More than a year ago ECMA International handed over Office Open XML to ISO/IEC for ratification. During January and February 2007, a Danish committee was formed under Danish Standards and started working with the text of Open XML.

It hardly a secret that from the very first day the committees around the world was split in two camps. One camp who was generally against the ratification of Open XML (let’s call them A) and another camp who was generally positive about ratification of Open XML (let’s call them B).

A lot of politics were discussed back and forth between A and B in the committee in these early days, but again and again the Danish committee was politely reminded, by Danish Standards, that standardization is not about politics but about solid roll-up-your sleeves technical work. 

Finally A said: “Here is the problem. We don’t like this Triangle you have described for us; we want it to be a Square.”  

After some thinking B replied: “A Square? Are you sure? This could be done but it will require that we described this Square in great details and then it would require a lot of hard work by everyone to create the specification for such a Square. It will take 1000’s of hours work and massive coordination from people across the globe. If we together create this Square, will you then accept it?”

To this A replied: “Yes, we want the Square and we will bring forward the comments as to why the Triangle is no good and how to turn the Triangle into a Square.”

With this agreement, A and B went to work.  

They worked hard and long and sometimes even through the night. After many many months of hard technical engineering work A’s and B’s from around the globe met to discuss how to make the Triangle into a Square. They based the discussion in the meeting on all the work that had been done in the many many months prior to the meeting. Even during the meeting itself they came up with new changes and improvements to the description of the Square. At the very end of the meeting; 98,5 % of the work, that had been done in the many months ahead, was either accepted or further improved by everyone at the meeting. The A's and B's from around the globe went home to do the final work.

A couple of days ago the Danish committee met again.

At this meeting B said to A: “Dear A. Here is the Square that you asked for. It is a very good Square and it has lived up to all of your comments and asks. You have been part of all the work leading up to this point so of course you already know this. We understand that the Square can be made even better and we sincerely hope that you will continue your eager participating in the committee to make it even better. What do you say?”

You'll find what Danish Standards concluded from it all here.