If This Was a Month Ago, OOXML Would Be Over

Andy Updegrove writes "Public announcements of how Participating members of ISO have voted on OOXML are now rolling in one at a time, and the trend thus far is meaningfully weighted towards 'No with comments.' By my count, there are now four announced Yes votes, with comments, two abstentions, and seven public No with comments votes for OOXML in ISO/IEC JT1. Korea has reportedly voted no as well, and I expect at least Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom to announce 'No with comments' today or tomorrow. There will be more no votes on the roster when the final results are announced in a day or two. But even if the 11 votes I know of now were the only votes, the vote would now have failed — but for the 11 countries that upgraded their status from Observer to Participating member status in the last few weeks. Without those extra 11 'P' countries, it would only require 10 votes to block OOXML from immediate approval. If most or all of those additional 'P' members vote 'yes' as expected, it will confirm suspicions that Microsoft has promoted extra votes in favor of OOXML not only within National Bodies, but within ISO itself."

Comments

Re:Help me out

[eqisow]

Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Hell yes!

Re:OOXML has failed, but it isn't over.

[erroneus]

Most of the comments will never be resolved. Microsoft has no intention of re-writing their format specification. There has been much discussion about what is "wrong" with their format and many of the comments spell them out clearly. Some comments have to do with some things that are fixable, but those that are described as part of the Win32 or Office software behavior will not be defined in a way that is both accurate and unlinked to Win32 or Office. Their links to Windows and Office is what will help keep their monopoly rolling. (That, and patent encumbered 'standards' that only Microsoft can implement.)

And to offer a clue to other products that parallel this situation, one only needs to investigate MSIE's broken implementation of CSS. Invariably, web designers have to create their pages around MSIE's broken CSS implementation if they want the majority of viewers to see their page correctly. The public's perception of anything else is that the web site is broken or poorly designed in some way. This broken majority keeps development for MSIE active.

I'm hopeful that the 2/3 majority issue is already defeated. I'm also hopeful that every other participating body has also heard about Microsoft's goof in trying to buy the "yes" vote by stuffing the votes. (And there is NO way that happened at the direction of a mere 'underling.' Someone with real decision-making power and responsibility must have directed the "program." This sort of activity may easily be considered lobbying... but I consider a lot of 'lobbying' activity rather subversive to a democratic process as well.)

Don't confuse this farce with normal business

[overshoot]

Seriously, what's the point of "yes, with comments"?

In a normal standards process, "Yes, with comments" is very valuable. Remember, in a normal standards process everyone is basically on the same team. "Yes, with comments" means that the spec under consideration is "good enough," but that it could be improved by (for instance) clearer wording of a section.

Again, I can't overemphasize that this kind of hardball, take-no-prisoners approach is very much the exception and that ISO (and the national bodies) simply aren't prepared to deal with it. Have a look at the comments of, for instance, the Hungarian government for a taste of how "enlightening" this has all been.

Constructive Criticism, M$, and Standards.

[Erris]

Seriously, what's the point of "yes, with comments"? I mean, if the standard is endorsed, what are the odds that the comments will be addressed?

It means the standard is workable but could be improved the way you noticed. Outside of Redmond, people engage in constructive criticism and mean mostly mean well.

The adversarial tone above is the worst damage that M$ has done to ISO. Standards are agreements meant to reduce duplication of work and friction between people, not a way to lock people into buying your crap. Real standards, like ODF are created by groups representing many interested parties. They are complete and easily implemented by others, and exceptions are always documented. OOXML, on the other hand, is incomplete, contradictory, patent protected and will remain single vendor. It's presentation was an affront. The gamesmenship was worse. If it that kind behavior is tollerated and encouraged, there will be no standards for anything. But this attack has been coming for ten years. As they put it themselves,

OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market.

M$'s true intentions and use of standards is everything standards are supposed to avoid. This fact has been drug up in court several times.

ISO should punish those who took bribe as well as those who offered them. M$ should be banned from participation for a good long time or they will succeed in their destruction of real standards.