the second fast track 
ballot once the technical comments are addressed. I think proponents of 
this view believe either (a) that any company or group that proposes 
such a standard should have it accepted (Rick Jeliffe has argued this), 
or (b) OOXML represents a broader consortium of software vendors than 
just Microsoft and it's partners, and we need an interchange format like 
this.

2. OOXML should be standardized, but not through a fast track process. 
The formats should be allowed to change to meet the needs of a broader 
group of users and vendors. I think proponents of this view believe that 
a single vendor should not have as much control over a standard as 
Microsoft has had over OOXML, and that standards should be accepted "as 
is" only when the players in a given market have worked together to 
produce something that represents industry agreement, such as

3. Microsoft should simply publish OOXML, providing clear IPR 
statements, and possibly setting up a community process for further 
developing the format. I think proponents of this view believe that 
Microsoft wants to open up their formats, but is unlikely to want the 
broader community to strongly influence the formats themselves, which 
Microsoft would like some control over.


Related to this: what role should ODF play as a standard? Here are some 
opinions I've heard:

4. ODF should be the ISO standard for office formats. I think that 
proponents of this view believe that ODF can represent any OOXML 
document, with modest effort to support things like spreadsheet formulas 
that are not well supported at present. (Some OOXML supporters say that 
ODF represents office documents, but OOXML represents enterprise office 
documents. The main example given to illustrate the difference seems to 
be having a representation for spreadsheet formulas - is there more to 
this, or am I missing something?)

5. ODF may have been adopted as a standard, but it's pretty much irrelevant.

Thoughts?

Jonathan