Norway vote is now “yes” for Open XML
Norway has also decided to change their vote to "yes" for DIS 29500 (Open XML). https://www.standard.no/imaker.exe?id=18594
Norway had initially voted "no with comments" in September, so it's great to see that they now feel Open XML is ready to be an ISO standard.
[Update 4/1/08: Standards Norway (the folks actually responsible for making the decision) has an official response to some of the FUD: https://notes2self.net/archive/2008/04/01/standard-norge-responds-to-allegations.aspx]
-Brian
Comments
Anonymous
March 28, 2008
Hi Brian, With all the results that are coming in and others that are projected, I think it's time to concede. Congratulations, you've played a good game! So with OOXML accepted as an ISO standard, it's a great opportunity for Microsoft to put into action your recent announcements about interoperability etc :-)Anonymous
March 28, 2008
Hey Rob, We definitely plan on doing a ton of work driven by the interoperability initiatives. Are there particular ones you're refering to, or did you just mean in general? -BrianAnonymous
March 28, 2008
RiP ISO, 1947-2008. All hail to MSISO!! Cheers,
- Mike
Anonymous
March 28, 2008
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March 28, 2008
@Mark: Great speech that. Very stirring. If only it was at all relevant to the issues that this blog is about! @Brian: I just meant in general.Anonymous
March 28, 2008
Maybe I spoke too soon. I've just seen a report that Venezuela a "P" member, has switched from "Yes" to "No". It's not over yet! Cheers,
- Mike
Anonymous
March 28, 2008
@Mark: Ever heard of Godwin's law? ~AndreasAnonymous
March 29, 2008
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2008032913190768 Are you happy to work for such companies ?Anonymous
March 29, 2008
There were only two votes to approve, from Microsoft and a business partner, Statoilhydro, and all the others voted no, 21 votes, they approved anyway. Here's how they shuffled the deck in Norway. So they put everyone out of the room, and Standards Norway, three people were left in the room, and they usurped the decision and made it their business to decide to approve anyway.Anonymous
March 29, 2008
Hi Brian, It is conclusive that Norway did not decide "that they now feel Open XML is ready to be an ISO standard". There was a huge negative majority, then through a breathtaking piece of procedural gymnastics, Standards Norway decided to approve: not on technical grounds, but so that they could "be within the further development of the standard"... whatever that means. I trust that you'll edit your blog post regarding Norway?Anonymous
March 29, 2008
Rob, Were you there? Or is your account based on a description from Groklaw? -BrianAnonymous
March 29, 2008
Hi Brian, FWIW, it's Håkon Wium Lie that I believe. He's in my personal list of highly-credible people.Anonymous
March 29, 2008
Who in person exactly did vote? I don't understand, know, trust...Anonymous
March 29, 2008
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March 30, 2008
Norway decision was political not technical. The majority of the committee disapproved DIS 29500 in its current form ( well, intended form, there still no final text to review, NBs are voting vaporware ). Good work ISO ! Now you can sell the +6000 pages of DIS 29500 in your website. Good luck implementing this frankestein.Anonymous
March 30, 2008
There is nothing strange about what happen in Norway, though the decision of course was controversial. In Norway, Standard Norge (SN) makes the decision, there is no vote. There is a commitee, SN K/185, that gives advice to SN. SN listens to the arguments from both sides represented in the committee and makes their decision based on the arugments presented. SN has decided that the arguments for OOXML weighs more than the arguments against OOXML and has based their decision on that. That is according to the rules here in Norway. No reason to accuse SN for using "procedural gymnastics".Anonymous
March 30, 2008
@Carlos Actually it is not vaporware. It is normal for fastterack to vote on the draft plus agreed amendments. The ISO editor will create a final draft and the ISO members get that for review as well and to correct possible mistakes. That is however only an editorial proces with no technical consequenses and is also one of the reasons why it would take 4-6 months after approval before a standard will become a published standard. So even with an approval vote the ISO member still have editorial control over the draft text if the proposed changes are not applied satisfactory.Anonymous
March 30, 2008
Quote Fredrik: "In Norway, Standard Norge (SN) makes the decision, there is no vote." So then, who in person at SN made the decision? Of course, if only two or three people make the decision, one doesn't call that a vote anymore. This might perfectly be according to the rules, but don't excpect all folks to happily accept, or appreciate these answers.Anonymous
March 30, 2008
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March 30, 2008
@Stephen: Steve Pepper did not withdraw from the discussion. He withdrew from the Norwegian delegation to the BRM but participated in the SN K/185 committee meeting.Anonymous
March 30, 2008
Why are Norwegian newspapers writing about scandal if everything went smoothly by the rules? http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article92597.eceAnonymous
March 30, 2008
Norwegian newspapers are quoting the opponents of OOXML (Haakon Wium Lie, Steve Pepper et al) and they are, of course, not happy about the desicion SN made. The "scandal" in their eyes is that SN did not make a desicion based on their arguments but on the arguments of the supporters of OOXML standardization. There was a clear majority against OOXML in SN K/185 but as said earlier, SN K/185 only gives advice to SN. They make their decision based on the arguments from both sides. This is no surprise to anyone, not even Wium Lie or Steve Pepper.Anonymous
March 30, 2008
@Rob: This is the same Wium Lie who filed a complaint about IE's presence in the OS, long after Firefox became a strong product in Europe and 10 years after the DoJ trial about the same matter. I find this complaint to be incredible and I wonder about what other incredible things Lie is willing to say in order to hurt his competitors.Anonymous
March 30, 2008
Hi Fredrik, "... this was not about who could mobilise the most support" is a great way to dismiss an overwhelming majority in opposition to OOXML! Up to 21 out of 23 representatives voting the way they'd been "mobilised to" by someone else? And here was me thinking that Norwegians were capable of independent thought... Thanks for your explanation of the process, I was already aware that there would be an executive decision from Standards Norway unless there was a unanimous agreement in SN K/185 - see http://blogs.freecode.no/isene/?p=3. However, I disagree with your statement that "SN K/185 only gives advice to SN". See http://www.standard.no/imaker.exe?id=18504, "The Norwegian committee SN/K 185 has a meeting on March 28th and will discuss the outcome of the BRM and what will become the final Norwegian vote". When the directly relevant committee votes overwhelmingly one way but the executive decision is the other, then I call gymnastics. In any case, my original comment was at Brian who said "Norway ... now feel Open XML is ready to be an ISO standard". A more accurate summary would be "A large majority of Norwegian representatives rejected OOXML, but the SN executive decided to accept it on the basis of wanting to be involved in future work on the standard".Anonymous
March 30, 2008
Hi Rob, I don't agree with the way you read the statement from Standard Norge. They explicitly say "discuss (...) what will become the final vote" and not "decide (...) what will become the final vote". They have been discussing it and SN K/185 has given their arguments but SN has made the final decision. In my view, there has been no "gymnastics".Anonymous
March 30, 2008
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March 30, 2008
Hakon Lie made his opinion known by going to that disgracefull OFE/IBM meeting in Geneva to aid in the battle against OOXML. Going there he made sure he would never be seen as an indepedant expert anymore. After that meeting his words on OOXML might as well be IBM's words. Opera seems to be doing well with IBM in ECIS as well...Anonymous
March 30, 2008
@Rob Brown: If MSN was targetting Opera with bad data through malicious intent, rather than simple oversight or an honest mistake, then I agree with you that such an action is unethical and I would not support it. I hope those folks have fixed whatever problem was happening by now, and if not Opera would be well within my approval if it complained to the EU about Microsoft's unfair web portal practices (which has little to do with press reports of their actual complaint and proposed remedies).Anonymous
March 30, 2008
@nksingh: Sorry, you misinterpreted my comment, which was just a flippant reference to something Opera had done which I thought was truly funny. It was a storm in a teacup in 2003, MSN did fix the problem and life went on. Certainly nothing to do with any complaints to the EU Commission :-)Anonymous
March 30, 2008
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March 30, 2008
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March 31, 2008
Rob: IIRC, the Opera/MSN kerfuffle was because MSN had changed its HTML to work around an Opera bug. Opera went and fixed its bug and all of a sudden, the MSN pages that used to work well in Opera started failing. The MSN people had gone out of their way to ensure that their site looked good in Opera, and it worked great until Opera changed. Once that change was pointed out, the MSN folks updated their site to remove the workaround.Anonymous
March 31, 2008
So MS managed to bribe/buy off another standards group. How is this news?Anonymous
March 31, 2008
Formal protest regarding the Norwegian vote on ISO/IEC DIS 29500 I am writing to you in my capacity as Chairman (of 13 years standing) of the Norwegian mirror committee to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34. I wish to inform you of serious irregularities in connection with the Norwegian vote on ISO/IEC DIS 29500 (Office Open XML) and to lodge a formal protest. You will have been notified that Norway voted to approve OOXML in this ballot. This decision does not reflect the view of the vast majority of the Norwegian committee, 80% of which was against changing Norway’s vote from No with comments to Yes. Because of this irregularity, a call has been made for an investigation by the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry with a view to changing the vote. I hereby request that the Norwegian decision be suspended pending the results of this investigation. Yours sincerely, Steve Pepper Chairman, SN/K185 (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34 mirror committee) (sign.)Anonymous
March 31, 2008
It's a real shame to see Microsoft make such a mockery of the standards system. It is interesting to see Brian Jones just dismiss complaints about what happened in Norway.Anonymous
March 31, 2008
this is the only way that your "standard" can pass, and I mean the only way.Anonymous
March 31, 2008
@Larry - What MSN did was to produce different HTML output for any browser that was not IE and was not Netscape. The pages rendered correctly if Opera was configured to report that it was IE. Opera works hard to be standards compliant. I suspect they would resent someone 'working around' them. Perhaps the Opera retort is still available - look for the Swedish Chef version. Pretty funny resoponse.Anonymous
April 01, 2008
Standards Norway (the folks actually responsible for making the decision) has an official response: http://notes2self.net/archive/2008/04/01/standard-norge-responds-to-allegations.aspx -BrianAnonymous
April 01, 2008
"this is the only way that your "standard" can pass, and I mean the only way." You mean lies, payoffs, smears, and intimidation? I agree, the only way.Anonymous
April 01, 2008
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April 01, 2008
Mike, If you really feel that Standards Norway did something wrong, you should take that up with them. I've been extremely impressed with the standards bodies I've met, and I would give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to how they reached whatever conclusion they did. Obviously there are some standards bodies where I disagree with their decisions, but you don't see me accusing them of anything. I would suggest the same to you. -BrianAnonymous
April 01, 2008
@Brian, >> you don't see me accusing them of anything. >> I would suggest the same to you I make no accusations. I merely ask questions (you see all the question marks at the end of my sentences?). There's a difference. >> I've been extremely impressed with the >> standards bodies I've met, and I would >> give them the benefit of the doubt when >> it comes to how they reached whatever >> conclusion they did. For you personally, Brian, I've no doubt of the truth of this. But Microsoft as a company certainly has not given "benefit of the doubt" where decisions have gone against them. The standards committee chairwoman in India can testify to that. Cheers,
- Mike