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OOXML Will Pass Amid Massive Irregularities

Posted by kdawson on from the all-over-but-the-shouting-and-the-antitrust-probes dept.

Tokimasa notes a CNet blog predicting that OOXML will make the cut. Updegrove agrees, as does the OpenMalasia blog. Reports of irregularities continue to surface, such as this one from Norway — "The meeting: 27 people in the room, 4 of which were administrative staff from Standard Norge. The outcome: Of the 24 members attending, 19 disapproved, 5 approved. The result: The administrative staff decided that Norway wants to approve OOXML as an ISO standard." Groklaw adds reportage of odd processes in Germany and Croatia.

23 of 329 comments (clear)

  1. Gross sounding title by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sounds like something a gastroentorologist would diagnose.

    1. Re:Gross sounding title by Daengbo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hopefully, everyone else agrees that it's shit, but I don't think that'll happen. OOXML will pass, MS OFfice will use its own, non-standard version of OOXML, governments will claim they are in compliance with laws requiring open standards, and the rest of us will be in the same boat we've been in for fifteen years. It's all quite sick.

      --
      Put identity in the browser.
  2. This is getting ridiculous by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is insane.

    No day goes by without hearing from some croporate giant running roughshod over the laws, procedures or institutions of democratic countries.

    The United States have let a handful of mega-croporations totally wreck it's economy with the blessing of the government that was elected while pulling the wool over the electorate's eyes.

    It is time for the people to revolt, and put the croporations back to where they belong by firmly asserting the power of the government over croporations, if need by, by the croporate death penalty and the confiscation of the croporation's assets.

    The government has thoroughly been subverted by croporate cronies; those should be charged with subversive sedition and thrown in jail and the key tossed in the Marianas trench.

    1. Re:This is getting ridiculous by mactard · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It seems this has little to do with the USA though. I agree with most of your points, but the countries listed can grow a pair too, you know!

    2. Re:This is getting ridiculous by MrNaz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why? Because government has an entire intelligence agency at its disposal and regulatory control over the media? Wake up call: In the western world, for all intents and purposes Big government == Big corporate.

      --
      I hate printers.
    3. Re:This is getting ridiculous by VultureMN · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't think it's necessarily _illegal_ corruption (flat-out bribery) that people are complaining about; a company can still stay within the law while doing nasty, immoral stuff. Think about the sea of lobbyists and the resultant corporate influence in the US: legal, but still reprehensible.

      Add that to the fact that the vast majority of people haven't heard of, or simply don't give a rats ass about, the ISO process. Tada, they can pull these kinds of shenanigans without much risk of a public opinion backlash.

    4. Re:This is getting ridiculous by conlaw · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And not one leak? Not one failed, incorruptible whistleblower?

      Obviously, you didn't RTFA. The German, Norwegian and Croatian members whose votes were essentially negated have all blown the whistle and it's having just as much effect as the detailed account of Dubya's lies about Iraq has had on continuing the war he started. I think people in many countries, starting here in the good old USA, should start reading some history; e.g., "When in the course of human events...."

    5. Re:This is getting ridiculous by orasio · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm with AC here. Are Groklaw, etc, really suggesting that several standards bodies in several nations are /all/ corrupt? And not one leak? Not one failed, incorruptible whistleblower? Or is it just that, whatever you may think of the standard, Microsoft, etc, that OOXML just has enough to get past? I know it's an ugly concept, but it seems more plausible. And only natural / human that when your championed standard/objections to something are overlooked/fail, that you look for a culprit, any culprit, that overlooks your own weaknesses and / or failings?


      That's more what it seems like to me, despite my personal objections and issues with OOXML.

      In my country, Uruguay, they were not corrupt. They were just ignorant. The vote of government organization was in the line of: we don't really know what this is all about, but MS software is important to us, so we think it's OK to standardize it. Vote YES.

      I think that, because this is a key issue for MS, they exploited the system in every way they could, you don't even need corruption in most places, if the have the right vulnerabilities.

      The reason why we are all saying that it can't be possible that they accept it is that some of us read the standard, of excerpts from it. The complaint is that, even to lay people, it is very easy to see it's not a standard at all, and tries to standardize an area that already has a real standard approved (ODF), without improving on it. It should be easier to spot for standards specialists. There are issues where you can have different opinions, but this seems too clear cut to even be discussed.

      A standard should be something that allows you to test compliance. OOXML, in lots of points does not help you build a compliance test. Of course, those tags that say your should render content as Word9x come to mind. That is why it's so clear to me that I can't be approved, in its current form. Of course, it could be improved and become a standard, but it has not happened yet.
    6. Re:This is getting ridiculous by stoicio · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When 19 out of 24 *VOTE NO* to a proposed standard
      and it still passes, there's something wrong in
      Norway.

      The simplest answer is usually the best answer.

    7. Re:This is getting ridiculous by AJWM · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't see how its possible to publicly bribe so many board member in so many countries and get away with it.

      See, you've missed half the trick right there. It's not a matter of bribing "so many board members", it's just a matter of getting the committee chairs on your side and having them get creative with the voting or vote recording process. You don't have to bribe all the members (or even most of them) if the chairperson can tell them "'no' votes aren't allowed" for obscure procedural reasons (Germany), or if they ignore an overwhelming 'no' vote (Norway), or if they can say that voting will be extended to allow email votes by those that didn't show up at the meeting -- and any that don't send email will be taken as a 'yes' vote (Poland).

      As for swinging committee chairs to your side, here's a pretty good explanation of that process.

      Then of course there's just stacking the working groups by having all your Microsoft-Partner business buddies decide to join up and take part.

      --
      -- Alastair
    8. Re:This is getting ridiculous by lskovlund · · Score: 5, Informative

      They did not bribe. They stacked the panel.

    9. Re:This is getting ridiculous by AJWM · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Are Groklaw, etc, really suggesting that several standards bodies in several nations are /all/ corrupt? And not one leak? Not one failed, incorruptible whistleblower?

      Not at all. It's precisely because of the leaks and whistleblowers that we're aware of the corruption and interference that has taken place. And your "/all/ corrupt" is a strawman -- it doesn't require everyone in the standards body to be corrupted, just a few key individuals with influence over the voting process.

      (Now, please put down the Microsoft talking points and step away from the keyboard.)

      --
      -- Alastair
    10. Re:This is getting ridiculous by rolfc · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think it has a lot to do with USA. It is a company from USA, that the USA government has failed to control, that has ruined an international standards organisation in order to maintain their current customer data lockin.
      You know that is the truth since they have to push it through by force, instead of accepting the fact that there already exist a standard, that they refuse to support.
      As far as I am concerned, all they have accomplished is to shame them self. The fact that they get an ISO-stamp, does not mean that OOXML is an open standard, and it is my belief that it never will be.

    11. Re:This is getting ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is a corporation from USA but that's it.

      I'm from Finland and really ashamed on how all went. In Finland, most of the people in the meeting opposed (many corporations, two of the ministries, etc.) so the chairman (who was a replaced one, the previous one opposed OOXML so he had to leave) decided they didn't vote but made decision based on general consensus even though "complete unanimity wasn't achieved". I mean... What?! There was one of the changed votes (5 votes need to be changed from previous try that OOXML would pass and this was one of them).

      While it would be easy to blame it all on the evil USA and their nasty corporations... Ofcourse the corporations roam free if they are allowed to but why in hell are they? Finland (among other countries) needs to look into itself too and ponder "What the hell just happened and WHY?".

      Captcha is very appropriate... Dishonor

  3. Standards process failure? by Kaell+Meynn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I personally see the passive of OOXML as sign of a failure in the standards process. This thing in no way should pass, and there ought to be some sort of punishment for the attempts to subvert the integrity of the process by MS.

  4. The ISO has just lost their credability by Telvin_3d · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This kind of shocking. The ISO, an organization which has existed in high regard for sixty years, is done. They will no doubt continue as a holder of legacy certifications that will continue to matter for as long as they are not superseded, but as far as a respected body they are over. In a single act they have completely discredited their own approval process and by extension everything they approve.

    No one looking to establish a new, credible, standard in an field relating to software or information exchange will ever use them as a prime standards body again. They are now a marketing term and not a professional resource.

  5. Re:I Don't Get It? by nawcom · · Score: 5, Informative
    Um, do you understand how OOXML is set up? it's not like ODF or anything at all.

    http://www.noooxml.org/open:rejectooxmlnow/

    ^ Some reasons

    I myself am no critical analyzer of standards, but the fact that the standard will still have a microsoft copyright on it is enough for me to say no. If, let's say, it was adobe instead of microsoft (and isn't pdf, for there are opensource implementations of pdf), I would still have the same viewpoint.

    Standards shouldn't have disclosed code in, which is why I believe if something like a document format is standardized, the source code should be open to all.

    If I am wrong about OOXML in that way, someone correct me.

  6. Re:I Don't Get It? by calebt3 · · Score: 5, Informative
    From http://www.noooxml.org/open:rejectooxmlnow

    20 good reasons to disapprove OOXML

    1. ISO's "Fast Track" process was abused for standard development 'on the fly'. In the past ECMA has "fast tracked" small (50-500 page), mature and industry accepted standards. OOXML is large (6000+ pages) and immature. An editorial of Redmond Developer News described: "By contrast [to ISO 26300], the Microsoft OOXML specification takes what might be called a kitchen sink approach." -- an ISO process is not thought to become a kitchen sink for half-baked ECMA standards. OOXML was only released in 2006 and is hardly accepted by the industry. The OOXML community around the format is a community of one. All third party supporters have contractual relations with the vendor. The limitations of the "Fast Track" process; fast evaluation time frames, extremely limited time to resolve all the concerns and little room for modification has demonstrated that the "Fast Track" process was unsuitable for OOXML. It gives us little surprise as the process was never intended for standard development.
    2. OOXML is a proposed parallel standard without a justification. No empirical evidence was provided for the assertion that OOXML faithfully represents the corpus of existing documents of a specific vendor as opposed to the existing ISO standard or customized versions thereof. ECMA's branding of the format as a silver bullet for archiving cannot be tested by NBs. Additionally ECMA failed to provide a mapping between the legacy binary formats and OOXML. The binary legacy specifications was only made public in 2008. Multiple standards for the very same purpose with conversion issues undermine the respect for ISO standardization. You need a consistent justification to adopt another ISO standard for the same field which is not build upon an existing ISO standard - not to mention backwards compatibility to ISO 26300 architecture.
    3. OOXML's ISO agenda is to undermine the adoption of the existing ISO Office standard. OOXML evangelist Mahugh explained: "When ODF was made an ISO standard, Microsoft had to react quickly as certain governments have procurement policies which prefer ISO standards. ... Microsoft therefore had to rush this standard through. Its a simple matter of commercial interests!" A disapproval would motivate the submitter to contribute to the existing ISO Office format, ODF (ISO 26300). We find historical precedence for a proposed Microsoft standard being disapproved in order to constructively motivate harmonization of standards: the Microsoft VML and W3C SVG standards. Microsoft's VML was rejected at the W3C in favour in Adobe's SVG. Microsoft's response was to join the W3C working group to improve SVG which later became a W3C standard. To the extent that SVG is incorporated into ISO/IEC:26300 SVG is an official ISO/IEC/ITTF international standard.
    4. OOXML is incompatible with ISO/IEC and WTO Technical Barrier to Trade (TBT) basic principles, which ISO/IEC are supposed to respect. The BRM added the notion of "Microsoft Office 97 to Microsoft Office 2008 inclusive" to which products' formats a 'faithful representation' is sought by the proposed ISO standard. International standards are not permitted to discriminate specific vendors positively, and thus all competitors negatively. The standard would become a technical market barrier, a tool of unfair competition. Formally a standard is supposed to avoid referencing products. Non-compliance with WTO requirements on technical barriers to trade due to formalities will be an obstacle for the adoption of OOXML in the public sector and undermine trust in the ISO label.
    5. The BRM heavily amended those ECMA 'dispositions of comments' it had time to discuss. The BRM only discussed about 10% of the known technical issues. Of 54 non-editorial issues covered in detail, 48 were modified at the BRM. This left 850 issues without check-over, and pushed through by a bulk vote. These

  7. Re:I Don't Get It? by dltaylor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because, unlike most other other ISO standards for documents, like fax G3 and G4 compression, and ODF (Open Document Format) OOXML literally cannot be implemented by anyone other than Microsoft. This is not because the entire rest of the world contains no competent programmers, but because the standard simply does not have enough information to do so. Microsoft wrote the proposed standard with what amount to calls into their libraries of legacy Word code, the actions of which are NOT documented, rather than "tag X requires an indent level of 30000 millipels from the indent level of the enclosing block", or whatever.

    The entire purpose of OOXML is to subvert the increasing call for public documents to be stored in a format that can A) be read without buying Word/Office/..., on the theory that documents created in a citizen's government should be available to those citizens without paying a corporate "tax", and B) that by documenting the format of the documents, readers/editors can be created, as needed, at a future time when the original creation tool may no longer exist or have a computer on which to run, unlike, say, Word documents, where support for older formats is simply dropped by Microsoft.

    Microsoft is an ongoing criminal organization, and as such, should be seized under the RICO act, and its parts sold off or its source code simply published for those parts without buyers, and the buyers should be forever blocked from forming a cartel, single company, sharing directors, ... to prevent a resurrection of Microsoft.

  8. want to read the standard writeups? - ODF & OO by nawcom · · Score: 5, Interesting
    ODF:

    http://docs.oasis-open.org/office/v1.1/OS/OpenDocument-v1.1.pdf

    OOXML:

    http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/Office%20Open%20XML%20Part%201%20(PDF).zip

    http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/Office%20Open%20XML%20Part%202%20(PDF).zip

    http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/Office%20Open%20XML%20Part%203%20(PDF).zip

    http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/Office%20Open%20XML%20Part%204%20(PDF).zip

    http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/Office%20Open%20XML%20Part%205%20(PDF).zip

  9. Re:Can ISO de-recognise standards? by VirusEqualsVeryYes · · Score: 5, Informative
    Standards can be withdrawn by committee. From the ISO website:

    All International Standards are reviewed at the least three years after publication and every five years after the first review by all the ISO member bodies. A majority of the P-members [participating members] of the TC/SC [Technical/SubCommittee] decides whether an International Standard should be confirmed, revised or withdrawn.
    Withdrawing standards isn't unprecedented, and they've even considered withdrawing JPEG entirely.
  10. No cover up. Corruption is blatant. Who cares? by walterbyrd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Cover up? Msft is not even shy about their brazen corruption anymore.

    Yes, there was corruption. Tons of it. It has all been very well documented. Read groklaw.net or noooxml.org.

    What does msft care is the slashdot/groklaw crowd doesn't like it?

  11. Duplicative standards conflict with WTO rules by walterbyrd · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080327170359776

    "the president of the European Academy for Standardisation, Tineke Egyedi, is critical of OOXML being made a standard when ODF exists already, and she believes duplicative standards conflict with WTO rules"

    Not that stuff like rules or laws ever stopped msft.