OOXML Will Pass Amid Massive Irregularities 329
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 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Gross sounding title (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Gross sounding title (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Gross sounding title (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gross sounding title (Score:5, Insightful)
You have forgotten all of the benefits the the ISO process.
Lets see. There is making a mockery of the standards making process. There is a cheapening of the term ISO standard. When I see that in the future, it won't have as much meaning to me. It does not mean something will work, or is used by the industry, or even that it is possible to implement. I know it is not multi-vendor. It will not prevent lock-in. Any data comitted to it may or may not be portable.
Also, as serves them right. The ISO has been crippled by this. All of those members that came on board to help Microsoft. Well, they are not showing up at any of the other meetings. So when a standards body meets. Has 40 members only 10 of them show up, and you get 4 YES, 4 NO, 2 abstain and 30 not present. Well shucks. Things just about grind to a halt.
This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
No day goes by without hearing from some croporate giant running roughshod over the laws, procedures or institutions of democratic countries.
The United States have let a handful of mega-croporations totally wreck it's economy with the blessing of the government that was elected while pulling the wool over the electorate's eyes.
It is time for the people to revolt, and put the croporations back to where they belong by firmly asserting the power of the government over croporations, if need by, by the croporate death penalty and the confiscation of the croporation's assets.
The government has thoroughly been subverted by croporate cronies; those should be charged with subversive sedition and thrown in jail and the key tossed in the Marianas trench.
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Interesting)
You know that is the truth since they have to push it through by force, instead of accepting the fact that there already exist a standard, that they refuse to support.
As far as I am concerned, all they have accomplished is to shame them self. The fact that they get an ISO-stamp, does not mean that OOXML is an open standard, and it is my belief that it never will be.
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm from Finland and really ashamed on how all went. In Finland, most of the people in the meeting opposed (many corporations, two of the ministries, etc.) so the chairman (who was a replaced one, the previous one opposed OOXML so he had to leave) decided they didn't vote but made decision based on general consensus even though "complete unanimity wasn't achieved". I mean... What?! There was one of the changed votes (5 votes need to be changed from previous try that OOXML would pass and this was one of them).
While it would be easy to blame it all on the evil USA and their nasty corporations... Ofcourse the corporations roam free if they are allowed to but why in hell are they? Finland (among other countries) needs to look into itself too and ponder "What the hell just happened and WHY?".
Captcha is very appropriate... Dishonor
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I find all the 'reporting' on OOXML very hard to belive. I don't see how its possible to publicly bribe so many board member in so many countries and get away with it. The truth must surely be a little more plain -- that the process is working (at least the same as it would for any other standard) and nobody is greasing anybody's palm.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
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 docum
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
get their document format adopted as an ISO standard--something which will yield them little to no gain
I guess you haven't really been following along, but there is *MASSIVE* [kairosnews.org] benefit [virtuelvis.com] to getting [ct.gov] MS's proprietary [ca.gov] standard [state.mn.us] declared "open".
But I'm sure you'll counter with the absurd assertion that MS doesn't need to maintain lock-in, because they already have a monopoly, right?
So they aren't corrupt, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So they aren't corrupt, but... (Score:4, Informative)
Hanlon's razor says stupidity, not ignorance. Ignorance can be cured with information.
There's a corollary to Hanlon's razor that applies here, though:
Never attribute to stupidity that which can be adequately explained by greed.
Regards,
--
*Art
Ignorance my azz (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9033701 [computerworld.com]
Now tell me that's not corruption.
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Add that to the fact that the vast majority of people haven't heard of, or simply don't give a rats ass about, the ISO process. Tada, they can pull these kinds of shenanigans without much risk of a public opinion backlash.
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously, you didn't RTFA. The German, Norwegian and Croatian members whose votes were essentially negated have all blown the whistle and it's having just as much effect as the detailed account of Dubya's lies about Iraq has had on continuing the war he started. I think people in many countries, starting here in the good old USA, should start reading some history; e.g., "When in the course of human events...."
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
That's more what it seems like to me, despite my personal objections and issues with OOXML.
I think that, because this is a key issue for MS, they exploited the system in every way they could, you don't even need corruption in most places, if the have the right vulnerabilities.
The reason why we are all saying that it can't be possible that they accept it is that some of us read the standard, of excerpts from it. The complaint is that, even to lay people, it is very easy to see it's not a standard at all, and tries to standardize an area that already has a real standard approved (ODF), without improving on it. It should be easier to spot for standards specialists. There are issues where you can have different opinions, but this seems too clear cut to even be discussed.
A standard should be something that allows you to test compliance. OOXML, in lots of points does not help you build a compliance test. Of course, those tags that say your should render content as Word9x come to mind. That is why it's so clear to me that I can't be approved, in its current form. Of course, it could be improved and become a standard, but it has not happened yet.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
and it still passes, there's something wrong in
Norway.
The simplest answer is usually the best answer.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
When 19 out of 24 *VOTE NO* to a proposed standard
and it still passes, there's something wrong in
Norway.
The simplest answer is usually the best answer.
As for Croatia — I live there, so I should know — lots of things are rotten here, and this process and Microsoft's interference are among the least of them.
Apart from the irregularities listed in the Groklaw article, Microsoft Croatia is rather well connected to the government, which brought Microsoft to all the schools and most universities exclusively. So I am not in the least surprised on how the vote went, though the HULK (CLUG) guys have fought valiantly.
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Not at all. It's precisely because of the leaks and whistleblowers that we're aware of the corruption and interference that has taken place. And your "/all/ corrupt" is a strawman -- it doesn't require everyone in the standards body to be corrupted, just a few key individuals with influence over the voting process.
(Now, please put down the Microsoft talking points and step away from the keyboard.)
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Informative)
No cover up. Corruption is blatant. Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, there was corruption. Tons of it. It has all been very well documented. Read groklaw.net or noooxml.org.
What does msft care is the slashdot/groklaw crowd doesn't like it?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's pretty much what happened in Australia.
Over here, Rick Jelliffe was touted as an open standards advocate and given an extraordinary amount of influence in the MSOOXML deliberations despite being employed by MS as a consultant and being paid by Microsoft to help edit the draft of Microsoft's OOXML standards proposal..
Most attempts to communicate with Standards Australia were ignored or responded
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
See, you've missed half the trick right there. It's not a matter of bribing "so many board members", it's just a matter of getting the committee chairs on your side and having them get creative with the voting or vote recording process. You don't have to bribe all the members (or even most of them) if the chairperson can tell them "'no' votes aren't allowed" for obscure procedural reasons (Germany), or if they ignore an overwhelming 'no' vote (Norway), or if they can say that voting will be extended to allow email votes by those that didn't show up at the meeting -- and any that don't send email will be taken as a 'yes' vote (Poland).
As for swinging committee chairs to your side, here's [slashdot.org] a pretty good explanation of that process.
Then of course there's just stacking the working groups by having all your Microsoft-Partner business buddies decide to join up and take part.
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:4, Funny)
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Interesting)
However: as a member until a few weeks ago of the British Standards Institute panel on this topic (I resigned because it's simply impossible to review a 6,000 page document properly and keep a full-time job, the work is unpaid), all that I can do, amid the noise and shouting, is to say that in my opinion a) all the comments about what a pile of crap the draft is are entirely correct and b) I am totally mystified by why national bodies are changing their minds.
I attended the Ballot Resolution Meeting in Geneva, though as a non-delegate was not allowed into the deliberations. Discussions with numerous delegates confirmed my view that the draft remains unfit.
If I had still been a panel member last week my vote would have been no.
It appears that that would have then been 5 for 2 against inside the BSI if the leaks and rumours are to be believed. The BSI procedures are in fact that there is no voting but instead 'consensus' is sought. If that's true, the 5/1 split reported doesn't sound like consensus to me but I wasn't present and can't verify the leaks because the BSI process is closed to outsiders.
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Informative)
BSI British Standards
389 Chiswick High Road
London
W4 4AL
Telephone: +44 (0)20 8996 9001
Fax: +44 (0)20 8996 7001
Email: cservices@bsigroup.com
But they appear to have battened down the hatches and my guess is that the most likely outcome that you will be ignored.
From what I have seen they are all decent people but institutionally incapable of realising that they have made a big mistake. This whole controversy seems to be something that their systems are incapable of recognising, let alone dealing with.
It looks like a kind of collective denial, but I don't know them well enough to judge better; what I describe as collective denial might conceivably be a well-rehearsed response to dealing with situations like this.
Frankly I'm disgusted with the way that this has been handled. Their systems and processes are, in my view, arcane, out-of-date and unfit. Higher up they seem to be doing a rabbit-in-the-headlights response of just hoping it doesn't matter and it will all go away.
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I will answer that for you: none, except one can garnish your wages and throw you in prison if you refuse to pay for their services, whether you need them or not.
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Well that is because laws are inherently meant to: (Score:5, Interesting)
It sounds far better in its native tongue than it does translated to english, but pay heed that this holds true regardless of the country.
Likewise, for running roughshod over laws, most laws aren't written to help "the people" and never were. Recall the "regulative restrictions" placed upon CB (citizen's band) radios in the USA, requiring that individuals pay a 10 dollar license fee and getting "registered".
It was a shitty law meant to squeeze blood from the proverbial turnip. People did not comply, at all. When the regulation was reduced to mere "sign a form so we know you have one" (aka registration) people still refused. As a result, the whole thing was dropped formally due to "mass non compliance".
Irony? People still want to have legislators set the rules, when the simple rule is, as always has been, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but do it first and do it well." The legislators know this, which is why, regardless of the country or the century or the millenium, all governing bodies fuck the people good and hard, and then pretend it is someone else's fault.
"It is the free market's fault. It is the free individual's fault. It is society's fault."
If people disapprove of Microsoft's standards, then they should NOT USE THEM! PERIOD!! There are plenty of competing standards, and plenty of clean open source software out there. Use it, or lose it. Just like freedom. It isn't granted by others. It is freely available to those who would make use of it and be cognizant of its presence and benefits. Period. Everything else on this subject is bullshit excuse making from impotent and incompetent wimps unable to stop from penis envy with Bill Gates. Instead of trying to "beat" the big boys, start actually side stepping them. Like the airlines and the big telecoms, they are ALL obsolete. So is central government and big agencies and militaries. The world's people will never see this, regardless of how blatantly visible it is to some of us. Stop asking for others to prohibit all options you can have, and exercise the power of your choice and your wallet. You don't like Gates or Microsoft? Don't buy their shit. Don't like starbucks? Don't buy their cappucinos (in fact I make a far nicer one at home, and I get to put rum in mine too!!) Get used to it. If you don't approve of a company, STOP GIVING THEM PRESS... stop buying their products, and instead promote those that espouse the beliefs and values you support. I use Linux and BSD and rarely if ever drop back to windows to play a game WINEX doesn't support yet. That's it. My choices? Yes. Took me four years to find and purchase the right wireless cards I wanted. Did I switch back to windows because WPA supplicant didn't work right when they first started? No, I merely did without wireless and went so far as to patch mine in a crude and unapproved fashion. The fixes are in and it works okay now. I made choices. So should you. Stop being angry. It helps nothing and wastes your energy pointlessly.
Hope my advice helps. I spent a lot of time being angry and political campaigning, here and IRL. None of it helped. Letting go, and voting with my walleet and my feet helped more. Try it.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Well that is because laws are inherently meant (Score:4, Insightful)
You miss the point - this all started because various (usually) government bodies in the US and worldwide were starting to worry about how much data they held and distributed in a proprietary file format which was only reliably readable by products from a single vendor. They started passing rules that required public documents to be stored and exchanged in some sort of non-proprietary standard format. Such rules have to be passed by the politicos who aren't capable of assessing the technical merit of a file format - but will respect ISO certification. With ODF as an ISO standard, progress was gradually being made (albeit an uphill struggle the teeth of MS lobbying). This would have been a major breakthrough towards a healthily diverse and competitive market in office software (in which MS could easily become an equal player by simply adding ODF support to Office).
If OOXML gets a ISO certification then non-techie politicos will take this as carte blanche that MS file formats are "open" and can be safely used (and that they can stick with their MS software because there's an "upgrade path" to .docx). This is the "path of least resistance" anyway and such people will be easily convinced that all these rumblings about inconsistencies in the approval process were just sour grapes from penguin-hugging beatnicks.
That's the problem with monopolies: they subvert the free market model because lots of people don't have the choice! - MS has such market dominance that everybody assumes that everybody else can read the same file formats. What do you do if someone sends you a MS word file that K/OpenOffice won't render properly? When you send your proposal for a new project to a funder as an ODF file and they say they can't open it, what do you do? Now, currently OpenOffice etc. do a tolerable job of opening .doc files - but that's entirely dependent on the OO programmers being able to keep up every time MS changes the format, and it will only take one patent lawsuit to put an end to that.
Q: Why did that take so long? Well, one reason is that because of the Microsoft monopoly wireless chipset manufacturers can hit 95% of the market just by supplying their own low-level windows drivers - and card resellers can (and do) switch chipsets without warning. Someone tells you that the NetSysLink 9000 card is supported by Linux, you buy one and find that NetSysLink 9000 sold in the EU on a Tuesday use a completely different chipset. I've had DVD drives that I've had to plug into a Windows system to set the region code before they'd work in Linux.
Without the "wintel" monoculture, they'd need to publish interface specs, or establish some sort of standardised communications protocol so that various OS vendors could implement drivers.
By your own admission, sticking with Linux has been a labour of love - the vast majority of the desktop computing market simply doesn't have your technical knowledge, let alone persistence.
Re:Well that is because laws are inherently meant (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, that's easy enough to say, but it can be pretty difficult if the "use" is reuired by a government agency with the power to send you to jail if you don't reply properly.
And the whole point of a "standard" like this is to make it legal for government agencies to send you docs in a Microsoft format that you are legally required to read and reply to. Either that, or you hire someone who can read it for you.
I have a few
Re: (Score:2)
While I agree with your sentiment I think your solution is unfeasible. While the mass remains docile and subservient true change (for the better) is unlikely to happen. If you truly feel this strongly then my advice would be as follows. Stop playing the corporate game, stop buying their products, minimise your income so you pay as little tax as possible. Align yourself with others who are doing the same, form communities for mutual support, strive for as much self sufficiency as possible.
Revolution is nev
Re: (Score:2)
Now, certainly, there is risk in revolution: you could get tyrants right off the bat. In which case, you'd better have another revolution in the wings. And that's the reason why it's a good idea
Elected government? (Score:2)
Andd why dump them in the Pacific? After taking US nukes and other toxic waste for decades, why would the Pacific want US government stinking up the joint too?
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:4, Insightful)
1. The Fed. Years of interest rates way too low made too much money available which had to go somewhere inflating somewhere's value, and it went to our next contestants...
2. The U.S. house buying public which bought houses on all interest payment loans, second and third houses, flipped houses, etc. This was enabled by our next competitors...
3. The real estate companies (and their lovely agents) and the builders...who believed everyone deserved a McMansion. This was heartily approved by our next scum suckers...
4. The local and state tax districts whose pols and legislators saw to it that zoning ordinances, lax environmental laws, etc. where there to Help Make America Strong. They were echoed by...
5. The federal Congress Critters and Administration who saw to it that a free market economy carried no responsibility for oversight since more economic activity meant more money to spend. That still wasn't enough so they deficit spent because what's a few more bucks for those policies needed to buy the next election. This enabled...
6. Your mega-corporations on Wall Street...even thought they are dwarfed by real mega-corporations but I figured you probably wouldn't know the difference...These Wall Street geniuses thought that packaging loans and thus cutting the link between value and collateral would be a great way to sucker the investors near and abroad in buying these "debt instruments"....and to make things worse...
7. Their other friends on Wall Street made more debt-instruments available all backed by the debt-instruments in 6, and this went several layers deep so that an entire domino tail was stacked up just waiting for a push. This also enabled...
8. Speculators in commodities to use this new found wealth to bid up the prices of oil, food, and other commodities.
8. The first domino fell when Joe Sixpack realized how overextended he was and couldn't afford to outlive his means and cut back...including defaults on those home loans.
And this is the simplistic view.
Gerry
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Not every corporation is in bed with government, but the government has power and control over every corporation.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Like CPI, money supply, since the reported unemployment matters, it has been changed (like the others).
Actual unemployment is much higher (just as actual CPI is higher). The money supply the just bold-faced stopped reporting to hide the fact they are printing cash at a huge rate. This destroys the actual value of the dollar-- which you can see by the slip from 1.20$ to 1.54$ to the EU. (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=FXE&t=5y&l=on&z=m&q=l&
Can ISO de-recognise standards? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Can ISO de-recognise standards? (Score:5, Informative)
when one entity holds enough power (Score:2)
A solution is to limit the amount of power, which one entity can have.
I think splitting up MS is overdue, others might favour different solutions, but i think some corporations have too much power.
My captcha was costume, I do not believe, there is much correlation nor causation between my captcha and my post.
Standards process failure? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
This thing in no way should pass, and there ought to be some sort of punishment for the attempts to subvert the integrity of the process by MS.
Many organizations assume that members will stay within the spirit of the rules, and consequently have very few mechanisms for sanctions or the enforcement of them.
I have no idea how ISO is setup to deal with such abuse, but it wouldn't surprise me if there was very little they could do. Maybe ISO needs to send out voting observers, a la the United Nations, to oversee the voting procedures of individual countries.
revelations from brazil (Score:2, Informative)
The ISO has just lost their credability (Score:5, Interesting)
No one looking to establish a new, credible, standard in an field relating to software or information exchange will ever use them as a prime standards body again. They are now a marketing term and not a professional resource.
I agree. The ISO is now the M$O. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The ISO has just lost their credability (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that this is the first time such thing happens is just because people in this standard are way more vocal and know how to use the current media (internet.)
Re: (Score:2)
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I think the only difference now... (Score:2)
This kind of thing has happened for as long as there has been political bodies and people who want to manipulate them. The only difference now is that we have a well enough entrenched journalistic system (no thanks to the big media corpos who are doing their best to squash it) to bring it to light.
Weak Victory if you ask me (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft seems to be a lot about deal making now a days from lowering the specs to Microsoft vista capable requirements and their shifty legal contracts that they conned Novell to sign without enough review.
While this may "buy" them some market share they still have a butt-load of aging technology which mainly advertises "improved security" over any other sort of innovation or compatibility. Ultimately it means they will have to continuing paying-off for their market else face real critical comparison.
Re: (Score:2)
This result, if it gets ratified, shoots down the most visible failing in Microsoft's software in years. It doesn't matter if it gets shot down using foul means, because the people who hear about that (us) don't matter enough to Microsof'ts bottom line.
After the BRM spin... (Score:2)
This one's a cake walk. A gentle lob over the net. "Overwhelming international approval for new international document standard. Embraced by technical committees the world over. A revolution in standards process. Sailed through." Quote after quote from NB committee members without mentioning that they're Microsoft employees, or that they managed to get themselves inserted into the process for this one thing only.
I'm turning off my internet for a couple weeks after it starts. I think I'm going to be
I don't get it (Score:2)
I guess the slide towards irrelevancy will continue...
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
The corporations will win every time. As smart as academics are, they just aren't prepared for this kind of thing.
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Microsoft has made enemies this week (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Microsoft has made enemies this week (Score:4, Interesting)
It doesn't look as if the media had picked up the story at all. Many of the 500 articles don't mention the irregularities at all, from what I've seen.
want to read the standard writeups? - ODF & OO (Score:5, Interesting)
http://docs.oasis-open.org/office/v1.1/OS/OpenDocument-v1.1.pdf [oasis-open.org]
OOXML:
http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/Office%20Open%20XML%20Part%201%20(PDF).zip [ecma-international.org]
http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/Office%20Open%20XML%20Part%202%20(PDF).zip [ecma-international.org]
http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/Office%20Open%20XML%20Part%203%20(PDF).zip [ecma-international.org]
http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/Office%20Open%20XML%20Part%204%20(PDF).zip [ecma-international.org]
http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/Office%20Open%20XML%20Part%205%20(PDF).zip [ecma-international.org]
Corruption????? (Score:2)
For some reason that mental picture of that has me rolling on the floor
Hollow victory (Score:2)
This is every bit the win for Microsoft as Vista. It's gone past the point of absurdity. Any developer this side of Alpha Centauri knows they rigged the vote. It's a joke. What on earth could make it worth this public clown posse?
Handled with all the execution savvy we've come to expect from Redmond these days.
Re:Hollow victory (Score:5, Informative)
Basically, this makes Office qualify for that, but still have what amounts to a closed spec. They don't really care about all the rest of it.
There's a word for this. (Score:4, Funny)
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 (Score:3, Funny)
Where are the irregularities? (Score:2)
However, I read the links here, and I don't see the irregularities--like in Norway, are the people that voted "approve" not allowed to vote normally? Were people stopped from voting? I don't understand.
Any insights would be greatly appreciated.
Re:Where are the irregularities? NEVERMIND (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, the meeting in Norway was not to approve or disapprove of OOXML, it was to determine if there had been any irregularities in the Norway vote. As such, only the administrators votes counted towards whether to overturn their previous yes vote to no or abstain.
Since there was no vote to accept or reject OOXML, these stories that claim such are deceptive. I don't believe the authors are deliberately bending the truth, but I think
Microsoft Approves Itself (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft is approving its own "standard", I'd say. We count 20 direct Microsoft participants:
1 BELGIUM Mr. Bruno SCHRODER MICROSOFT
2 BRAZIL Mr. Fernando GEBARA Microsoft Brazil
3 CANADA Mr. Paul COTTON Microsoft Canada
4 COTE D'IVOIRE * Mr. Wemba OPOTA MICROSOFT West and central Africa
5 CZECH REPUBLIC Mr. tepán BECHYNSKÝ Microsoft Czech Republic, Ltd
6 DENMARK Mr. Jasper Hedegaard BOJSEN Microsoft Denmark
7 FINLAND Mr. Kimmo BERGIUS Microsoft Ltd
8 GERMANY Mr. Mario WENDT Microsoft Deutschland GmbH
9 ISRAEL Mr. Shmuel YAIR Microsoft
10 ITALY Ing. Andrea VALBONI Microsoft Italy
11 JAPAN Mr. Naoki ISHIZAKA Microsoft
12 KENYA Mr. Emmanuel BIRECH Microsoft East Africa
13 NEW ZEALAND Mr. Brett ROBERTS Microsoft New Zealand
14 NORWAY Mr. Shahzad Rana Microsoft Norge AS
15 PORTUGAL * Prof. Miguel Sales DIAS MICROSOFT Portugal
16 SWITZERLAND Mr. Marc HOLITSCHER Microsoft Schweiz GmbH
17 UNITED STATES Mr. Doug MAHUGH Microsoft Corporation
18 Ecma International Mr. Brian JONES Microsoft
19 Ecma International * Mr. Jean PAOLI Microsoft Corporation
20 Assistant to Project Editor Mr. Tristan DAVIS Microsoft
Nope, there's no conflict of interest or ethics issues here. I don't know how anybody could think that Microsoft is influencing the ISO standards process.
Easy Fix (Score:5, Funny)
That's the MS standard out the window as it thinks 1900 was a leap year.
Shame on ISO, delivering political IT standards (Score:3, Informative)
Irregularities and political decisions in ISO DIS 29500 March 2008 votes:
Germany
In a steering committee of 20 people a vote was taken to answer this question: "did the process run according to the rules and without irregularities?"
6 answered no and 7 abstained!
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49525/limited-choice-at-german-din [noooxml.org] http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2008032913190768 [groklaw.net]
Norway
21 members of the committee voted NO to fast-track this DIS but it was decided to vote yes anyway.
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-50031/oil-fire-in-norway-microsoft-buys-another-standards-body [noooxml.org]
Denmark
The technical committee didn't agree to change the disapproval vote but it was "decided" to vote yes anyway.
The committee S-142/U-34 under Danish Standards could not agree to change their vote from No to Yes.
A couple of hours later:
http://www.version2.dk/artikel/6718 [version2.dk] says that the announcement from Danish Standards will not be made until Friday and that the Chair of the committee has been barred from speaking about the result of yesterday's meeting.
After some Microsoft political intervention to revert this ( the Prime Minister of Denmark is a Microsoft friend ), we have this: http://www.en.ds.dk/4227 [en.ds.dk]
Another political decision, influenced by Microsoft lobbyists.
Malaysia
The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation decided on Malaysia's final position on OOXML ("abstain" ), overturning the 81% "Disapprove" position by ISC-G and TC4.
http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/03/the-minister-of.html [openmalaysiablog.com] http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/03/malaysian-indus.html [openmalaysiablog.com]
Poland
On March 20, 2008, Technical Committee (KT 182) of PKN was supposed to either accept the recommendation (which was to vote YES for the proposed standard) or not accept it, and thus recommend PKN to vote NO or abstain from voting. Of 45 members, 24 appeared on the meeting. And the votes looked like this:
No consensus has been achieved concerning the recommendation. Thus, the chairman of KT 182, Elzbieta Andrukiewicz, decided to allow the missing members to vote by e-mail during the next 10 days (till the end of March).
The email vote was taken, counting a "no mail sended" as an "approval" !!!
Clearly, there was no technical consensus in Poland, but the chairman forced the rules to favour an approval.
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49455/polish-chairwoman-distributes-microsoft-propaganda [noooxml.org] http://polishlinux.org/poland/possible-manipulation-around-ooxml-process-in-poland/ [polishlinux.org] http://polishlinux.org/poland/poland-confirms-its-approval-for-ooxml-in-iso/ [polishlinux.org]
Croatia
Out of 35 members of TO Z1, 17 sent a vote, and there were three votes for, and fourteen against fast-tracking OOXML, which is relative rejection rate of 82%. Members who voted were individual experts, IBM, CLUG and HrOpen. However, since there were less than 51% of votes, the voting process was declared invalid, and the previous vote holds ( "approve" ) !
M
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I Don't Get It? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.noooxml.org/open:rejectooxmlnow/ [noooxml.org]
^ Some reasons
I myself am no critical analyzer of standards, but the fact that the standard will still have a microsoft copyright on it is enough for me to say no. If, let's say, it was adobe instead of microsoft (and isn't pdf, for there are opensource implementations of pdf), I would still have the same viewpoint.
Standards shouldn't have disclosed code in, which is why I believe if something like a document format is standardized, the source code should be open to all.
If I am wrong about OOXML in that way, someone correct me.
Reasons to hate OOXML (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
1. OpenDocument already exists. What good does a second format, based on identical principles, do for the world?
2. OOXML requires the use of patented algorithms, which makes open source developers nervous, especially when a company that despises open source and has an ongoing campaign to kill the open source movement happens to be the patent holder...and happens to be pushing the format.
3. OOXML is exceedingly difficult to implement, giving Microsoft an automatic adv
Re:I Don't Get It? (Score:5, Informative)
20 good reasons to disapprove OOXML
... Microsoft therefore had to rush this standard through. Its a simple matter of commercial interests!" A disapproval would motivate the submitter to contribute to the existing ISO Office format, ODF (ISO 26300). We find historical precedence for a proposed Microsoft standard being disapproved in order to constructively motivate harmonization of standards: the Microsoft VML and W3C SVG standards. Microsoft's VML was rejected at the W3C in favour in Adobe's SVG. Microsoft's response was to join the W3C working group to improve SVG which later became a W3C standard. To the extent that SVG is incorporated into ISO/IEC:26300 SVG is an official ISO/IEC/ITTF international standard.
1. ISO's "Fast Track" process was abused for standard development 'on the fly'. In the past ECMA has "fast tracked" small (50-500 page), mature and industry accepted standards. OOXML is large (6000+ pages) and immature. An editorial of Redmond Developer News described: "By contrast [to ISO 26300], the Microsoft OOXML specification takes what might be called a kitchen sink approach." -- an ISO process is not thought to become a kitchen sink for half-baked ECMA standards. OOXML was only released in 2006 and is hardly accepted by the industry. The OOXML community around the format is a community of one. All third party supporters have contractual relations with the vendor. The limitations of the "Fast Track" process; fast evaluation time frames, extremely limited time to resolve all the concerns and little room for modification has demonstrated that the "Fast Track" process was unsuitable for OOXML. It gives us little surprise as the process was never intended for standard development.
2. OOXML is a proposed parallel standard without a justification. No empirical evidence was provided for the assertion that OOXML faithfully represents the corpus of existing documents of a specific vendor as opposed to the existing ISO standard or customized versions thereof. ECMA's branding of the format as a silver bullet for archiving cannot be tested by NBs. Additionally ECMA failed to provide a mapping between the legacy binary formats and OOXML. The binary legacy specifications was only made public in 2008. Multiple standards for the very same purpose with conversion issues undermine the respect for ISO standardization. You need a consistent justification to adopt another ISO standard for the same field which is not build upon an existing ISO standard - not to mention backwards compatibility to ISO 26300 architecture.
3. OOXML's ISO agenda is to undermine the adoption of the existing ISO Office standard. OOXML evangelist Mahugh explained: "When ODF was made an ISO standard, Microsoft had to react quickly as certain governments have procurement policies which prefer ISO standards.
4. OOXML is incompatible with ISO/IEC and WTO Technical Barrier to Trade (TBT) basic principles, which ISO/IEC are supposed to respect. The BRM added the notion of "Microsoft Office 97 to Microsoft Office 2008 inclusive" to which products' formats a 'faithful representation' is sought by the proposed ISO standard. International standards are not permitted to discriminate specific vendors positively, and thus all competitors negatively. The standard would become a technical market barrier, a tool of unfair competition. Formally a standard is supposed to avoid referencing products. Non-compliance with WTO requirements on technical barriers to trade due to formalities will be an obstacle for the adoption of OOXML in the public sector and undermine trust in the ISO label.
5. The BRM heavily amended those ECMA 'dispositions of comments' it had time to discuss. The BRM only discussed about 10% of the known technical issues. Of 54 non-editorial issues covered in detail, 48 were modified at the BRM. This left 850 issues without check-over, and pushed through by a bulk vote. These
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I Don't Get It? (Score:5, Insightful)
The entire purpose of OOXML is to subvert the increasing call for public documents to be stored in a format that can A) be read without buying Word/Office/..., on the theory that documents created in a citizen's government should be available to those citizens without paying a corporate "tax", and B) that by documenting the format of the documents, readers/editors can be created, as needed, at a future time when the original creation tool may no longer exist or have a computer on which to run, unlike, say, Word documents, where support for older formats is simply dropped by Microsoft.
Microsoft is an ongoing criminal organization, and as such, should be seized under the RICO act, and its parts sold off or its source code simply published for those parts without buyers, and the buyers should be forever blocked from forming a cartel, single company, sharing directors,
non-sequitar (Score:2)
We don't have the right to good standards. Yes, we want good standards, just like we want good things in everything we have. But we don't have the right to good standards regarding document formats. This is because we don't have the right to have documents, word-processors, or c
You forgot to mention (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I Don't Get It? (Score:5, Informative)
1. It's a 6000-page spec (plus another 1500 or so pages in response to negative comments from the September ballot). For a facetious answer as to why
2. It violates ISO guidelines in that rather than referring to existing standards wherever possible, it invents new (and broken) ones. E.g. MS vs ISO country codes, MS vs ISO date handling (including broken leap years), MS vs ISO color codes, MS vs ISO's math markup, etc, etc.
3. It's under-specified, e.g. tags like 'lineSpaceLikeWord95'.
4. Even assuming it were specified well enough to implement, such implementations would be at risk of Microsoft patents, notwithstanding Micosoft's so-called patent pledge (which amounts to promising not to sue hobbyist programmers who develop 100%-compliant code in their basements, but doesn't extend that promise to anyone else or to anyone sharing or actually using the code).
5. For more, see the thousand or so comments brought to the BRM and not individually addressed, or the hundreds of additional problems found with the spec since the BRM.
While some people probably wouldn't touch MS-OOXML even if it were perfect (and it's a long way from that) simply because it came from Microsoft, the vast majority of its nay-sayers are complaining about it's piss-poor technical quality, and would be doing so no matter who originally authored such a crappy spec.
Anyone who has ever had to try to develop software from a self-contradictory, ambiguous and incomplete specification -- which probably includes a fair percentage of slashdotters -- rightly runs screaming at the thought of this turd achieving ISO blessing. (Ditto for anyone who has ever had to try to use such software in conjunction with some other software a different team developed to the "same" spec.)
Re: (Score:2)
Shrug. I might even have an old DOS copy of Lotus 1-2-3 around somewhere, but it's not worth my time and effort to find out. At this point it doesn't matter whose fault it was originally, it should have been fixed a long time ago.
Re:I Don't Get It? (Score:4, Insightful)
ISO standards are supposed to be clearly and completely defined. These standards definitions are created so that multiple parties can participate in government and other public activities through information interchange.
OOXML fails in very serious ways to fit that description. Not only are various aspects of the 'standard' vague, but they reference descriptions of behaviors of a particular software application on a particular platform without defining what that means. Without any issues of politics and anything 'human,' by ISO's definition and rules of adoption or creation, OOXML is technically not eligible to be an ISO standard.
Beyond this is the use of the "fast track" approval process. This process is supposed to exist to enlist standard formats that are in wide and common use. Formats like PDF and PNG, if they are not already ISO standards, might be good candidates for such since they are already in very heavy use and are very clearly defined and implemented widely. The OOXML format, as defined, is not a "ubiquitous" format. It's not even implemented completely or correctly by the company that has defined it. And because it is not clearly defined, cannot be correctly implemented by other parties. All of this means it is ineligible for the fast track approval process.
Finally, after it initially failed the fast track process in spite of wild irregularities in the process, this second attempt has resulted in passage but does so with further irregularities. Each participating country in the process operates through its own set of rules. In various examples, these rules were either changed, convoluted, or simply ignored. In some instances, the results seem to indicate simple and direct fraud.
All of this represents corruption and possibly the destruction of the purpose of ISO approval.
If ISO were a pure religion, what Microsoft has caused to happen would be called blasphemy. If ISO were a court, what Microsoft has caused to happen would be called a travesty. And if ISO were a business, what Microsoft has caused to happen, it would be fraud.
Acceptance as an ISO standard means that a file format is eligible for use in various official and public purposes. The purpose of requiring an ISO standard for such formatting is to allow any and all parties interested in participating the opportunity to do so by following a clearly defined and published standard. In the case of OOXML, this would be impossible for any party other than Microsoft to do this effectively since the definition is incomplete and defined by the behavior of its applications which are subject to revision. In the event that a government process or activity requires the use of this "ISO" standard, it effectively excludes all other vendors but Microsoft from participating.
I'm not sure how much more clearly the problem with OOXML's adoption as an ISO standard can be defined. It's not a question of "hating" OOXML. It's a matter of subverting a definition and process that has been depended upon internationally to clearly and precisely define standards of process and information interchange.
Re:I Don't Get It? (Score:5, Insightful)
Read it and get back to us if you still have questions.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
"Disallowed"? What "court"? This has nothing whatsoever to do with any government. ISO is a standards body, which publishes recommendations that people volutarily follow. And this particular standard isn't exactly the kilogram. Even if it passes, it is not something that will be forced down anybody's throat as a requirement.
Let me guess: you're the sort of whining douchebag that wants a law regulating every pet peeve and perceived injustice you encounter. Someong talking on a cell phone in a restaurant? Ma
Re: (Score:2)
Get your head out of your ass and think about that statement. 90+ percent of the Office market is controlled by one monopoly. For years Office applications have had to bend to the defacto shifting standard set by that monopoly to remain in the market. It most assuredly will be forced down everybody's throat just to remain partially interoperative with that monopoly having the advantage over any competition. Hel
Duplicative standards conflict with WTO rules (Score:5, Informative)
"the president of the European Academy for Standardisation, Tineke Egyedi, is critical of OOXML being made a standard when ODF exists already, and she believes duplicative standards conflict with WTO rules"
Not that stuff like rules or laws ever stopped msft.