Counter-Claims On Flaws In OOXML Meeting

ericatcw writes "Critics have charged that last week's ISO Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM) to decide the fate of changes to Office Open XML standards proposal was too perfunctory and deviated from accepted ISO practices, possibly in an attempt to smooth the passage of the Microsoft format. This week, the ISO 'convener' of the BRM disputed those charges, saying that voting to dispose of 900 changes to the spec at once and allowing 'O' Observer countries to vote were the correct moves. ISO released a statement backing him up. Also, Patrick Durusau, editor of the competing OpenDocument Format specification and a late convert to OOXML's passage, also said that claims the process was flawed were overstated."

Comments

Re:You can get more details about this process...

[Zeinfeld]

There was a little sarcasm and a little criticism in the parent's post, but I fail to see what makes it a troll comment.

Most partisan modders use 'overrated' which for some reason is a mod you cannot disable by giving it a value of 0 despite the fact that it is easily the most abused. It is hard for metamodders to know if a post was overrated or not so it a free swing.

I get modded troll frequently on political issues, or rather did, my position has become rather more mainstream. There was a time when suggesting that the US commander in chief might be less than adequate for the job was considered tantamount to treason by some.

Folk are getting way too exercised over this. The reason the OOXML vote went the way it did is very simple: the aggressive lobbying by the anti-OOXML mob made it inevitable. The ISO process is simply not designed to deal with contentious issues or aggressive lobbying.

The difference between P and O status is not as significant as claimed here, O delegates can achieve P status by attending the requisite number of meetings. But once they achieve P status they add to the quorum for all future decisions until they lose it for non-attendance. That would then delay all the rest of the work.

Most of the 900 objections were interpreted as being made with the intention of delaying the process rather than good faith proposals for improvement. It is likely that 850 or more will disappear after the decision to recognize OOXML as a standard is made.

This result is entirely a result of the over-aggressive lobbying by the anti-OOXML faction. They lost support for their position as a result. Most members of the committee simply wanted the circus to depart as soon as possible.

Another example of over-aggressive lobbying at the moment is the behavior of Obama supporters on the Web now that Obamania is over. They really need to dial back the insults and Limbaugh talk, they are costing Obama support.