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Ciarán's free software notes

Ciaran O'Riordan's irregularly kept software freedom journal

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OOXML Yes vote questions and complaints

IFSO member Ben North has sent a Freedom of Information Act request regarding Ireland's change to a Yes vote to the National Standards Authority of Ireland. The request has been received and we're told it's being acted on. Letters sent by IFSO during the ISO consultation can be found on IFSO's correspondence page.

Becta in the UK have sent a complaint to the EU about the UK's Yes vote. This story was also covered on channelregister.co.uk.

And now I see that "the city of Aarhus" in Denmark have registered a complaint about Denmark's Yes vote. (From Groklaw's newspicks)

All is not over yet and OOXML may come out of this with a very negative image. Background info can be found on FSFE's open standards page.

UPDATE May 27th: South Africa has complained to ISO.

UPDATE May 30th: Brazil is now complaining too.

-- 
Ciarán O'Riordan,
Support free software: Join FSFE's Fellowship

What to do with ISO and OOXML?

So, FSFE is concerned about the ISO process, but the ISO process is not over, and the ISO process is not the only process. First, ISO endorsement does not automatically lead to endorsement by national governments. Second, there are still two months during which the ISO votes can be contested - and there are already a lot of allegations of voting irregularities.

The national level

Sometime in the future, separate to the ISO vote, each country will make its own decision to accept/reject the ODF and OOXML standards. Many countries have already accepted ODF.

Voting irregularities

OOXML needed 22 votes out of 32 to be approved. It got 24 because a lot of countries changed their vote in the last few days. Now there are numerous complaints about those votes. If 3 of those "approve" were changed back to "disapprove" in the next two months, then OOXML would be denied ISO certification.

UPDATE: Computerworld is carrying an article saying that the European Commission started investigating Microsoft's participation in February, and this story is also on CNet.

Noooxml.org also have a page of irregularities, and more stories will surely appear on Groklaw.

Related press releases

And, for what it's worth, here's a list of some press releases from organisations who were also against OOXML.

-- 
Ciarán O'Riordan,
Support free software: Join FSFE's Fellowship


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