OOXML: An Anglo-Saxon Specification that ignores Muslims

http://www.noooxml.org/muslims

The OOXML specification, for spreadsheet applications like Excel 2007,
ignores the fact that the week-end is not Saturday and Sunday in the
Arab world, other Muslims countries as Islamic Republic of Iran and
Indonesia, and indeed countries as Israel:

     An example of a concern is the spreadsheet function
NETWORKDAYS()25. This function is defined by OOXML to return the number
of working days between two dates, exclusive of any weekends in that
interval. For some cultures, the weekend is Saturday and Sunday. For
others, the days of rest are either Thursday/Friday or Friday/Saturday.
OOXML does not define "weekend" and does not provid a way for the user
to define it either. As implemented in Excel the function assumes the
weekend is always Saturday/Sunday. This spreadsheet function is defined
in a way which renders an incorrect answer for potentially billions of
people across the globe. OOXML lacks cultural adaptability. Compare this
to the same function in OpenDocument Format, where the user may pass in
an additional parameter to override the default definition of a weekend.
     24 Part 4, Section 4.7.1
     25 Part 4, Section 3.17.7.224"

http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/07/formula-for-failure.html

     The NETWORKDAYS function (Part 4, Section 3.17.7.344) seems simple
enough. It returns the number of workdays (non weekend days) between two
dates. Simple enough. Unless you live in the Middle East. The problem is
that this function doesn't provide a facility for distinguishing the
different weekend conventions. I may have a weekend on Saturday &
Sunday, but a colleague in Tel-Aviv might have off Friday and Saturday,
while in Cairo it might be Thursday and Friday. This function lacks the
adaptability to deal with this important cultural difference. Saying
that the definition of the weekend is implementation- or
locale-dependent won't work either. I may be a French company in Paris
dealing with contractors in Algeria. I need to have a French spreadsheet
calculate schedules for workers at various locations and be able to
exchange it with others offices using other OOXML applications and
expect that they will get the same answer. Lacking cultural
adaptability, OOXML fails approximately a billion people here.

Concerned countries that are members of ISO are the following:

    1. Saudi Arabia (week-end is Friday and Saturday)
    2. Iraq (week-end is Friday and Saturday)
    3. Iran (week-end is Thursday and Friday)
    4. Algeria (week-end is Thursday and Friday)
    5. Sudan (week-end is Friday)
    6. Bahrain (call your embassy)
    7. Qatar (week-end is Friday and Saturday)
    8. Bangladesh (week-end is Friday and Saturday)
    9. Israel (week-end is Friday and Saturday)
   10. Jordan (week-end is Thursday and Friday)
   11. Libya (week-end is friday only)
   12. Pakistan (week-end is only on Sunday)
   13. Syria (week-end is either Thursday and Friday, or Friday and
Saturday)
   14. United Arab Emirates (week-end is on Thursday afternoon and Friday)
   15. Kuwait (weekend is Thursday and Friday OR Friday only and 1/2
work day on thursday)
   16. (please, advice us any other country…)

The JTC1 Directives, 5th Edition, Version 3.0, Section 1.2 mentions:

     "A purpose of IT standardization is to ensure that products
available in the marketplace have characteristics of interoperability,
portability and cultural and linguistic adaptability. Therefore,
standards which are developed shall reflect the requirements of the
following Common Strategic Characteristics:

         * Interoperability;
         * Portability;
         * Cultural and linguistic adaptability."

One more problem concerning Muslim countries is that most part of them
doesn't use the Latin characters in their documents, but the Arabic and
Farsi (Persian) ones. Regarding this, OOXML has a serious problem since
is not able to represent any link to an URL that is not using
exclusively Latin characters. So all Arabic and Farsi URLs are excluded
by OOXML.

Forwarded via
--
Frederick Noronha  Journalist http://fn.goa-india.org
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