ISO Rejects Microsoft Office Open XML Format
The International Standardization Organization, ISO, has announced that Microsoft's Office-Open-XML format (OOXML) has failed in preliminary voting.
A total of 103 member states within the organization were asked to cast their votes by September 2, and the results are now available: 53 percent of all votes cast were in favor of accepting Microsoft's draft as an ISO standard, 26 rejected the application, as the ISO confirms. For the draft submitted as ISO/IEC DIS 29500 to proceed through the standardization process, the approval of two thirds of all countries eligible to vote would have been necessary, with less than 25 percent of opposing votes.
Microsoft submitted its proprietary XML format for standardization in December 2006, accompanied by 6000 pages of documentation. Following the approval of the free Open Document Format ODF as an ISO standard in May 2006, this was the second office application format whose standardization was decided at international level.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
Cairo Dock 3.6 Now Available for More Compositors
If you're a fan of third-party desktop docks, then the latest release of Cairo Dock with Wayland support is for you.
-
System76 Unleashes Pop!_OS 24.04 Beta
System76's first beta of Pop!_OS 24.04 is an impressive feat.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 is Available
Linus Torvalds has announced that the latest kernel has been released with plenty of core improvements and even more hardware support.
-
Kali Linux 2025.3 Released with New Hacking Tools
If you're a Kali Linux fan, you'll be glad to know that the third release of this famous pen-testing distribution is now available with updates for key components.
-
Zorin OS 18 Beta Available for Testing
The latest release from the team behind Zorin OS is ready for public testing, and it includes plenty of improvements to make it more powerful, user-friendly, and productive.
-
Fedora Linux 43 Beta Now Available for Testing
Fedora Linux 43 Beta ships with Gnome 49 and KDE Plasma 6.4 (and other goodies).
-
USB4 Maintainer Leaves Intel
Michael Jamet, one of the primary maintainers of USB4 and Thunderbolt drivers, has left Intel, leaving a gaping hole for the Linux community to deal with.
-
Budgie 10.9.3 Now Available
The latest version of this elegant and configurable Linux desktop aligns with changes in Gnome 49.
-
KDE Linux Alpha Available for Daring Users
It's official, KDE Linux has arrived, but it's not quite ready for prime time.
-
AMD Initiates Graphics Driver Updates for Linux Kernel 6.18
This new AMD update focuses on power management, display handling, and hardware support for Radeon GPUs.