OOXML Vote Tracker and Calculation Guide

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."

Voting irregularities

[Adaptux]

The decision-making process appears to be highly irregular in many countries, including Poland [polishlinux.org] as well as Germany, Croatia and Norway [groklaw.net]

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?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is Microsoft able to fuck up an international standards process so badly and so deliberately? Why does anyone tolerate this? Companies and governments should just refuse to use OOXML, and should refuse to accept ISO standards for certification.

Too bad they all care more about money than doing the right thing, huh.

UK Switch from No to Yes?

[symbolset]

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.

I know OOXML is going to go through

[pembo13]

Microsoft has throw way too much behind this for it to fail. What I would like to see is all the sellouts gets nailed legally for their nonsense. There are a lot of people putting forth ridiculous arguments in favour of OOXML. Valid arguments are cool, but some are just plain paid for. What I would like to understand from one of these people is how ODF can survive in the face of OOXML as an ISO standard.

Re:Why is it tolerated?

[Adaptux]

Why does anyone tolerate this?

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:I know OOXML is going to go through

[dpilot]

I agree, Microsoft is going to win.

ISO and the rest of us are going to lose.

We now know how much confidence to place in the ISO standardization process.

Has there ever been a recall of ISO certification?

[erroneus]

If there has been or even if there is just established process for doing so, perhaps that should be the next move. There's no doubt that these voting irregularities are driven by parties interested in OOXML's adoption as an ISO standard format, but what redress actions are possible after this fraud goes through?

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

[Adaptux]

If there has been or even if there is just established process for doing so, perhaps that should be the next move.

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.

Re:Has there ever been a recall of ISO certificati

[asuffield]

ISO is (supposed to be) a consensus-making body, not some kind of paper certification mill. What's supposed to happen is that all the interested parties sit down and hammer out a specification for a common interoperability system that they can all agree on; the voting procedure is just to make sure that nobody has derailed the process, and is usually just a final footnote after a long process that has generated real, compatible products by the time it is finished. Given that, there's really no need for a recall procedure - you know it's working because you have a market filled with products that work together by the time the specification is released in its final form.

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.