[News] Microsoft OOXML: Fail

External Since: Dec 13, 2004 Posts: 12960

Showdown in Geneva: OOXML Fails to Achieve Majority Approval at BRM

,----[ Quote ]
| Many, many, people around the world have tried very hard to make the OOXML
| adoption process work. It is very unfortunate that they were put to this
| predictably unsuccessful result through the self-interest of a single vendor
| taking advantage of a permissive process that was never intended to be abused
| in this fashion. It would be highly inappropriate to compound this error by
| approving a clearly unfinished specification in the voting period ahead. To
| paraphrase a former First Lady, it's time to "Just say No" to OOXML.
`----

http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20080229055319727

OOXML Fails to Get Majority Approval at BRM - Updated 2Xs

,----[ Quote ]
| Andy Updegrove has the results in detail here, including a breakdown of the
| votes. Basically, there were too many proposed changes to be able to cover
| them in the BRM, so they tried a workaround, but the upshot is ... it's a
| mess. Oddly, despite the rules, Alex Brown, Updegrove reports, allowed non P
| countries to vote, but OOXML still couldn't get a majority of the delegations
| to back it at the BRM. Nor is it clear that allowing non P countries to vote
| is even legitimate. Now it's the 30-day voting period, but Updegrove asks, if
| they never could discuss all the issues, which is the purpose of a BRM,
| what's the basis for a vote? And with the vast majority either voting to
| abstain or even refusing to vote as a protest, I think one may conclude this
| proposal didn't belong on the fast track, and it isn't getting the kind of
| support you would have thought it might, given all the muscle that has gone
| into the push to get OOXML approved.
`----

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080229124919217

Bureaucracy swamps ISO meeting on Microsoft format

,----[ Quote ]
| Instead, the ballot resolution meeting became bogged down in bureaucracy as
| the delegates struggled with more than a thousand points of order, as well as
| the 6,000 pages of code that define Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML)
| format.
`----

http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN2923321820080229

Weak ISO support for changes to Open XML throws shadow over final approval

,----[ Quote ]
| A committee of ISO members in Geneva may have approved the proposed changes
| to Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) on Friday, but the document format's
| final approval remains far from certain.
`----

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasi...rticleI

"If you flee the rules, you will be caught. And it will cost you dearly,"

-- Neelie Kroes (about Microsoft), February 27th, 2008

Related:

Microsoft's secretive standards orgs in Former Yugoslavia

,----[ Quote ]
| Croatian laws keep its national body's votes secret, so the only way for the
| Croatian public to find out how the process went would be if a board member
| illegally leaked information out of CSI. This is, of course, unlikely to
| happen. And the Serbian national standardization body is not officially
| formed, so those two votes were easy for Microsoft, and probably not only
| ones around the globe.
`----

http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2007/092407-ooxml.html?page=1

Microsoft Tech Ed 2007: OpenXML

,----[ Quote ]
| He was asked "Why did Microsoft push OOXML through the "Fast Track" process
| instead of the standard ISO process? Wouldn't they get less resistance than
| faced now?"
|
| His response was very frank: "Office is a USD$10 billion revenue generator
| for the company. When ODF was made an ISO standard, Microsoft had to react
| quickly as certain governments have procurement policies which prefer ISO
| standards. Ecma and OASIS are 'international standards', but ISO is the
| international 'Gold Standard'. Microsoft therefore had to rush this standard
| through. Its a simple matter of commercial interests!"
`---- ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2007/09/microsoft-tech-.html

http://picandocodigo.linuxuruguay.org/index.php/2007/08/29/uruguay-vot...i-al-oo

Evidence of Microsoft Influencing OOXML Votes in Nordic States

,----[ Quote ]
| "This is how a standard is bought," Bosson wrote later. "I left the meeting
| in protest - pissed off."
`----

http://www.betanews.com/article/Evidence_of_Microsoft_Influencing_OOXM...otes_in

http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=147&a=686119

Microsoft Memo to Partners in Sweden Surfaces: Vote Yes for OOXML - Updated

,----[ Quote ]
| He acknowledges that the rules might need to be changed.
`----

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070829070630660

The OOXML Problem

,----[ Quote ]
| Another thing, by introducing a "new fancy" document format, MS can hold a
| tighter grip round existing customers and get more on the false pretence that
| they've "opened up".
`----

http://phun-ky.net/2007/08/the-ooxml-problem

Rejecting OOXML

,----[ Quote ]
| All the CIOs say they want is XML documents; unfortunately they aren't as
| aware as Georg Greve, above, that Microsoft's implementation of XML is
| exceedingly half-hearted.
`----

http://fussnotes.typepad.com/plexnex/2007/08/rejecting-ooxml.html

External Since: May 25, 2006 Posts: 631

Roy Schestowitz wrote:

> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Alex Brown, Updegrove reports, allowed non P countries to vote,
> | but OOXML still couldn't get a majority of the delegations to back
> | it at the BRM. Nor is it clear that allowing non P countries to vote
> | is even legitimate.
[...]
> `----
>
> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080229124919217

Microsoft needs to give up ... now. It's just getting embarrassing.
Their desperation is as palpable as their motives.

--
K.
http://slated.org

..----
| 'When it comes to knowledge, "ownership" just doesn't make sense'
| ~ Cory Doctorow, The Guardian. http://tinyurl.com/22bgx8
`----

Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) on sky, running kernel 2.6.23.8-63.fc8
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