Bonum Certa Men Certa

Brazil Spills the Beans on OOXML, BRM; India's Story Told Again

Last minute brings truth

Avi Alkalay, the Open Standards, Open Source and Linux advisor at IBM Brazil, has just posted the following pointer:

Finally Jomar, one of the brazilian delegate that went to OOXML’s BRM in Geneva has started to tell all the dirty little details of what really happened in that meeting and the surreal modus operandi of how 120 people can discuss 1027 issues in 5 days. Have fun in english and portuguese.

Oh, and talking about dirty playing, check the domain www.DocumentFreedomDay.com but remember that the original one is www.DocumentFreedom.org. The first one really deserves a DDoS attack.


Alkalay refers to this incident. Revolting indeed.

The above post, together with a pointer from our reader, makes it the perfect timing to present the truth about the broken BRM. Here is an excerpt:

During the debates, some discussions had expanded and covered more than one ECMA’s responses (or sometimes different responses dealt with related themes), and this explains the high degree of items discussed (or as I prefer to call “touched”) during the BRM (withdrawn from this document, the final document of BRM): 189 responses or 18.4% of the total (is that the amount of discussed items expected on an International Evaluation of a so important theme specification? Imagine if your country’s constitution was write using that method, with only 18% of it’s laws discussed).


More information about the BRM you will find in [1, 2, 3], but earlier reports were not quite as detailed.

Meanwhile, ITWire writes about the disturbing situation in various places including India. It explains the reason for some "Yes" votes:

Wipro, Infosys and TCS are the three big companies that accept business process outsourcing from the American and other markets, hence their vote for Microsoft is not a surprise at all. These are companies that maintain the status quo, conservative to the core and willing to do the bidding of the piper. Nasscom represents the interests of the bigger IT companies and it probably had no choice but to fall in line.


Other recent posts about OOXML in India:



Add to this the fact that approving OOXML as an ISO standard could be a violation of anti-trust laws. ISO needs to halt this process immediately of be renamed "Goodb-I S Oh-Oh".

Recent Techrights' Posts

LLM Hype is Already Descending, Apple Stopped Investing in the Money Furnace
Wall Street is a perverse force in the technology market, incentivising the most harmful (and mostly useless) things
Change Control and What Will Come After Git (If That's Still Possible at All)
It would be wrong to believe (at least misguided) Git can be a "standard" skill 30 or 50 years from now.
On the Web, HTTPS Has Actually Become a Privacy Problem (Broadcasting Usage/Access to the All-Seeing CA Eye). Geminispace Doesn't Have This Problem.
Down to 23 capsules: the rapid demise of Certificate Authority (CA) Let's Encrypt in Geminispace
Links 07/10/2024: Politics, Education, Wars, Financial Crunch
Links for the day
Munich Was Having Real Difficulties Moving From GNU/Linux to Windows
How many are still using GNU/Linux?
Links 07/10/2024:China’s 'Deflation' (Price Decreases), Brazil Still Bars Twitter ("X")
Links for the day
Links 07/10/2024: "Creative Computing" Turns 50, Long War in Middle East Turns 1
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/10/2024: Luck and Dishonesty, Gaming Getting Worse
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 06, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, October 06, 2024
EPO: We Give Recognition to Frauds
Good to see some frank recognition right there in the EPO's own Web site
Even Though We Don't Focus on statCounter for Now (Not Our Top Priority) GNU/Linux Reaches New Highs This Month:
We caught GNU/Linux at 4.86% before, but only temporarily
Links 06/10/2024: Ham Radio for Recovery, Health Problems Worldwide
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/10/2024: Special Interest Galore and Religion
Links for the day
Keeping Control Out of Dictators' Hands
When people are just "numbers"...
Links 06/10/2024: Misinformation Growing on the Web, "Hey Hi" Hype Waning for Lack of RoI
Links for the day
[Meme] Years Have Passed and EPO Management Still Isn't Obeying a Ruling From a Court Regarding Communications Between Staff
Representatives talking to their staff is "privacy violation"?
Presentations of the Staff Union of the European Patent Office in Its Headquarters Tomorrow After Work
Annual General Meeting and reports
Gemini Links 06/10/2024: SSH Keys and Hobby Game Development
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 05, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, October 05, 2024
[Meme] How to Keep Granting Hundreds of Thousands of Fake Patents (Without Upsetting Anybody in Politics and Media)
This is very Kremlin-like
EPO Examiners to Adopt Resolution Condemning EPO Management for Breaking the Law in Order to Grant Many Illegal Software Patents
Europe's second-largest institution (EPO) is a law-breaking institution hiding behind the veil of "law"
[Meme] Sup, Nazi?
"Come back, one year"
Calling "Nazi" and "Right Wing" Everyone Who Does Not Agree With You (Even Leftists Whose Views on Some Issues Slightly Differ From Yours)
Oil money has become exceptionally notorious for takeover of online platforms and institutions/NGOs (using them to incite society inwards, not upwards)
EFF Losing the Plot
Like the Linux Foundation and OSI, the EFF has succumbed to corporate influence and is derailing itself (along with its original mission)
Links 05/10/2024: Patents Being Squashed, EFF Insists on Children's Access to Porn
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/10/2024: Multitudinous Agreeable Futures and Misfin Mail
Links for the day
EFF Celebrates Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office as "Digital Inclusion", Mocks GNU/Linux-Based ChromeOS
Yet another example/evidence that EFF has become a rotten pile of junk
Links 05/10/2024: Amazon Culling 14,000 Managers, About 160 People Resign From Automattic
Links for the day
Microsoft Moles in Nerdearla, Openwashing and Whitewashing Microsoft With Its Latest Ponzi Scheme and Storytelling
Also GPL violations en masse
The Danger of Outsourcing Your Platform to Social Control Media and Getting "Information" There
Stella is probably not aware of what she has just done
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 04, 2024
IRC logs for Friday, October 04, 2024
Links 05/10/2024: Shift to ARM, Microsoft XBox Crisis
Links for the day