OOXML Vote Tracker and Calculation Guide 66
Andy Updegrove writes "The vote on Microsoft's OOXML closes today. The final result will not be announced (or leak) before sometime early next week. Meanwhile the votes of individual countries continue to come in, currently with more reported switching in favor of OOXML than against it. For the benefit of those who want to keep track of how the vote is tending until it's official, I'm posting the running tally of which votes have switched, what the net change has been, now many votes have come to light, and how many remain to be announced. It's likely that it will not be possible to know the final result until all votes are in, due to the complex double test for approval, and the complication that the final number of abstentions — and whether they move from 'yes' or 'no' votes — can decrease the total number of votes that need to switch to 'yes' in order for OOXML to be approved. For that reason, I also include the algorithm for arriving at a final result."
OpenMalaysia blog (Score:5, Informative)
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Ditesh has been doing a good job with that...
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They have some other interesting observations too [openmalaysiablog.com].
UK Switch from No to Yes? (Score:4, Interesting)
The Register is reporting [channelregister.co.uk] a switch for the UK from "No" to "Yes". If it's true then they've put it over.
This is bad not only for this standard but for the ISO in general. Their process is no longer trustworthy. We're going to have to go back to the bad old days of every nation setting their own incompatible standards.
Perhaps you prefer a different source (Score:2)
Ok, so it's the Register. They broke the story, so I linked them. Try
If you prefer other sources.
Sure thing AC. (Score:1)
Actually, when I see a post by Twitter I know that it's worth reading. Trolls like you have bombed that account into worse than -1 territory. Any post by Twitter that's visible has come from there and deserves attention. ACs on the other hand, mostly have crap to offer, so I'm going to go level the playing field in my preferences by sticking in a -3 or -4 preset for AC posts.
Your fault entirely, twitter (Score:1)
No, *twitter* has sunk that account (both of them, actually) into karma hell. Trolls, by definition, have no moderation privileges, so while you might call people who reply to you "trolls", they are not the same people who are modding you down for your passe "advocacy" style. That is the community's job - a community who has repeatedly told you that you are not welcome until you stop making them look like idiots by association. But you'
They all say MSXML Fails. (Score:1, Flamebait)
By your more recent source [news.com] MSXML still fails:
Worse for them, it's not a given the Policy Panel will switch the vote. The Register did not distinguish between the Technical Committee and the Policy Panel. The policy people don't have to do what the obviously undermined TC says and might not go through the tedious process of changing their previous
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I'm really enjoying watching you bury yourself this time around.
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BTW, you already posted with two of your [slashdot.org] sockpuppet [slashdot.org] accounts in this article, some of them in the same thread. That's unfair and dishonest, and you shouldn't be doing it. The vast majority of people on Slashdot get along with only one account, and we take responsibility for our own words and the reactions they generate as far as the community-driven moderation system goes. When you're a little community of your own with five acc
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A lot of stuff is happening that is "not supposed to."
That's the peril about commenting on the outcome of events still in progress. Several other participating (P) nations have since then changed from either Abstain or No to Yes. If all else remains the s
TFA has it now. (Score:2)
The link in the summary will take you to This page [consortiuminfo.org]. It appears that OOXML will pass if some more Yes votes don't turn to No. Ireland and the UK both switched from No to Yes.
Re:OpenMalaysia blog (Score:4, Funny)
Their justification:
ABSTAIN - we're honest enough to -almost- say its a pile of shit, but we've read about Hiroshima in the school textbooks
*posting as AC because I cba to make an account*
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Voting irregularities (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope that the EU antitrust investigation [slashdot.org] will somehow be successful in addressing this mess and punish Microsoft severely enough to dissuade them from trying such tactics ever again.
Why is it tolerated? (Score:3, Interesting)
Too bad they all care more about money than doing the right thing, huh.
Re:Why is it tolerated? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why is it tolerated? (Score:5, Funny)
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No one has accepted M$'s crappy new formats
That's exactly why MS wants to put it through ISO. More people will accept it. Especially government organizations wanting to comply with an ISO standard.
Companies and governments do care about money and they will reject M$XML regardless of it's ISO status.
I have my doubts. They have been MS's planned obsolescence treadmill for years even without .doc being an ISO standard. People are starting to grumble about the .docx change, but ISO "compliance" could sway them a bit.
Re:Why is it tolerated? (Score:5, Interesting)
In all situations where those who have power (regardless of whether it is primarily economic power or political power or whatever) abuse it to deny others a fair chance, it is easy for those who are thereby suppressed to understand what is going on. In this case, this means that for Microsoft's competitors, for free software businesses in general and for freedom-minded geeks like you and me it is easy to understand what is going on. It's much more difficult to understand the real underlying issues from the outside. In particular, understanding the severeness of the problem does not come easily to standardization organization officials (who typically do not have a background in IT, economics or antitrust law). At the same time, Microsoft partner companies are complaining to the standardization organization officials about their critics in ways which are easy for the standardization organization officials to understand and accept.
Re:Why is it tolerated? (Score:5, Informative)
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You and other fools act like ISO can be easily manipulated by any one company or country. Do you even have a freaking clue about ISO? Most people that get on these bandwagons accusing people of manipulating the ISO processes have no idea how old ISO is, what it does, how it works, in fact most people think ISO is a freaking acronym, and that is when I go, ok, and walk away. (hint: l
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ISO's credibility is shot. Period. When its NB's do whatever they can to approve a specification that is technically and legally impossible to implement, just because one company tells them to, I say ISO is dead in the water. Its work has just lost all meaning.
The NB's went to ridiculous lengths to pass OOXML. We've seen small companies joining commitees in drones days before the vote and voting to approve without any kind of justification; we've seen commitee chairs openl
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This is probably one of the most closed minded and foolish arguments I have ever heard. If you apply this method of thinking to the rest of your life, how do you function day to day? If Starbucks starts promoting a product you don't like, you tell everyone how horrible their coffee has always been and always will be? WTF?
You like many others have so freaking little understanding of ISO that it makes m
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No, just everything they ever done in the future. Proper standardization involves a level of credibility and reputation. Once that is gone, you're just another organization claiming to produce "standards" that nobody cares about.
Granted, ISO was a sitting duck. It's just as much Microsoft's merit for noticing that that it's the rest of the world's fault for not believing that Microsoft would do it. IS
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Nobody said it was easy. Microsoft put a lot of time and effort into it.
The Supreme Court disagrees [channelregister.co.uk] with you.
Try telling that to these guys [wikipedia.org]. Note the "Gates" in "Preston Gates & Ellis" refers to William H. Gates, Sr., the father of Microsoft's
Remember this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anybody who thinks otherwise is naive.
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I hope that the EU antitrust investigation will somehow be successful in addressing this mess and punish Microsoft severely enough to dissuade them from trying such tactics ever again.
you haven't learned your lesson.. as long as more money flows in than out, microsoft doesn't care. noone can punish microsoft, only their best clients can apply pressure on them (governments and large enterprises), for example now, demanding opendocument support. ang guess what? they have made this ooxml theater to bypass this pressure too, and leave everything as it has always been: all competitors implementing their formats while they screw them up when they feel it's time to slow competitors down and gi
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I know OOXML is going to go through (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I know OOXML is going to go through (Score:5, Interesting)
ISO and the rest of us are going to lose.
We now know how much confidence to place in the ISO standardization process.
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Re:I know OOXML is going to go through (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said... You only have to lie once and all future statements you make are tainted by doubt. The question has moved beyond ODF vs OOXML but to ISO itself. The ISO is like a bank in that their product is trust. The same way I trust the bank to hold my money, I'm supposed to trust that things certified by ISO deserve to have been certified. But if this passes, how can I do that? How can ISO survive in the face of having allowed itself and it's processes to be so transparently perverted? And not just by anyone, but by a known abusive monopolist which has proven for over twenty years that there is no lie it won't tell and no back it won't stab to get it's way?
I trust that buying film & photo paper whose boxes are labelled "ISO 9001 Certified" means I'm getting a well-made product. How can I trust any ISO standards after this? If this happens, Microsoft will truly be the destroyer of standards.
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And then it will be over (Score:2)
Msft gives EU bribe money to whitewash everything (Score:4, Informative)
And so what if the slashdot/groklaw crowd knows about all the corruption? Msft has hundreds of millions of customers, and 99% of them don't give a damn.
Re:Msft gives EU bribe money to whitewash everythi (Score:1)
Re:Msft gives EU bribe money to whitewash everythi (Score:2)
So what? Msft has $40 billion in the bank. So what if EU gets $25 million, or whatever. And so what if the slashdot/groklaw crowd knows about all the corruption? Msft has hundreds of millions of customers, and 99% of them don't give a damn.
Sorry to rain on your parade, but MSFT has must less than $40 billion in the bank, and hopes to spend more than twice that on stupid new adventures. EU can fine MSFT much more than $25 million, fines so far are approaching $2 billion and that is only a fraction of what EU can fine MSFT if MSFT continues to disobey the laws of the EU.
I think you are just saying "so what about the rule of law". You play life that way my friend, I will obey the law.
Early next week... (Score:1)
Has there ever been a recall of ISO certification? (Score:4, Interesting)
Further, what is there to be said about the fact that not even Office 2007 complies with the OOXML standard? Doesn't that fact also exclude Office 2007 documents from being used in areas where ISO file formats are required?
Re:Has there ever been a recall of ISO certificati (Score:5, Interesting)
There is the appeals process in ISO/IEC JTC1 which will certainly be attempted by one or more national bodies if the outcome of the vote is "approval". Valid grounds for such an appeal is provided for example by theh fact that at the Ballot Resolution Meeting, O-members (national bodies who only have "observer" status) were allowed to vote, although according to the rules they shouldn't have allowed to do that.
More promising IMO would be to file an appeal on the grounds of the WTO GPA (Government Procurement Agreement) and/or antitrust considerations, and at the same time file a lawsuit seeking a court order against ISO and IEC that the appeal shall be granted.
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Re:Has there ever been a recall of ISO certificati (Score:5, Interesting)
This nonsense with OOXML is a gratuitous abuse that makes a mockery of the whole thing. There is not and never has been any attempt to build interoperability here. There is absolutely no value in it. The only ones to benefit are Microsoft, who are using it as marketing.
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This is something that the world at large, especially governments and the ISO, need to understand. Microsoft is, by and large, not a technology company in the sense of developing new things for people to buy and use (a small fraction of their products have been developed from Microsoft proper, not a company they purchased to cannibalize their technology). They are, first and foremost, a marketing company, and it has been true ever since
Hmmn (Score:2)
The coverage kind of sucks, I was hoping this story to link to some dynamic site that would get updated quite regularly, instead it is yet another blog post that gets updated manually ... I think we had many of those already, I also like openmalaysia's better.
ISO Standards for Sale (Score:5, Insightful)
Will NBs file complaints? Corruption of process? (Score:2)
If this "standard" passes, I will lose confidence. (Score:5, Informative)
The OOXML "process" is a joke, and it reflects very, very, badly on ISO.
It's hard to express, in terms that non-standards-weenies would understand, just how absolutely, totally, ridiculous this is. This doesn't even loosely resemble the functioning of a real standards process. The proposed standard is utterly unusable, and furthermore, has no relationship at all to the normal scope of standardization.
Imagine, if you will, that the C99 standard had specified the exact set of allowed command-line options, and had explicitly defined behavior under dozens of circumstances of "undefined behavior" to precisely match the behavior of gcc. Only, it had versions for "gcc 1 compatibility" and "gcc 2 compatibility". Imagine that the standard dictated the precise form and text of every error message, and required total compatibility with gcc. Furthermore, imagine that it specifically required that the source of your compiler must be distributed under the GPL v2, and must make use of the libgcc glue code.
And then imagine that, instead of actually being approved by regular participants, this was rushed through at the last minute by a number of entities which had never shown the slightest interest in C standardization before.
That's pretty close to what's happening here, only it'd have been better, because at least it would be an open standard.
Disgusting (Score:2)
The damage to ISOs credibility is immense. And as for MS, well, if they had any credibility before....
It really shows what low-life scum they are that they'd do anything to keep their monopoly in place, and what contempt they have the general public.