Submission + - Microsoft deprecating some OOXML functionality (fanaticattack.com)
christian.einfeldt writes: "According to open standards advocate Russell Ossendryver, Microsoft will be deprecating certain functionality in its Microsoft Office Open XML specification. Ossendryver says the move is an attempt to quiet critics of the specification in the run up to the crucial February vote as to whether Microsoft OOXML will be included as a second standard for e-documents, along with the existing ODF ISO standard. ECMA, the Microsoft-led industry standards group formally offering OOXML to ISO, confirms in a 21 December 2007 announcement that issues related to the "leap year bug", VML, compatibility settings such as "AutoSpaceLikeWord95" and others will be "extracted from the main specification and relocated to an independent annex in DIS 29500 for deprecated functionality." Ossendryver is not convinced that deprecation will work, calling the deprecation proposal a 'smoke screen' and a 'bomb disguised as a standard' because 'every application will need to support the deprecated features in order to read files with the deprecated features.' Ossendryver also points out that legacy formatted Microsoft Office documents will still remain non-standard under the new proposal for deprecation."
