ISO Relevance Questioned After OOXML Appeals Fail

Cowards Anonymous passes along an Australian PCWorld piece that begins "Countries whose appeals were dismissed regarding the ISO/IEC's approval of Microsoft's OOXML as an international standard are questioning the judgment and relevance of the ISO/IEC and the standards they approve. In a statement made at the Congresso Internacional Sociedade e Governo Electronico (CONSEGI) 2008 conference, representatives from three of the four countries that appealed against an April 1 vote to approve OOXML as a standard said they are 'no longer confident' in the ability of both the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission to be vendor-neutral and open when it comes to setting technology standards." Here is the statement signed by South Africa, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Cuba. The countries won't pursue further opposition to OOXML.

Re:ISO

[Opportunist]

Funny, there are some Chinese guys here that sell ISOs in some sort of garage sale...

ISO now means...

[QuietLagoon]

... The Best Standards That Money Can Buy ®

Re:stop complaining

[Anonymous Coward]

I find an accusation that Brazilians have no life coming from a Slashdot posting Microsoft fanboy so excellently funny that I can only salute you.

Maybe it's time to switch

[meatmanek]

These countries should just all start using ANSI. It's a much better organiza--

Wait, you're telling me A doesn't stand for awesome?

Re:stop complaining

[MrMr]

640x480 pixels, blue background, no window decorations, and 80 columns wide big white characters?

Re:stop complaining

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought "Format like Word 95" meant to format like internet 95 - red flashing text with lots of exclamation points or asterisks near it. Oh yeah, and with a loud color behind it and also a background bitmap to provide some contour.

I think as long as the user can't easily read it without eyestrain it will suffice for "Format like Word 95".

Re:Maybe it's time to switch

[binarylarry]

It used too.

Until 50 cent bought his way into the organization and official changed it to mean "Ahhh yeeeeaaaahh bitch!"

Re:ISO now means...

[arthurpaliden]

I Sold Out

Re:ISO

[upside]

If you think about it really hard, it may just be that Mr. Opportunist was making the exact same frikkin point but in a humorous and less labored way.

Mod me down but I couldn't help myself.

Re:Sad...

[TheLink]

We already know it stinks like shit, we don't need to know whether it tastes like shit ;).

Re:Yes, but

[NormalVisual]

Reminds me of a quote whose source I can't remember at the moment: "My dog has a process. He eats dog food and sometime later takes a dump. He ALWAYS follows this process consistently without fail. But it still results in shit."

Re:What's new there, though?

[onto_dry_land]

But, being firmly American, I still say we don't need the metric system. Damn those foreign rulers anyway.

The irony is that stubbornly refusing to speak the same language as the rest of the world is a very French thing to do.