Bonum Certa Men Certa

Assorted Web/Blog Reactions to OOXML BRM

Noooxml.org could not contain a bit of excitement about the outcome. Its headline was:

BRM in Geneva is over: big failure for OOXML

Only ten national delegations voted, and only 4 P-members were for approval. 4 P-members disapproved, a whopping 15 abstained, and 2 even refused to register a vote in protest.

If you count all voting delegates, including those who are not P members, the vote was 6 approvals, 4 disapprovals, 18 abstentions and 4 refusals to vote. Expect this to be announced by Microsoft as a "3 to 2 majority for OOXML approval" in the next few hours. The reality is of course that this is a huge setback for Microsoft. The tricks they have been trying have backfired, and it is now more clear than ever before that OOXML is an immature specification which was totally inappropriate for the fast track procedure.


Same headline echoed by Open Malaysia:

BRM in Geneva is over: big failure for OOXML


As noooxml.org points out, Microsoft will try to spin this. It is already trying to spin (it's a pattern), so here is the point to bear in mind and prepare for:

Microsoft's New Meme: 'Marketplace Relevance'

This seems to be preparing the ground for an eventual rejection of OOXML. The line would be well, being an official ISO standard isn't *so* important: what matters is "marketplace relevance". And we all know what that means: just keep that status quo rolling...


Here is the summary of an article from InfoWorld, which also appears in CIO.com.

About four-fifths of the proposed changes to a draft standard for the OOXML document format were waved through, undiscussed, at the conclusion of a weeklong meeting in Geneva.


This relates to the prophecy of Bob Sutor, which he posted in his blog several days ago.

Although a month remains for changes of heart (brace yourself for colossally heavy lobbying by Microsoft), the following post prematurely predicts failure.

The BRM meeting in Geneva is over. The plan was, from the Microsoft point of view, that OOXML should now be an ISO standard. It didn't make it.


Noooxml.org later posted an update almost identical to ours and it's focused on Tim Bray's spilling of the beans.

The Canadian BRM delegate Tim Bray strongly criticised the ISO process while he doesn't blame the BRM failure on ISO but on the vendor that used the ECMA proxy.


Tim Bray, redirecting his readers to this page, was not too happy with the headlines, possibly ours included.

The Open Malaysia blogger posts another last update which concurs with what we find in the press.

The final day was absolute mayhem. We had to submit decisions on over 500 items which we hadn't have the time to review. All the important issues which have been worked on repeatedly happened to appear on this final day. So it was non-stop important matters. Unfortunately I was caught up in a change from Malaysia, so I must have missed deliberating on a few important matters.


Articles from the mainstream press agreed that the final day was somewhat of a mess. This BRM ought to be remembered as a disaster, as predciated all along [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. It leaves ECMA, Microsoft and even ISO quite seriously wounded. In another Web forum, someone has begun asking if the European Commission can take action against ECMA, not just Microsoft, which is already under antitrust investigation for its abuse of ISO.

ISO standard

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

OpenBSD Says That Even on Linux, Wayland Still Has a Number of Rough Edges (But IBM Wants to Make X Extinct)
IBM tries to impose unready software on users
Professor Eben Moglen on How Social Control Media Metabolises Humans and Constraints Freedom of Thought
Nothing of value would be lost if all these data-harvesting giants (profiling people) vanished overnight
 
Media Cannot Tell the Difference Between Microsoft and Iran
a platform with back doors
Links 28/11/2023: New Zealand's Big Tobacco Pivot and Google Mass-Deleting Accounts
Links for the day
Justice is Still the Main Goal
The skulduggery seems to implicate not only Microsoft
[Teaser] Next Week's Part in the Series About Anti-Free Software Militants
an effort to 'cancel' us and spy on us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Permacomputing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 27, 2023
IRC logs for Monday, November 27, 2023
When Microsoft Blocks Your Access to Free Software
"Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." [Chicago Sun-Times]
Techrights Statement on 'Cancel Culture' Going Out of Control
relates to a discussion we had in IRC last night
Stuff People Write About Linux
revisionist pieces
Links 28/11/2023: Rosy Crow 1.4.3 and Google Drive Data Loss
Links for the day
Links 27/11/2023: Australian Wants Tech Companies Under Grip
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Links 27/11/2023: Underwater Data Centres and Gemini, BSD Style!
Links for the day
[Meme] Leaning Towards the Big Corporate CoC
Or leaning to "the green" (money)
Software Freedom Conservancy Inc in 2022: Almost Half a Million Bucks for Three People Who Attack Richard Stallman and Defame Linus Torvalds
Follow the money
[Meme] Identity Theft and Forgery
Coming soon...
Microsoft Has Less Than 1,000 Mail (MX) Servers Left, It's Virtually Dead in That Area (0.19% of the Market)
Exim at 254,000 servers, Postfix at 150,774, Microsoft down to 824
The Web is Dying, Sites Must Evolve or Die Too
Nowadays when things become "Web-based" it sometimes means more hostile and less open than before
Still Growing, Still Getting Faster
Articles got considerably longer too (on average)
In India, the One Percent is Microsoft and Mozilla
India is where a lot of software innovations and development happen, so this kind of matters a lot
Feeding False Information Using Sockpuppet Accounts and Imposters
online militants try every trick in the book, even illegal stuff
What News Industry???
Marketing, spam, and chatbots
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 26, 2023
IRC logs for Sunday, November 26, 2023
The Software Freedom Law Center's Eben Moglen Explains That We Already Had Free Software Almost Everywhere Before (Half a Century Ago)
how code was shared in the 1970s and 80s
When the So-called 'Cancel Culture' Sees Everything in Free Software Through the Scopes of 'Sex' (Because It Cannot Argue on Technical or Legal Grounds)
Losing the plot
Links 26/11/2023: Debunking So-called G.A.I. and Sierra Leone's National Curfew
Links for the day
In the 'Phoronix Universe', Single Job Openings at AMD Are News, But Not ~400 Layoffs
like a classifieds section
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Microsoft Shamelessly Attacks Both Git and Projects in GitHub, Using Plagiarism in "AI" Clothing (Exit GitHub Now!)
A mountain of plagiarism
Microsoft Loses Market Share, Market Price of Windows Plunges to Almost Nothing (28 Dollars for Vista 10)
GNU/Linux has grown so potent that Microsoft now charges only dozens of bucks for Vista 10
Professor Eben Moglen Stands with Snowden While Moglen's 'Critics' (Microsofters) Keep Defaming Prominent Whistleblowers
Don't listen to Microsoft liars and weasels, who merely try to "replace" Moglen and override his message
"Check Point" + Microsoft Partnerships Extend to Anti-GNU/Linux FUD
a close partner/pusher of Microsoft tries to alter the narrative (change reality itself)
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, November 25, 2023
IRC logs for Saturday, November 25, 2023
Links 26/11/2023: Fresh Concerns Over North Korea Satellite Ambitions and South China Sea Patrols
Links for the day
Eben Moglen Explains the Connection Between FSF and SFLC (Both of Which Under Attack by Microsofters)
Old clip