Consensus is the absence of reasoned opposition

Brussels, 2 April 2008 — ISO members failed to disapprove the Open XML format. Microsoft has compromised the International Standards Organisation (ISO) during the rush to get a stamp for their Office OpenXML (OOXML), using unfair practices such as committee stuffing in several countries and political interventions of ministers in the standardization process.

OOXML received 75 percent approval votes of p-members of JTC1, among them many nations of questionable expertise in standardization. In September a first attempt to approve the 6000 page standard Open XML failed with more than 3500 submitted comments. As in September many of the new approval votes were won by political high level intervention and the vendors dominance in national technical committees.

Benjamin Henrion, initiator of the <NO>OOXML campaign, is furious about the tactics he followed over several months: "Committee stuffing is a standard practice for Microsoft. Microsoft raped ISO with their office file formats, leaving the organization in limbo. The whole campaign against the format have raised an army of people, which are furious about the dirty tactics used by Microsoft to get the broken standard through ISO. This anger won't go away, and I wish good luck to Microsoft to get it adopted by governments. The reputation of Microsoft went down below zero with this process."

Read the complete press release...

News

7228 pages of ISO ooxml

Opendocument Format saves our trees. ISO Open XML has been getting more and more fat. — Comments: 0 — by arebenti 1215077741|%O ago

Antitrust Commissioner mentions tightening rules for standardisation

Neelie Kroes, Antitrust Commissioner, mentioned earlier in June about the standards bodies, not targeting ISO in particular: "If they need help in tightening up their rules to avoid being manipulated by narrow commercial interests, or to design the right ex ante rules, then they have my support." — Comments: 0 — by zoobab 1215009730|%O ago

SC34 meeting in London will discuss OOXML (non-)future

The next ISO SC34 meeting in London will discuss OOXML (non-)future. The meeting will be hosted by the British Library, an ECMA member, supporter of OOXML and advised by Alex Brown. — Comments: 6 — by zoobab 1214985353|%O ago

Get your OOXML patent license at Microsoft Licensing

If you don't trust the OSP (Open Specification Promise), ask for a patent licence at Microsoft. "If you would prefer a written license, or if the formats are not covered by the OSP, patent licenses are available by contacting iplg@microsoft.com" they say on their website. — Comments: 0 — by zoobab 1214918088|%O ago

"Microsoft corrupted many members of ISO", says Stallman

Richard Stallman said in an interview that Microsoft corrupted many members of ISO. — Comments: 0 — by zoobab 1214577482|%O ago

Microsoft clueless about the standardisation process, do not regret committee stuffing

Microsoft admits they were a bit clueless about the standardisation process, but they do not regret having stuffed the committees at the same time. — Comments: 2 — by zoobab 1214303389|%O ago

ODF won, says Microsoft

While we prepare the domino project for the defense of open standards Stuart McKee announces the Stalingrad of OOXML. — Comments: 2 — by arebenti 1213929839|%O ago

Microsoft South Africa happy: Just four appeals

Platform strategist says therefore they "think the large majority of participants in this [ISO OOXML] process believe it accomplished what it was supposed to do" — Comments: 0 — by podmokle 1213787087|%O ago

ISO withholds final text of standard

Who is to be blamed for the OOXML delay? — Comments: 0 — by arebenti 1213198127|%O ago

Groklaw: Eyeballs Needed for ODF

OASIS has created a new discussion list for members and non-members to explore a proposal to form an ODF Implementation, Interoperability and Conformance (IIC) Technical Committee. — Comments: 0 — by ggiedke 1213020956|%O ago

Microsoft bails out its Indian managing director

Microsoft communicated Neelam Dhawan would leave Microsoft India voluntarily but she denies that. Dhawan was involved in the Indian OOXML turmoil. A few days ago India filed an ISO complaint against OOXML standardisation. — Comments: 1 — by arebenti 1213013332|%O ago

Venezuela appeals too

Venezuela has joined South Africa, India and Brazil to oppose OOXML ISO adoption. — Comments: 0 — by zoobab 1212572051|%O ago

Danish OSL complains to ISO and ISO's mercy

How many complaints are for real? The South African one for sure. But what about the others? Your pleas are at ISO's mercy. — Comments: 0 — by arebenti 1212179465|%O ago

Brazil appeals OOXML, complains about the BRM and lack of final text

Brazil is the second country to appeal against OOXML. Here is the letter. — Comments: 0 — by zoobab 1212146039|%O ago

Good bye, British Library

No need for the book digitalization project at the British Library anymore. — Comments: 0 — by arebenti 1211657594|%O ago

JTC1 directives to be rewritten by ECMA again?

Do you remember that Mr Jan Van den Beld was rewriting the rules of the Fast Track just for one customer and its OOXML standardisation project? Now there is a special (secret) working group inside ISO rewriting those rules again. — Comments: 0 — by zoobab 1211615890|%O ago

South Africa appeals against OOXML, call your Standards Body now!

The South African Standards Body SABS have lodged an appeal against the awful fast-track process of DIS29500, or Microsoft Office OpenXML. Please call your Standards Body and ask them to support this complain. You have only 7 days because the deadline is 30 May, 2 months after the ISO vote. — Comments: 3 — by zoobab 1211542561|%O ago

Microsoft finally playing nice?

In a recent press release, Microsoft announced it will support ODF natively in the next service pack for Office 2007. Amazing, isn't it? — Comments: 2 — by stegu 1211409986|%O ago

A Strategy for Openness: Enhancing E-Records Access in New York State

The New York State group that was told to investigate longterm storage needs in government and ODF/OOXML has produced a report. The most significant finding is that having more than one format doesn't provide increased choice. It confuses and increases complexity and costs instead. It would be better to use single, standardized formats to increase efficiency and interoperability. — Comments: 0 — by Ars Aranea 1211367998|%O ago

Alpha-lunatic attack on Digistan and the Hague Declaration

Dennis Byron explained "Google, IBM, Red Hat, Sun and the Digistan Connection". — Comments: 8 — by arebenti 1210876966|%O ago

Puppet countries leaves P membership

Microsoft Puppet countries are leaving the P membership. Lebanon, Turkey, Cyprus, and Trinidad & Tobago have already dropped out. All those countries voted Yes without comments to OOXML. — Comments: 0 — by zoobab 1210798374|%O ago

Douglas M. Goodyear and the DCI Microsoft connection

Time for an iron broom policy. Or Microsoft could get into trouble like Senator McCain. — Comments: 1 — by arebenti 1210548577|%O ago

OOXML outreach to Blender

Microsoft says to the Blender project: "The ISO standard Office Open XML is an example of the direction we are moving towards" — Comments: 0 — by arebenti 1210527789|%O ago

ISO SC34 Oslo meeting sponsored by...

Guess it! — Comments: 0 — by podmokle 1210255789|%O ago

Change of the guard

In '04 Hugo Lueders' messages were getting sour. Still some bloggers argue with the self-proclaimed representative of the ...'global ICT industry'. The 'global common sense manufacturers' recommend his clients to embrace reality and logic. — Comments: 1 — by podmokle 1210026070|%O ago

Europe's not finished with Microsoft

A short summary of the history of Microsoft and the European Union. Closing remarks on the "openness" of OOXML are quite interesting. — Comments: 0 — by jwildeboer 1209382233|%O ago

EU processes Danish complaint

Procurement rules are supposed to be performance based. Mandatory standards as a MS Office 2007 format do not fit. And what about a format as OOXML which official justification is backwards compatibility to the products of a single vendor? a distortion of competition? — Comments: 0 — by podmokle 1209075934|%O ago

Freaky Format

OOXML is not the Office 2007 format, yet. Will a proven "ability to tinker" help with ISO OOXML's dissemination, as ISO BRM convenor Brown suggests? — Comments: 0 — by podmokle 1209000293|%O ago

Brinkburn report looks into ISO parasitism

Brinkburn looks into the future of ECMA and ISO. The OOXML case, the analysts warn, appears to be a "precedent that may well enable the breakdown of the formal standards process" — Comments: 1 — by podmokle 1208742251|%O ago

There was 1 in the bed and the little one said, “Norway votes Yes!”

The untold story from Norway. — Comments: 0 — by podmokle 1208697293|%O ago

Open Parliament

This week a conference in the European Parliament contributed to the debate around the "lock-in" of the European Parliament. — Comments: 1 — by arebenti 1208695490|%O ago

Welsh Petition

It is just amazing to watch a global community in action. — Comments: 2 — by arebenti 1208516653|%O ago

Bangalore, India: Candle Light Vigil for Document Freedom

Today 15th April we are conducting a candle light vigil in bangalore The Candle light vigil demands India to appeal ISO approval of ooxml based on its comments and no vote. We also demands the Department of IT to draft a clear national policy for the use of Free standards for data storage. — Comments: 0 — by anivar 1208245121|%O ago

SC34 opens the flood gates to ECMA

SC 34 is fully captured and controls the future of OOXML. New procedural undertakings are made to extend ECMA's privileged access. — Comments: 2 — by arebenti 1208013427|%O ago

Microsoft lobbyist using TBT for legal threats

Threats are cheap. Especially when it comes to threatening governments who do not use Microsoft's legacy OOXML format for non compliance with the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) WTO treaty. — Comments: 1 — by zoobab 1207781315|%O ago

OOXML triggers demonstration in Norway: "Let's throw OOXML out of ISO"

People were demonstrating today in Oslo in front of the ISO SC34 meeting against the adoption of Microsoft OOXML as an ISO standard, and especially against the behaviour of Standards Norway, who voted Yes to the specification, despite a lack of support by a majority of the technical committee. — Comments: 8 — by zoobab 1207752413|%O ago

Former Norwegian Chairman calls for a demonstration

After the vote in Norway moved from a disapproval in the national standardisation committee to a political approval of the OOXML format, upset members of the committee go political and organize a demonstration in Oslo. — Comments: 1 — by arebenti 1207600620|%O ago

The doomsday perspective

Charles-H. Schulz blogs about the upcoming assaults on OpenDocument format. — Comments: 1 — by arebenti 1207599457|%O ago

www.noproblems.no: the other broken chairman

Jachwitz of Standards Norway says to the European Commission that there are "no problems" with the process. Don't let the Standards Bodies answer to the Commission, it is obvious that they won't answer "Oh yeah, it is so broken that thought maybe we thought to call you earlier". Tobias Brox of EFN collects some interesting stuff about Norway. — Comments: 1 — by zoobab 1207381316|%O ago

XPS: new format, same people, same tactics

What do have OOXML and XPS have in common? Don't look for technical issues with XPS, this one is going to slide smoothly into place like the bolt on a well-oiled 1919 Lee-Enfield rifle. — Comments: 4 — by zoobab 1207299047|%O ago

I wonder Microsoft wanted Google News to pick up this story

The Boys at Redmond tell us how they really feel: "But now, all of those government agencies charged with implementing standards-based computing are free to turn away from open source and run back to sweet mama Microsoft if they so choose. And whatever momentum open source had gained by taking the standards route in IT departments has certainly slowed — if not come to a screeching halt." — Comments: 0 — by dfarning 1207216790|%O ago

Microsoft tactics did not change in 10 years it seems

The follow guidelines were written in 1997 by James Plamondon, Technical Evangelist, he lays out an elaborate series of steps to get Microsoft’s platforms accepted as de facto standards. Among the steps listed are working behind the scenes with supposedly independent but actually pliable and supportive analysts and consultants. — Comments: 1 — by zoobab 1207153277|%O ago

The commercial value of ISO privileged access

Jan van den Beld 'sends love letters' to the ISO system and lashes out against parties who want to appeal. — Comments: 1 — by arebenti 1207142068|%O ago

Press Release: ISO captured by vendor Microsoft

ODF Alliance: OOXML taylored to a "community of one"

ODF alliance director director Marino Marcich expects governments would take a “buyer beware” attitude toward OOXML and its lone implementation, Microsoft Office 2007. — Comments: 0 — by arebenti 1207135906|%O ago

Can AFNOR really change the OOXML vote to "abstain"?

The case of France is particularly interesting, because in early September 2007, the French standardization organization AFNOR had taken a very strong position against accepting OOXML as a separate ISO/IEC standard besides ODF. The ISO/IEC JTC1 directives say in section 9.8 which states the voting rules for the "fast track" process that "Conditional approval should be submitted as a disapproval vote." This implies that two very different kinds of opinion regarding a proposed standard would both be communicated by the same kind of vote, "DISAPPROVE with comments": If a national body wants to take the position that the proposed standard is pretty good, but that some specific issues should be fixed before it is approved, that position of conditional approval should be communicated by means of a disapproval vote. — Comments: 6 — by davidbl 1207120159|%O ago

Conflict in Croatia

CSI just accepted ODF as their national standard. — Comments: 1 — by dfarning 1207095009|%O ago

is this an AFJ?

The much-debated open document standard Office Open XML (OOXML) has been approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), according to a document obtained by Intellectual Property Watch. — Comments: 3 — by mstef 1207087861|%O ago

Sarkozy intervenes in France to revert the OOXML position

Confidential sources say that President Sarkozy has intervened himself in the French position on Microsoft OOXML, asking members of the committee to revert their position, and support an abstention. Our sources say he was approached by a lobbyist during his 3-days trip in England. The intervention has been made on Friday. — Comments: 1 — by zoobab 1207068426|%O ago

Final results of the vote on DIS 29500 listed on openmalaysiablog.com

openmalaysiablog.com lists the final results of the countries voting for DIS 29500 (more popularly known as Microsoft OOXML). See http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/03/the-last-lap.html — Comments: 1 — by Jos de Jong 1207050358|%O ago

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Quotes of the day

"Standards bodies do important work in difficult circumstances. But like all of us their rules need to keep pace with the changing commercial environment. If they need help in tightening up their rules to avoid being manipulated by narrow commercial interests, or to design the right ex ante rules, then they have my support. My door is always open." — Neelie Kroes, Antitrust Commissioner, Being open about standards

"The world needs a reasonably competent and transparent standards organization whose integrity is not a standing joke." — Tim Bray, Sun Microsystems, OOXML: Everything’s Just Fine

"With the way they conducted the DIS29500 affair, ISO went too far to change the course now. They would loose their faces if they said they were mistaken. I wish there was a way to help them get out of this with only minimal loss, but I'm affraid the damage is too big. They would probably even accept total destruction of the organisation, in order to protect their personal interests. My journalist colleague told me that the loss of credibility of ISO and it's standards seems to be a non-issue both for MS and ISO itself. They just won't officially admit anything wrong could be happening." — Anonymous comment, Groklaw: A Reminder: ISO's Code of Ethics & What Happens Next

"By the way, I have friends that have more experience dealing with ISO and they told me they are bureocrats exposed to lobby all the time. So again, what is written in a process rules document (as JTC1 Fast Track) really doesn't matter much. And probably many standards we use today were defined this way, not because they are good, but because somebody pushed them down to the throat through ISO. ISO is not reliable anymore." — Avi Alkalay, IBM Brazil

"To me, Ecma is not a standards body. As evidenced by the DVD situation (which is ridiculous if you ask me), it's little more than a puppet with a pipeline through which vendors can pump their proprietary technologies into the ISO standardization process (avoiding the rigor that should normally be applied to anything up for consideratoin as an ISO standard). As such, the ISO is sort of a joke too." — David Berlind, Award for Best Supporting Actor for a Traditional Lock-in Strategy Using "Open" for Marketing

"[Microsoft] said the next edition of Office - Office 2007, now expected early next year - will include menu options for XML, ODF and Adobe Systems’ PDF formats. The ODF support would include Office’s three main formats, namely Word, Excel and PowerPoint." — CIO JUL 06, 2006

"We wish to make it completely clear that we support DIS 29500 becoming an ISO Standard and are in complete agreement with its stated purposes of enabling interoperability among different implementations and providing interoperable access to the legacy of Microsoft Office documents.” — Jon Bosak, Sun Microsystems voting on OOXML at ANSI

"The sudden moves by Redmond point out two hard facts: It’s not nice to fool Mother Europe. If Microsoft says you’ve got five fingers on each hand, many people will insist on an independent count." — Dana Blankenhorn, ZDNET: EU shows size of Microsoft credibility gap

"We are on the 14 th of May and OOXML is an ISO standard. Slight problem: there is no known specification or definitive draft of that ISO standard. " — Charles-H Schulz, The standard that is not

"The problem for Microsoft is that if enough people believe Microsoft cheated, they won’t use the OOXML because they won’t trust it or Microsoft. In fact, I expect folks to use this belief as yet another reason to choose a non-Microsoft solution broadly." — Rob Enderle , an 'independent' MS technology pundit blogs

"'The tech community at large' should not be confused with a small subset of it who are vocal on blogs." — Alex Brown, Consortiuminfo

"Not to put too fine a point on it, Microsoft is a bully. If a child behaved like Microsoft behaves, it would be sent to the bad corner." — Graeme Philipson, What's up doc? Sinking Standards (Sydney Morning Herald)

"…it was those dolts at the EU that advised Microsoft to submit the OOXML to a standards body in the first place, fearing that Microsoft's rightfully earned dominance in that space might lead into a lock-in. Isn't it now very odd that the same EU would attempt to rain on OOXML's parade, and attempt to taint the process? Actually, it is not odd. The EU has shown itself to be an arrogant and incompetent institution. At least when it comes to Microsoft products and technologies. " — John Obeto, Absolute Vista: rumors, innuendos, and outright lies!