Financial Times on MSOOXML
,----[ Quote ]
| Anyway, what is interesting about this, is that a substantial amount of
| information is based on my "Geneva, Day x" series, and the funny one
| on "Geneva, Day Zero" blog entry. Yeah, FT even featured the walkin' talkin'
| stalkin' Microsoft Malaysia Rep! Maija followed up on it, and it seems
| Microsoft's official reason for his attendance was "to provide technical
| assistance". Heh.
`----
http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/03/financial-times.html
Recent:
Probe into votes on Microsoft standard
,----[ Quote ]
| The European Commission is investigating the process under which a key
| Microsoft document format could be adopted as an industry standard - a move
| that would carry significant commercial benefits for the software company.
|
| Officials at the European Commission's competition directorate have written
| to members of the International Organisation for Standardisation, asking how
| they prepared for votes in September and later this month on acceptance of
| Microsoft's OOXML document format as a worldwide standard. Without ISO
| acceptance, Microsoft could stand to lose business, particularly with
| government clients, some of which are becoming increasingly keen to use only
| ISO-certified software.
|
| The ISO process has been widely criticised, however, with some members of
| national standards' bodies accusing Microsoft and its rivals of attempting to
| influence the vote.
|
| Tim Bray, a member of the Canadian national standards body, called the
| procedure "complete, utter, unadulterated bullshit" in a recent blog posting.
|
| [...]
|
| In addition, in several countries, a large number of Microsoft partners
| joined the national standards organisations just ahead of a vote on the issue
| in September.
|
| [...]
|
| Microsoft said it openly encouraged its partners to participate in the ISO
| process, but was not funding any third parties doing so. The company said it
| would cooperate with the European Commission's inquiry.
`----
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/88e570a2-ea56-11dc-b3c9-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
Related:
The Art of Being Mugged
,----[ Quote ]
| The four options presented were:
|
| * Option 1: Submitter's responses (Ecma's) are all automatically
| approved.
| * Option 2: Anything not discussed is not approved.
| * Option 3: Neutral third-party (ITTF) decides which Ecma responses are
| accepted
| * Option 4: Voting (approve + disapprove) must be at least 9 votes.
| Abstentions not counted.
|
| We were told that these options are not in the Directives and that were are
| given these choices because ITTF "needs to act in the best interests of the
| IEC". I don't quite get it, but there appears to be some concern over what
| the press would think if the BRM did not handle all of the comments. One NB
| requested to speak and asked, "I wonder what the press would think about
| arbitrarily changed procedures?". No response. I thought to myself, why
| wasn't ITTF thinking about the 'best interests" of JTC1 when they allowed a
| 6,045 page Fast Track submission, or ignored all those contradiction
| submissions, or decided to schedule a 5-day BRM to handle 3,522 NB comments.
| Isn't it a bit late to start worrying about what the press will think?
|
| We break for lunch.
|
| After lunch and after more discussion, the meeting adopted a variation of
| option 4, by removing the vote minimum. I believe in this vote the BRM and
| ITTF exceeded its authority and violated the consensus principles described
| in JTC1 Directives.
`----
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2008/03/art-of-being-mugged.html
Microsoft’s secretive standards orgs in Former Yugoslavia
,----[ Quote ]
| Croatian laws keep its national body’s votes secret, so the only way for the
| Croatian public to find out how the process went would be if a board member
| illegally leaked information out of CSI. This is, of course, unlikely to
| happen. And the Serbian national standardization body is not officially
| formed, so those two votes were easy for Microsoft, and probably not only
| ones around the globe.
`----
http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2007/092407-ooxml.html?page=1
Microsoft Tech Ed 2007: OpenXML
,----[ Quote ]
| He was asked "Why did Microsoft push OOXML through the "Fast Track" process
| instead of the standard ISO process? Wouldn't they get less resistance than
| faced now?"
|
| His response was very frank: "Office is a USD$10 billion revenue generator
| for the company. When ODF was made an ISO standard, Microsoft had to react
| quickly as certain governments have procurement policies which prefer ISO
| standards. Ecma and OASIS are 'international standards', but ISO is the
| international 'Gold Standard'. Microsoft therefore had to rush this standard
| through. Its a simple matter of commercial interests!"
`---- ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2007/09/microsoft-tech-.html
Tim Bray: "process was complete, utter, unadulterated bullshit"
,----[ Quote ]
| The Canadian BRM delegate Tim Bray strongly criticised the ISO process while
| he doesn't blame the BRM failure on ISO but on the vendor that used the ECMA
| proxy.
`----
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-44211/tim-bray:process-was-complete-utter-unadulterated-bullshit
Showdown in Geneva: OOXML Fails to Achieve Majority Approval at BRM
,----[ Quote ]
| Many, many, people around the world have tried very hard to make the OOXML
| adoption process work. It is very unfortunate that they were put to this
| predictably unsuccessful result through the self-interest of a single vendor
| taking advantage of a permissive process that was never intended to be abused
| in this fashion. It would be highly inappropriate to compound this error by
| approving a clearly unfinished specification in the voting period ahead. To
| paraphrase a former First Lady, it's time to "Just say No" to OOXML.
`----
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20080229055319727
OOXML Fails to Get Majority Approval at BRM - Updated 2Xs
,----[ Quote ]
| Andy Updegrove has the results in detail here, including a breakdown of the
| votes. Basically, there were too many proposed changes to be able to cover
| them in the BRM, so they tried a workaround, but the upshot is ... it's a
| mess. Oddly, despite the rules, Alex Brown, Updegrove reports, allowed non P
| countries to vote, but OOXML still couldn't get a majority of the delegations
| to back it at the BRM. Nor is it clear that allowing non P countries to vote
| is even legitimate. Now it's the 30-day voting period, but Updegrove asks, if
| they never could discuss all the issues, which is the purpose of a BRM,
| what's the basis for a vote? And with the vast majority either voting to
| abstain or even refusing to vote as a protest, I think one may conclude this
| proposal didn't belong on the fast track, and it isn't getting the kind of
| support you would have thought it might, given all the muscle that has gone
| into the push to get OOXML approved.
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080229124919217
Bureaucracy swamps ISO meeting on Microsoft format
,----[ Quote ]
| Instead, the ballot resolution meeting became bogged down in bureaucracy as
| the delegates struggled with more than a thousand points of order, as well as
| the 6,000 pages of code that define Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML)
| format.
`----
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN2923321820080229
Weak ISO support for changes to Open XML throws shadow over final approval
,----[ Quote ]
| A committee of ISO members in Geneva may have approved the proposed changes
| to Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) on Friday, but the document format's
| final approval remains far from certain.
`----
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9065958
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