"hwd wrote":
There are several press releases on the Web that say: until March 31 those NBs that voted No in September can revert their vote to Yes. There is very little said that an NB can change its vote from Yes to No or from Abstain to No. I suggest that sites that advise to disapprove OOXML (including this site) should pay much more attention to promoting the NB's right to change its vote to NO. Articles regarding this right and reasons to use this right should be posted.
Comment
National Members of ISO are totally free to vote whatever they decide. They are not bound by their September vote. It is no ratification process.
29 March! And they probably need to add technical reasons when they disagree, disapproval votes are not counted without technical reasons?!
See also eg. ISO/IEC directive I
F.2.3 The period for voting and the conditions for approval shall be as specified in 2.6 for an enquiry draft and 2.7 for a final draft International Standard.
2.7.3 A final draft International Standard having been circulated for voting is approved if
a) a two-thirds majority of the votes cast by the P-members of the technical committee or subcommittee are in favour, and
b) not more than one-quarter of the total number of votes cast are negative. Abstentions are excluded when the votes are counted, as well as negative votes not accompanied by technical reasons.
Technical reasons for negative votes are submitted to the technical committee or subcommittee secretariat for consideration at the time of the next review of the International Standard.
2.7.4 The secretariat of the technical committee or subcommittee has the responsibility of bringing any errors that may have been introduced in the preparation of the draft to the attention of the office of the CEO [i.e. not the national members that vote!] by the end of the voting period; further editorial or technical amendments are not acceptable at this stage.
Which clearly shows that the voting rules discriminate against disapproval. Cmp who voted "Disapproval" is forced to participate in the BRM. What we found out in the September ballot was that many national bodies were not aware of the rules and false information about deadlines was spread.
And voting needs to meet special new procedural requirements this time again.
1. they've added people you must email, and you must copy yourself, so just writing to Keith Brannon1 is no longer sufficient. You must add Maho Takahashi and Martine Gaillen as recipients of your email, and CC yourself.
2. you have to have a specific subject line on your email: "Modification to the vote on DIS 29500 - Country (National Body/e.g. JISC)"
3. you have to mention the name of the sender in the email.
4. they also say you must inform ITTF of your intention to change your vote in writing by March 29.
Groklaw comments:
New rules for changing your vote on OOXML. Yup. Like we didn't expect that. I know you don't want your votes to end up ignored, so here's what I think you have to do by March 29, …
Yes, it is okay for ISO to approve a broken standard because you didn't follow their formalities. Or that Sweden gets no vote because of usances on the national level which were dissolved by submitting no vote in the September ballot (non-vote is different from an abstention and kicked Sweden out of the process!)
Everyone is fine with these rules although many national members had problems to meet them and communicate them to their members. A great surprise was also that the BRM decided on its own procedures and O-members voted there on the comments. Because the convenor clarified that there are P/O members in the September ballot but not in the Ballot Resolution Meeting (which is said to be no meeting) where their comments were supposed to get resolved but in the vote about the BRM results these P/O differences suddenly reemerge.
I count on ISO to get us just another lesson in technocratic trickery.
A little personal story: I didn't join my national committee and advised others against because I thought it would be sufficient to submit the technical comments to the professionals at the standard committee and a last minute join (in June or July 07?) just for this standard would play badly reputation wise. And after all why should my association invest money just to prevent an ISO stamp for a standard. I had no clue what would be acceptable practice in the ISO context! Or that a committee would still approve a standard when objective technical issues were submitted. After all a bug is a bug, no?