OOXML Will Pass Amid Massive Irregularities

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.

Gross sounding title

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like something a gastroentorologist would diagnose.

Re:Gross sounding title

[mcpkaaos]

It is.

Re:I Don't Get It?

[Cassius Corodes]

Its not so much that we hate OOXML, its just that we like to scream revolution and blasphemy.

Re:This is getting ridiculous

[nmb3000]

Microsoft, etc, that OOXML just has enough to get past?

Wait, are you suggesting that Microsoft didn't bribe a dozen counties, at a hundred or more people, and pull off the biggest corporate cover-up in history (aside from the brilliant and astute readers of Slashdot who have worked diligently to uncover this plot) just so they could get their document format adopted as an ISO standard--something which will yield them little to no gain because the market share of Office essentially requires competitive document compatibility?

You most obviously and certainly, as a very wise man once said (probably Cowboyneal), must be new here.

Re:Gross sounding title

[AJWM]

The end product is about the same.

There's a word for this.

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Where before, ISO standardization was a fair and democratic process that usually resulted in international standards that made industries run smoothly and on an open level field ... thanks to the actions of Microsoft, ISO standardization is now a process that can, with sufficient resources, be outright bought in order to protect and extend an international monopoly for years to come.

There's a word to describe the activity of making that kind of change. Microsoft uses this word to describe itself all the time.

The word is: innovation.

strange results

[jollyreaper]

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.

Did they record the vote on Diebold machines?

Re:This is getting ridiculous

[Skeetskeetskeet]

And they say something's rotten in Denmark.... HAH!

Re:This is getting ridiculous

[Divebus]

As for swinging committee chairs to your side...

That brought out a whole different visual.

Easy Fix

[Pop69]

When it comes time to mandate the standard you're going to use, just say it has to be ISO recognised and correctly identify leap years.

That's the MS standard out the window as it thinks 1900 was a leap year.