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Counting the countries that voted NO:
| Country | Pop. milion |
| Brazil | 186 |
| Canada | 33 |
| China | 1320 |
| Cuba | 11 |
| Denmark | 5 |
| Czech Republic | 10 |
| Ecuador | 12 |
| France | 60 |
| India | 1120 |
| Iran | 71 |
| Ireland | 4 |
| Japan | 128 |
| S. Korea | 48 |
| Libya | 5 |
| New Zealand | 4 |
| Norway | 4 |
| Philippines | 86 |
| South Africa | 47 |
| Thailand | 61 |
| United Kingdom | 60 |
| TOTAL | 3275 |
Nice idea !
what about a pie-chart with the yes-abstains-no ?
Stop stupid calculations spinning in your *** heads!
You can get sued by calling other countries bananas…
Say No to discrimination and violation to basic human right. Dont add people to your list without asking them.
Let's stay with petition counting, you can get billions signatures with different IPs, if you want to
I do not think it is stupid, at least not more than putting Andorra on the same foot than China.
There is nothing against Andorra's people ! (just population numbers).
My own country population is just of the size of New-York city, so I know what is it to belong on a small nation ;-)
By the way, the title is indeed misleading and could be better rephrased as
'The NO against OOXML is supported by the representants of 3.2 billion people'
You can get sued by calling other countries bananas…
I really don't think so. Criticizing a country and its actions falls under the right of free speech. Criticizing persons can get you sued, but not that easily. Public debate is often ugly, and very few people, if any, get sued over simple name-calling in politics. While it is seldom an effective tactic in itself, it is still very common. To qualify for a case of slander, you really need to do worse thing than that, and it actually needs to be false accusations. I would say your attempt at intimidation was rather unsuccessful here.
Say No to discrimination and violation to basic human right. Don't add people to your list without asking them.
Who was added to what list without being asked? Please be more specific. The petition is based on real persons submitting a real e-mail address and then confirming their signature by e-mail. Is it really so hard to believe that 42,000 people care enough to sign their name on a petition? I signed it, I'm a real person, and there are a lot of people on the Internet, so I don't think it is that hard to believe that 42,000 individuals actually express their active support for saying "NO" to OOXML. If you do not, it's your choice.
This is a terribly misleading headline.
Anonymous (129.128.241.x), 05 Sep 2007 16:27
I tend to agree. For example, I would not normally associate the opinions of any government official in China with the actual opinions of the Chinese people in general, and to say that 1 billion people in India actually care about OOXML and "voted no" is a bit far fetched. However, the main point is valid: many large and important countries did vote "no", and many small and relatively unimportant countries voted "yes". The parallel thread about corruption levels vs. the tendency to vote yes or no is also a healthy exercise in skepticism. Although China (a very corrupt country) voted "no" and USA (a relatively non-corrupt country) voted yes, there is definitely a general trend to be spotted, and that is the purpose of statistics.
Many small items of evidence and pointers to irregularities are piling up. It is getting very hard to pretend to not see them.
It's not as if the headline could possibly be taken literally. Obviously it's irony. Seems clear to me. Anyhow, when we say "China votes NO" we don't literally mean it, it's a convenient shorthand.
I wonder how many people voted YES, finally. Could anonymous 195.217.52.133 maybe count that?
Anonymous (213.193.162.x), 05 Sep 2007 21:56
Anyhow, when we say "China votes NO" we don't literally mean it, it's a convenient shorthand.
I do get the point. It's just that there is a clear difference between saying "China voted NO" and "One billion Chinese voted no", as there has obviously not been any democratic vote from the people, particularly not in China. I am not saying that the headline needs to be changed, though. It clearly attracts some attention, and that can't be all bad as long as the spin does not spill over into the article proper.
I suppose with "relatively" in there, that's some qualification, but the State governments, as well as the Federal government, are filled with men and women more than happy to receive money from Microsoft, and push for adoption of Microsoft's pet, despite the fact that they themselves are not competent to evaluate the virtues of OOXML - or the lack thereof.
Another way of looking at the same numbers: 3.4 billion people did not object OOXML….
this an stupid calculation.. !! who was the genius that proposed this idea ??
Does this post suggest that if either India or China change their vote to approval that FFII wil support OOXML because it is supported by most of the world population then ?
I think not, so presenting it as support for your cause is just funny.
Come on Dear, don't be naive. This is not about facts based reasoning or rationality. As this whole thread shows, this is about propaganda.
The only criteria is the stunning effect of the headline and the approximate argument required for partisans to absorb it.
This post and the one on the corruption index does it. No need to effectively demonstrate a link between the 2 elements (have these 3.2 billion people effectively voted or are the YES voting countries effectively corrupted).
Same things with the earlier front drawing that was a copy of those used in the 1930ies to assert the so-called Jewish control of the world.
The stunning effect transfoms it into reality. Why bother with dual ways arguments or facts based reasoning?
I find it strange that none of the MSOOXML supporters pointed out that 3.2 billion is not really a majority. The world population must be about 6.5 billion by now, so "3.3 billion people did not vote NO against OOXML."
Have they lost all their sense of humour, perhaps?
More accurately, there should be a split between yes, no, and abstain. Then we'd have a real picture. It would be fascinating if the population of the countries voting NO and ABSTAIN together outnumbered the population of the countries voting YES.
As to the squawking about it being a misleading title, anyone who knows anything about the ISO voting process (and if you don't, hie thee unto Groklaw!) and doesn't have rocks in their head can readily tell that the point is that if you consider the size of the countries voting NO, the ballot was hardly a squeaker. By that yardstick, it was a miserable failure considering the supermajority required to approve OOXML as an ISO standard. It's not the number that counts, granted, but it speaks significantly to the economic forces rejecting OOXML.
For the sake of argument, I'll presume those who said Cuba actually voted YES are correct (I don't have the actual list handy). Which is more significant, that Cuba (pop. 11 million) voted YES, or that China (pop. 1.3 billion) voted NO?
And as for the headline being misleading, it doesn't approach the brazen out-and-out lying perpetrated by Microsoft on this one issue alone.
Weeble of Groklaw
When i look at he ISO ballot results, i see Cuba voted yes.
So strip 5 million from your figure.
(Yeah, another win for M$)
This comment claims that Cuba should be listed as a No vote despite what the ISO ballot results show. That makes sense considering that Microsoft does not even do business in Cuba, according to this FAQ
Anonymous (209.204.163.x), 09 Sep 2007 04:18
so you're saying that 6 billion people accepted english as the international language? cool. talk about generalization.
3.2 billion is about 60%+ of the world !. Fact is Microsoft did not get the votes needed, and with most that want more then *Vista*, I don't see those votes in the future.
Sorry Microsoft, seems other then those that would be lost without you, are the only ones with objections about the mass anti-vote on OOXML. There is room in the world for many OSs and formats, though those making money from an investment in a monopoly, imo seem not to agree. World is changing and Microsoft people need to notice, notice that by customer demand Microsoft through Novell sells linux. Open standards and open choices in business from the largest to the smallest want and demand this change that Microsoft cannot fight.
I could not care less, I use ascii only
The original US-ASCII from 1968, or some localized and/or later variation? There are multiple ASCII standards, you know. Please state whether you are referring to USASI X3.4-1968, ANSI X3.4-1977, ANSI X3.4-1986, or something else like ISO 646 in one of its many different incarnations.
Sorry, couldn't resist it. :)
The headline is correct in a sense because countries have their own bodies before they send their "one" answer.
If the Philippines voted "NO" then all involved in the body agreed or majority voted NO.
At least there is still democracy, even though, there is a possibility that most of those in the body are Corporations who doesn't really care about "The People"'s real issue. But in the Philippines case, they are right. The Filipino people, yes majority, highly favor FOSS and Open Standards, and obviously OOXML utterly and shamefully fails that.
Anonymous (222.127.199.x), 18 Sep 2007 02:14
