OOXML Rumored to be Approved, Announcement Wednesday

dominux writes "Rumors are already circulating that Microsoft's OOXML has been voted in by the standards board. The Open Sourcerer claims to have results of the ballot on dis29500. According to the site Microsoft managed to flip enough countries to make it stick. 75% of the P members who didn't abstain voted for Microsoft (That is 58% of all the P members). 14% of all the P and O members voted to disapprove it, this includes all the new O members that joined just in time to cast their vote. Norway has asked that their vote be suspended due to voting irregularities, but it would take more than that to make a difference to the result. ZDNet is still playing it cautious, noting that an announcement either way is set to be made on Wednesday."

Comments

announcement tomorrow

[farker haiku]

because nobody would believe it if it was made today.

Basically...

[behe101]

if this is approved we can safely assume ISO is corrupt.

Re:Basically...

[peragrin]

I am hoping one or two countries stand up and say that how this standard was passed shows that all ISO standards are worthless.

With dozens of countries reporting massive voting problems they had better not pass it, or at least switch those countries from yes to abstain until future reference. Norway had the majority vote againist the standard but still voted yes, Poland, germany, France all had voting irregularities. I hope the EU launches an Anti-trust investigation into MSFT's business practices on it. that would be so much fun to watch.

With thanks

[minginqunt]

Microsoft has performed a valuable service without really meaning to.

By demonstrating once and for all how embarassingly corruptible the ISO is, it calls into doubt the validity of many past and future ISO standards, and will force us into a proper re-evaluation of self-appointed standards bodies and the standards they whore around.

For too long we've taken the rather naive view that being an 'open standard' is enough. At last we see the foolishness of that view.

And in this case, I think it's somewhat unfair to judge Microsoft too harshly for wanting to game the system any way they could- what company wouldn't have done in their position?

But it is to ISO's massive, disgusting and probably reputation-destroying shame they they simply laid back and allowed themselves to be corrupted, defiled and sodomised by a large multinational. And they didn't even get a kiss afterwards.

I hope everyone who played their part in this sordid venture has plenty of time to repent at leisure when they realise that the ISO can never, WILL never, be trusted again.

Re:With thanks

[JeanBaptiste]

but did you see the way ISO was dressed? she totally deserved it.

Sounds to me like...

[FlyByPC]

The Microsoft way
(tho' rather funny)
Seems here to stay;
Redmond has money!
Burma Shave

Waiting until the 2nd

[mlwmohawk]

Well a few points:

If this is an April fools joke it isn't funny.

If this is real and the (gasp) "standard" was approved, we should all start calling it the "Fools Standard" in everything we write, thus putting the proper "spin" on it.

Re:ISO dead, blog at 11

[Tom]

So, ISO got an extremely high profile black eye in the credibility department from which it may never recover. Not just ISO. All the national standard bodies that votes "yes", too.

In Germany, for example, DIN used to be very highly respected. In fact, this whole mess is the first time ever that I heard people say that DIN should fuck itself, be dissolved, is corrupt, etc.

Penalty for cheating == break even?

[walterbyrd]

So when msft is caught red-handed, like in Norway, or Sweden, then that one particular vote is not counted. But it is assumed that everything else is just fine, in spite of dozen of irregularities?

That doesn't really seem fair to me. It seems like, if you cheat, then you either win, or at least break even. It's like saying that the penalty for shop-lifting is that you have to put the stuff you stold back.

In fact, it seems like, in the case of Norway, msft did better than break even. Instead of a "yes" msft rigged a "nothing" which is better for msft than a "no."

Considering the massive number of irregularities in the OOXML approval process, I think OOXML approval should be put on hold, until an investigation can be completed.

Re:ISO dead, blog at 11

[johnw]

Seriously.. what's the problem with it being approved? You mean you haven't been following the story? You should read up on it a bit.

Technical issues? Yes, dozens of them.

Lack of clarity? Yes, in spades.

There are hundreds of other standards that fall into those categories as well, yet they are still standards. Go on - name one that even comes close to Microsoft's pseudo-standard. The OOXML "standard" is so unlike a real ISO standard it's not true.

But no one cried corruption until now.. This looks dangerously like a feeble attempt at astro-turfing.