The open source community is in a celebratory mood. Last month, the ISO (International Organization for Standardization), struck down Microsoft’s efforts to acquire the status of a standard for its Office Open XML document (OOXML). With that, vendors who have long battled the software giant’s entrenchment of its proprietary software tasted sweet victory.

What’s more, many of the vendors who support Open Document Format (ODF), the open source community’s standard for office applications, feel vindicated that their concerns about Microsoft’s relentless pursuit in sanctifying its less-than-perfect document format are being addressed.

“OOXML is not a true open standard; there are lots of IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) issues which are not resolved,” says Jaijit Bhattacharya, director, government strategy, Sun Microsystems, referring to some of the common objections raised by ISO’s voting members. Bhattacharya says that Microsoft will take at least three to four years to sort out these issues. “None of the 26 binary formats used by Microsoft’s office software are published,” he points out. Sun, whose StarOffice is closely aligned with the ODF, has been a strong supporter of the open source movement.

Among those who opposed Microsoft’s move is the Indian government, represented by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). Bhattacharya says that BIS found more than 200 technical flaws with OOXML, of which 84 were finally submitted.

There is more to cheer for those in the ODF camp. Soon after Microsoft’s defeat was announced, IBM said it would provide 35 veteran programmers to the team currently working on the OpenOffice.org specifications, which incorporates the ODF. The ODF team, hampered by the lack of committed resources, will receive a shot in the arm with IBM’s decision.

Microsoft has been at loggerheads with IBM ever since the latter had pledged its support for the ODF cause. In a letter dated 14 February 2007 on inter-operability choice and XML, posted on its Web site, the software giant had declared, “The IBM-driven effort to force ODF on users through public procurement mandates is a further attempt to restrict choice.”

Quite expectedly, the Indian government’s decision to reject Microsoft’s agenda at ISO has been hailed by the open source movement in India. “The fact that OOXML was defeated in India indicates that Indian policymakers are well aware of the importance of open standards and one must give them due credit for this,” says Venkatesh Hariharan, co-founder, Open Source Foundation of India.

Microsoft’s failure to obtain standardization could affect the company when selling to the government, which is getting increasingly wary about using proprietary infrastructure. On price issues, open-source has generally held sway: Bhattacharya quotes an IIM (Indian Institute of Management) study which says that using open-source could reduce the Delhi government’s IT costs by around 78 percent. Now with the standardization decision going against it, Microsoft will have a tough task putting up a strong case.

The company hasn’t yet lost the battle though. In a press release soon after the decision, an ISO spokesperson said that comments which accompanied the votes will be discussed at a ballot resolution meeting to be organized in February 2008 in Geneva, Switzerland. “If the proposed modifications are such that national bodies then wish to withdraw their negative votes, and the acceptance criteria are then met, the standard may proceed to publication,” the release states.