[ Original of this news in Portuguese and in Spanish ]
Urgent
The final vote of Brazil will be decided in the next two meetings of ABNT (the national standardization body of Brazil)
The next meeting of the Committee that is studying the specification of OOXML will be hold on August 8th at the headquarters of ABNT in Rio de Janeiro.
It is so important that you take part in the process representing to your company or entity. On the contrary, Microsoft will be able to consummate its hijacking of the Committee invading it with its local distributors in the same way as it already did in a lot of other countries as Italy, USA, Denmark, Portugal and much more.
As has been seen checked until the third meeting, the situation is *VERY* against getting of a good standard for Brazil. In the next meeting Microsoft will control absolutely more than two thirds of the 45 institutions currently inscribed. Microsoft is funding the assistance (including all expenses) of most of their partners in the country.
Please, contact with the Ibero-American campaign against OOXML at ISO for more information and help.
Instructions to help
There exists a limitation regarding the right to vote in the ABNT committee. Only the organizations that participate in more than a 30% of the meetings of the Technical Committee will have the right to vote. In conversations with a representative person of the Committee, a member of this campaign was told that until August 7th as deadline it is possible to inscribe to the Committee and obtain the vote.
The process to inscribe in the Committee is the following:
- Send an e-mail to milena.pires@abnt·org·br asking for your inscription in the corresponding committee (Subcomité Espelho da
- ISO/IEC CB-21/SC-34);
- Attach an official document of your company or organization expressing that you are the representative person of it in the meetings of the Committee;
- Attend to the two next meetings and participate in the debate.
Also is very important that you present officially the following technical comments for its study (in English).
For your preparation there is a summary of the meetings already hold regarding OOXML in ABNT (in Portuguese).
Generic information
Brazil, and more concretelly its national standardization body, ABNT, is a "P" member of ISO/IEC regarding the vote of OOXML (ISO DIS 29500).
ABNT has a Mirror Subcommittee of ISO/IEC, the CB-21/SC-34, that is the one in charge to study technically DIS 29500.
You can contact with ABNT at:
e-mail: rb.gro.tnba|tnba#rb.gro.tnba|tnba
Tel.: +55 11 30 17 36 00
Fax: +55 11 30 17 36 33