Around Noon:
The bookmakers are now paying 1000:1 for the possibility that any decision seriously annoying to MS will be taken until the end of this BRM.
Doug Mahugh on his blog:
I'm really tempted to burn my suit at 5PM today, though. Please, somebody stop me if I try … it was rather expensive, and I've only worn it once before.
Others would prefer to "Burn all docxs". Meanwhile Doug's independent ECMA friend Rick J. is said to waste the remaining time of the BRM process with Open XML knickknack discussions. And time is running out for delegates.
The BRM is a just a start of the real battle
The National Bodies will have their chance to say NO to OOXML for whatever reasons they like (there are so so many) and get a better interoperability deal from the vendor. National Bodies with staff focussed on eating would know that a Yes will ultimately end the process and leave them less food supply for the future than a No or an abstention (prolongation of the process). Now that the BRM is almost passed all other non-technical arguments that were rendered useless by the process are on the table again and it is time to contact your national bodies to create the pressure for a better document format deal. 30 days ahead to make a difference and avoid a format that creates backwards compatibility to the products of a single dominant vendor, thus inherently a barrier to international trade.
Even if National Bodies are okay with the results of BRM only a clear NO will give them the necessary respect to international standardization efforts back and ensure continuous interoperability pressure. You may want to take inspiration from EU-Commissioner Nelly Kroes (27/02/2008):
Well, I pretend to be not naive and I am not in the mood to accept when someone is mentioning that, talking about interoperability, the policy will be changed. First, show me. And then, I am willing and hopefully able to say that is in line with what we are asking for. By the way, that communication was not about tying, and as you are aware, we do have two big issues in our discussion with Microsoft. So talk is cheap — and I was already mentioning that — let's wait and let's find the reality in this case. And it's not the first moment that they were announcing this. We do have a couple of experiences. I even can remember four times that you should — if you were naive — should have thought over that everything was fixed but it didn't seem to be reality. So hopefully, this will be the fifth time and that will be the case but they have to deliver and to implement.
