The Inside Story on Norway's Yes to OOXML

Steve Pepper writes "The former Chairman of the Norwegian ISO committee, who resigned two weeks ago in protest against his country's vote of Yes to OOXML, tells the inside story of how the decision was reached: how a single bureaucrat from Standards Norway sidelined the overwhelming majority of Norwegian technical experts and changed Norway's vote from No to Yes. The story is so surreal it's hard to believe." It's as depressing as it is brief.

Comments

Re:I was kind of puzzled

[theshowmecanuck]

The 80% number was the number of people that were not satisfied enough to vote yes.

So then, why did not the 80% form a consensus that they should vote 'no'? Saying that they were not satisfied enough to vote 'yes', does not mean they vote 'no'. There is no such thing as an 'implicit no'. If you are in a meeting and don't want something to happen, you say so. You say no. And if enough say no, there is a consensus. Saying you don't like it enough to say yes, and hoping the other people have a strong enough back bone to say 'no' for you is a cop out.

Bottom line, they didn't form a consensus saying 'no' to OOXML. Even in your own comment you admit the majority couldn't come to a consensus. So here is the one guy who could make a decision looking at a bunch of people, who through their own inability to come together on something probably decided that, if they couldn't say "no", amid the storm of protests that seemed to be kicking up, why should he say no. And approved it. You think if he was faced with a whole group of people united in opposing his approving this issue, he would so easily be able to do so and make it stick? Get real. If you are responsible for making decisions, make them. Don't sit on fence posts looking for grey areas. You see how well it worked for John Kerry? You see how well it worked for OOXML opponents?

Flamebait?... whatever.

Perhaps someone could explain this:

[kuzb]

Forgive my ignorance (admittedly, I have not been following the whole affair). This isn't me trolling, and I certainly agree that the process used to reach a determination as laid out in the article is questionable. However...

Could someone explain to me:

1) What the problems are with the current proposed standard (other than MS came up with it). I mean, is there something in it that isn't open, or makes software not designed by MS less usable?
2) Why should people should jump up and down and protest this action. Is there some specific point we should worry about?
3) What impact will this have on us?

Likely, I'm missing "the big picture" here, input is welcome.