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Norway's Yes-To-OOXML Is Formally Protested

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Mon Mar 31, 2008 06:08 PM
from the how-not-to-get-accepted dept.
Software Technology
An anonymous reader writes "Norway's yes-to-OOXML may tip the vote in favor of accepting it as an ISO-standard, but the committee chairman just faxed a formal protest to the ISO. 'I am writing to you in my capacity as Chairman (of 13 years standing) of the Norwegian mirror committee to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34. I wish to inform you of serious irregularities in connection with the Norwegian vote on ISO/IEC DIS 29500 (Office Open XML) and to lodge a formal protest. You will have been notified that Norway voted to approve OOXML in this ballot. This decision does not reflect the view of the vast majority of the Norwegian committee, 80% of which was against changing Norway's vote from No with comments to Yes.'"
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] OOXML Will Pass Amid Massive Irregularities 329 comments
Tokimasa notes a CNet blog predicting that OOXML will make the cut. Updegrove agrees, as does the OpenMalasia blog. Reports of irregularities continue to surface, such as this one from Norway — "The meeting: 27 people in the room, 4 of which were administrative staff from Standard Norge. The outcome: Of the 24 members attending, 19 disapproved, 5 approved. The result: The administrative staff decided that Norway wants to approve OOXML as an ISO standard." Groklaw adds reportage of odd processes in Germany and Croatia.
Submission: Norway's Yes-to-OOXML is formally protested by Anonymous Coward
[+] The Inside Story on Norway's Yes to OOXML 254 comments
Steve Pepper writes "The former Chairman of the Norwegian ISO committee, who resigned two weeks ago in protest against his country's vote of Yes to OOXML, tells the inside story of how the decision was reached: how a single bureaucrat from Standards Norway sidelined the overwhelming majority of Norwegian technical experts and changed Norway's vote from No to Yes. The story is so surreal it's hard to believe." It's as depressing as it is brief.
[+] Your Rights Online: Unix Group Takes UK Standards Body To Court Over OOXML 229 comments
superglaze writes "Halfway through the two-month window of opportunity during which OOXML's ISO standardization can be derailed by a formal objection from a national standards body, the UK Unix Users Group is trying to force the British Standards Institution to do just that. According to the Unix Users Group, the BSI used a flawed decision-making process when they chose to approve OOXML in the ISO vote. 'The UKUUG is also folding in many other complaints about Office Open XML (OOXML), such as unresolved patent issues and a lack of completion in the specification's documentation, and is calling for the High Court of Justice to force a judicial review of the BSI's decision.' This is not the first time a country's ISO vote has been challenged."
[+] ISO Puts OOXML On Hold 138 comments
schliz alerts us that ISO, in response to the four appeals (Venezuela, India, Brazil, South Africa) filed in recent weeks, has put the OOXML standardization process on hold. Here is ISO's press release, which says that ISO/IEC DIS 29500 will not be published for at least "several months" while the appeals process goes forward.
Update: 06/11 10:13 GMT by KD : Reader Alsee points out that the fourth officially recognized appealing country is Venezuela, not Denmark as originally stated. The protests of Denmark and Norway are being disregarded, as they do not come from the administrative heads of their national organizations.
[+] Norwegian Standards Body Members Resign Over OOXML 208 comments
tsa writes "Ars Technica reports that 13 of the 23 members from the technical committee of the Norwegian standards body, the organization that manages technical standards for the country, have resigned because of the way the OOXML standardization was handled. We've previously discussed Norway's protest and ISO's rejection of other appeals. From the article: 'The standardization process for Microsoft's office format has been plagued with controversy. Critics have challenged the validity of its ISO approval and allege that procedural irregularities and outright misconduct marred the voting process in national standards bodies around the world. Norway has faced particularly close scrutiny because the country reversed its vote against approval despite strong opposition to the format by a majority of the members who participated in the technical committee.'"
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Norway's Yes-To-OOXML Is Formally Protested 50 Comments More /

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  • Money can't buy you love. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by inTheLoo (1255256) on Monday March 31 2008, @06:09PM (#22926030) Journal

    Or truth or science. A lie is a lie no matter how many people you pay to repeat it. Corruption has no place in any technical organization that will be litened to and respected.

    Groklaw predicts more challenges [groklaw.net]

    and notes the results will now be announced on Wednesday [reuters.com], so and ISO standard for M$XML is not going to be one of the worst April Fools jokes of the next decade.

    • Yes, money can buy you love (Score:5, Interesting)

      by EmbeddedJanitor (597831) on Monday March 31 2008, @06:20PM (#22926136)
      What's the point of http://www.gatesfoundation.org/ [gatesfoundation.org] if it is not to buy good karma for Bill and MS?

      • Re:Yes, money can buy you love (Score:5, Informative)

        by Eddi3 (1046882) on Monday March 31 2008, @08:38PM (#22927162) Homepage Journal
        It helps lower his taxes in the US.

        • Re:Yes, money can buy you love (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 01 2008, @03:15AM (#22928790)
          Except that the BMGF only donates money. It's hard to score a tax write down on cash.

          Only on slashdot does anyone think that Gates runs his foundation for tax purposes. The man has sixty billion fucking dollars, why would he want to dodge tax? What would he do with the money? As it is he's given more than half of it away to charities. He spends more annually on disease prevention than the entire US government. Just fucking grow up and give the man some credit.

          I've no intention of defending MS, but it is just abiding by the rules of capitalism. It's required by *law* to generate as much profit as possible and it's playing by the rules of the game. If you don't like the rules stop voting republican.

          • Re:Yes, money can buy you love (Score:5, Insightful)

            by nebosuke (1012041) on Monday March 31 2008, @11:58PM (#22928156)

            Charity does not save you money, tax deductions or not.
            It easily can, if you know what you're doing. On paper it will always look like a net negative, but it can save you tons of money by allowing you to recover portions of sunk costs. E.g., donate overstocked goods or goods that are manufactured at extremely low marginal cost valued at full market rate. If you donate software packages with market value X, but marginal cost of production 1/1000x, reducing your taxes through deductions by 1/100x, it looks like a net loss but is almost the same as printing money. This is highly simplified, of course, but gives you the general idea.

            There are many other ways to game the system if you have the time, inclination and knowledge (or the right accountant).

      • Re:Yes, money can buy you love (Score:4, Funny)

        by techno-vampire (666512) on Monday March 31 2008, @11:10PM (#22927928) Homepage
        ...good karma for Bill and MS?

        br? Look: if Bill and MS want good karma, they should stop posting as AC, and give up trolling, just like anybody else.

    • Re:Money can't buy you love. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Darinbob (1142669) on Monday March 31 2008, @08:30PM (#22927126)

      A lie is a lie no matter how many people you pay to repeat it. Corruption has no place in any technical organization that will be listened to and respected.
      Technology and technical organizations are human endeavors. Therefore corruption is no more out of place there than in any other human endeavor.

    • And Reuters can't comprehend. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 31 2008, @11:36PM (#22928066)

      [http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSL3019918720080331]

      This Reuters article is, technically speaking, utter rubbish.

      Microsoft has pushed hard for international certification of Open Office XML (OOXML)

      It's Office Open, stupid. (Albeit not open).

      Open Document Format (ODF), developed by Sun Microsystems

      Only by Sun Microsystems ...?

      The ODF technology allows users to save documents in a variety of formats, including Microsoft's.

      Whattt? ODF is an accepted ISO standard for office documents. To convert it to utter rubbish, you need a converter (like OpenOffice.org), stupid.

      While OOXML originally did not allow saving text and spreadsheet documents as ODF files, Microsoft later made it possible to do so.

      First, you need a converter here, too. Second, Microsoft does not support ODF up to now, therefore I'm wondering when MS Office "made it possible to do so" ... Perhaps later? No, never, if OOXML gets accepted by ISO.

            • Re:How about a nice technical discussion? (Score:4, Insightful)

              by MrNaz (730548) on Monday March 31 2008, @09:39PM (#22927504) Homepage
              Interesting, you're attempting to censor twitter? While I agree with the end, I'm going to play devil's advocate and point out that he, like you, has the right to free speech.

              I'm not pointing this out to defend his right to free speech, but more to point out the flaw in the current Western perception of "rights" and their role in society. Everyone gets all hot and bothered about their "rights", but I personally believe that each right has a corresponding duty, the execution of which earns you the corresponding right. You want a right to free speech? Your duty is to listen honestly to others' opinions and exercise your right to speak responsibly. You want the right to free movement? Your duty is to assist others in their endeavours, should you be able. You want the right to vote? Your duty is to actively assess the society you live in and make an informed decision regarding the suitability of the candidate you vote for.

              You want the right to democracy? Your duty is to open your eyes and recognise when it is under attack, and from whom.

              Wow, that's a big ass rant over a twitter post. Perhaps I *do* get on my soapbox a little too often...

              • Re:How about a nice technical discussion? (Score:5, Insightful)

                by Moridineas (213502) on Monday March 31 2008, @11:08PM (#22927912) Journal

                Interesting, you're attempting to censor twitter? While I agree with the end, I'm going to play devil's advocate and point out that he, like you, has the right to free speech.
                Absolutely twitter and all his sock puppets have the right to free speech.

                But, with all due respect, I think that your perception of free speech isn't entirely right either. Free speech doesn't mean freedom from criticism! Nor does free speech mean--as you say--that others have to listen to you.

                Free speech means exactly what it says--say what you want to say! It doesn't ensure that anyone has to listen to you, has to agree, or has to care.

                "Your duty is to assist others" ... "duty...earns you the corresponding right." etc. No, absolutely not! You're talking about slavery, or at least something akin to the fascist system in Heinlein's starship troopers (where normal citizens aren't allowed to vote). Rights are rights, freedoms are freedoms. Your system of obligation and duty isn't freedom in my book.

              • Re:How about a nice technical discussion? (Score:5, Insightful)

                by dhasenan (758719) on Monday March 31 2008, @11:15PM (#22927952)
                Um, this is Slashdot. The editors have every right to remove your comments, or only display a portion of them. You can write stuff here and have it never see the light of day.

                If it were a street corner, then you could talk about free speech. But it's private property.

  • Stupid governments (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 31 2008, @06:11PM (#22926048)
    "This decision does not reflect the view of the vast majority of the Norwegian committee, 80% of which was against changing Norway's vote from No with comments to Yes."

    This is why we need open source governance.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_governance [wikipedia.org]

  • Nice Sentiment (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MightyMartian (840721) on Monday March 31 2008, @06:11PM (#22926052) Journal
    It's a nice gesture, but it's a lost cause. The ISO has been undermined by Redmond and its agents, and now an unimplementable file format will give Microsoft the highground it needs to peddle its monopoly, to the detriment of anyone interested in a real open file standard.

    I leave it to the EU (as the US DoJ clearly has no interest in this any more) to take Microsoft to task, and hopefully empty their coffers a little bit. That seems to be the only thing to be done with Microsoft until the time comes when they're anti-competitive behavior is finally met by government agencies of sufficient power to break the company up.

    • Re:Nice Sentiment (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ScrewMaster (602015) on Monday March 31 2008, @06:23PM (#22926164)
      All that will happen, in the long run, is that ISO will become untrusted, marginalized and obsolete. Microsoft has graphically demonstrated how easily ISO's processes can be corrupted, which means that other corporations will follow suit (assuming they didn't get there first.) Don't expect the world to have the same respect for ISO after this.

      • Re:Nice Sentiment (Score:5, Insightful)

        by SanityInAnarchy (655584) <ninja@slaphack.com> on Monday March 31 2008, @06:56PM (#22926476) Journal
        And that is the real tragedy here.

        We already had OOXML rubber-stamped by Ecma, proving, once again, that Ecma likes to rubber-stamp things. Having it ISO-certified, while a blow, is perhaps not the most serious result of this...

        If OOXML is certified, we're put in a lose/lose situation. Either we accept it, and OOXML becomes a "standard", even though it really isn't -- or we continue to write letters and refuse to accept it as a "standard", which implies we can't trust ISO -- which means we're just about out of standards organizations to trust. And a world without official standards is a world of defacto standards, which means Microsoft will win every future battle.

        Think of it this way: If we couldn't trust the w3c, or the Acid2/3 tests, the standard for websites would likely fall back to "Works Best with Internet Explorer 8." That's effectively what's about to happen to everything ISO.

        • Re:Nice Sentiment (Score:5, Informative)

          by belmolis (702863) <billposer.alum@mit@edu> on Monday March 31 2008, @08:23PM (#22927080) Homepage

          Even if OOXML becomes an ISO standard, that doesn't mean we're obligated to use it. For one thing, it won't be the only ISO standard for documents: we already have ODF. For another, ISO certification still will not make it an open standard. Governments and other organizations that require documents to conform to an open standard will still have to use ODF, not OOXML. We need to continue pressure for the use of open standards and to refuse to use OOXML ourselves.

          • Re:Nice Sentiment (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Darinbob (1142669) on Monday March 31 2008, @08:48PM (#22927236)

            Even if OOXML becomes an ISO standard, that doesn't mean we're obligated to use it.
            Of course. ISO has tons of standards that we don't all use all the time. In the same way that the ISO C standard doesn't require everyone to program in C, an OOXML standard won't force anyone to use OOXML. What matters is whether or not a large number of people stand behind a standard and request that others follow it.

            This is also not the first broken standard full of ambiguities out there, or the first one with politics involved, or the first one where a company with a monopolistic stake pushed a standard through. It just rises to the top because of more obvious than usual political maneuvering and the larger than normal company pushing from behind.

            ISO standards are rarely highly technical guidelines created by unbiased technical people. Usually there's an existing implementation that gets to call most of the shots, or a set of conflicting implementations that maneuver to limit the amount of redesign they have to do. Which makes sense actually; creating a standard before there is an implementation or experience with the technology is often premature.

            • Re:Nice Sentiment (Score:5, Informative)

              by SanityInAnarchy (655584) <ninja@slaphack.com> on Monday March 31 2008, @08:57PM (#22927288) Journal

              Of course. ISO has tons of standards that we don't all use all the time. In the same way that the ISO C standard doesn't require everyone to program in C, an OOXML standard won't force anyone to use OOXML. What matters is whether or not a large number of people stand behind a standard and request that others follow it.

              It also matters when governments start imposing standards-compliance on themselves. For a brief moment, we had hoped that we'd be able to get government documents in a reasonably standard format (ODF) -- that is, I think, why this is actually a big deal.

              Usually there's an existing implementation that gets to call most of the shots...

              I'd argue that's actually a good thing, if and only if said implementation is at least as free/open as the standard itself. No spec can capture every single quirk of a real live piece of software, and in case we discover two alternate implementations which both fit the spec, it would be nice to be able to say which is correct.

              That's not originally my idea, but I can't remember where I heard it first.

              But for large parts of the spec to basically say "Whatever MS Office does" -- or, actually, "Whatever a particular piece of extinct proprietary software does" -- that seems pretty unacceptable in a spec which is meant to define the now and future standard, rather than simply document (partially) what a particular implementation is going to do anyway.

            • Re:Microsoft will die. (Score:4, Insightful)

              by mrchaotica (681592) * on Monday March 31 2008, @11:59PM (#22928158)

              their Windows monopoly is crumbling down, thanks to the Vista fluke.

              Every version of Windows except 95 and 2000 have been as poorly received as Vista when they first came out. It's not a fluke, and it's not evidence of impending Microsoft collapse! I wish it were, but it's not!

              Wine is getting better every moment, and while ReactOS isn't exactly around the corner, in 5 years it'll be on par with WINE - with 2013's WINE (ReactOS and WINE share a lot of code).

              WINE?! Don't you realize that WINE is irrelevant? Sure, maybe in 2013 WINE and/or ReactOS might be good enough to run all Win32 and MFC software. But it won't matter, because Microsoft already moved the goalposts to newer proprietary APIs that are patented to boot!

      • Re:Nice Sentiment (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Chris Burke (6130) on Monday March 31 2008, @07:19PM (#22926666) Homepage
        All that will happen, in the long run, is that ISO will become untrusted, marginalized and obsolete.

        With Microsoft's Office monopoly becoming further entrenched as a side effect. Haha, side effect? More like the point of the whole operation.

        Here's the deal as it stands right now (or rather shortly before this farce began):
        - ISO was well respected.
        - Open Document Format was accepted by ISO as a standard.

        These two things combined give Open Office (and any suite that implements ODF, since its an ACTUAL open standard so you can do that) a lot of built-in approval, and makes them look very good to governments/organizations who are starting to mandate open formats for documentation. This is bad for MS, half of their business being the Office monopoly (which supports and is supported by the Windows monopoly).

        So what's their strategy here? Well one (or both) of two things happen:
        - Their BS non-open "open standard" is accepted, so they can claim their format meets the needs of governments who mandate open standards.
        - ISO is no longer respected as a standards organization, so their approval of ODF no longer means as much.

        Whichever happens, their little problem with ODF being a standard goes away and MS Office remains the only "standard" (de-facto or ISO-approved) that matters. They don't really care which. Oh no, their manipulation of the process is exposed! Guess that means you can't trust ISO any more! Frankly I give even odds to both happening. But even if ISO ends up rejecting OOXML, it's going to take a hell of a lot to stop the second from happening.

        • Re:Nice Sentiment (Score:5, Informative)

          by QuantumG (50515) * <qg@biodome.org> on Monday March 31 2008, @08:51PM (#22927248) Homepage Journal
          ISO has been dead to me since the C99 standard was published. They changed virtually nothing from the draft even though there was a vast outpouring of bile from the community when the draft was published. Now it is almost 10 years later and there are still no C99 compliant compilers. The most compliant compiler is gcc in c99 mode [gnu.org] which isn't the default mode, even though the C89 standard is officially deprecated.

          Of course, it's not really possible to write a C99 compliant compiler as the the standard mandates behavior that is sometimes either completely impossible or just completely undesirable.

          • Re:Nice Sentiment (Score:4, Insightful)

            by mrchaotica (681592) * on Tuesday April 01 2008, @12:02AM (#22928170)

            ...even though there was a vast outpouring of bile from the community when the draft was published... Of course, it's not really possible to write a C99 compliant compiler as the the standard mandates behavior that is sometimes either completely impossible or just completely undesirable.

            What's wrong with C99? (Note: I'm curious, not argumentative.)

      • Re:Nice Sentiment (Score:5, Insightful)

        by kocsonya (141716) on Monday March 31 2008, @09:11PM (#22927378)
        Maybe the whole ISO process was a bit like the Internet. The protocols were originally designed with the assumption that the participants (at least the servers) are trusted entities. The protocols themselves trust the underlying delivery mechanisms and servers trust their peer servers. Then came the realisation that you can't trust servers, you can't trust administrators, you can't trust routers or even the cable - you can't trust anything and anyone on the Net.

        Probably the whole ISO process was designed with a similar mindset, assuming that the standard sub-committies themselves are serving the public interest and not their own, the thought of corruption didn't even occur to them. Now we have a malicious script kiddie with a very powerful toolset (i.e. billions of dollars) to wreck havoc and to set up a spam botnet.

    • Re:Nice Sentiment (Score:5, Insightful)

      by initialE (758110) on Monday March 31 2008, @07:13PM (#22926620)
      I hardly see it as a lost cause, it's that kind of attitude that allows corruption to win. If ISO is compromised to that extent then it is important that people are informed about it. Keep up the pressure, provide evidence that is not anecdotal, discredit ISO in the eyes of governmental and business interests as a last resort.

      • Re:Nice Sentiment (Score:5, Informative)

        by Chirs (87576) on Monday March 31 2008, @06:41PM (#22926338)
        The point of an ISO standard is that multiple organizations can implement it.

        In this case only Microsoft can possibly implement it, because various sections refer to proprietary MS software and basically say "do it like that".

        Since only Microsoft knows what that actually means, nobody else can implement it. Therefore it is worthless as a "standard".

  • The only way this ballot makes sense... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dracos (107777) on Monday March 31 2008, @06:14PM (#22926080)

    Is if ISO contracted Diebold, er, I mean, Premier Election systems, to tally the votes. This is the most ludicrous thing I've seen since 2000.

  • WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Socguy (933973) on Monday March 31 2008, @06:15PM (#22926092)
    Perhaps I don't understand how voting bodies work, but how can anyone take these folks seriously with all the nonsense surrounding this vote?

  • HardeeHarHar!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by OldFish (1229566) on Monday March 31 2008, @06:19PM (#22926124)
    It sounds like Europe is getting a taste of how the election process works in the U S of A.

  • In related news today. . (Score:5, Funny)

    by Iowan41 (1139959) on Monday March 31 2008, @06:24PM (#22926176)
    The International Standards Organization has rebranded itself as MS.ISO, and is making itself available for vote tabulation in the Russian Federation, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Broward County.

  • Quality base-level of ISO very LOW (Score:5, Interesting)

    by omz (834760) on Monday March 31 2008, @06:43PM (#22926358)

    If you want to see how bad was this process handled, see one of its awfuls deliverables.

    Open the document "Response_DE-0028_dates_v9.doc" in this zip

    http://www.itscj.ipsj.or.jp/sc34/open/0989_reference_docs.zip [ipsj.or.jp]

    This is one of the changes frenetically [ece.ntua.gr] accepted [tbray.org] in BRM, regarding treatments of dates in OOXML. See the salad of colors trying to explain the modifications. And this is a fix ( BRM ) of a fix ( one of ECMA 1027 proposed fixes ) of a NB comment of a draft text ( original ECMA submission ).

    And this document contradicts this another BRM document: http://www.itscj.ipsj.or.jp/sc34/open/0989.pdf [ipsj.or.jp] because the first says that the .DOC file replaces ECMA responses 18 and 43 but the "Response_DE-0028_dates_v9.doc" document says that it replaces ECMA responses 18, 43, 76 and 690 !

    ECMA and Microsoft have not provided a final text with all this changes applied. In the BRM they frenetically changed Scope, Conformance , Schemas , and lot of normative text. Microsoft is now rushing to get a final text in less than one month, to comply with ISO normative.

    This is how ISO delivers IT international standards, mandating fundamental changes to drafts, leaving national bodies with the only alternative to cast a political [slashdot.org] vote leaving aside the technical content of the specification.

    Congratulations to the countries that had *balls* and didn't agree with this way of deliver standards to people:

    • New Zealand [standards.co.nz] ( dissaproved )
    • Brasil [homembit.com] ( dissaproved )
    • India ( dissaproved )
    • China ( dissaproved )
    • South Africa ( dissaproved )
    • Canada ( dissaproved )
    • Venezuela ( dissaproved )
    • Ecuador ( dissaproved )
    • Iran ( dissaproved )
    • Italy ( abstained )
    • Spain ( abstained )
    • Belgium ( abstained )
    • Netherlands ( abstained but only Microsoft opposed the disapproval )
    • France ( abstained due to heavy Microsoft pressure )
    • Malaysia ( abstained due to heavy Microsoft pressure )
    • Australia ( abstained due to heavy Microsoft pressure, government opposed OOXML )
    • Kenya ( abstained )

    And congratulations Microsoft, your friendly little countries supposedly experts in XML document description languages ;-) ( now ISO P-members ), who joined ISO JTC1 just to cast an unconditional-yes-votes [noooxml.org] payed off:

    • Jamaica
    • Cyprus
    • Malta
    • Kazakhstan
    • Lebanon
    • Azerbaijan
    • Cote-d'Ivore
    • Pakistan

  • Microsoft is in for a PR nightmare... (Score:4, Informative)

    by NullProg (70833) on Monday March 31 2008, @06:55PM (#22926470) Homepage Journal
    if any of these allegations are true: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/microsofts-great-besmirching [linuxjournal.com]

    Is anyone going to use ISO specifications again if Microsoft purchases the OOXML vote?

    What really gets my clusters in a bunch is that Microsoft could elect to work with Sun, IBM, Apple, Adobe, Whoever, to really come up with an Open Document specification if they wanted too. This specification isn't about Apple, Microsoft, Sun, and IBM. Its about government documentation funded by the public that needs to be available a thousand years from now. Way to be a good corporate citizen Microsoft!

    People will still choose MS Office because they like it, not because it does or does not save documents in a government mandated open specification. Microsoft could simply add a new "Save As" filter following the Open Specification.

    Enjoy,

    • Re:Microsoft is in for a PR nightmare... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cgenman (325138) on Monday March 31 2008, @07:07PM (#22926558) Homepage
      People will still choose MS Office because they like it, not because it does or does not save documents in a government mandated open specification. Microsoft could simply add a new "Save As" filter following the Open Specification.

      There are certain government regulations about acceptable file specifications. This is to preserve interoperability, facilitate competition between vendors, and to guarantee accessibility in one or two hundred years.

      By getting this sham declared a "standard," they can continue to sell to certain government agencies, who can continue to produce docs that are only readable on proprietary Microsoft software and platforms.

      Microsoft could most definitely offer a valid save-as file filter to create ODF documents. But it is in their best financial interest to retain user lock-in as much as possible. Ironically, this is exactly the sort of thing that standards bodies like the ISO are supposed to prevent. If this goes through, one must seriously reconsider the weight attached to an ISO certification.

  • There's an important lesson here (Score:5, Insightful)

    by plopez (54068) on Monday March 31 2008, @06:56PM (#22926474)
    If you can't win, simply get the rules of the game changed. Lawyers and politicians understand this. Nerds don't.

    • Re:There's an important lesson here (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Torodung (31985) on Monday March 31 2008, @07:39PM (#22926794) Journal
      My 5-year-old kid understands this. I taught her a strong lesson in "no cheating" the other day. Exactly one day later she was making up her own rules. No prompting from me. She loves to win.

      As a good parent, I let her. That's the "fair" way to cheat, but I don't let her make them up as she goes like Hillary Clinton and Microsoft. I make sure we agree to the rules before we play.

      The ISO should have done the same. I hope Microsoft is up against the wall for this crap.

      --
      Toro

  • Send in the Lost Vikings (Score:5, Funny)

    by Torodung (31985) on Monday March 31 2008, @07:12PM (#22926602) Journal
    So it's all down to Scandinavia again. Send in Eric the Swift, Olaf the Stout and Baleog the fierce. They should be able to sort this puzzle out.

    I think Linus should go over there and kick some ass, too. ;^)

    --
    Toro

  • O...M...G... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by QuietLagoon (813062) on Monday March 31 2008, @07:13PM (#22926618)
    Is Microsoft completely unable to play fairly and with integrity in anything they do?

  • Use the Judo Argument (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dpilot (134227) on Monday March 31 2008, @08:27PM (#22927106) Homepage Journal
    OK, So Microsoft has most likely gotten OOXML passed as an ISO standard. Unfortunate, but probably true.

    Further, it appears that the real reason they did this is so that they can put that all-important checkmark in the box that says, "Interoperates with ISO standard file formats" when trying to sell MS Office into accounts.

    OK, great.

    Now PROVE IT!

    Prove that MS Office is OOXML compliant. Last I heard, OOXML was like Office 2007, but not really there. Last I heard, OOXML was an incomplete spec with no full implementation.

    If Microsoft is going to to for that "ISO standard file format" checkbox, for that matter if anyone is going for an ISO standard checkbox, isn't it necessary that there be compliance testing? And long as we're compliance testing, the certification of compliance should NEVER be given until the appropriate committee evaluates the product against the spec and decides that that the product unambiguously implements the spec.

    No full, unambiguous compliance, no check in the little box.

    No matter how long the evaluation takes.

  • Limericks (Score:5, Funny)

    by Viceroy Potatohead (954845) on Monday March 31 2008, @09:56PM (#22927584) Homepage
    There once was a man come to Bergen
    Who promised that everything's working
    He came to the fjord
    And bought off the board
    Now we're all autospacelikeWord'ing.

    There once was a man who said "Trust us!
    Accept this, or surely you'll bust us."
    With his special langcodes
    Now he's ISO'd.
    I wonder how much this will cost us?

  • In Finland.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by rasjani (97395) on Tuesday April 01 2008, @01:33AM (#22928536) Homepage
    I didnt RTFA so im not sure what is going on in Norway so im just guessing that it was somewhat similar issue as in Finland.

    Majority of board was against OOXML Standard but in the end, board's decision was "yes". Why ? Board consists of big businesses, government and some other groups. 3 of the bigger companies in the board where IBM, Sun & Google and their votes where not counted because "they would vote as their head offices dictate" and thus the overall voting results from "absolutely no" where turned into "yes with clauses".

    Yey!

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