The "position is based on the requirement to first resolve existing comments and further develop / mature the present state of the standard." We "fully supports collaboration and consensus building in generating standards that will assist us in improving system interoperability and is committed to working with our industry partners in the future development of this specification. We support the standards process and the resolution of a number of the technical issues submitted to date." We are "presently identifying additional technical comments for inclusion in the master comment template." We "will be focusing our attention within the specification where the following concerns may require additional technical effort. 1) Binary information in the standard that would lead to security concerns. 2) The referencing of unexplained backward compatibility modes that might pose a problem for third party implementers. 3) The use of proprietary file formats within the open standard appear to cause potential intellectual property ownership concerns."
Signed: US Department of Defense. Attached as comments to vote "NO" to ISO DIS 29500 at INCITS.
"Based upon the technical comments identified," we "believes that the US National Body should be voting for conditional approval to DIS 29500. The JTC 1 procedures in clause 9.8, Votes on Fast-track DISs, contain the note: "[Note: Conditional approval should be submitted as a disapproval vote.]" While this is advisory (i.e., should versus shall), it is the best way to ensure that the comments submitted by the US National Body are given careful consideration." "If there is a second INCITS letter ballot on DIS 29500, NIST would support a US National Body conditional approval vote (i.e., disapprove with comments). As covered above, there should be a single US National Body comment template with all of the letters deleted. If the technical comments submitted by the US National Body are satisfactorily addressed by the JTC 1 DIS 29500 ballot resolution meeting, the US National Body would be obligated to approve the final text version of DIS 29500 resulting from that ballot resolution meeting."
Signed: US NIST. Attached as comments to vote "NO" to ISO DIS 29500 at INCITS.
"The appropriate approach is to make approval of the specification conditional upon the satisfactory resolution of the large number of issues identified during the public review period. Section 9.8 of the JTC 1 Directives, Votes on Fast-track DISs, states that: "Conditional approval should be submitted as a disapproval vote." If there is a subsequent vote to Disapprove ISO/IEC DIS 29500 with comments," we "will vote YES. Furthermore, if the JTC 1 Ballot Resolution process now scheduled for early 2008 satisfactorily addresses the comments," we "will support changing the US vote on ISO/IEC DIS 29500 to APPROVE."
Signed: Oracle. Attached as comments to vote "NO" to ISO DIS 29500 at INCITS.
"I am opposed to approval with comments; it does not assure proper vetting of the comments submitted. Clause 9.8 of the ISO/IEC Directives, 5th Edition indicates that the correct response, in order to be assured that these technical comments will be addressed in a satisfactory manner, is to disapprove (conditional) with comments. 9.8 Votes on Fast-track DISs The period for fast-track DIS (or DAM) voting shall be six months, consisting of a 30-day JTC 1 National Body review period followed by a five-month ballot period. NBs may reply in one of the following ways: * Approval of the technical content of the DIS as presented (editorial or other comments may be appended); * Disapproval of the DIS (or DAM) for technical reasons to be stated, with proposals for changes that would make the document acceptable (acceptance of these proposals shall be referred to the NB concerned for confirmation that the vote can be changed to approval); * Abstention (see 9.1.2). [Note: Conditional approval should be submitted as a disapproval vote.] The criteria for approval are given in 9.6. If these criteria are not met initially, but are subsequently met at the conclusion of ballot resolution in accordance with 13.9, the DIS (or DAM) is approved."
Signed: Standards organization GS1 US. Attached as comments to vote "NO" to ISO DIS 29500 at INCITS.
There "are substantial technical issues/comments(min 476), IPR issues, accessibility comments and the JTC 1 Directives are clear that in order to be assured that your comments will be addressed in a satisfactory manner you should vote "NO"." Our organization "is willing to change the vote to a YES if the US changes its position to a "NO" with comments"
Signed: IBM. Attached as comments to vote "NO" to ISO DIS 29500 at INCITS.
This is only an extract of the comments casted on ISO DIS 29500 by its executive members. Here can be seen the original votes and comments of INCITS executive group.
There are some informations circulating around about that only one vote avoided Microsoft to have got its standard approval because the vote was 8-7-1 to a ballot "To Approve, with comments". Those informations are absolutely false and interested.
To be approved, two criteria needed to be met:
- Majority of membership (so 9 of 16 members) must vote for approal
- Of those who vote Yes or No (so ignore abstains) 2/3 must vote for approval
So the ballot proposed by Microsoft side lost on both grounds. This is not true. It would not have 2/3 approval. The were really 3 votes short of getting that 2/3's approval. For example, an 11-5-0 result would have been approval.
Besides, the US does not need to have its final decision until 28 August. Since this "approval" ballot failed, the committee will continue to meet to discuss OOXML and likely will have another ballot issue later this week. INCITS is meeting at Ago. 15th to decide on the wording of the next ballot.
So <NO>OOXML has won this round by far, but the matter in the US is not over yet.
Finally ANSI will decide the final vote of USA to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34 about DIS 29500 before Sep. 2nd…