Malaysia Standards Says Most of Their Technical Concerns Unresolved at BRM;
Fast Track Inappropriate
,----[ Quote ]
| They were there. And they contradict the stories being put out by those in
| charge and by Microsoft. They did *not* have the opportunity to have their
| concerns addressed totally. Malaysia voted to disapprove the undiscussed bulk
| dispositions, although they had earlier voted to approve some dispositions
| that were discussed.
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http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080304063417316
OOXML, Macros and Security
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| Finally, note that this lack of information on how to locate macros within a
| document makes it impossible for anyone to programmatically combine or divide
| OOXML documents which may contain macros. For example, imagine a 2-page
| spreadsheet, with a macro on sheet one only. How can it be split into two
| one-page documents, if there is no defined way to locate the script
| associated with page one? This is the type of automated composition and
| document manipulation that OOXML should be enabling. Similarly, how can one
| combine two single documents containing macros into one document, if there
| are no defined rules for locating and naming macros? Many basic types of
| applications,such as merging slide shows, etc., will break in the presence of
| macros.
|
| The above topic was of interest to several NB's in Geneva, but could not be
| discussed for lack of time at the BRM.
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http://www.robweir.com/blog/2008/03/ooxml-macros-and-security.html
Lack of time. Quickly, quickly! Fast track!! Maybe no-one will notice.
Related:
The Art of Being Mugged
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| 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
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| 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!"
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http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2007/09/microsoft-tech-.html
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