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June 22, 2008

A little over two months ago, the Unix and Open Systems User Group (UKUUG) in the U.K. applied for a judicial review of the British Standards Institution's (BSI's) decision.

The move was intended to get votes in an international survey on whether to standardize Microsoft's Open Office XML (OOXML).

On June 5th, a High Court judge categorically rejected the application, but the UKUUG is now set to appeal that decision, claiming that unresolved flaws in the OOXML specification threaten the long-term readability of documents created using the format.

The international ballot took place March 29, under the auspices of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

OOXML won enough votes to be accepted as an ISO standard, but that process has now been stalled after four countries — South Africa, Brazil, Venezuela and India — appealed against the decision, claiming a flawed balloting process.

Furthermore, the UKUUG also says OOXML is unnecessary, given the existence of the OpenDocument Format (ODF), another XML-based international standard format.

In a statement, the UKUUG claimed Justice David Lloyd Jones was wrong to reject its challenge to the BSI, and said it was seeking donations to help it appeal against Lloyd Jones's decision.

The statement quotes Lloyd Jones as saying UKUUG's application "does not disclose any arguable breach of the procedures of BSI or of rules of procedural fairness", but it also quotes him as saying the application was "in any event-- academic-- in light of the adoption of the new standard by ISO".

"The UKUUG is greatly disappointed that Judge Jones appears to have overlooked UKUUG, stating that South Africa and other countries that are appealing had put OOXML into limbo," the statement read.

It went on to say "UKUUG is appealing the decision, since it believes that the judge was wrong in his reading of the papers. The matter will now be heard in open court."

A date has yet to be set for this hearing.

Source: U.K. Legal News.

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