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South Africa Appeals ISO Decision On OOXML
mauritzhansen sends us a blog post by Steve Pepper, former chairman of the Norwegian standards committee responsible for evaluating OOXML, reporting that the South African national standards body, SABS, has appealed against the result of the OOXML DIS 29500 ballot in ISO. From the blog: "In a letter sent to the General Secretary of the IEC (co-sponsor with ISO of JTC1), the SABS expresses its 'deep concern over the increasing tendency of international organizations to use the JTC 1 process to circumvent the consensus-building process that is the cornerstone to the success and international acceptance of ISO and IEC standards.' Having resigned as Chairman of the Norwegian committee responsible for considering OOXML for exactly this reason, I congratulate South Africa on its willingness to stand up for the principles on which standardization work should be based."
Think of it as creative interpretation of the Directives.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Wasn't the deadline for appeals two months after the original decision? Which I believe was end of March. I'm thrilled to see that someone finally stood up before the deadline. I have hope once again (despite the fact we all know MS will come up with a way to quash it).
"Despite having an open source strategy the South African government doesn't really understand how to benefit from OSS. This is according to Microsoft director of corporate standards, Jason Matusow." http://www.tectonic.co.za/?p=2432
Some extra info and thoughts in this article: http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20080523052458101
Dependency hell? =>
He managed to keep South Africa from using ODF. He thinks they have a problem benefiting from free software and he'd like to keep it that way.
Good for South Africa to nail M$XML. They might be learning faster than he can bribe his way out of it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
OOXML is willing to play Sun City.
I wonder if Mr Shuttleworth had a hand in helping this?
Unfortunately he is not Zimbabwean or Mozambican....
Have to think that this might be some good work that Shuttleworth's folks are doing. A lot of the original votes are determined by a lot of lobbying (just like in Congress).
--- http://davidnehme.blogspot.com
Thank you South Africa!
Hip Hip Hurray!!
BTW, the pdf letter linked in TFA is a great read, perfect summary of all the problems that were so apparent to anyone actually looking into the whole mess.
I don't think anyone would complain about Microsoft submitting standards for approval. The objections come when the spec for the standard submitted is 6000 pages long and includes some nuggets as "implement this as it's implemented in Windows 95" and associated garbage.
The objections become bellows when the same company, impatient with the approval process, sets out to buy votes to get the "standard" approved with minimal change.
I for one have a great deal of distaste for fanatics of all stripes, and I'm afraid Stallman and his more opinionated supporters do qualify as fanatics, but the process to date of getting OOXML qualified as an ISO standard has been a farce, and no amount of whinging on slashdot by AC fanbois (or MS sockpuppets) is going to change that.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
Sorry, but I find this thread extremely distasteful! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing is a horrible thing and to wish it on anyone!!! And imply that it is OK to do it to poor disfranchised Zimbabweans or Mozambicans is just sickening to me.
It seems outrageous to me that OOXML was approved as a standard despite not having more then one implementation to prove that it's possible for it to be a common format.
However it's freakin' hilarious/sad/odd that there actually isn't even ONE implementation of OOXML and it was approved. Doesn't the ISO have any standards for standards? Or is it just a matter of gaming the process? Maybe the ISO itself should be reconsidered...
AC... has brains?
Does SABS have bigger problems though? I wouldn't think so.
:)
Way to not even read the article summary.
bad bad bad AC. Learn to discriminate between 1st, 2nd and 3rd world countries before you discriminate.
A cyberpunk common theme is multinational industrial concerns having equal or more power than the governments. In fact, the governments seem to have been broken of most power and now are nothing more than location-based unions.
The first time I saw this was actually Max Headroom (I suppose that show could be called the grandfather of cyberpunk).
It always seemed like fantasy to me (a pretty horrifying one), but nothing that could come true.
What's going on these days though feels like the first battles. Industries placing people in top government positions, controlling votes, manipulating laws and standards, Chevron killing villagers who are protesting, all the private police forces protecting industrial concerns in Iraq (and being better equipped than the solders to do so)...
I'm surprised they were as accurate as they were, and I trust their predictions for our future in a corporate-run world if we let it go on--not that I know what to do about it...
We've always been able to overthrow governments that became too problematic. How do you overthrow a multinational conglomerate that is in control of multiple governments? How do you even know who to fight?
Such is the state of "modern" society that concepts like this are acceptable fare for potential humor. I too, am sickened.
I hate printers.
Actually, as a (not very proud at the moment) South African, I am familiar with the term.
It just seem that you are not aware of recent news....
I was making an observation not a recommendation...
First World countries are NATO-aligned, Second World countries are Soviet-aligned, and Third World countries are up for grabs...
Who has filled the Soviet void? And since the ANC was always backed by the USSR, is "democratic" SA a 2nd World country?
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World
http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas/wp-content/pMandela1.jpg
> I don't think anyone would complain about Microsoft submitting standards for approval.
Why not? The ISO mandate is to have one standard per task and ensure that any new standard should reuse other ISO standards and not try to reinvent the wheel.
Any company submits a duplicate standard and reinvents ISO standardized from the date stamp to graphics files for no other reason than to get government contracts and ensure vendor lock-in, it's right to complain no matter who is doing the submission.
> I for one have a great deal of distaste for fanatics of all stripes, and I'm afraid Stallman and his more opinionated supporters do qualify as fanatics
Actually, even though I don't subscribe to Stallman's rigid views, I don't see a problem of them.
He and his followers are equivalent to the Amish. The want to live in a world with certain constraints so that they can live in a society with certain rewards.
Anyone who's been the victim of vendor lock-in or abandon-ware or forced obsolescence or had to support software where you don't have access to the source (so you don't even know what's going on) or has had to deal with security (e.g. Sony CDs) or has had to deal with paternalistic vendors that say "You don't need to now that" or "You can only run this software on hardware the vendor decides when the vendor decides for how long the vendor decides in which way the vendor decides and the vendor has the right to change terms whenever he feels like it", should feel sympathetic.
I (or my family or my work) been burned by all the above, and I can understand why someone would want to build all the tools necessary so that they can become self sufficient.
OOXML violates pretty much every one of these issues raised.
I think your distaste has more to do with the evangelicalism within the Stallman camp. There's nothing wrong with evangelicalism per say. How are people supposed to know that there is a better way if they're not informed. The problem comes when the evangelical education and invitation turns pushiness and forced choice. As Sir Winston Churchill once stated, "A [bad] fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.".
Yeah I told that to MS too but they insisted they needed those 6000 pages! All of them!
My penguin ate my sig
George W. Bush? Is that you?
I hate printers.
In the meanwhile, you can sign The Hague declaration in support for free and open digital standards
Ah, the "still no cure for cancer" argument. A classic fallacy to discredit any unwanted human activity.
Learn to discriminate between 1st, 2nd and 3rd world countries before you discriminate.
South Africa is a 3rd world country with a small 1st world portion - but overall the description of a 3rd world would be 100% correct. As for the South African Buro of Standards (SABS), there competency has been highly suspect the past few years.
For the most part, I agree with your post. I would say that yes, we should have one standard. I don't think that means that ISO should be restricted to looking at one standard. Clearly, in this specific case, the OOXML standard is a steaming pile of...well anyway. That doesn't mean someone else won't come up with a much better idea in the future.
I would take Winston Churchill a step further and say that a bad fanatic is one who can't change his mind, but essentially your point is correct.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
The problem was not so much that their proposed standard was flawed, but the fact they tried to fast track an unfinished standard of that size...
The text is huge, much bigger than most other standards, so there wasn't enough time to review it thoroughly enough, and even then the first vote generated far too many comments to address in the time given before the resolution meeting.
Also the fact the text was written by a single company, without any input from other interested parties.
Instead, it should have been submitted through the normal ISO process, so that the standard could have been brought to a usable state (however long that took) before it was submitted for voting.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Has nothing to do with the topic at hand and if I agree with it, just saying there's some pretty bad stuff going on there.
Please read my original post in this thread.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
And how much of that is down to CIA agents-provocateurs? Quite a bit i'd say. The USA does *not* like freethinking independent nations - they've funded terrorism even in europe (Ireland!), and all over south america, asia, and africa to induce dependency on the USA.
We *HAVE* to be fanatics. The global dictatorship of Microsoft is bent on keeping the world under it's sadistic rule forever in the name of power and money. What do we have to back up our side? Should we just fly in the face of a greed and lust, which is powerful enough to genocide races if need be, while weakly mumbling, "Uh, you kinda shouldn't do that..."?
1) duplicate large parts of an existing standard
2) have an extremely large standard go through the fast track process instead of a more thorough review.
Grandparent does make one mistake, though: the "works like XX application" have been deprecated, and *supposedly* they have been defined in that deprecated section -- IE, use only for interpreting older documents, not new ones, as I understand MS's definition.
Still, this is about the third time I've asked: could someone PLEASE post a link to where those are fully fleshed out in documentation. I've had people tell me time and again that they are fully defined, but I would appreciate being able to see it and read it. Thank you in advance to anyone who does.
This post represents my own thoughts, and not those of my employer.
I agree. (See also "prison rape").
The last I heard these were in "optional" sections, not in deprecated ones. That is to say, MS can and probably will use them in new documents they create, but others won't be required to implement them to meet the spec. Of course this still means documents will slightly "break" when switching between applications and as such still undermines the ability of OOXML to bring all the benefits of a truly open standard. For that matter, since OOXML has not yet been fully implemented by anyone, there is no reason for such a clause to be in the spec if it won't be in newly created documents.
Having recently visited San Francisco, I must say that I could not wrestle from the impression that the US is starting to look like a second world country. Prices for food, clothing and public transport were far cheaper than in Europe. Also, the number of people you can find (living) on the streets who have not changed their clothes the last year is staggering. Beggars and outcasts on almost every street corner. Labour seems very cheap.
And at the Moscone Center (JavaOne) they had at least 6 employees telling everybody in the lunchqueue (which was moving quite rapitly) to take out their lunch coupons. 6 empoyees. I would have thought that 1 big sign would do the trick...
And the only countries besides the US I know of that are in some sort of state of war are 2nd and third world countries.
Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
Yes, I know -- its highly depressing. However, San Francisco is hardly representative of America. People out there think communism is cool.
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He would say that.
EMACS, EMACS, EMACS!!! (sorry, what were you on about?)
But TFA isn't talking about Africa as a continent. TFA is talking about SABS - the South African Body of Standards. As such, it has a concern for standards.
Take this analogy - quirky, but perhaps appropriate - say you have a high tech company and you find a serious flaw in your software. You throw all of your developers on this issue. It takes weeks. Yet, Thursday night, the janitorial staff come by and vacuum the floors and clean the washrooms. Surely there are more important things to be worried about than the floors and the washrooms, but fixing the flaw is NOT THE JOB OF THE JANITOR.
So, sure, they have big issues there, but standards bodies have to deal with standards.
Not until it's gone through review.
Oh, that's right, there's no review!
So not a standard.
Well would I be a fanatic if I REFUSED to be killed in a satanic ritual and won't change my mind? When your parents told you time and time again, were they fanatics?
How come RMS gets the fanatic label but dancing monkey boy doesn't? Y'know, the one going on about 272 MS IP in Linux, time and time again. Or Bill Gates, always yibbering on about how MS is innovative and OSS isn't without letup?
And IS fanatacism wrong? Without it, what would change? Without it, the biggest and strongest would always win, because "fanacical support" cares not the cost, so is more willing to risk losing to win.
"As Sir Winston Churchill once stated.."
Winston S Churchill is good, ain't he! I suggest we take him from the Brits and make him an American!!
My understanding is: the fast-track process is designed for existing de-facto standards. Since OOXML is not implemented anywhere, it is hard for me to understand how OOXML would qualify for the fast-track process.