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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.
He's also managed to change their domain suffix to .yes, and their country name to Yesrway.
The whole OOXML vote debacle has really showcased corruption of the ISO. Those in the ISO who want to restore the integrity of their organization need to address the massive rule-breaking this vote and Microsoft's role in it present.
Word of advice to ISO: head in the sand is not going to help!!
- demonstrations? This is what happened in Norway. Sure it would be good to have them elsewhere.
- Virgils? this is what happened in India and almost on the same level.
- moving on a building teams to stifle OOXML adoption by national governments as their standard
- ??? - Profit
...SegFaultLikeWord95DoesIt
In this case, a meatspace seg fault. The MCP is getting more powerful. We need a heroic Program to save us all.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
on why & how they changed the vote can be found at their website:
http://www.standard.no/pronorm-3/data/f/0/18/67/6_2401_0/2008-04-01_Standards_Norway_handling_of_the_OOXML_voting_in_ISO__3.pdf
At this point, in a bizarre and tasteless trans-Atlantic timewarp, Dr. Johnny Fever, Venus Flytrap, Herb Tarlek, and Jeffifer Marlow, dressed as the Spanish Inquisition, burst in, and say, in chorus:
"NO! One expects Les Nessman!"
They bundle up Eugene and haul him off to stunned looks from all present.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
"My Parents went to Norway and all I got was this stupid document standard"
Many (if not most) similar committees and associations are made up not of the right people for the job, but instead those that were corralled into the positions or couldn't find anything better.
On the other hand, Microsoft's primary goal is to maintain their privileged monopoly wherever and however possible. I actually had an eerie conversation with a Microsoft paralegal, who described her job as "palm-greasing officials in the Asian market". She also described how the executive were no longer concerned with making money, "they're in a position to change the world". I asked her what level of government they planned to get elected, and she replied, "why would they run for office? That would be a demotion!" And that was almost 10 years ago.
Assuming she was giving a truthful account, and her office was directly below Bill Gates, so I imagine she does know what goes on, the Microsoft executive believe that since power is available to them, they are entitled to use their influence wherever and however possible, and that their ability to do so justifies itself.
So show me a group of vigilante multi-billionaires and I'll show you dozens of half-witted committees that bend to their will, despite overwhelming reasoning to do otherwise.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
Microsoft have done it for us. The money they paid to push through their "standard" is wasted because the body the standardized it is no longer respected. Their purpose for seeking approval from a standards body has been defeated by the way in which they obtained it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Join OOXML forces and show just how devoted you are: In order to preserve the reputation of this beautiful standard, make sure that no company can use the name if they're not 100% compliant with the complete spec. Chances are that no product can claim full OOXML support, not even MS Office. If "OOXML" doesn't appear on any product's feature list, the standard won't matter.
I suggest you go read the article again.
It wasn't 2 people for and 2 people against. They reached a consensus that 2 of the comments had been satisfactorily resolved and that 2 of the comments hadn't been satisfactorily resolved. They then couldn't come to a consensus on whether the remaining 8 comments were resolved. The 80% number was the number of people that were not satisfied enough to vote yes.
They had agreed that 2 of their comments were not satisfactorily resolved. Which way the remaining 8 comments fell could only increase this number. Roughly 80% of those present didn't want to vote yes.
The final change to yes came down to one man, who seems to have had his mind made up ahead of time.