India Decides to Vote "No" For OOXML

Indian writes to mention that after an intense meeting at Delhi's Manak Bhawan the 21-member technical committee has decided to vote against Microsoft's Open Office Extensible Mark Up Language (OOXML) standard at the September meeting of the International Standards Organization (ISO). "Microsoft said it respects the government's decision. 'There were only three options "Yes", "No" and "Abstain" to be taken and we respect the government's decision,' Microsoft's legal affairs head Rakesh Bakshi said. He, however, added that India's 'No' vote will become a 'Yes' if Microsoft is able to resolve all technical issues with OOXML before the ballot resolution committee of ISO."

Re:Good news...

[bytta]

Microsoft is the functional equivalent of that guy at the bar that can pick up just about any women he pleases, but is cursed with commitment issues that keep anything meaningful from developing.

I thought he was like the weird "friend of the family" who forced himself on almost all the girls before they learned how to say no...

Meat is murder.

[trudyscousin]

"He, however, added that India's 'No' vote will become a 'Yes' if Microsoft is able to resolve all technical issues with OOXML before the ballot resolution committee of ISO. "

Translation: "Vote 'yes' or the cow gets it."

I'd be willing to wager, knowing Microsoft's history, that political machinations will have more to do with India's final vote than technical issue resolution.

Re:Good news...

[Philotechnia]

I suppose MS and the weird friend both deserve to be on at least one watchlist...

On the other hand, can you blame him? At the risk of sounding a little weird myself, is it just me, or did India become a little, um, top-heavy over summer vacation?

/India for Playmate of the Year 2008

No need to worry...

[PinkyDead]

There's actually a simple XSL template that removes all the errors from the OOXML documents:

<xsl:template match='/'/>

Re:minor gripe

[Fred_A]

I think it's because of the name MOO-XML (Microsoft Office Open XML) that India voted against, since they found it offensive.

Technical issues

[serviscope_minor]

If they consider the tags like "DoSpacingLikeWord3ThoughtWordPerfect2ForCPMDidItB utIsActuallySlightlyWrong" which are useless for a modern format and completely unimplementable by anyone who doesn't know excatly how WP2 for CP/M does its spacing and how Word 3 for DOS differed, as technical issues, then they will never vote yes.

On the other hand, anyone voting for an international standard who doesn't consider that to be a serious problem (as there can be only one proper implementation) is either incompetant or in someone's pocket. I don't really know whichis worse.

Re:Let's at least get the name right

[mrchaotica]

We should really call it Obnoxiously Offensive XML, to cut down on confusion.