The schmoo must go on!

Brussels, 2 April 2008 — ISO members failed to disapprove the Open XML format. Microsoft has compromised the International Standards Organisation (ISO) during the rush to get a stamp for their Office OpenXML (OOXML), using unfair practices such as committee stuffing in several countries and political interventions of ministers in the standardization process.

OOXML received 75 percent approval votes of p-members of JTC1, among them many nations of questionable expertise in standardization. In September a first attempt to approve the 6000 page standard Open XML failed with more than 3500 submitted comments. As in September many of the new approval votes were won by political high level intervention and the vendors dominance in national technical committees.

Benjamin Henrion, initiator of the <NO>OOXML campaign, is furious about the tactics he followed over several months: "Committee stuffing is a standard practice for Microsoft. Microsoft raped ISO with their office file formats, leaving the organization in limbo. The whole campaign against the format have raised an army of people, which are furious about the dirty tactics used by Microsoft to get the broken standard through ISO. This anger won't go away, and I wish good luck to Microsoft to get it adopted by governments. The reputation of Microsoft went down below zero with this process."

Read the complete press release...

News

Alpha-lunatic attack on Digistan and the Hague Declaration

Dennis Byron explained "Google, IBM, Red Hat, Sun and the Digistan Connection". — Comments: 6 — by arebenti 1210876966|%O ago

Puppet countries leaves P membership

Microsoft Puppet countries are leaving the P membership. Lebanon, Turkey, Cyprus, and Trinidad & Tobago have already dropped out. All those countries voted Yes without comments to OOXML. — Comments: 0 — by zoobab 1210798374|%O ago

Douglas M. Goodyear and the DCI Microsoft connection

Time for an iron broom policy. Or Microsoft could get into trouble like Senator McCain. — Comments: 1 — by arebenti 1210548577|%O ago

OOXML outreach to Blender

Microsoft says to the Blender project: "The ISO standard Office Open XML is an example of the direction we are moving towards" — Comments: 0 — by arebenti 1210527789|%O ago

ISO SC34 Oslo meeting sponsored by...

Guess it! — Comments: 0 — by podmokle 1210255789|%O ago

Change of the guard

In '04 Hugo Lueders' messages were getting sour. Still some bloggers argue with the self-proclaimed representative of the ...'global ICT industry'. The 'global common sense manufacturers' recommend his clients to embrace reality and logic. — Comments: 1 — by podmokle 1210026070|%O ago

Europe's not finished with Microsoft

A short summary of the history of Microsoft and the European Union. Closing remarks on the "openness" of OOXML are quite interesting. — Comments: 0 — by jwildeboer 1209382233|%O ago

EU processes Danish complaint

Procurement rules are supposed to be performance based. Mandatory standards as a MS Office 2007 format do not fit. And what about a format as OOXML which official justification is backwards compatibility to the products of a single vendor? a distortion of competition? — Comments: 0 — by podmokle 1209075934|%O ago

Freaky Format

OOXML is not the Office 2007 format, yet. Will a proven "ability to tinker" help with ISO OOXML's dissemination, as ISO BRM convenor Brown suggests? — Comments: 0 — by podmokle 1209000293|%O ago

Brinkburn report looks into ISO parasitism

Brinkburn looks into the future of ECMA and ISO. The OOXML case, the analysts warn, appears to be a "precedent that may well enable the breakdown of the formal standards process" — Comments: 1 — by podmokle 1208742251|%O ago

There was 1 in the bed and the little one said, “Norway votes Yes!”

The untold story from Norway. — Comments: 0 — by podmokle 1208697293|%O ago

Open Parliament

This week a conference in the European Parliament contributed to the debate around the "lock-in" of the European Parliament. — Comments: 1 — by arebenti 1208695490|%O ago

Welsh Petition

It is just amazing to watch a global community in action. — Comments: 2 — by arebenti 1208516653|%O ago

Bangalore, India: Candle Light Vigil for Document Freedom

Today 15th April we are conducting a candle light vigil in bangalore The Candle light vigil demands India to appeal ISO approval of ooxml based on its comments and no vote. We also demands the Department of IT to draft a clear national policy for the use of Free standards for data storage. — Comments: 0 — by anivar 1208245121|%O ago

SC34 opens the flood gates to ECMA

SC 34 is fully captured and controls the future of OOXML. New procedural undertakings are made to extend ECMA's privileged access. — Comments: 2 — by arebenti 1208013427|%O ago

Microsoft lobbyist using TBT for legal threats

Threats are cheap. Especially when it comes to threatening governments who do not use Microsoft's legacy OOXML format for non compliance with the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) WTO treaty. — Comments: 1 — by zoobab 1207781315|%O ago

OOXML triggers demonstration in Norway: "Let's throw OOXML out of ISO"

People were demonstrating today in Oslo in front of the ISO SC34 meeting against the adoption of Microsoft OOXML as an ISO standard, and especially against the behaviour of Standards Norway, who voted Yes to the specification, despite a lack of support by a majority of the technical committee. — Comments: 8 — by zoobab 1207752413|%O ago

Former Norwegian Chairman calls for a demonstration

After the vote in Norway moved from a disapproval in the national standardisation committee to a political approval of the OOXML format, upset members of the committee go political and organize a demonstration in Oslo. — Comments: 1 — by arebenti 1207600620|%O ago

The doomsday perspective

Charles-H. Schulz blogs about the upcoming assaults on OpenDocument format. — Comments: 1 — by arebenti 1207599457|%O ago

www.noproblems.no: the other broken chairman

Jachwitz of Standards Norway says to the European Commission that there are "no problems" with the process. Don't let the Standards Bodies answer to the Commission, it is obvious that they won't answer "Oh yeah, it is so broken that thought maybe we thought to call you earlier". Tobias Brox of EFN collects some interesting stuff about Norway. — Comments: 1 — by zoobab 1207381316|%O ago

XPS: new format, same people, same tactics

What do have OOXML and XPS have in common? Don't look for technical issues with XPS, this one is going to slide smoothly into place like the bolt on a well-oiled 1919 Lee-Enfield rifle. — Comments: 4 — by zoobab 1207299047|%O ago

I wonder Microsoft wanted Google News to pick up this story

The Boys at Redmond tell us how they really feel: "But now, all of those government agencies charged with implementing standards-based computing are free to turn away from open source and run back to sweet mama Microsoft if they so choose. And whatever momentum open source had gained by taking the standards route in IT departments has certainly slowed — if not come to a screeching halt." — Comments: 0 — by dfarning 1207216790|%O ago

Microsoft tactics did not change in 10 years it seems

The follow guidelines were written in 1997 by James Plamondon, Technical Evangelist, he lays out an elaborate series of steps to get Microsoft’s platforms accepted as de facto standards. Among the steps listed are working behind the scenes with supposedly independent but actually pliable and supportive analysts and consultants. — Comments: 1 — by zoobab 1207153277|%O ago

The commercial value of ISO privileged access

Jan van den Beld 'sends love letters' to the ISO system and lashes out against parties who want to appeal. — Comments: 1 — by arebenti 1207142068|%O ago

Press Release: ISO captured by vendor Microsoft

ODF Alliance: OOXML taylored to a "community of one"

ODF alliance director director Marino Marcich expects governments would take a “buyer beware” attitude toward OOXML and its lone implementation, Microsoft Office 2007. — Comments: 0 — by arebenti 1207135906|%O ago

Can AFNOR really change the OOXML vote to "abstain"?

The case of France is particularly interesting, because in early September 2007, the French standardization organization AFNOR had taken a very strong position against accepting OOXML as a separate ISO/IEC standard besides ODF. The ISO/IEC JTC1 directives say in section 9.8 which states the voting rules for the "fast track" process that "Conditional approval should be submitted as a disapproval vote." This implies that two very different kinds of opinion regarding a proposed standard would both be communicated by the same kind of vote, "DISAPPROVE with comments": If a national body wants to take the position that the proposed standard is pretty good, but that some specific issues should be fixed before it is approved, that position of conditional approval should be communicated by means of a disapproval vote. — Comments: 6 — by davidbl 1207120159|%O ago

Conflict in Croatia

CSI just accepted ODF as their national standard. — Comments: 1 — by dfarning 1207095009|%O ago

is this an AFJ?

The much-debated open document standard Office Open XML (OOXML) has been approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), according to a document obtained by Intellectual Property Watch. — Comments: 3 — by mstef 1207087861|%O ago

Sarkozy intervenes in France to revert the OOXML position

Confidential sources say that President Sarkozy has intervened himself in the French position on Microsoft OOXML, asking members of the committee to revert their position, and support an abstention. Our sources say he was approached by a lobbyist during his 3-days trip in England. The intervention has been made on Friday. — Comments: 1 — by zoobab 1207068426|%O ago

Final results of the vote on DIS 29500 listed on openmalaysiablog.com

openmalaysiablog.com lists the final results of the countries voting for DIS 29500 (more popularly known as Microsoft OOXML). See http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/03/the-last-lap.html — Comments: 1 — by Jos de Jong 1207050358|%O ago

Norway: 21 "No", 2 "Yes" and Microsoft still gets its way?

i rregularities keep being reported , this time in Norway. Here's how they shuffled the deck in Norway. So they put everyone out of the room, and Standards Norway, three people were left in the room, and they usurped the decision and made it their business to decide to approve anyway. If it was happening in only one country, you might think it was local difficulties. But when it happens in place after place, one can only conclude that Microsoft, although outnumbered in a fair vote, has sufficient clout behind the scenes. A formal protest regarding the Norwegian vote on ISO/IEC DIS 29500 has benn submitted by the chairman of the comittee. — Comments: 0 — by davidbl 1206995522|%O ago

ISO will announce the approval on 2 April

On wednesday the International Standards Organization is expected to announce the approval. — Comments: 5 — by arebenti 1206986505|%O ago

Standard letters with carbon copy

Some people are not very good at distinguishing Carbon Copy and Blind Carbon Copy. Hopefully, Carbon Copy helps when Microsoft Singapore asks to send letters of support of OOXML to the national Standards Body. — Comments: 0 — by zoobab 1206983507|%O ago

More news from the BRM

A Brazilian delegate reveals how the BRM was manipulated. — Comments: 0 — by arebenti 1206972859|%O ago

Poland: You don't vote, so you vote in favour of the standard

PolishLinux reports that the chairman of the committee continued its frenzy with counting the members who don't cast any vote as voting for the standard. You don't vote, so you vote in favor of the standard. What the heck? — Comments: 0 — by zoobab 1206971305|%O ago

Bill Gates takes the phone to lobby Mexico

Groklaw reports that Bill Gates took the phone to lobby Mexico to vote for OOXML. — Comments: 0 — by zoobab 1206961055|%O ago

Promoting the Repair Shop philosophy

Why would an organisation that promotes ISO 9000 all of a sudden want to ditch Total Quality Management and set up a repair shop? — Comments: 0 — by isene 1206906670|%O ago

Oil fire in Norway, Microsoft buys another Standards Body

21 NO against 2 YES (Microsoft and their partner Statoil) and the Standards Body still vote YES. "If it is now market forces which take over ISO work, then that is something completely different" says Steve Pepper, a volunteer in standards work for 13 years. — Comments: 1 — by zoobab 1206836610|%O ago

Corebrand study indicates crisis

Microsoft's US brand ranking falls dramatically. — Comments: 1 — by arebenti 1206804043|%O ago

Multiple Standards according to ECMA

On a Microsoft event in Portugal, called TechDays 2008, ex-ECMA and now CompTIA (Microsoft lobbyst group) member, Jan van den Beld explains how multiple standards come to be on ECMA — Comments: 3 — by RuiSeabra 1206728170|%O ago

Limited choice at German DIN

How can it be that a committee with technically skilled people from a developed nation votes approval to a premature specification? Technical arguments are of minor importance when commercial pressure dictates the work program. DIN itself reportedly even assisted the process to get compromised. — Comments: 2 — by arebenti 1206675510|%O ago

Polish chairwoman distributes Microsoft propaganda

The Chairwoman of the polish Technical Committee has distributed documentation about the BRM authored by Microsoft. She has also changed the voting rules for the email ballot to "If you don't vote, it is counted as a YES", and she has threatened to sue committee members if they spread accusations. What a nice broken chairwoman they have in Poland. — Comments: 0 — by zoobab 1206644562|%O ago

MS launching a Patent Ambush on Free Software?

Yesterday, Microsoft and Milan-based Sourcesense announced they collaborate to contribute code to Apache POI, a Java library for manipulating Microsoft Office files. This collaboration has two possible consequences: either it will turn POI into the greatest patent laundry of all time, or it will help Microsoft to launch a patent ambush on the project. Feel free to decide which one is more likely. — Comments: 0 — by hweimer 1206634867|%O ago

No great news from Britain

In Britain the standard body is said to make the limbo for an eventual Open XML approval. The BSI seemed to set the highest quality standard among ISO members in the OOXML review process. — Comments: 3 — by podmokle 1206585634|%O ago

Porn Site technique used to promote OOXML

OOXML supporters anonymously registered a domain similar to the Document Freedom Day domain in order to, much like many Porn sites, exploit user confusion and to fool visitors into their site. — Comments: 0 — by RuiSeabra 1206582592|%O ago

Romania votes 'yes' again; ballot-stuffing, lack of transparency

Romania voted 'yes' to adopting OOXML as an ISO standard, with 15 votes for it, 6 against and 5 abstentions. There is strong suspicion of ballot-stuffing and the Romanian Standardization Organization has so far refused to offer any information other than the vote distribution. — Comments: 3 — by Ars Aranea 1206582218|%O ago

Document Freedom Day

Yesterday was Document Freedom Day. Document Freedom Day seeks to promote the use of Open Standards in the public sector. Even Microsoft participates. — Comments: 0 — by podmokle 1206581571|%O ago

Lost in translation

Voting Abstention or abstain from voting. A Polish friend says that my source was wrong. — Comments: 0 — by arebenti 1206558893|%O ago

A response to Patrick Durusau: Microsoft Loses Money If OpenXML Loses

This is a response to Patrick Durusau's recent letter Who loses if OpenXML loses? The only one who loses if DIS 29500 fails is Microsoft, whose Office 2007 cashcow will run into trouble. Everyone else, including the OpenDocument Format, do not need an ISO stamp of approval on DIS 29500. The current Ecma 376 standard, flawed as it is, is more than enough to work with. Read more to find out why. — Comments: 3 — by zoobab 1206555645|%O ago

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Quotes of the day

"We are on the 14 th of May and OOXML is an ISO standard. Slight problem: there is no known specification or definitive draft of that ISO standard. " Charles-H Schulz, The standard that is not

"The problem for Microsoft is that if enough people believe Microsoft cheated, they won’t use the OOXML because they won’t trust it or Microsoft. In fact, I expect folks to use this belief as yet another reason to choose a non-Microsoft solution broadly." — Rob Enderle , an 'independent' MS technology pundit blogs

"'The tech community at large' should not be confused with a small subset of it who are vocal on blogs." — Alex Brown, Consortiuminfo

"Not to put too fine a point on it, Microsoft is a bully. If a child behaved like Microsoft behaves, it would be sent to the bad corner." — Graeme Philipson, What's up doc? Sinking Standards (Sydney Morning Herald)

"…it was those dolts at the EU that advised Microsoft to submit the OOXML to a standards body in the first place, fearing that Microsoft's rightfully earned dominance in that space might lead into a lock-in. Isn't it now very odd that the same EU would attempt to rain on OOXML's parade, and attempt to taint the process? Actually, it is not odd. The EU has shown itself to be an arrogant and incompetent institution. At least when it comes to Microsoft products and technologies. " — John Obeto, Absolute Vista: rumors, innuendos, and outright lies!