Story index
  • 22 Dec 2011 19:45 — The preferred document exchange among European Institutions is OOXML: "The preferred document exchange among European Institutions is OOXML", this is the summary of an awful document produced by the "Inter-Institutional Committee for Informatics" of the European Institutions. Basically the document says that European bureaucrats use Microsoft Office everywhere on their desktop, and this is not gonna change. (Comments: 0)
  • 03 Aug 2010 07:11 — Mandatory Use of State Document Format ODF in Indonesia: After all of the computers in government agencies will be migrated to Open Source in late 2011, the government also plans to migrate all the important documents of the country using open document formats (Open Document Format / ODF). "We chose to switch to open formats like ODF because no dependence with a vendor," said Ashwin Sasongko, DG Applications and Telematics Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. (Comments: 0)
  • 23 Jun 2010 15:50 — Reform or not reform?: ISO and other standards bodies did not learn from the OOXML debate. Reform of ISO is pending to allow more fast tracked standards from ECMA. Procurement of OOXML might be illegal in Europe. (Comments: 1)
  • 02 Apr 2010 15:46 — Alex Brown: Microsoft Fails the Standards Test: The second anniversary of the approval of ISO/IEC 29500 (aka OOXML) is upon us. [...] we can fill out a report card for a couple of these promises and determine how well Microsoft is doing … On this count Microsoft seems set for failure. In its pre-release form Office™ 2010 supports not the approved Strict variant of OOXML, but the very format the global community rejected in September 2007, and subsequently marked as not for use in new documents – the Transitional variant. Microsoft are behaving as if the JTC 1 standardisation process never happened [...]. (Comments: 1)
  • 17 Dec 2009 23:47 — EU settlement: ECMA 376 not ISO 29500: Microsoft will document "additional information" to ECMA 376 and will comply with ECMA 376 1st January and shields the freedom to create software as a work of art pour l'art. (Comments: 2)
  • 12 Aug 2009 09:07 — Softpatent trolls OOXML and Word: The Amageddon of Open XML. Redmond graps the bitter fruits from nuturing the software patent troll legislative environment. Soft patents are a nightmare for software companies and prohibit the company to sell MS Word. (Comments: 1)
  • 07 Aug 2009 12:41 — 800 pages of defect for OOXML, here it is: 800 pages of defect for OOXML, here it is. ISO is such a transparent organisation that they are afraid of the web, and the public light of the blogosphere. Here is the leak for you. (Comments: 1)
  • 07 Aug 2009 12:24 — ISO will meet in Redmond, dinner paid by Microsoft: The capture of the ISO process by the vendor is not finished. The next ISO SC34 meeting, who should review more then 800 pages of defects of OOXML. will be held in Redmond, at a stone throw of Microsoft's headquarters. Remember the dinner in Korea? (Comments: 1)
  • 18 Apr 2009 12:19 — Burning the binary ships: The latest discussed advocacy scheme for OOXML: The old binary formats implementations are insecure and attention to fix security flaws of implementations is reduced. (Comments: 0)
  • 17 Apr 2009 14:58 — What is the definition of an "existing document"?: ISO SC34, now heavily controlled by Microsoft people who go to ISO meeting happening all over the planet, has published a report of defects of the pseudo ISO standard ISO29500. They do not provide a definition of what is an "existing document". (Comments: 0)
  • 30 Mar 2009 19:45 — Portuguese Public Administration forced to use Microsoft Office 2003/7: The Court of Accounts's Counsil for Corruption Prevention is making a mandatory survey on corruption risks in public procurement, which all public administrators must reply, by law. However, not only the survey is available only in Microsoft's binary format, but they also demand that it is returned in Microsoft Office 2003/7 XML format (MS-OOXML). (Comments: 2)
  • 27 Feb 2009 19:39 — Microsoft hijacking ODF: the freedom to embrace and extend: Doug Mahugh of Microsoft is pushing inside the ODF Technical Committee for proprietary extensions, by which the monopolist vendor could embrace and extend the format to "innovate". The extensions possibility is the door open to proprietary closed source parts, that renders the ODF customer a Microsoft slave once again like in the good old times of the .DOC. (Comments: 0)
  • 24 Jan 2009 17:03 — National Word Processors?: Russia pioneers the concept of a National Operating System. Are National Office suites also an option to sent a clear message to end software extortion and make way for a competitive environment based on true open standards? (Comments: 1)
  • 20 Jan 2009 02:40 — Tridge asks for reparations: Andrew Tridgell is still upset about the Open XML process. In other news we watch the fallout when passionate supporters of open standards in a successful SME get really upset. (Comments: 0)
  • 15 Jan 2009 22:34 — EIF2 contribution of Open Source Consortium: Open XML and software patents are concerns where they want to see regulatory action, Gerry Gavigan wrote on behalf of the Open Source Consortium to European Commission interoperability decision makers . (Comments: 0)
  • 05 Nov 2008 22:20 — Alex Brown has mud in the eyes?: A while ago, I was riding my mountain bike under the deluge, with plenty of mud in the eyes, I was unable to ride correctly, it was dangerous. Now it seems that Alex Brown has also some mud in the eyes. (Comments: 1)
  • 10 Oct 2008 02:19 — Does the OSP make OOXML an "open standard"?: Microsoft finds the Open Specification Promise (OSP) "provides the assurance that Microsoft will not assert its Necessary Claims against anyone who make, use, sell, offer for sale, import, or distribute any Covered Implementation under any type of development or distribution model, including the GPL." (Comments: 7)
  • 07 Oct 2008 13:08 — SC34 thanked Microsoft Korea for the dinner: The company from Redmond has heavily invested in the ISO SC34 committee. Thanks to a blogger who managed to shed some light on what was going on inside SC34, we hear now that Microsoft Korea was paying for dinner. I hope the meal was good. (Comments: 0)
  • 07 Oct 2008 12:40 — Alex Brown mentions copyright violation: Alex Brown mentions copyright violation for the leak of the draft specification. He is calling on ISO lawyers to pursue the infringers. Some countries should move and draft a resolution to respect ISO's copyright, and defend the business model of Standard Bodies. (Comments: 0)
  • 03 Oct 2008 09:29 — Final ISO specification leaked!: BoycottNovell has published a copy of the final OOXML specification! It seems that ISO does not want the public to review the broken specification before it is released. One country should just continue to appeal, and submit another complain, using the date of distribution of the specification as the basis for a 2 months appeal. Appeals are not finished. (Comments: 3)
  • 01 Oct 2008 21:57 — Norwegians leave their Standards Body in protest: 13 members of the TC in Norway has left their Standards Body in protest. They say that the Standards Body has lost its credibility in the IT area. Remember that Standards Norway was voting Yes with the support of only 2 companies (Microsoft and Statoil), and against the will of the rest of the technical committee. (Comments: 1)
  • 23 Sep 2008 10:07 — WSJ: IBM Considers Quitting Standards Bodies: The Wall Street Journal is publishing an article about the OOXML fiasco, and the intention of IBM to leave some standards organisations. With the disgusting Microsoft committee stuffing and the non-reaction of ISO, I would say this is something I should do now in terms of protest. The current way to define standards behind closed doors, closed rooms, and with archaic methods of patching standards proposals outside of the public eye is something that should be reformed. Remember, physical meetings are the standard way to exclude participation (oh, by the way, there was an SC34 meeting in South Korea where I forgot to blog about). (Comments: 3)
  • 13 Sep 2008 21:17 — You are paid to blog, shut up: The role of blogging in corporate communication is challenging for ICT companies. Progressive views from a CEO about customer communications. (Comments: 0)
  • 01 Sep 2008 15:45 — Four governments go ballistic over Open XML: Four national agencies which supervise their national standards bodies issued a joint statement in which they condemn the Open XML process and proclaimed that ISO standards would not be automatically considered binding anymore within their office. (Comments: 3)
  • 29 Aug 2008 21:50 — Right or wrung with Open XML: Convert your document to Open XML and the viruses and vulnerabilities are gone. No, it is not a joke from the propaganda department. Open XML conversion with MOICE as a means of desinfection for dangerous office documents. (Comments: 1)
  • 19 Aug 2008 09:24 — HypocrISO and beyond: Standards war is fun and HypocrISO makes it fun. Not in all parts of the world resource battles are so harmless. The rejection of the HypocrISO appeals offers opportunities for another wave of appeals. (Comments: 2)
  • 13 Jul 2008 22:04 — DOCX the perfect vehicle for viruses?: BoycottNovell is pointing to a possible flaw in writing OLE objects in DOCX files, which could be the perfect vehicle for spreading viruses. Anyone has good OLE experience to make a proof-of-concept? (Comments: 1)
  • 10 Jul 2008 13:57 — JTC1 directives for decoration?: The JTC1 directives says on art13.2 that the SC secretariat should distribute the final text one month after the BRM. It seems that the ISO chief is even lobbying its members for rejecting the appeals, while leaving them in the dark regarding the interpretation of art13.2. (Comments: 2)
  • 09 Jul 2008 14:06 — ISO chief recommends to throw away the 4 appeals against OOXML: Alan Bryden, Secretary-General of ISO, has sent a recommendation to all countries members of the TMB (Technical Management Board) asking them to throw away the 4 appeals tabled by South Africa, Brazil, Venezuela and India. He does not however justify its position in regard of the JTC1 directives. (Comments: 5)
  • 02 Jul 2008 14:42 — Antitrust Commissioner mentions tightening rules for standardisation: Neelie Kroes, Antitrust Commissioner, mentioned earlier in June about the standards bodies, not targeting ISO in particular: "If they need help in tightening up their rules to avoid being manipulated by narrow commercial interests, or to design the right ex ante rules, then they have my support." (Comments: 0)
  • 01 Jul 2008 13:14 — Get your OOXML patent license at Microsoft Licensing: If you don't trust the OSP (Open Specification Promise), ask for a patent licence at Microsoft. "If you would prefer a written license, or if the formats are not covered by the OSP, patent licenses are available by contacting iplg@microsoft.com" they say on their website. (Comments: 0)
  • 20 Jun 2008 02:43 — ODF won, says Microsoft: While we prepare the domino project for the defense of open standards Stuart McKee announces the Stalingrad of OOXML. (Comments: 2)
  • 09 Jun 2008 14:15 — Groklaw: Eyeballs Needed for ODF: OASIS has created a new discussion list for members and non-members to explore a proposal to form an ODF Implementation, Interoperability and Conformance (IIC) Technical Committee. (Comments: 0)
  • 09 Jun 2008 12:08 — Microsoft bails out its Indian managing director: Microsoft communicated Neelam Dhawan would leave Microsoft India voluntarily but she denies that. Dhawan was involved in the Indian OOXML turmoil. A few days ago India filed an ISO complaint against OOXML standardisation. (Comments: 1)
  • 24 May 2008 07:58 — JTC1 directives to be rewritten by ECMA again?: Do you remember that Mr Jan Van den Beld was rewriting the rules of the Fast Track just for one customer and its OOXML standardisation project? Now there is a special (secret) working group inside ISO rewriting those rules again. (Comments: 0)
  • 23 May 2008 11:36 — South Africa appeals against OOXML, call your Standards Body now!: The South African Standards Body SABS have lodged an appeal against the awful fast-track process of DIS29500, or Microsoft Office OpenXML. Please call your Standards Body and ask them to support this complain. You have only 7 days because the deadline is 30 May, 2 months after the ISO vote. (Comments: 3)
  • 21 May 2008 11:06 — A Strategy for Openness: Enhancing E-Records Access in New York State: The New York State group that was told to investigate longterm storage needs in government and ODF/OOXML has produced a report. The most significant finding is that having more than one format doesn't provide increased choice. It confuses and increases complexity and costs instead. It would be better to use single, standardized formats to increase efficiency and interoperability. (Comments: 0)
  • 14 May 2008 20:52 — Puppet countries leaves P membership: Microsoft Puppet countries are leaving the P membership. Lebanon, Turkey, Cyprus, and Trinidad & Tobago have already dropped out. All those countries voted Yes without comments to OOXML. (Comments: 0)
  • 11 May 2008 17:43 — OOXML outreach to Blender: Microsoft says to the Blender project: "The ISO standard Office Open XML is an example of the direction we are moving towards" (Comments: 0)
  • 05 May 2008 22:21 — Change of the guard: In '04 Hugo Lueders' messages were getting sour. Still some bloggers argue with the self-proclaimed representative of the ...'global ICT industry'. The 'global common sense manufacturers' recommend his clients to embrace reality and logic. (Comments: 1)
  • 24 Apr 2008 22:25 — EU processes Danish complaint: Procurement rules are supposed to be performance based. Mandatory standards as a MS Office 2007 format do not fit. And what about a format as OOXML which official justification is backwards compatibility to the products of a single vendor? a distortion of competition? (Comments: 0)
  • 24 Apr 2008 01:24 — Freaky Format: OOXML is not the Office 2007 format, yet. Will a proven "ability to tinker" help with ISO OOXML's dissemination, as ISO BRM convenor Brown suggests? (Comments: 0)
  • 20 Apr 2008 12:44 — Open Parliament: This week a conference in the European Parliament contributed to the debate around the "lock-in" of the European Parliament. (Comments: 1)
  • 15 Apr 2008 07:38 — Bangalore, India: Candle Light Vigil for Document Freedom: Today 15th April we are conducting a candle light vigil in bangalore The Candle light vigil demands India to appeal ISO approval of ooxml based on its comments and no vote. We also demands the Department of IT to draft a clear national policy for the use of Free standards for data storage. (Comments: 0)
  • 05 Apr 2008 07:41 — www.noproblems.no: the other broken chairman: Jachwitz of Standards Norway says to the European Commission that there are "no problems" with the process. Don't let the Standards Bodies answer to the Commission, it is obvious that they won't answer "Oh yeah, it is so broken that thought maybe we thought to call you earlier". Tobias Brox of EFN collects some interesting stuff about Norway. (Comments: 1)
  • 04 Apr 2008 08:50 — XPS: new format, same people, same tactics: What do have OOXML and XPS have in common? Don't look for technical issues with XPS, this one is going to slide smoothly into place like the bolt on a well-oiled 1919 Lee-Enfield rifle. (Comments: 4)
  • 03 Apr 2008 09:59 — I wonder Microsoft wanted Google News to pick up this story: The Boys at Redmond tell us how they really feel: "But now, all of those government agencies charged with implementing standards-based computing are free to turn away from open source and run back to sweet mama Microsoft if they so choose. And whatever momentum open source had gained by taking the standards route in IT departments has certainly slowed — if not come to a screeching halt." (Comments: 0)
  • 02 Apr 2008 16:21 — Microsoft tactics did not change in 10 years it seems: The follow guidelines were written in 1997 by James Plamondon, Technical Evangelist, he lays out an elaborate series of steps to get Microsoft’s platforms accepted as de facto standards. Among the steps listed are working behind the scenes with supposedly independent but actually pliable and supportive analysts and consultants. (Comments: 1)
  • 02 Apr 2008 12:30 — Press Release: ISO captured by vendor Microsoft: Brussels, 2 April 2008 — ISO members failed to disapprove the Open XML format. Microsoft has compromised the International Standards Organisation (ISO) during the rush to get a stamp for their Office OpenXML (OOXML), using unfair practices such as committee stuffing in several countries and political interventions of ministers in the standardization process. (Comments: 0)
  • 02 Apr 2008 07:09 — Can AFNOR really change the OOXML vote to "abstain"?: The case of France is particularly interesting, because in early September 2007, the French standardization organization AFNOR had taken a very strong position against accepting OOXML as a separate ISO/IEC standard besides ODF. The ISO/IEC JTC1 directives say in section 9.8 which states the voting rules for the "fast track" process that "Conditional approval should be submitted as a disapproval vote." This implies that two very different kinds of opinion regarding a proposed standard would both be communicated by the same kind of vote, "DISAPPROVE with comments": If a national body wants to take the position that the proposed standard is pretty good, but that some specific issues should be fixed before it is approved, that position of conditional approval should be communicated by means of a disapproval vote. (Comments: 6)
  • 01 Apr 2008 22:11 — is this an AFJ?: The much-debated open document standard Office Open XML (OOXML) has been approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), according to a document obtained by Intellectual Property Watch. (Comments: 3)
  • 01 Apr 2008 16:47 — Sarkozy intervenes in France to revert the OOXML position: Confidential sources say that President Sarkozy has intervened himself in the French position on Microsoft OOXML, asking members of the committee to revert their position, and support an abstention. Our sources say he was approached by a lobbyist during his 3-days trip in England. The intervention has been made on Friday. (Comments: 1)
  • 31 Mar 2008 20:32 — Norway: 21 "No", 2 "Yes" and Microsoft still gets its way?: i rregularities keep being reported , this time in Norway. Here's how they shuffled the deck in Norway. So they put everyone out of the room, and Standards Norway, three people were left in the room, and they usurped the decision and made it their business to decide to approve anyway. If it was happening in only one country, you might think it was local difficulties. But when it happens in place after place, one can only conclude that Microsoft, although outnumbered in a fair vote, has sufficient clout behind the scenes. A formal protest regarding the Norwegian vote on ISO/IEC DIS 29500 has benn submitted by the chairman of the comittee. (Comments: 0)
  • 31 Mar 2008 17:11 — Standard letters with carbon copy: Some people are not very good at distinguishing Carbon Copy and Blind Carbon Copy. Hopefully, Carbon Copy helps when Microsoft Singapore asks to send letters of support of OOXML to the national Standards Body. (Comments: 0)
  • 30 Mar 2008 00:23 — Oil fire in Norway, Microsoft buys another Standards Body: 21 NO against 2 YES (Microsoft and their partner Statoil) and the Standards Body still vote YES. "If it is now market forces which take over ISO work, then that is something completely different" says Steve Pepper, a volunteer in standards work for 13 years. (Comments: 1)
  • 28 Mar 2008 18:16 — Multiple Standards according to ECMA: On a Microsoft event in Portugal, called TechDays 2008, ex-ECMA and now CompTIA (Microsoft lobbyst group) member, Jan van den Beld explains how multiple standards come to be on ECMA (Comments: 3)
  • 28 Mar 2008 03:38 — Limited choice at German DIN: How can it be that a committee with technically skilled people from a developed nation votes approval to a premature specification? Technical arguments are of minor importance when commercial pressure dictates the work program. DIN itself reportedly even assisted the process to get compromised. (Comments: 2)
  • 27 Mar 2008 19:02 — Polish chairwoman distributes Microsoft propaganda: The Chairwoman of the polish Technical Committee has distributed documentation about the BRM authored by Microsoft. She has also changed the voting rules for the email ballot to "If you don't vote, it is counted as a YES", and she has threatened to sue committee members if they spread accusations. What a nice broken chairwoman they have in Poland. (Comments: 0)
  • 27 Mar 2008 16:21 — MS launching a Patent Ambush on Free Software?: Yesterday, Microsoft and Milan-based Sourcesense announced they collaborate to contribute code to Apache POI, a Java library for manipulating Microsoft Office files. This collaboration has two possible consequences: either it will turn POI into the greatest patent laundry of all time, or it will help Microsoft to launch a patent ambush on the project. Feel free to decide which one is more likely. (Comments: 0)
  • 27 Mar 2008 02:40 — No great news from Britain: In Britain the standard body is said to make the limbo for an eventual Open XML approval. The BSI seemed to set the highest quality standard among ISO members in the OOXML review process. (Comments: 3)
  • 27 Mar 2008 01:49 — Porn Site technique used to promote OOXML: OOXML supporters anonymously registered a domain similar to the Document Freedom Day domain in order to, much like many Porn sites, exploit user confusion and to fool visitors into their site. (Comments: 0)
  • 27 Mar 2008 01:43 — Romania votes 'yes' again; ballot-stuffing, lack of transparency: Romania voted 'yes' to adopting OOXML as an ISO standard, with 15 votes for it, 6 against and 5 abstentions. There is strong suspicion of ballot-stuffing and the Romanian Standardization Organization has so far refused to offer any information other than the vote distribution. (Comments: 3)
  • 27 Mar 2008 01:32 — Document Freedom Day: Yesterday was Document Freedom Day. Document Freedom Day seeks to promote the use of Open Standards in the public sector. Even Microsoft participates. (Comments: 0)
  • 26 Mar 2008 18:20 — A response to Patrick Durusau: Microsoft Loses Money If OpenXML Loses: This is a response to Patrick Durusau's recent letter Who loses if OpenXML loses? The only one who loses if DIS 29500 fails is Microsoft, whose Office 2007 cashcow will run into trouble. Everyone else, including the OpenDocument Format, do not need an ISO stamp of approval on DIS 29500. The current Ecma 376 standard, flawed as it is, is more than enough to work with. Read more to find out why. (Comments: 3)
  • 25 Mar 2008 01:31 — ISO rules and the 29 of March: Groklaw told "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". Well spoken. Agreement for disapproval is not enough, your national body needs to vote correctly or the specification might get closer to a pivotal approval. Don't forget that to continue with a BRM for a text with 2300 comments had been their idea -- and to go fast-track with 19 difficulties. (Comments: 0)
  • 24 Mar 2008 17:06 — Patrick Durusau fails to make the case -- again: Who loses if OpenXML fails to get approval? Only a single party loses, all other parties win (haven't checked the "families" Bill Gates put forward... uhm, well). Durusau tries to make another case. Nice try or in the line of Jeff's pro-"poop"? (Comments: 4)
  • 20 Mar 2008 19:34 — ISO SQL editor Jim Melton's view on OOXML: You've written 6000 pages of specification largely in secret (and, I understand, recently added over 1500 more pages) and given the world five months to read, absorb, understand, review, critique, and establish informed positions on it. Worse, whether it happened because of unreasonable methods, pure random chance, or genuine and unexpected interest, the fact that the size of the JTC 1 Subcommittee that was to vote on the document suddenly exploded gives the appearance that somebody was trying too hard to stack the deck...almost as though it wasn't really desired to have too much real review. (Comments: 3)
  • 20 Mar 2008 14:42 — Pakistan and Egypt stuffed?: We got indications that 2 P-members countries were stuffed with Microsoft Business Partners. Those two countries applied for P membership in late August and voted Yes without any comments. Don't be surprised if they are out of reach for the European Commission. (Comments: 0)
  • 20 Mar 2008 13:55 — India votes NO to OOXML: In the final ballot today, India voted 'No' to OOXML. It has been a bitterly fought battle for the last week. (Comments: 6)
  • 14 Mar 2008 18:31 — Serious quality issues with the new BRM text: What is wrong about the BRM results. Industry stakeholder comments for the US Incits ballot reveal why no one can be happy with the BRM results: the specification is not ready for becoming an ISO standard. (Comments: 1)
  • 14 Mar 2008 16:04 — Red Hat: No OOXML: Red Hat leaves no doubt about it. From the position paper: "Red Hat is committed to open standards that are available free from any licensing, royalty payments, or other restrictions, and which are implementable by multiple vendors on multiple platforms. Consequently, Red Hat does not support the adoption of Microsoft’s Office OpenXML (“OOXML”) as an International Organization for Standardization (“ISO”) standard." (Comments: 1)
  • 14 Mar 2008 15:15 — Munich Major calls for No to OOXML: C. Ude, major of Munich: "We need the existing standard ODF and call on DIN, to say clearly "No" in the upcoming vote on the standarization of the additional alternative OOXML." (Comments: 0)
  • 13 Mar 2008 10:38 — SFLC: Microsoft patent promise excludes GPL developers: Microsoft has always been alergic to the GPL. It is no surprise that the Software Freedom Law Center found out that the "the OSP doesn't permit free software implementation: it permits implementation under free software licenses so long as the resulting code isn't used freely." (Comments: 5)
  • 11 Mar 2008 11:09 — Once again, what's wrong with OOXML: Ten things that are fundamentally wrong with OOXML and the so-called process that Microsoft is hell-bent on pushing through no matter what the damage and cost. (Comments: 3)
  • 06 Mar 2008 22:19 — Which version of the JTC1 directives applies: v2.0 or v3.0?: The 5 months ballot started on the 2nd of April 2007. JTC1 directives were changed on the 5 of April 2007, in order to add a special chapter 13 wrote with the help of ECMA's Jan van den Beld about the Fast Track procedure. So which version applies to the current process? v2.0 or v3.0? (Comments: 2)
  • 05 Mar 2008 17:37 — Hostage ODF editor made up his mind: Patrick Durusau, editor of ODF 1.2, made up his mind on OOXML and found it worth to signal support for approval with the strongest argument he could find: the "importance of beeing heard" (Comments: 3)
  • 04 Mar 2008 20:24 — More reports from the BRM: A P-member that declares the process failed, a neutral standard expert and surprise BRM delegate insults his national committee and other delegations, unresolved date bugs, discussions about what really happened, and Greek delegate Antonis Christofides with an insightful contribution to transparency. (Comments: 4)
  • 02 Mar 2008 15:41 — Gartner analyst: OOXML important domino: Michael Silver understands that Open XML is part of a procurement domino game. Tax payers and free competition on the one side, an American company and its monopoly on the other side. (Comments: 0)
  • 29 Feb 2008 17:04 — Babies born on 29 February attack Microsoft leap year bug: Leap Year Babies born on 29 February are attacking Microsoft for trying to standardise their leap year bug in OOXML. I guess the leap year is still in the standard after the BRM because standards needs to be tailored for a large dominant vendor. (Comments: 0)
  • 29 Feb 2008 11:50 — Microsoft India using NGOs to fake support for OOXML: Microsoft has "persuaded" several non-profit organizations to bombard the Indian IT Secretary and the Additional Director General of the Bureau of Indian Standards with letters supporting its OOXML proposal. A copy of the form letter they have been circulating to NGOs is given below. (Comments: 1)
  • 28 Feb 2008 18:39 — Top worst: Comments on comments on comments. The broken fat spec on the ISO fast track facilitates industry discussions over standardization policy. Now its Mauricio Ordoñez's turn. (Comments: 0)
  • 28 Feb 2008 16:40 — Robbery at the BRM?: LinuxWorld mentions that the BRM organisors are making a paper ballot on all the 900 comments. It seems that the BRM organisors are "robbing national delegations of the opportunity to propose their own modifications". (Comments: 1)
  • 28 Feb 2008 13:22 — The Danish Complaint: A Danish group complained at the General Directorate Competition of the European Commission about the Danish Government mandating ECMA 376 for the public sector. (Comments: 0)
  • 27 Feb 2008 15:46 — 7 chinese patents on UOF, is there legal certainty?: ISO does not seem to care to make patent searches in the world patent database, which could put in danger all future users of the standard. Now, Andy Updegrove of Consortium's blog mentions 7 chinese patents around UOF, and JustSystems might also have some patents around XML in the United States. Is there a way to have legal certainty? (Comments: 0)
  • 22 Feb 2008 11:17 — Hot stuffin' in Greece?: After the voting of the Greek HoD you may ask why the votes were 14 in total, when the organisations appointed to the committee are just 12. That's only the latest of the magical wonders around OpenXML. (Comments: 1)
  • 21 Feb 2008 17:13 — Project 29500: The BRM can change whatever it wants can it? A briefing message from the convenor of the BRM contributes to substancial irritation among the BRM delegates that are not sacked yet. (Comments: 6)
  • 21 Feb 2008 14:11 — Deterrment as a means of gaining DIS 29500 industry support: Why not threaten the ODF proponents to potentially torture an existing international standard for document formats, ISO 26300:2006? Would that make the Microsoft's epigonal format OOXML more "shiny and fun" and thus attractive for ISO standardization? (Comments: 2)
  • 19 Feb 2008 23:16 — Binary Format Review: A few days ago Microsoft made the specification of the binary format available. Now Joel Spolsky provides a review of the specification including the famous leap year bug that made it in the OOXML spec. (Comments: 6)
  • 19 Feb 2008 10:54 — Coincidence, Conflict of Interest or Reward?: Apparently unrelated to OOXML, Microsoft, a Business Parter (both on the portuguese TC) and an Institute who has a prominent member participating in the portuguese TC allegedly as an individual, are opening a Microsoft Innovation Center in Portugal oriented to clients and companies. Probably some CRM with OOXML capabilities? (Comments: 0)
  • 18 Feb 2008 15:55 — Good Bye Interoperability (3) with binaries inside: <NO>OOXML has a dedicated page about the Binary Space in the file format, which originally allowed any user to put any kind of data in there, and especially binaries. One dominant vendor especially like to put binaries in there, in order to foster innovative patented binary features. Do you think ECMA managed to solve the shit? (Comments: 1)
  • 18 Feb 2008 13:41 — FSFE found ECMA response contradiction: Response 34 of the proposed Disposition of Comments effectively contradicts and invalidates Response 31, which cites preservation of idiosyncrasies as the primary design goal and reason for DIS-29500. (Comments: 0)
  • 18 Feb 2008 13:18 — ECMA curiosities: ECMA proposes to add a reference to the Mishneh Torah of the middle age Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) inside the OOXML specification (Comments: 0)
  • 18 Feb 2008 11:08 — Microsoft's Wikipedia editor goes to the BRM to represent Australia: It seems that the Australian Standards Body still believes in corruption and money, and they will send Rick Jelliffe, an hardcore Microsoft representative who has been paid to edit the Wikipedia page on OOXML. The corruption train has now reached Australia. When does the train stops? (Comments: 8)
  • 13 Feb 2008 21:12 — More Choice: Choice between standards is becoming the latest defense. However the choice advocacy is contradictory. (Comments: 2)
  • 13 Feb 2008 12:13 — The naming issue: We speak of "OOXML" for good reasons. Bad naming leads to real confusion. This applies also to ECMA International which submitted the superb format to ISO and recently added 2300 pages of change proposals/denials. (Comments: 0)
  • 07 Feb 2008 18:51 — What happens after the BRM?: In the cloud of emerging open standards debates the BRM as such gets marginal importance. OOXML is a paradigm for vendor capture. (Comments: 0)
  • 05 Feb 2008 03:45 — Reflections: It is getting personal. Now Microsoft openly attacks IBM and IBM employees. The accusations against IBM of leading the international effort against office open xml ISO standardization are far from reality. However, the real matter is if that accusation is defamatory for IBM. (Comments: 0)
  • 04 Feb 2008 01:35 — Backwards compatibility lock-in: Backwards compatibility of formats is a curse. An article of Microsoft Internet Explorer Platform architect Chris Wilson offered me with some insights how the market locks in developers. (Comments: 0)
  • 30 Jan 2008 16:28 — Alex Brown: Must consider all comments: Alex Brown, the convenor of the Ballot Resolution Meeting, stresses that Member states need to consider and vote on all resolutions, not only the ones corresponding to their own comments. (Comments: 3)
  • 23 Jan 2008 03:40 — Government Leaders’ Forum Europe: It is always a matter of perspective. Microsoft organizes a two day conference to discuss "Perspectives of Modernising Government" with European government representatives in Berlin, Germany. Bill Gates himself visits the forum. A side purpose is to lift up a standard analyst from Gartner and retired rent-a-politician on equal footings. (Comments: 0)
  • 20 Jan 2008 20:34 — Burton study: Follow the herd: With a recent study of the Burton consultancy group the authors P. O'Kelly and G. Creese advise their clients how to benefit from the growing controversy over OOXML. Just bow in and don't negotiate a better deal. (Comments: 1)
  • 18 Jan 2008 18:09 — The 2293 pages of the ECMA comments are here: Yousendit is generously hosting the 2293 pages of the comments proposed by ECMA. Don't worry, the 600 pages of VML are still alive, and the deprecated part for backward compatibility with the black hole is still there. (Comments: 4)
  • 18 Jan 2008 18:03 — Open as in Denmark Buzz, buzz!: Denmark's standard blogger Leif Lodahl made much fuzz about an invitation he received from Chris Capossela, Microsoft. Let's sit down and talk. The core matter of difference is the meaning of open. For instance we have "open" as in "open to abuse" (recently proposed by nasty bloggers). Denmark already has its own definition. (Comments: 0)
  • 16 Jan 2008 16:50 — Tenhumberg dispells myths around ODF: As an answer to recent attempts to excuse the Open XML standardization problems with ODF alleged shortcomings SUN's Erwin Tenhumberg provides answers to critics of the ISO open standard for office productivity applications. (Comments: 0)
  • 15 Jan 2008 17:24 — 14 January + 1 day: where are the ECMA comments *published*?: Xmlguru.cz is publishing its opinion on whether the ECMA solutions are satisfactory resolving the czech comments. But the public readers of his blog don't have access to the ECMA comments. We are 14 January + 1 day, thus the question: "Where are the ECMA comments *published*?". (Comments: 3)
  • 15 Jan 2008 16:19 — Dutch Foundation wants the DOC/XLS/PPT specifications in the public domain: NLnet, a Dutch foundation for an open information society, has publicly called for Microsoft to release its deprecated formats into the public domain. At least that would be useful to have in order to certify the backward compatibility, which participating people in the ISO process are unable to certify up to now. (Comments: 2)
  • 15 Jan 2008 14:32 — BECTA puts thumbs down on MS-Office interoperability: British Educational Communications and Technology Agency puts strong objections against Microsoft Office 2007. The concerns of the British agency are not driven by the revamped user interface but by the reluctance to adopt ODF and its push for OOXML. It recommends a strategic approach towards open standards. (Comments: 0)
  • 14 Jan 2008 12:47 — Wishful Spinning: OOXML gets adopted. More and more projects are started. Let's see which of these would survive without funding. Meanwhile a spin factory sends out success stories that most bloggers find worthless to discuss. It is possible to get the Krauts on board that are supposed to review OOXML but would OOXML survive a review by the crowds? (Comments: 0)
  • 14 Jan 2008 11:01 — Greece sell-out proposal: Microsoft Hellas proposes a contract that will take over control of the sovereign European state. Greece would lose the right to speak about other products its government uses and gain the right to support the business interests of the vendor and its policy goals. (Comments: 0)
  • 14 Jan 2008 08:53 — New study examines Microsoft ISO votes: A new study from the Digital Standards Organization (www.digistan.org), "Influence of Per-capita GDP on the ISO OOXML Process" says that the average GDP per capita of the countries who voted for the Microsoft OOXML proposal in September 2007 is 'significantly lower' than the GDP per capita of those who voted against it. (Comments: 1)
  • 13 Jan 2008 01:10 — ISO warned about possible patent ambush on OOXML: Jeremy Wang is warning ISO about 2 US software patents owned by the company Scientigo which intends to monetise its patents, according to some press articles published in Cnet. Let's hope ISO will prevent patent ambushes. (Comments: 1)
  • 13 Jan 2008 00:53 — Microsoft will turn Chile abstention into a Yes?: Despite the 217 comments tabled by Chile in September, the Microsoft puppets are well active in the Committee and will vote this Tuesday to turn the vote of the country from an abstention to a Yes. You can expect more of those things happening until the end of March. (Comments: 2)
  • 04 Jan 2008 02:15 — 5 predictions about OOXML in 2008: The <NO>OOXML leaders spoke at the 24 Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin just before New Year. They predict that Microsoft will manage to have their broken standard adopted by ISO on the 1st of April 2008, after heavy lobbying and control of the discussions of the Ballot Resolution Meeting in Geneva. (Comments: 0)
  • 26 Dec 2007 11:25 — <NO>OOXML @ 24C3: <NO>OOXML will get showcased at the 24th annual CCC Conference 24C3 (27-30 Dec 2004). We will be there to answer your questions and Benjamin secured a talk slot on the fourth day. (Comments: 4)
  • 25 Dec 2007 10:02 — Bait and Switch: So what Ecma is offering SC34 is nothing close to what was promised. Ecma is really seeking to transfer to SC34 the responsibility of spending the next 3 years fixing errors in OOXML 1.0, while future versions of OOXML ("technical revisions") are controlled by Microsoft, in Ecma, in a process without transparency, and as should now be obvious to all, without sufficient quality controls. (Comments: 3)
  • 22 Dec 2007 15:07 — Microsoft moves the hot potatoes in a 'deprecated' basket: As we planned sometime ago, Microsoft has decided to get rid of the hot potatoes such as "VML or AutoSpaceLikeWord95" by not addressing the comments, but just moving them into an optional basket, in order to do not break the compatibility with Office 2007. Programmers are still left in the dark on what "AutoSpaceLikeWord95 and al" means, and with VML still implemented in Office 2007, you cannot reasonably expect interoperability with current Microsoft products. (Comments: 6)
  • 21 Dec 2007 13:36 — Oh! Oh! XML? news pickles: Richard Stallman dislikes Miguel, New York's project World Domino calls for your participation and SCO owns us. Find out how xml helps us to be faster and better informed than Doug Mahugh. (Comments: 0)
  • 18 Dec 2007 23:42 — War is on: BRM without Benjamin: Benjamin Henrion, the person who made NoOOXML happen, will not be able to participate in the Ballot Resolution Meeting of his national Standard committee to "give both sides of the struggle a say". (Comments: 1)
  • 18 Dec 2007 12:43 — Human readability: "This DIS contradicts the goals of XML and best practices. The designers of XML knew what they were doing because while we can remember what "c" means in this case it becomes problematic when we get hundreds or thousands of these shorthand references. .... OOXML has hundreds of these cryptic names." (Comments: 3)
  • 18 Dec 2007 11:18 — Bug for bug compatibility: 1900 is no leapyear. But what if once a programmer did a premature implementation and some users started to rely on the bugs. In the year 2007 these bugs can become features to justify a second international standard for Office applications, Open XML. (Comments: 0)
  • 17 Dec 2007 23:30 — Microsoft to buy ISO next week before Christmas?: "There is also a push by Microsoft and others to move ISO toward a "direct participation" model where corporations can participate in ISO directly, bypassing the national body mechanisms altogether. This would essentially turn ISO into a vendor consortium. So it will be interesting to see how this all turns out. To coin a folk aphorism, "In the land of the ugly queen all the mirrors have disappeared.". This comment is from the IBM's Rob Weir on his own blog post. Does someone has more information on this "JTC 1 N8812 - 60-Day Letter Ballot on the Establishment of an Ad Hoc Group on Direct Participation and Call for Participation"? Call your National Body now and try to find out what is going on. There seem to be a voting deadline next 24 December. (Comments: 0)
  • 17 Dec 2007 13:34 — Microsoft patent promise not GPL compatible: What Microsoft intends to do with its OSP is to forbid sublicensability, which is one of the cornerstone for distributing GPL code. The OSP page on Microsoft website is pretty clear about it: "There is no need for sublicensing". (Comments: 0)
  • 14 Dec 2007 22:57 — Domino: The Netherlands: What do you do in public affairs when your reputation is below sea level and hiring a tobacco lobbyist is no option? Maybe the compliance with ISO 26300:2006 is an option for your company. The Netherlands aim for it if you want to continue business with them. (Comments: 0)
  • 10 Dec 2007 19:18 — Rob is evil: In a strange mix of old school hate propaganda IBM is found as the new villain and its super-rogue Rob Weir. Will it help Redmond? Who would want to support them to gather a movement against Evil Rob? <No>OOXML feels the urgent need to jump in to assist its award-winning supporters from Redmond. (Comments: 0)
  • 10 Dec 2007 11:03 — Engineering Industry support for OOXML - Novell: Wikipedia: "A puppet is a representational object manipulated by a puppeteer. It is usually but not always a depiction of a human character and is used in (a) play or a presentation. The puppet undergoes a process of transformation through being animated, and is normally manipulated by one, or sometimes more than one, puppeteer. Some puppets can be moved electronically." Does Novell qualify as an OOXML puppet? (Comments: 0)
  • 09 Dec 2007 11:47 — OOXML Symposium in Australia, 14 Dec: Open XML fanboy Rick Jelliffe and others will convene at an OOXML symposium. A legal session will address legal concerns no one ever raised. And there is yet another paper ahead. (Comments: 0)
  • 07 Dec 2007 02:52 — What is the alternative?: "Double standards are not fine. What is the alternative?" The current standard for office documents are the Microsoft binary formats: doc, ppt, xls. Is OOXML a step into the right direction: more openness. Some think so. (Comments: 0)
  • 07 Dec 2007 01:01 — OpenISO starts its OOXML problem report: The OOXML process was instrumental for many proponents of Open Standards to expand their advocacy for a sound standard process that is well defended against vendor capture. OpenISO asks for your participation to improve OOXML. (Comments: 1)
  • 05 Dec 2007 13:23 — Participate to the radio debate about OOXML today!: This Wednesday, December 5, 2007, at 1 p.m. US EST (GMT -5) Linux.com is hosting a live podcast featuring Jeff Waugh, Roy Schestowitz, and reporter Bruce Byfield to debate about OOXML. <NO>OOXML has prepared some questions for the speakers. You can also join the discussion on irc.linux.com #linux.com. (Comments: 5)
  • 04 Dec 2007 13:54 — Matusow backs the French proposal?: Matusow says "there are no barriers for third parties to create bridges between ODF and its Open XML formats". Except the patents covering the 'standard' of course. (Comments: 0)
  • 03 Dec 2007 15:19 — DIN Comment DE-148: Conformity levels in Open XML? An interesting proposal to structure DIS 29500 and less radical than the French proposal. (Comments: 0)
  • 03 Dec 2007 14:43 — Microsoft continues to ignore the Muslim world: Some of the Microsoft comments have just been leaked out of the ECMA fortress. Microsoft continues to ignore the Muslim world, and they don't want to correct its WORKDAY function in order to 'do not break backward compatibility': "Weekend days (Saturday and Sunday) are not considered as working days." (Comments: 2)
  • 03 Dec 2007 12:23 — Microsoft's Stephen McGibbon to represent Ireland at the BRM?: There are rumors circulating in Ireland that Microsoft's Stephen McGibbon might be part of the Irish delegation to attend the BRM in Geneva. Microsoft is already controlling the Portuguese delegation, you can expect that they will control half of the table at Geneva. O'MyGod! (Comments: 0)
  • 28 Nov 2007 17:59 — Privileged Access on Linux: We have an international standard: ISO 26300. But a company unwilling to adhere to the standard wants its own. Others platforms should use converters that don't work. And some get privileged access to misfunctional converters. (Comments: 0)
  • 26 Nov 2007 15:40 — Open and dark?: Charles makes some good points why ECMA refuses to help the national Committees to resolve all comments. (Comments: 0)
  • 25 Nov 2007 14:54 — Microsoft sponsors DIN conference: An american company sponsors a lobby event for its Open XML format which is organised by the German standard body and takes place in a German ministry. Public officials and German rent-a-scientists join to listen to Microsoft and Bitkom. (Comments: 0)
  • 25 Nov 2007 14:34 — Bundesfinanzhof wants less Microsoft: German Bundesfinanzhof presents its annual audit. The German phallanx for open standards and open source, KBSt is urged to do more against an "established vendor with a market coverage of 90%". (Comments: 0)
  • 24 Nov 2007 20:08 — Gnome foundation in kahoots?: Having a delegate in the ECMA T45 Committee the Gnome foundation clarified its involvement in a superb standard development and bashes the vendor. (Comments: 3)
  • 16 Nov 2007 16:00 — 'OpenISO' will meet behind closed doors in February: JTC1 has published a FAQ about the future BRM in Geneva. The meeting will be held behind closed doors. Countries have to send their delegation list by 11 December, otherwise they cannot go to the BRM. Time to call your Standard Body and asking the names of the representatives? (Comments: 1)
  • 15 Nov 2007 14:13 — Cement for Open XML?: Microsoft recently announced they will develop a plugin for Daisy to overcome the deficits of its standards for disabled persons uncovered by the Toronto accessibility study (Comments: 0)
  • 09 Nov 2007 23:10 — Robertson: Open XML success doesn't hang on a yes vote: In a PCPRO article Tom Robertson explains how his company deals with 3500 suggestions for improvements. He also reveals why his company pushes ISO members by all means: to give the standard community a voice and satisfy customer demands. (Comments: 2)
  • 09 Nov 2007 17:50 — Microsoft offers Open XML developer training: Did you know that the Open XML document format "represents an exciting advance toward achieving the original vision of XML"? Me neither. Microsoft offers free web seminars for a technical audience. (Comments: 0)
  • 07 Nov 2007 16:56 — Microsoft Standards of Business: Stuart L. Scott was bailed out of Microsoft. Microsoft says the former CIO violated Microsoft's Standards of Business. Those of us who learned about their de-facto standards of business in international standardization procedures should be curious to have a look at their official Standards of Business. (Comments: 0)
  • 04 Nov 2007 13:48 — Fence sittin' views: ECMAscript: ECMA is the organiziation that stands behind the controversial OpenXML (ECMA-376) fast-track submission to ISO. Now Microsoft also attempts to obstruct a language standardization process which made ECMA International famous in the technologist community: ECMAscript (~Javascript or ECMA-262). (Comments: 0)
  • 03 Nov 2007 14:32 — KDE Office developers say no to Open XML support: KOffice is one of the free software office suites that mature slowly in the shadow of OpenOffice.org but become increasingly interesting as an alternative. Under the new KDE4 framework ports to other platforms as Windows or Mac OSX will broaden the user base. Key KOffice developers explain why open standards matter to them, why they decided to standardize on OpenDocument (ISO 26300) and why they won't support Open XML. (Comments: 0)
  • 02 Nov 2007 01:32 — German Foreign Minister praises ODF: Walter Steinmeier, the German Foreign Minister, supports the OpenDocument Format because it is a "completely open and ISO-standardized format". The Foreign Office organized an ODF conference this week. The German activities also sent a clear diplomatic signal in response to the DIN Committee stuffing. (Comments: 0)
  • 22 Oct 2007 15:34 — Kroes pays the bill: Commissioner Kroes reached a restaurant deal with Ballmer about softer RAND licensing of patents and a nominal fee for interoperability information. Both agreements are also a slap in the face for open standards interests and set an undesirable precedent for settling future open xml licensing problems. (Comments: 1)
  • 12 Oct 2007 13:18 — The monkey found a troll: Fud and patent strategy, the patent party starts. Patent FUD and litigation become the preferred tools to combat competitors in the software world. Steve Ballmer plays his role very well. What will that mean for market confidence in the patent mined Open XML proposal from Microsoft? (Comments: 0)
  • 11 Oct 2007 17:44 — British Parliament features the M-Word: In the British Parliament national software procurement is debated and "Microsoft" becomes a symbol of the need for reforms. Some Members of Parliament favour not only Open Standards but Open Source as a solution; references to the ongoing standardization struggle can be found. Open XML standardization also fuels the debate. (Comments: 0)
  • 09 Oct 2007 13:19 — Commission and Council diplomatic answers on OOXML: European Commission and the Portuguese Presidency have answered the questions of MEP Belder on OOXML. Only diplomatic answers, the European Union is not an ISO member, the EU trusts the european ISO members to be 'transparent, open, inclusive, impartial' and based on 'consensus, effectiveness, relevance and coherence'. (Comments: 5)
  • 03 Oct 2007 08:59 — OOXML Critic Fired From Finnish Standards Board: The finnish standards association has suddenly terminated the contract of Lassi Nirhamo, the new expert of the IT standardization team. As late as last week, Nirhamo participated in the SFS press conference and was part in making the finnish stand on OOXML known at the ISO organization. Lassi Nirhamo tells to the Computer- magazine that he only got the information about the severance of his contract last thursday, after his four months probation was coming to an end. At this point the employer can legally terminate the contract without any cause. (Comments: 1)
  • 01 Oct 2007 14:48 — FFII awards Microsoft "Best Campaigner against OOXML" prize: Microsoft itself is the surprise winner of the FFII's "Kayak Prize 2007", offered by the FFII in its <NO>OOXML call for rejection of Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) standards proposal. The software monopolist is honored as "Best Campaigner against OOXML Standardization". (Comments: 7)
  • 26 Sep 2007 09:27 — ISO process secret and dark in Croatia and Serbia: Most ISO national bodies are state funded and have the status of public institutions. Nevertheless, they are untransparent when it comes to publish anything usefull to document what has been said in their closed doors meetings on OOXML. This is the case in Croatia and Serbia, but also in most other countries. (Comments: 0)
  • 26 Sep 2007 01:23 — The EU shadow government wannabes: European institutions are not much different from Standard bodies. It is all about friendship. In the EU the vendor worked for years to get institutions in compliance with its corporate policies. But the illuminati and their FFII friends spoil it for them. Have a look how some MEPs serve the public interest. (Comments: 3)
  • 24 Sep 2007 18:49 — Flooding JTC1/SC34: A mixed blessing: There were only 9 Participating Members in SC34 November last year. Since then, another 29 members have joined. This sub committee enjoyed a quiet, rather anonymous life until the OOXML bombshell dropped into its lap late last year. Membership fluctuations were few and far between. All of a sudden, countries like Malta, Cyprus and Lebanon showed an immediate interest in the sub committee’s technical matters. But Microsoft's flooding of SC34 may backfire. (Comments: 1)
  • 21 Sep 2007 08:32 — Microsoft strengthens its presence in Belarus: Vladimir Tchaikovsky, former director of Azerbaijan office, was assigned onto newly created position of general director in Belarus. Tchaikovsky is known by scandal related to hijacking of Azerbaijan vote in ISO DIS 29500. It's interesting fact, that resistance to the OOXML adoption in Belarus, organised this summer by local grassroots activists, was the hardest over all CIS countries. (Comments: 2)
  • 20 Sep 2007 23:33 — Gartner's multiple standards EIF: The Gartner report on a potential revision of the European Interoperability Framework embarrassed everyone in the field. Gartner presented a worst case scenario for the EIF's future in which it does not promote interoperability and open standards anymore. Open standard advocates were not amused. (Comments: 4)
  • 20 Sep 2007 16:54 — A heap of dung by any other name still smells: "What's in a name? That which we call a dung-heap, by any other name would smell as vile." The ISO fast track procedure for OOXML is good material for comedy. Here's one little dialog you can perform with some friends. (Comments: 2)
  • 20 Sep 2007 10:29 — MEP Belder questions Commission and Council on OOXML: A Member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands, Bastiaan Belder, will orally questions the Commission and the Council at the next Strasbourg session (24 to 27 September) on the Microsoft partners invasion in the Technical Committees in some Member States. (Comments: 1)
  • 19 Sep 2007 05:49 — Microsoft condemns Sun's ISO manipulations: ... only to follow suit a decade later. Sun's effort in standardising Java 10 years ago came down with severe criticisms from Microsoft alleging that Sun has been playing the system. 10 years on, and we find Microsoft gaming it even more! (Comments: 0)
  • 18 Sep 2007 13:52 — NetworkDays() or NetworkDays2()?: Jeremy Allison has learned a lesson from the past with the standardisation of CIFS: Microsoft will refuse any change that forces them to make modifications in the 'already shipped' Office 2007. (Comments: 3)
  • 17 Sep 2007 20:14 — Crackpot, racist, and scurilous - NoOOXML meets Wikipedia: Has Wikipedia been taken over by Microsoft clones? The OOXML article on Wikipedia has been the subject of intense edit wars between Microsoft-friendly editors like hAl and various members of the Global Conspiracy to Rob Microsoft of their Rightful Standard (GCRMSRS). Some quotes from the page and comments... (Comments: 18)
  • 17 Sep 2007 12:24 — FFII: EU antitrust ruling five years out of date: Today the European court of the first Instance blew away Microsoft, following years of bullying against European Institutions and disobedience. FFII issues a press release and points to the need for preemptive interoperability means and the dangers associated with Microsoft's software patent portfolio. (Comments: 5)
  • 15 Sep 2007 17:03 — On Monday EU vs. MS antitrust sanctions appeal decision: Monday the Microsoft antitrust appeal court decision is expected. So far Microsoft was able to delay and ignore the sanctions. The responsible Commissioner commented recently: "In 50 years of EU antitrust policy we have never before encountered a company that has refused to comply with a [3 year old] Commission decision." Marbux provides you a with a comprehensive briefing about tomorrow's decision. (Comments: 8)
  • 15 Sep 2007 01:38 — Insert Coin: The European Commission is interested in the two cents of interested parties. Opening new markets worldwide for Europe's ICT industry. Have your say! (Comments: 4)
  • 12 Sep 2007 11:34 — Microsoft has to rush to keep its Office revenue stream: Doug Mahugh, who was on a conference in Kuala Lumpur this week for TechEd, told the truth about OOXML: "Office is a 10USD billion revenue generator for the company. When ODF was made an ISO standard, Microsoft had to react quickly as certain governments have procurement policies which prefer ISO standards. Ecma and OASIS are "international standards", but ISO is the international "Gold Standard". Microsoft therefore had to rush this standard through. It's a simple matter of commercial interests!" (Comments: 6)
  • 07 Sep 2007 19:14 — Scandal in Denmark: Microsoft misused the good name of a well respected journalist in a letter to partners. (Comments: 7)
  • 07 Sep 2007 08:48 — An Open Letter to ISO: Geir Isene. CEO of FreeCode International writes an open letter to ISO asking it for a standard of the process itself. He writes: "It seems ISO is not prepared for a politicized process where a big and influential commercial enterprise will use any means possible to push its own standard through to certification." (Comments: 9)
  • 06 Sep 2007 11:03 — Fast Track in Wonderland: Well-known characters from Lewis Carrol's classic meet reality in a strange but true story starring Microsoft as the Cheshire Cat, ECMA International as The Mad Hatter and ECMA TC45 as the Rabbit. (Comments: 5)
  • 05 Sep 2007 15:01 — 3.2 billion people voted NO against OOXML: Although the ISO process gives Malta the same voice as China, the reality is that national support for Microsoft formats is critical to the future of the MS-Office lock-in. We look at the figures behind the NO votes... (Comments: 22)
  • 05 Sep 2007 13:12 — Norbert Bollow starts OpenISO: What do engineers do when they observe a problem? They start a project to fix it. A Swiss standard expert who got annoyed by the "Open XML bug" of ISO procedures launched OpenISO.org. (Comments: 10)
  • 05 Sep 2007 08:56 — EFFI links corruption to OOXML support: EFFI studied the relation between the corruption level and voting behaviours of the countries that voted on OOXML. The findings were that the more corrupted a country is, the more likely it was to vote for the unreserved acceptance of the OOXML standard proposal. (Comments: 7)
  • 04 Sep 2007 18:57 — Malaysia's Industry Standards Committee voted "Disapprove": Both Malaysia's Technical Committee and Industry Standards Committee both voted "Disapprove with comments." Why has the vote been changed to "Abstain"? Incredible pressure by Microsoft applied to the Malaysian Ministry of Science Technology and Innovation. (Comments: 5)
  • 04 Sep 2007 17:14 — Despite the NO, ISO will handle a BRM in February: Despite the majority of NO to OOXML voted by many delegations, the ISO secretariat has decided to move forward with the next step, which is to organise a Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM). Do you remember that it is the secretariat who decided to go forward with the Fast Track in February? (Comments: 14)
  • 04 Sep 2007 10:37 — ISO records a "NO" vote on OOXML: Our sources inside ISO say that the result of the electronic vote is "NO". Our own unconfirmed calculations confirm that neither sufficient P-members voted to approve the vote, nor did enough members overall. (Comments: 40)
  • 04 Sep 2007 08:58 — Indonesia abstains on OOXML: Indonesia is one of the countries which had to respond to the vote on the open document file format by Microsoft, Open XML, in the international arena. However, Indonesia has chosen to Abstain. (Comments: 0)
  • 04 Sep 2007 08:26 — ISO will announce result by wednesday: ...writes computerworld.com. ISO has also confirmed that all votes including abstentions, can be changed between now and the February 2008 "Ballot Resolution Meeting". (Comments: 1)
  • 04 Sep 2007 07:48 — Suspicious delay in Croatia: Although Croatian committee members were pushed to give their votes until Thursday, 30.8.2007. Yet, there's no official statement from Croatian body. (Comments: 0)
  • 03 Sep 2007 17:41 — UK Notes No, with Comments: The UK has submitted its comments on the adoption of the draft of ISO/IEC DIS 29500 OOXML (also known as ECMA 376) to JTC1 (Comments: 5)
  • 03 Sep 2007 09:17 — Ireland, no with comments: NSAI (National Standards Authority of Ireland) has voted Disapproval - with Technical Comments, in respect of the OOXML submission. (Comments: 0)
  • 03 Sep 2007 08:33 — Korea, No with comments to OOXML: Korea Committee voted "No with comments" to Office Open XML as P member body. Mr. Youngsik Kang, Korea Agency for Technology and Standards, one of ISO/JTC-1 members confimed voting result to ISO on August, 31th after collection the public opinion from various experts, companies and government in Korea. (Comments: 1)
  • 03 Sep 2007 06:41 — Australia abstains: Standards Australia has cast a vote to abstain from the ISO/IEC JTC1 ballot to adopt the DIS 29500 Office Open XML format draft standard as an International Standard. The decision to cast an abstain vote from the current ballot follows months of consultation and a clear lack of consensus in Australia on this issue by stakeholders. (Comments: 2)
  • 02 Sep 2007 13:57 — ISO confirms that the vendor lied to you: In many national committees members were told that "Yes with comments" is a valid procedure under which national comments would get considered by ISO. FFII insisted that "Disapproval with Comments" is the only meaningful method to get comments considered because this is found in the bylaws. Very late ISO clarifies: If you have comments you must vote disapproval. (Comments: 19)
  • 02 Sep 2007 10:05 — Romanian Ministry meets local Microsoft representative: While the OOXML scandal is reaching its top phase, Romanian Information Ministry gently meets Silviu Hotăran, Microsoft's leader in Romania. By coincidence, Romanian ASRO voted unconditional YES for Microsoft OOXML, both at ECMA and at ISO... (Comments: 4)
  • 02 Sep 2007 09:16 — 40,000 people sign the <NO>OOXML petition: At around 1am CET on 2 September, the forty-thousandth person signed the petition protesting against Microsoft's attempts to fast-track the OOXML format through the ISO process. FFII's Pieter Hintjens gives his view of what this fight is about and where it has to go. (Comments: 2)
  • 01 Sep 2007 20:10 — Denmark says NO: The danish working group within "Dansk Standard" has by consensus voted no to OOXML. (Comments: 0)
  • 01 Sep 2007 11:13 — The fat ladies sing "YES" to Microsoft's tune in the US: If you don't get it right, try, try try again. IBM's Rob Weir explains the tortuous US voting process and how Lexmark, GS1 and three government agencies (Department of Defense, Dept. of Homeland Security and NIST) did a 180-degree turn that caused the final vote to land in Microsoft's lap. (Comments: 9)
  • 31 Aug 2007 23:45 — Tracking the voting status of OOXML: I am trying to keep a list of published votes on OOXML in order to get a rough estimate of the situation. Information is mostly based on this website (noooxml.org). Unfortunately, there still seem to be a lot of unclear votes. However, if anyone can provide me with additional information, I will update the list. (Comments: 12)
  • 31 Aug 2007 21:42 — Software gurus say OpenXML not open, not XML: Linux Foundation publishes the views of Klaus Knoppers and Jeremy Allison and many other members. Klaus Knoppers wants Open XML to become a true Open Standard. One of the uncertainties is the Microsoft Open Specification Promise. It is untested in court, nobody really knows if its applicable on a worldwide scale and how to determine its scope and validity. Larry Rosen indicated it is okay for the US law. Grokdoc spoke of an "empty" promise. Sun had concerns. (Comments: 0)
  • 31 Aug 2007 20:36 — Sweden annulls vote, abstains, because of irregularities: The Swedish SIS reports that it "has information indicating that one of the members of the working group has participated in the ballot with more than one vote. Such a procedure is not in accordance with SIS regulations, which state that each project sponsor has only one vote." The final result: abstention. (Comments: 3)
  • 31 Aug 2007 12:02 — Microsoft rolls the soothing videos, Hug Madog explains: Microsoft's Doug "Hug Madog" Mahugh who is "new to all this standards stuff" explains, "when you see bribery and scandal in every alliance between your foes, you're telling the world a lot about your view of the essence of collaboration and cooperation." Meanwhile Hug's series of "Learn to Love the Bomb" videos gets rolling... (Comments: 7)
  • 31 Aug 2007 11:38 — Norway says NO: Norway votes "no with comments and suggestions for changes", according to a recent press release from Standard Norge. (Comments: 1)
  • 30 Aug 2007 08:46 — Remember: Microsoft anti-trust case is due in November 2007: The Microsoft anti-trust case is due to be reloaded in November 2007. Given the corruption suspicions that are affecting the OOXML standardisation process all over the world, I think we should record and retain any evidence that occurs now, to be used later in the trial. (Comments: 5)
  • 30 Aug 2007 07:58 — New Zealand says NO: New Zealand has cast its vote, and it is a "no". Their motivation is the sound, balanced and reasonable one: many stakeholders have raised many issues which need to be addressed. (Comments: 3)
  • 29 Aug 2007 19:24 — Swedentzerland?: Last minute workgroup expansions and Mr. Thomann declares "We decided: Switzerland recommends to recognise Open XML ***from Microsoft*** as an international Standard". But.. (Comments: 7)
  • 29 Aug 2007 11:16 — Microsoft offered 'market subsidies' to swedish partners: IDG.se just published an update on the Microsoft scandal. "Microsoft offered extra 'market subsidies' to partners that participated in the Monday vote about the Open XML format. This appears from internal communication that CS has seen. 'It was badly formulated and would never have gone out' says the business area chief of the company, Klas Hammar." (Comments: 21)
  • 28 Aug 2007 15:28 — Rick's reputation bailout: Australian Standard expert Rick Jelliffe leaves the party line and recommends "No with comments". He also lays his business affiliations open. Rick was one of the most notorious defenders of Microsoft in Australia and developed a new doctrine of National Relevance. (Comments: 11)
  • 27 Aug 2007 19:21 — Lies, damn lies: National Standard bodies are told that 2nd September was not the deadline and there would be another 30 days. It isn't the first time procedural lies are spread to promote a bad cause, a bad standard. (Comments: 0)
  • 27 Aug 2007 17:51 — Sweden hijacked: The Yes men makes it again in Sweden. I thought this country was not corruptable? (Comments: 15)
  • 27 Aug 2007 11:17 — Palestine Says No: Palestinian Standards Institute, as a corespondent member at ISO, sent the regional ISO liaison, asking for disapproval of the standard (Comments: 2)
  • 27 Aug 2007 09:44 — The puppet strategy works fine in Colombia: It seems that the puppet strategy works fine in Colombia. Of the 12 votes, 7 were of Gold partners of Microsoft, 4 from the Government and 1 was a "call-it-independent". The 2 Universities, 1 Government member and 1 free software association voted NO. (Comments: 9)
  • 25 Aug 2007 18:58 — Burn all docx?: It makes a difference if you read about lions and dragons or meet them on your way home. Independend XML specialist Stéphane Rodriguez tested Open XML and his results are a disaster for all of us who care about open standards and quality. His tests also give us some insights how and why DIS 26500 would fail to achieve interoperability and vendor-independence. (Comments: 21)
  • 25 Aug 2007 12:08 — Germany as the new Portugal?: According to a Groklaw article Germany could be a new Portugal. It says that Google and Deutsche Telekom were not allowed to vote at DIN. (Comments: 3)
  • 25 Aug 2007 00:35 — Frauenhofer comes to Open XML's rescue: Mr. Schürmann wants to help its partner Microsoft with the "implementation" of OOXML comments at ECMA. This points to an important question: what is the role of Microsoft and ECMA after the 2 September ballot vote? (Comments: 4)
  • 24 Aug 2007 12:02 — India will vote No with comments: The Business Standards of India is reporting that the BIS will vote No with comments. At the same time, the reseller of the vendor in India mentions that they will continue to lobby "the BIS and the committee members on the comments noted during the ballot resolution process”. (Comments: 7)
  • 24 Aug 2007 09:22 — The 63 technical comments adopted in Brazil: OpenXML.info has published the 63 technical comments adopted in Brazil, where the vendor was member of the committee. It means that there is at least one country who has worked on the specification, and at least the decision makers of ABNT were "not approving the technical content of the DIS **as presented**" to quote the JTC1 directives. My question is why other countries are not finding the same technical problems, and thus "not approving the technical content of the DIS **as presented**" ? Maybe the vendor managed to drug the people of the technical committee in order to reinterpret the JTC1 directives like in Germany? (Comments: 10)
  • 24 Aug 2007 06:55 — Romania - The List of Shame: Some times ago, the CT210 comitee at ASRO, the Romanian NB, secretly joined and adopted a pro-Microsoft position without asking no one else. Here is the List of Shame ! (Comments: 7)
  • 24 Aug 2007 06:17 — War of formats: India shows thumbs-down to Microsoft: NEW DELHI: India on Thursday gave Microsoft a thumbs-down in the war of standards for office documents. In a tense meeting at Delhi’s Manak Bhawan, the 21-member technical committee decided that India will vote a ‘no’ against Microsoft’s Open Office Extensible Mark Up Language (OOXML) standard at the International Standards Organisation (ISO) in Geneva on September 2. /photo.cms?msid=2305795 “We unanimously agree on the disapproval of OOXML with comments. The same will be submitted to ISO,” National Informatics Centre head and BIS technical committee chairperson Nita Verma said after a marathon meeting that lasted over six hours. There was no need for a voting as only Infosys Technologies and CSI supported Microsoft. The Open Document Format (ODF) alliance, enjoying widespread support from academia and corporates like Oracle, IBM, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, Google, were in a jubilant mood having succeeded in stalling OOXML from being accepted as a standard in India. (Comments: 0)
  • 23 Aug 2007 19:27 — Brazil says NÃO!: Brazil's Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas (ABNT) understands how the ISO process works: when you have comments, you need to vote No in order to get them considered. As easy as that. Brazil, China, India and many other nations say No with comments. (Comments: 6)
  • 22 Aug 2007 13:59 — German DIN has fallen in the Microsoft trap: It seems that Germany has fallen in the Microsoft trap to address comments with a Yes vote. Germany will support the assumption of Office open XML as international standard - however with a set of improvement suggestions. (Comments: 18)
  • 21 Aug 2007 06:31 — Another Victory for Microsoft in Finland: Yesterday Finland decided to abstain on OOXML. Lobbying before the deciding meeting from Microsoft was so intensive that the key ministries were turned to yes-men. Even though a-big-Finn-company-that-must-not-be-named said that a standard this bad should compromise the whole credibility of ISO, the yes-side was too strong. It was a sad day to be a Finn. (Comments: 5)
  • 18 Aug 2007 16:53 — Yet another committee stuffed in Kenya: Microsoft has stuffed again one more committee in Kenya (P-member) in order to secure a Yes vote, thanks to their puppets. Yet another committee successfully hijacked by Microsoft and their partners. (Comments: 3)
  • 18 Aug 2007 14:03 — Netherlands will abstain under Microsoft veto: Netherlands will abstain on OOXML, since Microsoft seemed to be the only one in the technical committee to do not support a conditional approval (No with comments). The Internet Society Netherlands is also calling for a reform of the ISO process, to be more resistant to such controversial standards, "in order for ISO to maintain relevant". (Comments: 12)
  • 18 Aug 2007 13:46 — Jordan Standards body lobbying on behalf of Microsoft?: The corruption train has reached a summit with the Jordan Institution for Standards and Metrology (JISM) lobbying on behalf of Microsoft. They have sent an email to all ISO P-members asking them to urgently support OOXML, with some information coming directly from Microsoft. A member of the Lithuanian technical committee is nevertheless raising doubt on the competence of the Jordan experts. Jordan does not has a technical committee, only an industry organisation as advisor where Microsoft is a member. (Comments: 5)
  • 16 Aug 2007 14:05 — OOXML problems in 75 slides: Anand Vaidya has made a very good presentation about "Microsoft OOXML / ECMA376: Get The Facts" in about 75 slides. This resumes very well the problems with the Microsoft pseudo-standard. (Comments: 2)
  • 14 Aug 2007 14:47 — Microsoft trying to reinterpret ISO voting rules?: The ISO DIS voting form G18 that National Bodies should use to vote contains another indicative element that they should vote NO if they have technical problems with the standard proposal. Microsoft is trying to convince them to vote Yes with comments, even if those comments are technical. (Comments: 1)
  • 12 Aug 2007 16:09 — New features and implementations... where?: Microsoft is arguing in every national committee that a long list of software applications and platforms support already the OOXML format, and that it was designed to fulfill new broad features not covered by OpenDocument. Let's see how accurate these statements are... (Comments: 4)
  • 11 Aug 2007 15:40 — USA: "sorry we cannot approve OOXML": The INCITS executive group has voted by far not to approve ISO DIS 29500. Official bodies like the DoD and the NIST decided to reject the specification because of its deficiencies. Also Oracle, IBM or Lexmark, and the standard association GS1 US. On the other side, Microsoft and its yes-men Apple, Intel and HP. Now ANSI has to decide the final vote of US. Hopefully will take into account the several hundreds of comments provided by the technical group of INCITS, the V1 (no matter if hijacked by the vendor yes-men). (Comments: 0)
  • 11 Aug 2007 12:15 — Where is the Microsoft RFRAND patent licence?: ECMA and Microsoft employees are mentioning that there is a bilateral RFRAND patent licence available for companies that "sometimes have a large commercial operation" and prefer to enter into a bi-lateral license agreement as opposed to relying on a CNS or OSP-like promise. (Comments: 0)
  • 10 Aug 2007 23:52 — Megatron does Australia: Australia will probably go Yes with with a Christmas card; comments are still possible until August 21st; Microsoft has a well-organized PR push at these events; Google was there but Sun was not; there were empty seats(!); Microsoft is pushing the idea that multiple standards are fine. (Comments: 10)
  • 10 Aug 2007 15:39 — University of Toronto says OOXML format "fails": Stephen A. Hockema and Jutta Treviranus of the Adaptive Technology Resource Centre, University of Toronto, look at how OOXML works for persons with disabilities. Their conclusion: the format does not provide sufficient accessibility. (Comments: 1)
  • 10 Aug 2007 12:06 — Microsoft paying National Bodies to suddendly become P?: They are rumors that some countries (more details soon) might suddenly become P-members, under Microsoft pressure. Microsoft is probably afraid to loose the vote of the P-members, thus they are asking National Bodies of developing countries to quickly become P members. This move can be quickly done. The vote of P and O members is becoming a moving target. (Comments: 2)
  • 07 Aug 2007 13:17 — China says ciao-ciao! to OOXML (one more <NO>): The experts and the enterprises of China, representing the interests of a one fifth of the Earth population and one of the biggest economical super-powers, have determined that ISO DIS 29500 should not become ISO 29500 because it severely lacks in converting former Chinese document and because "it will do harm to the country's overall software industry". China will be one more vote NO to the interests of Microsoft at ISO/IEC. (Comments: 8)
  • 07 Aug 2007 10:56 — Puppet theatre: BoycottNovell explains, with clear graphics and labels, why many very important Linux distributors are supporting OOXML. It's very important to understand why big firms like TurboLinux, Corel, Xandros, Linspire, and Novell, believe OOXML is better than hot sliced bread. Read on... (Comments: 1)
  • 06 Aug 2007 15:11 — Poland is waiting for your technical comments on OOXML: The Polish Standardization Committee wants to get answers to the three questions: 1. Is there a certifiable violation of patent and IP policy of ISO?; 2. Is the proposed norm meets the aims of international norm described in ISO/IEC directives?; 3. Is the proposed norm is in contradiction with other existing ISO norms? (Comments: 1)
  • 06 Aug 2007 13:33 — NoOOXML petition hits new records: Thanks to many contributors, the NoOOXML petition now has translations in 35 languages and has received over 31,000 signatures from individuals around the world. (Comments: 0)
  • 06 Aug 2007 08:17 — OOXML too difficult for Mac Office developers?: While the vendor tries to beat "OOXML is great" into everyone's head, its own Mac Business Unit can't implement OOXML convertors on time to ship with Office 2008 for Mac. Originally promised for spring 2007, the converters won't even ship with Mac Office 2008, says a vendor spokesman. (Comments: 2)
  • 05 Aug 2007 20:01 — Italy does not approve OOXML!: Italy, a "P" member of ISO/IEC whose subcommittee in charge of DIS 29500 was invaded by Microsoft partners, finally has got an ABSTENTION and won't back OOXML as Microsoft looked for. (Comments: 3)
  • 03 Aug 2007 18:04 — Swiss Cheese: An anonymous coward explains how the Swiss national board will vote, in a fair and free decision that will think carefully before saying "YES" to Microsoft. (Comments: 15)
  • 03 Aug 2007 10:09 — Kroes won't help: EU competition policy is a lame duck but it is alive. However, Kroes won't sanitize OOXML patent and disclosure problems. (Comments: 0)
  • 02 Aug 2007 15:16 — Brazil also in the way to be hijacked by Microsoft: Microsoft has put in the Brazilian committee more than 2/3 of the currently existing 54 members. The technical debate about DIS 29500 does not matter now. Only matters who puts more members in the committee for the final vote at the end August. ISO and ABNT are being hijacked by Microsoft and its partners. (Comments: 0)
  • 01 Aug 2007 12:42 — September double-strike for interoperability: In a press release, the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) warns that the OOXML vote is one of only two major decisions in September that will define the future of interoperability in the key desktop computing market. (Comments: 0)
  • 31 Jul 2007 09:35 — Romania votes "yes" for OOXML: Our correspondent writes, "…our politicians here are corrupt as hell, the general view around is that they are "yes-men" when it comes to lining their pockets or lack of knowledge of the technology… One of the Members of the government is famously known for looking desperately for the Internet Explorer icon when Nicholas Negroponte introduced the OLPC Laptop to the government." (Comments: 3)
  • 30 Jul 2007 18:42 — Spain votes against MS-OOXML by 4-to-3: Microsoft has been defeated in Spain (a place that they were expecting to win) for 4 votes against 3 including one from Microsoft itself. The rejection won by a majority of votes, but the final vote of Spain will be an ABSTENTION because the internal rules of AENOR require a 2/3 majority either way. Spain is a "P" (principal) member at ISO/IEC. (Comments: 0)
  • 27 Jul 2007 13:42 — NoOOXML reported in the press: "ISO standards are like the old ladies of the standards world, respectable, prim, a bit musty, but irreproachable. No-one ever got fired for implementing an ISO standard. And with good reason—ISO has always been a careful process of assembling diverse opinion, negotiating away conflict, and reaching consensus. Membership of ISO committees is voluntary and unpaid. In other words, ISO is a sitting duck for someone with the money and the will to abuse the system. " (Comments: 0)
  • 24 Jul 2007 09:51 — Microsoft 0wns Azerbaijan: Our correspondent from the Caucasus reports on his efforts to shed some light on the OOXML vote in Azerbaijan, a P-Member. Seems Microsoft 'arranged' the vote already... (Comments: 10)
  • 23 Jul 2007 16:32 — SPAIN: Andalusia reports Microsoft manipulation: The Andalusian Government denounces that Microsoft has fakely reported officially that Andalusia was backing the ISO DIS 29500 approval in AENOR (Spanish NSB). Andalusia reports that it has already choosen ISO/IEC 26300 (OpenDocument). (Comments: 2)
  • 23 Jul 2007 10:06 — Rumors of Microsoft blackmail in New Zealand?: Some rumors are saying that Microsoft's representative has blackmailed the Government and the Standardisation body in New Zealand with something like "If you don't say Yes to OOXML, we will revise our license terms with the Government for all Microsoft products you use. There will be sanctions". We are looking for some people from New Zealand to investigate this. (Comments: 4)
  • 20 Jul 2007 11:08 — Microsoft recruiting puppets in Australia: Microsoft is looking for puppets to represent themselves in the Australian Standardization Body: "We need more Aussie companies supporting Office Open XML". Maybe Microsoft is interested in technical comments on their broken standard? (Comments: 6)
  • 19 Jul 2007 12:23 — South Africa Vs OOXML: 13 - 4: Microsoft OOXML has been rejected yesterday in South Africa by 13 NO votes against 2 YES votes with comments and 2 YES votes without comments. (Comments: 0)
  • 16 Jul 2007 21:10 — Portuguese committee says no room for IBM and Sun: OpenXML.info is reporting that IBM and Sun were excluded from participation in the discussions in Portugal on OOXML, because there were no seats available in the room. Microsoft had nevertheless many people representing them in the room, not counting their puppets. (Comments: 4)
  • 15 Jul 2007 19:51 — V4I: Small innovative companies urgently need OOXML: You don't need to keep software vendors out of ISO standardization procedures. Because they have first hand experiences with OOXML solutions. Salespersons are perfectly skilled to sell Office Open XML to ISO committees because OOXML is essential for them, it is crucial for their business and their customers. Voices for Innovation started a petition in favour of Office Open XML standardization. A website from Microsoft. Micro means small, as in SME (small and medium enterprises). (Comments: 1)
  • 13 Jul 2007 15:41 — Czech goes for NO: Czech Normalisation Institute (CNI) accepted half of the submitted technical comments to the committee earlier last month. (Comments: 3)
  • 10 Jul 2007 07:44 — Microsoft puppets kicking ODF law in California: Microsoft puppets, such as Initiative for Software Choice (CompTIA), or Association for Competitive Technology (ACT), are kicking the ODF bill in California advocating for 'let the user choose'. Does the users really choose their file format? Of course not. (Comments: 0)
  • 30 Jun 2007 14:06 — Irish submissions: Citizens of MS Ireland are invited to sent their comment to NSAI no later than 11 July 2007. (Comments: 1)
  • 28 Jun 2007 23:29 — Portuguese signatures are moving quickly: Portugal is another where the Technical Committee seems to be invaded by Microsoft. Some people have forked the petition in portuguese, and they nearly got 500 signatures in less then 36 hours. Waouw! (Comments: 3)
  • 28 Jun 2007 13:27 — What are the Microsoft's arguments to defeat ours?: ECMA (essentially a Microsoft proxy) has published a document to counter all the contradictions submitted by countries against the Fast Track. This document can be seen as the core of the counter-arguments by Microsoft to convince National Bodies that OOXML is a good thing. A very informative document on which arguments Microsoft will use to discuss with other stakehoders during the forthcoming meetings. (Comments: 4)
  • 27 Jun 2007 23:26 — You really need to call your National Body: We have more then 104 countries, and we don't know what is happening in most of them. What about Pakistan? Oman? Iraq? Russia? Will they vote? When is the deadline to submit comments? I mean one country, one vote is the rule, so every country is important. Let's call your Standardisation Body to find out what is happening... (Comments: 3)
  • 26 Jun 2007 14:38 — Intel sidelining with Microsoft?: Rumors coming from differents sources are mentioning that Intel is supporting OOXML in some countries, and want to defend the application of the standard to become an ISO norm. Intel and Microsoft used to be a good tandem in the past, and they are still probably in tandem today. Intel was also an ECMA member, and voted for the ECMA-376 specification. (Comments: 0)
  • 26 Jun 2007 13:49 — FSFE: Six questions to national standardisation bodies: FSFE is asking 6 questions to all standardisation bodies: "The following six questions relate to the application of the ECMA/MS-OOXML format to be accepted as an IEC/ISO standard. Unless a national standardisation body has conclusive answers to all of them, it should vote no in IEC/ISO and request that Microsoft incorporate its work on MS-OOXML into ISO/IEC 26300:2006 (Open Document Format)." (Comments: 0)
  • 25 Jun 2007 13:40 — OOXML in Denmark: OOXML is now ready for public hearing in Denmark. Comments must be sent to Dansk Standard by july 2nd 2007. For comments form please contact Pia Elleby Lange. Next meeting in committee is scheduled for juli 11th 2007 at 10:00 AM at Dansk Standard. (Comments: 3)
  • 25 Jun 2007 10:51 — French version of The Case against OOXML available: Thanks to the efforts of Guillaume Allègre, french readers can have access to the translation of the Rob Weir paper in French. It will be useful for french speaking countries, such as Belgium, France, Canada, Algeria, Congo, Côte-d'Ivoire, Luxembourg, Morocco, Tunisia or Switzerland. (Comments: 0)
  • 25 Jun 2007 09:08 — IBM submissions in CZ available online: IBM has submitted some technical comments at CNI, the Czech National Institute. Those comments are available online. Normally, there is a form you have to fill in all other countries in order to submit comments to your National Standardisation Body. (Comments: 0)
  • 22 Jun 2007 08:16 — Online helpdesk created: I have just created an online helpdesk on IRC in order to get some support and advices from other people who wants to submit comments to their National Standardisation Bodies, or launch a campaign against OOXML in their country. (Comments: 0)
  • 21 Jun 2007 19:53 — How can you help to the <NO>OOXML initiative?: There are several things that needs to be clarified urgently: when is the deadline in the 104 countries members of ISO to submit comments on OOXML? We need people to email or call directly their National Standardization Body in order to know when is the deadline to submit comments, and if there are physical meetings organized. (Comments: 1)
  • 19 Jun 2007 22:08 — Rob Weir explains in 10 pages why OOXML should be rejected: Rob Weir is explaining in 10 pages why the proposed OOXML standard should be rejected, and why it conflicts with existing ISO standards. An extract: "OOXML, however, incorporates very little of the consolidated best practices of the industry. Worse, would-be implementors of OOXML are asked to use Microsoft's proprietary, legacy formats, even when relevant and superior W3C standards are at hand." (Comments: 0)
  • 19 Jun 2007 21:48 — Ubuntu leader do not trust OOXML: Mark Shuttleworth of Ubuntu in an interview with ZDNet: "I have no confidence in Microsoft's Open XML specification to deliver a vibrant, competitive and healthy market of multiple implementations. I don't believe that the specifications are good enough, nor that Microsoft will hold itself to the specification when it does not suit the company to do so," Shuttleworth said. OpenDocument Format, or ODF, is better, and Microsoft should improve its support for that standard, he said. (Comments: 0)
  • 19 Jun 2007 19:53 — MS forcing its belgian Gold Partners to support OOXML?: Rumors are being spread that Microsoft is forcing its Gold Partners in Belgium to endorse the specification to become an ISO standard. We just hope that Microsoft will be more intelligent then just asking them to sign the same letters that they sent to the ANSI in the United States... The deadline for submitting comments in Belgium is the 25 June, and there will be a meeting at the IBN on the 29 June. (Comments: 0)
  • 19 Jun 2007 09:11 — Microsoft puppets spamming ANSI: An extract on the Microsoft spam letter sent to ANSI: "Even though this is a form letter from Microsoft I thought I would add this personal touch. I understand that there is a monetary drive from Microsoft in allowing Open XML to become an ISO standard, but I have to say that if this is not added to the standard that many small businesses may be forced to go back and have many of their web applications retooled to function under the new standards at great expense the them." An impressive list of spam comments asking for supporting OOXML and backward compatibility, claiming also that "Open XML in no way contradicts any other international document standard". No really? (Comments: 1)
  • 14 Jun 2007 21:41 — Reasonable principles for reviewing Open XML: Rick Jelliffe: "I think by now most people are pretty phlegmatic about accepting various assertions about Open XML and ODF on face value. The sky is not falling. The boy is crying wolf. A seive is full of holes no matter how loudly someone shouts that it is a bucket." (Comments: 0)
  • 14 Jun 2007 21:29 — Namespaces diagram for Open XML: Rick Jelliffe says: "Here is a little diagram showing the major modules (namespaces) used in the Ecma 376 Office Open XML schemas. (A member of a nation standards body’s technical committee asked me if I had anything to help his review: the schemas are quite complex, with about 27 namespaces organized into about 86 different schema documents.) Here is the diagram in ISO PDF/A format: Download file (Updated with namespace names and schema modules.) (Comments: 0)
  • 14 Jun 2007 21:25 — Achieving Openness: A Closer Look at ODF and OOXML: Onlamp says: "OOXML shows relative weakness in each criteria and offers fundamental flaws that undermine its candidacy as a global standard. OOXML elements require an application to emulate Microsoft Office... OOXML is therefore unlikely to ever be fully implemented by any application other than Microsoft's Office, for which it was created." (Comments: 0)
  • 13 Jun 2007 20:45 — Surguy: more then 10% of examples in OOXML do not validate!: There are approximately 2300 XML examples in the WordProcessingML section. It's clearly not feasible for the (volunteer) BSI committee to check all of them manually, so I've written some code to automatically extract the examples from the OOXML source, check them for well-formedness, and for validation errors. The results are below. Approximately 300 of the examples are in error - more than 10% !!! (Comments: 0)
  • 13 Jun 2007 18:55 — Pavel Janiz: OOXML workshop with Microsoft and CNI: Can you imagine better way to spend 4 hours of your Friday afternoon time than discussing OOXML problems with non-techies from Microsoft? I can't. Thus I decided to spend this Friday afternoon at Czech standardisation institute, attending the workshop with Microsoft about OOXML specification and its fast-track process. (Comments: 0)
  • 13 Jun 2007 18:47 — FFII: FFII opposes Fasttrack adoption of Microsoft OOXML: The FFII has sent an open letter to all delegations of the International Standardization Organization (ISO) to oppose with contradictions the "fast track" adoption of the Microsoft's 6000-page OOXML specification (ECMA-376) before the deadline of February, 5th. Microsoft's proposal damages the adoption of the existing ISO 26300 standard (OpenDocument) that covers almost the same functionality in just 600 pages. (Comments: 0)
  • 05 Jun 2007 14:33 — Crushed by the wheels of industry: Jeremy Allison reports on his experiences with MS Office 2007. Quote: "If you use the trial version of Office 2007 for thirty days, all documents you create will be completely unreadable by any other software unless you buy back access to your documents by purchasing the full version of the software. No easy way to get your documents out." (Comments: 0)