OOXML Vote Tracker and Calculation Guide

Andy Updegrove writes "The vote on Microsoft's OOXML closes today. The final result will not be announced (or leak) before sometime early next week. Meanwhile the votes of individual countries continue to come in, currently with more reported switching in favor of OOXML than against it. For the benefit of those who want to keep track of how the vote is tending until it's official, I'm posting the running tally of which votes have switched, what the net change has been, now many votes have come to light, and how many remain to be announced. It's likely that it will not be possible to know the final result until all votes are in, due to the complex double test for approval, and the complication that the final number of abstentions — and whether they move from 'yes' or 'no' votes — can decrease the total number of votes that need to switch to 'yes' in order for OOXML to be approved. For that reason, I also include the algorithm for arriving at a final result."

Comments

OpenMalaysia blog

[Adaptux]

I like the voting overview and discussion on OpenMalaysia blog better.

Re:OpenMalaysia blog

[twitter]

They have some other interesting observations too.

Re:Why is it tolerated?

[pallmall1]

At the same time, Microsoft partner companies are complaining to the standardization organization officials about their critics in ways which are easy for the standardization organization officials to understand and accept.

Yeah, bribes and kickbacks. Plus, Microsoft has instructed their people on how to stack and rig committees and bribe "experts":

Our mission is to establish Microsoft's platforms as the de facto standards throughout the computer industry.... Working behind the scenes to orchestrate "independent" praise of our technology, and damnation of the enemy's, is a key evangelism function during the Slog. "Independent" analyst's report should be issued, praising your technology and damning the competitors (or ignoring them). "Independent" consultants should write columns and articles, give conference presentations and moderate stacked panels, all on our behalf (and setting them up as experts in the new technology, available for just $200/hour). "Independent" academic sources should be cultivated and quoted (and research money granted). "Independent" courseware providers should start profiting from their early involvement in our technology. Every possible source of leverage should be sought and turned to our advantage.

I have mentioned before the "stacked panel". Panel discussions naturally favor alliances of relatively weak partners - our usual opposition. For example, an "unbiased" panel on OLE vs. OpenDoc would contain representatives of the backers of OLE (Microsoft) and the backers of OpenDoc (Apple, IBM, Novell, WordPerfect, OMG, etc.). Thus we find ourselves outnumbered in almost every "naturally occurring" panel debate.

A stacked panel, on the other hand, is like a stacked deck: it is packed with people who, on the face of things, should be neutral, but who are in fact strong supporters of our technology. The key to stacking a panel is being able to choose the moderator. Most conference organizers allow the moderator to select the panel, so if you can pick the moderator, you win. Since you can't expect representatives of our competitors to speak on your behalf, you have to get the moderator to agree to having only "independent ISVs" on the panel. No one from Microsoft or any other formal backer of the competing technologies would be allowed just ISVs who have to use this stuff in the "real world." Sounds marvelously independent doesn't it? In fact, it allows us to stack the panel with ISVs that back our cause. Thus, the "independent" panel ends up telling the audience that our technology beats the others hands down. Get the press to cover this panel, and you've got a major win on your hands.

Finding a moderator is key to setting up a stacked panel. The best sources of pliable moderators are: -- Analysts: Analysts sell out - that's their business model. But they are very concerned that they never look like they are selling out, so that makes them very prickly to work with.

-- Consultants: These guys are your best bets as moderators. Get a well-known consultant on your side early, but don't let him publish anything blatantly pro-Microsoft. Then, get him to propose himself to the conference organizers as a moderator, whenever a panel opportunity comes up. Since he's well- known, but apparently independent, he'll be accepted one less thing for the constantly-overworked conference organizer to worry about, right?

James Plamondon, Microsoft

Re:They all say MSXML Fails.

[willyhill]

It's actually OOXML. MSXML is something else, a COM-based XML parsing library.

BTW, you already posted with two of your sockpuppet accounts in this article, some of them in the same thread. That's unfair and dishonest, and you shouldn't be doing it. The vast majority of people on Slashdot get along with only one account, and we take responsibility for our own words and the reactions they generate as far as the community-driven moderation system goes. When you're a little community of your own with five accounts, it's hard to take you seriously.

Msft gives EU bribe money to whitewash everything

[walterbyrd]

So what? Msft has $40 billion in the bank. So what if EU gets $25 million, or whatever.

And so what if the slashdot/groklaw crowd knows about all the corruption? Msft has hundreds of millions of customers, and 99% of them don't give a damn.

Re:Has there ever been a recall of ISO certificati

[Citizen of Earth]

How about the fact that such an awful, immature, and unimplemented spec should never have been fast-tracked in the first place. Whatever ISO officials okayed that are either corrupt or grossly incompetent.

If this "standard" passes, I will lose confidence.

[seebs]

I used to have a fair amount of confidence in ISO. I spent roughly ten years involved with C standardization, and you know what? The process basically worked. We consistently ended up adopting things that really did work and had consensus, and rejecting things, sometimes even good ones, if we didn't have real consensus.

The OOXML "process" is a joke, and it reflects very, very, badly on ISO.

It's hard to express, in terms that non-standards-weenies would understand, just how absolutely, totally, ridiculous this is. This doesn't even loosely resemble the functioning of a real standards process. The proposed standard is utterly unusable, and furthermore, has no relationship at all to the normal scope of standardization.

Imagine, if you will, that the C99 standard had specified the exact set of allowed command-line options, and had explicitly defined behavior under dozens of circumstances of "undefined behavior" to precisely match the behavior of gcc. Only, it had versions for "gcc 1 compatibility" and "gcc 2 compatibility". Imagine that the standard dictated the precise form and text of every error message, and required total compatibility with gcc. Furthermore, imagine that it specifically required that the source of your compiler must be distributed under the GPL v2, and must make use of the libgcc glue code.

And then imagine that, instead of actually being approved by regular participants, this was rushed through at the last minute by a number of entities which had never shown the slightest interest in C standardization before.

That's pretty close to what's happening here, only it'd have been better, because at least it would be an open standard.