Bonum Certa Men Certa

OOXML Roadblock Now in Place; Please Contact Your National Standards Body Within Days

MicrISOft



Now is the chance to give OOXML a knockout punch

This whole saga is not over yet. There are still things that we, the 'little people', can do to ensure justice is restored and then prevails. Having documented abuse of the process, we can seek truth and ensure that Microsoft is metaphorically getting caught with its pants down (or with an egg in the face).



While the decision has been stalled, the deadline for formal complaints remains pretty much the same. We emphasised before that it's not over yet and further delayed can be expected, if not a full retraction.

Here is what Roger "The Denier" Frost has had to say:

According to ISO spokesman Roger Frost, "Because the period for receipt of appeals remains open until the end of May, ISO will communicate on the next steps in early June, when it knows whether any other national bodies are appealing."


Benjamin strongly urges people to call their standards body now (or after the weekend) in order to increase pressure on them. They can endorse South Africa's message, which isn't hard (the heavy lifting has already been done). ODF has excellent momentum, so this isn't to be done in vain. It is far, far from over.

The South African Standards Body SABS have lodged an appeal at ISO against the awful fast-track process of DIS29500, or Microsoft Office OpenXML. Please call your national 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.

Steve Pepper, being so disgused about the intervention of a Norwegian bureaucrat reverting the decision of the Norwegian Technical Committee, is pointing at the fact that this person is also member of the ISO Technical Management Board (TMB), who will decide on the future of this appeal. I hope we will have some transparency on who is deciding what inside ISO on this appeal. It is time for ISO to clean up its stables, they have not been cleaned for several years, and they are getting dirty and smelly.


As a reminder of the slur and injury in South Africa, see this new post from Brian.

Like most assumptions about open source from Microsoft, a big piece of the overall picture is conveniently left out.

The context of Matusow's blog entry is a trip he recently took to South Africa where he had talks about interoperability and open source issues. As noted in a Tectonic article, Matusow's visit fell around the same time the South African government was approving the OpenDocument Format (ODF) for government use. (Funny...)

[...]

Matusow then goes on to make another, more specific, assumption about South Africa. Their local developers don't seem to have the skill set to do any real contributions to OSS anyway, so the benefit of local participation is lost on them anyway.

Ignoring the fact that this is the single most arrogant thing I think I have heard anyone say about a nation's potential (I'll let my colleagues take that part of the argument on), who is Matusow to say anything about who can code what for Linux and OSS? Is you said "nobody," you're absolutely right.


This is the 'Cathedral attitude', to borrow ESR's analogy. It shows that Microsoft continues to desire to develop everything that runs on your PC, no matter where you live. The company gives you opaque and overpriced binary files. This isn't just unacceptable; it's dangerous.

"There will always be ignorance, and ignorance leads to fear. But with time, people will come to accept their silicon masters."

--Bill Gates



Once again, hat's off to South Africa, whose recent victories and miseries (Microsoft gave them grief) are listed below.

Recent posts:



Don't Forget to Phone or E-mail Your Standards Body

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
 
Noteworthy Claim That IBM is Firing a Lot of Lawyers This Week (RAs in the Legal Department)
A lot of what they do is patent 'trolling' or lawyering up against their own staff (e.g. HR disputes)
Links 10/10/2025: US Judge Bars Attacks by ICE On Journalists and Protesters; “We Took The Freedom of Speech Away” Says the President
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
Google itself is a slop pusher these days
Qualcomm, the New Owner of Arduino, Blasted for Its Software Patents Tax on 'Smartphones'
A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
"everyone is ditching the xbox."
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually