The Inside Story on Norway's Yes to OOXML

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.

Coincidentally

[Anonymous Coward]

He's also managed to change their domain suffix to .yes, and their country name to Yesrway.

Re:Coincidentally

[eugene ts wong]

The last thing we need is more yes men.

Odd...

[The Ancients]

After the vote, did the bureaucrat jump up and starting dancing like a monkey?

After the vote did the bureaucrat start throwing chairs around?

Did the bureaucrat appear slightly chubby and a whole lot balding?

If the answer to any of the above is yes, I might be able to shed some insight on this...

Re:Coincidentally

[fireman sam]

Yes, you are absolutely correct. We need less yes me. Who is in agreement with Eugene. Let us all join forces and say "YES to less yes men"

Re:What can be done now?

[Anonymous Coward]

The real question for me is what can be done now?

- demonstrations? This is what happened in Norway. Sure it would be good to have them elsewhere.

- Virgils? this is what happened in India and almost on the same level.

- moving on a building teams to stifle OOXML adoption by national governments as their standard

- ???

- Profit

Re:What can be done now?

[Elektroschock]

Sell anti-OOXML T-Shirts?

How Microsoft corrupts the world...

[wiredlogic]

...SegFaultLikeWord95DoesIt

In this case, a meatspace seg fault. The MCP is getting more powerful. We need a heroic Program to save us all.

Re:Odd...

[pallmall1]

Seriously, can you explain the thought process that went to creating this masterpiece?

He developed, developed, developed, developed, developed, developed, developed, developed, developed, developed, developed, developed, developed, developed [youtube.com] it.

:)

Three Line Novel

[smittyoneeach]

At this point, in a bizarre and tasteless trans-Atlantic timewarp, Dr. Johnny Fever, Venus Flytrap, Herb Tarlek, and Jeffifer Marlow, dressed as the Spanish Inquisition, burst in, and say, in chorus:
"NO! One expects Les Nessman!"
They bundle up Eugene and haul him off to stunned looks from all present.

Re:This is what is meant by "Democracy" these days

[smittyoneeach]

JC: your mood is quite chipper.
Glad to see you're not, like, bummed out, or something, dude.

Re:What can be done now?

[Anonymous Coward]

"My Parents went to Norway and all I got was this stupid document standard"

Re:Three Line Novel

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a life, ye humorless mod-twits.

Re:You are at fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apology accepted.

Re:wound it be ironic if

[MrNaz]

You can find his reasoning explained in a journal article called "The Ballamer Principle: A dissertation on the proportionality of the relationship between Microsoft's annual office furniture budget and strategic failures their global modus operandi." Published by Ikea Press.

Re:What can be done now?

[DoofusOfDeath]

Damnit! Now my undead highschool Latin teacher is going to kick my ass...

Re:Nothing needs to be done

[turing_m]

"But I can imagine that if actual information loss was involved, instead of just formatting or whatever, then a government that was looking for a standard to store their documents in would bork at OOXML."

If any government were inclined to bork at OOXML, the Swedish government would be first on the list.

Re:Nothing needs to be done

[Sfing_ter]

They just went here...
http://www.iso.org/iso/store/shopping_faqs.htm#shop-online [iso.org]

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