Norway's Yes-To-OOXML Is Formally Protested

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.'"

The only way this ballot makes sense...

[Dracos]

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?

[Socguy]

Perhaps I don't understand how voting bodies work, but how can anyone take these folks seriously with all the nonsense surrounding this vote?

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps I don't understand how voting bodies work, but how can anyone take these folks seriously with all the nonsense surrounding this vote?

Yeah! It's like voting a president without needing a majority of votes

Re:Nice Sentiment

[ScrewMaster]

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.

sweet! (but)

[Anonymous Coward]

That is AWESOME!

But shouldn't it really be called "open content [wikipedia.org] governance"?

Open source is for source code. Open content is for--- content.

Objection

[michaelmalak]

JO: Your Honor, we re-new our objection to Commander Stone's testimony, and ask that it be stricken from the record. And we further ask that the Court instruct the jury to lend no weight to this witness's testimony.

RANDOLPH: The objection's overruled, counsel.

JO: Sir, the defense strenuously objects and requests a meeting in chambers so that his honor might have an opportunity to hear discussion before ruling on the objection.

RANDOLPH: The objection of the defense has been heard and overruled.

JO: Exception.

RANDOLPH: Noted.

...obvious innit?

[toby]

Wire transfers from Redmond.

Re:HardeeHarHar!!!

[zsau]

You would be surprised at how reliable pens, paper and scrutineers are. Not perfection (screw with the votes instead of with the count), but a lot safer that "voting machines".

Also, the correct response to a vote no-one can agree on how it turns out is to hold another vote, not to say "no more recounts, Bush wins". It costs more, but the benefit of having everyone accept the result is worth more to democracy and in the long term the economy than a short-term saving.

There's an important lesson here

[plopez]

If you can't win, simply get the rules of the game changed. Lawyers and politicians understand this. Nerds don't.

Re:Nice Sentiment

[SanityInAnarchy]

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:Norway corrupt too?

[ookabooka]

Be glad, at least someone blew the whistle. How many votes from other nations do you think could be somehow influenced and nothing done about it? Yeah yeah I'll grab my tinfoil hat :-p

Re:HardeeHarHar!!!

[shentino]

Which is probably why we're even AWARE of a scandal in the first place.

Had Norway been corrupter, it might have been silent corruption.

Re:Microsoft is in for a PR nightmare...

[cgenman]

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.

O...M...G...

[QuietLagoon]

Is Microsoft completely unable to play fairly and with integrity in anything they do?

Re:Nice Sentiment

[initialE]

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:There's an important lesson here

[Chris Burke]

If you can't win, simply get the rules of the game changed. Lawyers and politicians understand this. Nerds don't.

Not true, every nerd worth his salts knows how to change the "rules" of the copy protection "game", whether that be with cheat sheets or a debugger. :)

Re:HardeeHarHar!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you have that backwards. It's because the Norwegians are not silent that they have less corruption.

Re:Money can't buy you love.

[Darinbob]

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.

Re:Money can't buy you love.

[innerweb]

And that would be different from the other loves how? ;-)

InnerWeb

Re:Nice Sentiment

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

I'm going out on a limb here, but there is a possible third outcome of this:
- ISO acceptance of OOXML is used to justify legal penalties against MS for not implementing interoperability

I basically think that this is a horrible outcome and the example of the worst sort of corruption--not to mention the ongoing saga of problems with MS.

However, I could potentially forsee this coming back to bite MS, in that someone might eventually argue that MS is withholding specs necessary to implement an ISO standard, in order to maintain a monopoly.

Re:Nice Sentiment

[kocsonya]

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:How about a nice technical discussion?

[MrNaz]

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...

Or an ISO standard for voting

[Chuck Chunder]

Seriously, ISO should drop all other work and start thinking about some vaguely coherent and transparent voting procedures.

Re:How about a nice technical discussion?

[Moridineas]

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?

[dhasenan]

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.

And Reuters can't comprehend.

[Anonymous Coward]

[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:Or an ISO standard for voting

[mrchaotica]

'd say fixing their voting procedures to eliminate the appearance of impropriety ought to be their top priority.

I'd say that eliminating the actual occurrence of impropriety ought to be their priority, not the mere appearance of it!

Re:Yes, money can buy you love

[nebosuke]

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:Microsoft will die.

[mrchaotica]

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

[mrchaotica]

...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:Yes, money can buy you love

[Anonymous Coward]

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:Norway corrupt too?

[Eivind Eklund]

Actually, averaged perception is a fairly good data source - in many ways, averages of normal people are better than single expert evaluations. And the "Corruption Perception Index" is about the perception *by professional country analysts and business people*.

I could of course bring in single expert opinion: I happen to track both American and Norwegian politics, including being quite interested in how different political and social systems lead to different results. There are sides where the US is better than Norway, and there are sides where Norway is better than the US. Political corruption is one of the ones where Norway is better - due to a host of factors working together.

I just happen to think that the corruption perception index is the best resource we have, much better than my personal opinion even though my personal opinion is somewhat qualified in both political areas (including, of course, knowing a number of anecdotes in each, like you're able to search up.) This view of the corruption perception index as some of the best corruption information available seems to be shared by most others that are writing about the field, being regularly referred by most experts I see writing about the field in general.

Eivind.

Re:Nice Sentiment

[TheRaven64]

VLAs are just syntactic sugar on pointers and alloca(). They are fairly trivial to implement, and easier to use safely than alloca(). GCC has supported them for years (and I think even the MS compiler does too), and I've used them in my code.