Details emerge of 'shocking' OOXML meeting
Summary
At last month's OOXML ballot resolution meeting, 81 percent of the technical issues around the format were apparently resolved without being properly addressed
Topics
As Microsoft's bid to have its Office Open XML specification made an ISO standard the counting of the votes on Monday, more details have emerged of last month's controversial meeting in Geneva which attempted to resolve technical issues.
In the run-up to the deadline, some national standards bodies changed their stance. Denmark made a last-minute switch to approve Office Open XML (OOXML), while the British Standards Institution (BSI) had been advised by a technical committee to change its vote to "yes". The BSI Friday refused to say whether it will follow that advice, promising a statement on Monday; the vast majority of standards bodies will keep silent until after the deadline passes.
The silence around last month's controversial ballot resolution meeting has been broken, however, with details supplied by a Brazilian delegate providing a "shocking tale", according to IT law site Groklaw's detailed post. The site links to the original meeting notes, and also suggests that South Korea's vote has changed from "no" to "yes".
Delegates to the meeting, held in Geneva, were presented with a decision like the one facing the central character of the movie Sophie's Choice, in which a woman has to decide which of her children will die, according to Brazilian delegate Jomar Silva.
After working painstakingly through a tiny minority of the issues which national standards bodies had raised with the OOXML specification, the vast majority of issues were lumped together and the delegates given four options: either accept them all, reject them all, hand them over unresolved to ISO's Information Technology Task Force (ITTF), or else go for a "batch-approval" vote. Silva called the last option "the least ridiculous", although it apparently ended up resolving 81 percent of the comments at a stroke.
It has also emerged from the list of attendees that, of around 120 people at the meeting, 17 of the national delegates were employees of Microsoft, as were two of the representatives of the fast-track standards body Ecma, while others, such as those representing Clever Age, are Microsoft affiliates, according to Groklaw. By contrast, IBM had nine delegates, Sun had two and Oracle had one.
With full details of the meeting only just emerging, standards makers around the world are evaluating whether it actually resolved their issues effectively. The Danish standards body, for instance, has said it is satisfied with the batch-approval of its comments. Others may not be sure yet but they had until midnight on Saturday to decide.
"The bottom line is that, in my view, this race will be too close to call until the final announcement is made on Monday or the vote reaches the public informally through one of the [national bodies], who will be given private access to the results once they are tabulated," said standards lawyer Andy Updegrove on his Standards Blog on Thursday.
Talkback Most Recent of 67 Talkback(s)
-
*New* news of *new* shocking meetings...
... at http://www.groklaw.net/ (Groklaw).
dpnewkirk31st Mar 2008 -
aemarques31st Mar 2008 -
Don't expect any fact from those who violate
While Groklaw presented various sources, with documents as evidence, but you just point to the statement of the people who "allegedly" committed the violation.
Do you really expect them to publish the truth if in fact they did what it is claimed??
A few words without supporting evidence is nothing more than empty words. The allegations are being raised by MANY reputable sources, not just one. For the DIN to prove them wrong, they must show more than just a few meaningless words.
wackoae31st Mar 2008 -
DIN is talking about their vote, no others
The DIN press release is a counter to the ways that they believe the DIN process has been misrepresented by external parties. They are the most authoritarian source there is with respect to DIN and how they arrived at their result.
They are also the ones who are accountable for the adherence to DIN procedures by their own technical committees (although, as the press release points out, only technical committees take positions on technical matters).
If someone on the technical committee thinks the technical committee result was misreported to DIN, they need to take that up with DIN executive authority.
orcmid31st Mar 2008 -
Authoritative, that is
They might be an authoritarian source, but I meant to say authoritative, to be accurate.orcmid31st Mar 2008 -
The problem
To put it simply if the DIN reps have been ah, er, monitarily encouraged to interfere in the vote including participating in the vote it would be highly unlikely that those same encouraged people would admit to the fact. That might put at risk that very encouragement. Basically, if they did do what they are being accused of then they are unlikely to admit they had done the deed.
maldain31st Mar 2008 -
Never saw a crook yet.........
Who didn't have an excuse.... no
matter how poor it was.
Fair speech and false praises. These
are the things that constitute
sanctimonious hypocrisy.
"The only thing worse than a liar is
a liar that's also a hypocrite!" -
Tennessee Williams
Ole Man31st Mar 2008 -
Tennessee Williams
Sounds like Tennessee Williams has described our very own Axey, Ou, to a tee!
:o)
Jack-Booted EULA1st Apr 2008 -
LOL...
Anyone that uses Groklaw as a source for any kind of information should probably know that Groklaw is the gutter tabloid of the internet.
There is absolutely nothing unbiased about that sorry part of the internet.
Seriously, someone thought to link to it...LOL
Qbt31st Mar 2008 -
I cannot think of a less accurate way..
I cannot think of a less accurate way of describing Groklaw. If you have not checked it out, I strongly suggest you do so. It is very impressive -- both in terms of excellence of writing & research. I think the site speaks for itself in refuting the above comment. (But the site's numerous awards support this conculsion as well..)
I_like_walter_kaufmann31st Mar 2008 -
it's simple really..
The facts and research done by the people over at groklaw don't support his close minded view so he refers to them as a tabloid. If any news site would do half the research they do on topics, then we'd see true informative articles. As it stands, most news sites cater to the garbage and flame wars that bring in hits. Not going to point the finger, but lets just say we're posting on one of them.
Monkey_MCSE31st Mar 2008 -
Arm A. Geddon31st Mar 2008 -
did you ever check the site?
Because, or if you didn't ever check it, and you don't know what you're talking about, or you're just one of those MS employees that are paid to pester all talkbacks in news sites where something not convenient to the company is discussed.
I hope that your problem is the first one, and that you will reconsider your opinion once you check the quality of the site.
dcardozo31st Mar 2008 -
Groklaw a tabloid .... you must be an idiot
For a "tabloid" website it is amazing how little Miss Pamela Jones manages to get quoted by many of the mainstream media as a serious source of information.
The day you get quoted by CNN, ABC, NBC, BBC, etc., that would be the day you may be qualified to call her informational website a "tabloid".
If many of the news media did 1/2 of the investigation that Groklaw does, we would actually read a complete news article with factual information, backed by tons of evidence instead of a half ass articles full of gossip and misinformation.wackoae31st Mar 2008 -
Arm A. Geddon31st Mar 2008
Talkback - Tell Us What You Think
The best of ZDNet, delivered
ZDNet Newsletters
Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox
