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Brazil Appeals OOXML Decision

Posted by timothy on from the this-space-reserved-for-obscure-xml dept.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Brazil is now appealing the ISO's decision to standardize OOXML, following South Africa's lead. Interestingly, part of the reason this took so long was that Microsoft supporters at the meetings kept asking for delays because they 'weren't prepared' to discuss the issues raised. And the ISO as a whole is moving rather slowly, after that delay in releasing the DIS. But at least the ISO is also rewriting the directives in a special working group so this doesn't happen again. Of course, they'd have to be strict about making sure the directives are followed for it to help."

7 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. Too Little Too Late by pembo13 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The damage has already been done, to the ISO organization at least.

    --
    "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
  2. Re:When will the US protest? by Tubal-Cain · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The US voted for approval from the start (big suprise: American company gets supported by an uninformed America) so we wouldn't be likely to protest. Anyways, who is it that does the ISO voting for America? I am not sure it is congresscritters.

  3. Re:ISO = I Sold Out by swillden · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The word that you can buy ISO standards.

    I think it's too soon to say that. Let's see what happens with the handling of the protests. ISO may yet redeem itself.

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  4. Re:ISO = I Sold Out by thermian · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The apparent ease with which Microsoft achieved this does beg the question 'how many times has this happened before?'.

    ISO's been around for a while, and I can't see that this is the first standard that stood to make the controlling company rich. There's no doubt Microsoft would have remained in control of the standard, 6000 pages of complex specification that even they haven't yet implemented fully can mean nothing else.

    So, are we about to see the dirty secrets of ISO revealed? Will we find that the top bods have been lining their little pockets?

    I hope not, but I'm very dubious.

    --
    A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
  5. Why is ISO rewriting the rules? by John+Jamieson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is the ISO rewriting the rules so the protest and appeals cannot happen again?

    or

    Is the ISO rewiting the rules so the corruption cannot occur again?

    I would not bet my life on the second.

  6. new rule by jgoemat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Members cannot vote on any directive or standard that was introduced before they joined"

  7. Re:It won't matter. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The ISO/IEC JTC1 and SC34 are now deprecated. Realy standards are made at OASIS. "Real" standards are made at W3C. W3C Recommendations are under a royalty-free patent license, allowing anyone to implement them, unlike the "reasonable and non-discriminatory" (RAND) licensing model in other standard bodies including OASIS.

    Of course, even W3C has its problems, as some people consider W3C to be dominated by larger organizations. Still, I consider W3C to be the most anti-proprietary standards body.

    Now if only Ogg Theora became the baseline video standard for the Web and these larger organizations (i.e. Nokia and Apple) could leave W3C alone.