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The Final OOXML Update: Part II
,----[ Quote ]
| Curiously, NBs were asked to make their final
| decision without actually seeing the text of the
| standard they were being asked to approve. ISO
| leadership denied requests from several NBs, a
| formal SC34 resolution requesting this text, as well
| as NB appeals, all which asked to have access to the
| "final DIS" text that would eventually be published.
| The ISO chief, in his response to the NB appeals,
| called the final text of OOXML "irrelevant"
| (prophetic words, indeed!) and would only permit NBs
| to have access to a list of over 1,000 resolutions
| from the BRM, many of which gave great editing
| discretion to the Microsoft consultant who would
| eventually produce the final text of the
| specification.
|
| I discussed why the lack of a final DIS text was a
| problem back in May 2008:
|
| We are currently approaching a two month period
| where NB's can lodge an appeal against OOXML.
| Ordinarily, one of the grounds for appeal would
| be if the Project Editor did not faithfully
| carry out the editing instructions approved at
| the BRM. For example, if he failed to make
| approved changes, made changes that were not
| authorized, or introduced new errors when
| applying the approved changes. But with no final
| DIS text, the NB's are unable to make any
| appeals on those grounds. By delaying the
| release of the final DIS text, JTC1 is
| preventing NB's from exercising their rights.
|
| Would you make thousands of changes to code and then
| not allow anyone to test it, and then release it
| internationally? Of course not. Doing so would
| amount to professional malpractice. But that is
| essentially what ISO did with OOXML.
`----
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/10/final-ooxml-update-part-ii.html
Recent:
OpenXML: Who fooled who ?
,----[ Quote ]
| They also defined the coordinator of the BRM,
| Alex Brown (who also played a crucial role in
| the outcome of OpenXML, but thatâs subject for
| another post, because I didnât revealed yet all
| I saw in Geneva), and he publishes on his blog a
| FAQ with the rules of the BRM. This FAQ also
| circulated as an official ISO document, and can
| be found here.
|
| Look what is written in this document:
|
| 4.1 Will IPR issues be discussed at the BRM?
|
| No. IPR issues in this process are the
| exclusive preserve of the ITTF. IPR
| decisions have previously been delegated by
| all the ISO and IEC members (NBs) to the
| CEOs of IEC and ISO, and they in turn have
| examined them and found no outstanding
| problems. NBs seeking reassurance in such
| matters must pursue them through other
| avenues than the BRM.
|
| In other words, the CEOs of ISO and IEC (the
| highest authorities of the two entities) had
| assessed the intellectual property issues on
| OpenXML and found nothing, so no committee
| around the world have to worry about the issueâ
| I remember that Iâve asked about it few times,
| and the answer was always the same: âKid, you
| are doubting the CEOs of ISO and IEC ?ââ but
| what about the i4i litigation ?
|
| [...]
|
| Most of the ECMA delegates I know are Microsoft
| employees or business partners of the company.
| This staff can be anything but âuninformedâ and
| therefore I canât believe that ECMA didnât know
| the litigation too.
|
| So, I change the question asked by Groklaw
| almost two months ago for a more direct one: Who
| fooled who?
|
| We all know that all NBs was fooled, that the
| countries have seen their names used in an
| unscrupulous way and that all delegates and
| competent technicians has been fooled too.
|
| I really hope to hear something from the cited
| parties cited, and I believe that all
| International Society expect the same. We no
| longer live in a world where a nonsense fact
| like this can be accepted, and Iâll not stop
| until I find an answer (and I know Iâm not alone
| in this quest).
|
| I also would like to know from the ISO/IEC what
| they have to say about all this. They knew the
| i4i litigation ?
|
| To finalize, I appeal again to CEOs of ISO and
| IEC: The G-20 is a reality, and itâs never too
| late to correct an injustice !
`----
http://homembit.com/2009/10/openxml-who-fooled-who.html
Municipal of Aarhus post a complaint to DS
,----[ Quote ]
| The city of Aarhus has posted an official complaint to Danish Standards
| regarding the result of the Danish YES-vote.
|
| The complaint is regarding the fact that *all* non-profit votes in Denmark
| asked for a NO. Only commercial pro-Microsoft participants voted YES.
`----
http://lodahl.blogspot.com/2008/05/municipal-of-aarhus-post-complaint-to.html
- ----[ Quote ]
| Vincent Henry
| Freedom of Information Liaison Officer
| National Standards Authority of Ireland
|
| [...]
|
| Dear Mr Henry,
| I am writing to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
| I would like to request the following information from the NSAI, relating to
| the NSAIâs work
| on ISOâs as-was draft standard DIS29500 (Information Technology â Office Open
| XML file
| formats).
| â Minutes of all meetings of committees, sub-committees, working groups or
| similar where
| ISOâs as-was DIS29500 was discussed.
| â Dates of all such meetings.
|
| [...]
`----
http://www.ifso.ie/documents/correspondence/20080422nsaiFoi.pdf
Martin Bryan: we are getting âstandardization by corporationâ
,----[ Quote ]
| A November informative report of Martin Bryan, Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34
| WG1 highlights the fallout of the ECMA-376 fast-track process for ISO. He
| says he is 'glad to be retiring before the situation becomes impossible'
|
| [...]
|
| In what is an astonishingly outspoken report, Martin Bryan, Convenor, ISO/IEC
| JTC1/SC34 WG1 has given us insight into the total mess that Microsoft/ECMA
| have caused during their scandalous, underhand and unremitting attempts to
| get - what is a very poorly written specification {i.e. DIS 29500 aka OOXML,
| AR} - approved as an ISO standard. â
`----
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-30107/martin-bryan:we-are-getting-standardization-by-corporation
Dysfunctional ISO - Courtesy of Microsoft
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2007/12/dysfunctional-iso-courtesy-of-microsoft.html
Microsoft accused of stacking ISO committee
,----[ Quote
| In a memo sent following his last meeting as head of the working group on
| WG1, which is handling Microsoftâs application to make the Word format an ISO
| standard as ECMA 376, outgoing Governor Martin Bryan (above), an expert on
| SGML and XML, accused the company of stacking his group.
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=1777
EU Commission Investigating Microsoft's MSOOXML Push
,----[ Quote ]
| I hope they think to investigate the smear campaigns that seem to always
| happen to anyone on the other side from Microsoft. What happened to Peter
| Quinn was by no means unique.
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080208151410252
An Open Letter to LITD15 committee of BIS
,----[ Quote ]
| On 20th March 2008, the LITD15 committee of the Bureau of Indian Standards
| voted against Microsoft's proposed OOXML standard. 29th March 2008 was the
| last date for participating countries to vote on OOXML. In the interval
| between these two dates, Microsoft went to the Prime Minister of India and
| alleged that this committee acted against the national interest. Fortunately,
| the Indian bureaucrats who met the PM did a good job of defending the
| committee's vote against OOXML.
|
| Prof. DB Phatak of IIT Bombay recently wrote a mail to the LITD15 committee
| saying that, "In my opinion, these actions go well beyond the behavioral
| boundaries for a commercial entity, some of these amounting to interfering
| with the governance process of a sovereign country." IIT Bombay was a member
| of the LITD15 committee and Prof. Phatak was part of a four-member team at
| IIT Bombay that did a very intense review of OOXML before the institute voted
| against OOXML. While Prof. Phatak is a great supporter of open source, he
| also has a great reputation for being fair and balanced.
|
| [...]
|
| As a committee member, I would like to place on record my deep disappointment
| at the fact that Microsoft chose to question the decision of this committee
| at the highest office of our country. For over a year, we have reviewed the
| proposed standard with a fine tooth comb. Every opportunity was given to
| Microsoft to put their points across. At every meeting they brought a
| disproportionate number of participants along; some of these participants
| were not even Indian nationals. I think the committee as a whole was very
| courteous in accommodating all this but drew the line when this began to
| detract from the functioning of the committee. The only words that came to my
| mind when I heard that Microsoft's complaint had prompted the Prime Minister
| of my country to review this committee's decision was "stabbed-in-the-back."
| This was a great disservice to this committee and the country and I hope this
| never happens again.
|
| [...]
|
| Standards cannot (and should not) be created in a technical vaccum. Without a
| moral and ethical framework, we cannot create standards that benefit
| humanity. Mahatma Gandhi summed it up best when he said that, âReal swaraj
| will come not by the acquisition of authority by a few but by the acquisition
| of capacity by all.â I believe that this committee should be focused solely
| on the user's swaraj (freedom) to encode and decode their data.
`----
http://osindia.blogspot.com/2008/04/open-letter-to-litd15-committee-of-bis.html
Microsoft influencing partner NGOs to support OOXML in India
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft is encouraging its business partners to promote its Office Open XML
| specification (OOXML) to the Indian Bureau of Standards (BIS) and Ministry of
| IT. This move has incensed supporters of the rival OpenDocument Format (ODF)
| who fear that the "soft" Indian state may not be able to stand up to
| Microsoft pressure tactics.
`----
http://www.linux.com/feature/128528
New OOXML Scandal - A Leaked Email Surfaces in France - Updated: New Details
from Norway
,----[ Quote ]
| Le Monde Informatique and LeMagIT are reporting on a leaked email from Marc
| Meyer of the French government agency, DGME, which urges that OOXML be
| quickly added to the official list of formats that can be used by government
| entities, a document titled RGI, and then the finalized v1.0 of RGI be
| quickly published, in effect locking in OOXML, before the appeals process is
| completed. The email and the media reports indicate that the RGI was put on a
| back burner last October, when ODF was already on the list, and now,
| immediately after OOXML is approved, albeit controversially, by ISO but
| before the appeals process is complete, not to mention the format, Meyer
| urges it quickly be added to the list of acceptable formats, hence making it
| hard to remove OOXML from the list later, as a fait accompli.
|
| Worse, the email indicates that work on the document was brought to a crawl
| to wait for ISO approval of OOXML. ODF was already on the list when work on
| RGI was brought to a standstill last October. There were suspicions that the
| slowdown was deliberate, and the email is giving legs to those suspicions.
|
| It seems that politics has reared its ugly head, and just as happened in
| Masschusetts, questions are now being asked about behind-the-scenes Microsoft
| pressure.
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080418111340426
Sarkozy intervenes in France to revert the OOXML position
,----[ Quote ]
| Confidential sources say that President Sarkozy has intervened himself in the
| French position on Microsoft OOXML, asking members of the committee to revert
| their position, and support an abstention. Our sources say he was approached
| by a lobbyist during his 3-days trip in England. The intervention has been
| made on Friday.
`----
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-50670/sarkozy-intervenes-in-france-to-revert-the-ooxml-position
The France Shift From No to Abstain -- HP helped Microsoft France do it
,----[ Quote
| Here's the scoop from Les Echos.fr on France's sudden change from its No vote
| to Abstain. Microsoft France's President Eric Boustouller sent AFNOR a
| letter [PDF] in French, of course. He tells a tale about OOXML and ODF
| progressing side by side and how if OOXML is approved, a group will be
| working hard to make the two more interoperable. Attached was a an HP
| statement of support for OOXML. HP sings the same song. And AFNOR?
|
| [...]
|
| Could it be any more cynical? So, now we know that HP is not supportive of
| Linux and FOSS as we thought. Knock me over with a feather. So, they got them
| to change on the basis of promises for the future. I'm sure there's more to
| the story, of course.
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080331212042460
Can AFNOR really change the OOXML vote to "abstain"?
,----[ Quote ]
| Having participated within the responsible technical committee of the Swiss
| Association for Standardization and considering the decision-making process
| that has been used to be unsatisfactory, I find it interesting to look at how
| things have been handled in other countries, in order to see what can be
| learned from that. I plan to focus my attention in this regard on countries
| where the primary language is German, English or French, so that I will be
| able to understand any relevant documents which might become available to the
| public or personally to me.
`----
http://adaptux.com/blog/2008-04-02/OOXML/France
Microsoft's ISO win may worsen its antitrust woes
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft may have won a year-long quest to make its OOXML (Office Open XML)
| document format an ISO-recognized international standard, but claims of foul
| play in the voting process may come back to haunt the software giant when the
| European Commission concludes its latest antitrust investigation of
| Microsoft's business practices.
`----
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/01/Microsofts-ISO-win-may-worsen-its-antitrust-woes_1.html
France: "Non, avec des commentaires!"
,----[ Quote ]
| Apparently, the French discussion on OOXML broke into something resembling a
| bar-fight.
|
| [...]
|
| Matters soon got out of hand: the shouting seems to have climaxed with the
| Microsoft representative insulting the management of AFNOR, members of the
| Defense Ministry, the Justice Ministry, the Interior Ministry, and two
| members from the Industrial Ministry exclaiming that they were servants of a
| banana republic!
`----
http://fussnotes.typepad.com/plexnex/2007/08/france-no-with-.html
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