"Microsoft earlier this year acquired Oslo-based Fast Search & Transfer ASA, calling it a "leading provider" of enterprise search solutions at the time. The acquisition was aimed at bolstering Microsoft’s enterprise search efforts and increasing its research and development presence in Europe."

I wonder what kind of threats ballmer made regarding this company - i.e. we have to bring the operations back to america and lay off all those people in oslo. 

I hope the truth comes out and these backroom business stop. 

I wonder how balmer sleeps at nite - oh I know they have the gates foundation and that makes everything right.

I also wonder how many people have ties to this company microsoft bought that have a say in the standard process.

this is the world trade organization at work - it is the global legal mafia that strong arms country into doing things the wrong way.

Now we know why Microsoft got away with it:

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/business/article2683800.ece

Marcel

Lars, appreciate the opposing viewpoint. The truth is that Microsoft is reaping the whirlwind, and if these people feel strongly enough to join a committee in order to oppose a single proposition, and the committee approves entry then the committee needs to accept the recommendations given.

The real danger here is actually the breakdown of the standardization process which would benefit Microsoft enormously. Is that the real goal of Microsoft? To undermine national standards bodies and not have to pay attention to them anymore?

This also indicates that a large proportion of the Norwegian standards recommendation body were unaware of their responsibilities. I'd say that this announcement was very generous of them, indicating a level of selflessness which would be desirable in the public service :-)

Keep up the good work Lars.

Your statements doesn't seem to be true. Steve Pepper for example has been working at ISO since 1995 and Haakon Wium Lie works at Opera so he can hardly be pro-open source..

Thanks to Lars Marius Garshol for clarifying this article with an alternative point of view. Although I do feel that the article in itself does raise a few questions, It is good to hear from both sides, and especially from an insider on the committee with a non-bias approach. Go raibh maith agat Lars.

If you've been a member since 2001, I'm sure you can highlight how long each of the undersigned has been involved in Standard Norge. Such as Steve Pepper's 13 years, for example.
Perhaps you should note what work they've done there, as well as a note on what other standardisation work they've done outside of Standard Norge. Like Håkon Wium Lie, and his work with HTML 5 and CSS, just to mention one.

I'll let you continue the rest of the list, so that you can show us all how it's only irrelevant troublemakers who were only interested in blocking OOXML that resigned...

Lars,

You call this a "press release" but don't actually claim anything said was wrong. Even assuming everything you say is true, you still don't contend the facts the the process was politicized, corrupted and completely botched, and that is the real issue that anyone who cares about standards in Norway should be worried about.
Releasing a public statement is not a problem and everyone involved is doing it. A government committee serving a commercial company against the public's interest is a big problem.

Do not tell lies, Steve Pepper for example has been the Chairman of the Norwegian ISO committee since 1995 and OOXML didn't exist.

Lars Marius Garshol are critical to persons who joined the OOXML comity just to wrote no. Unfortunately Lars omit that all the original comity members voted no to OOXML. He omit that Microsoft paid an external advisor to help that company to get a yes, teaming up with Microsoft partners. Many Microsoft partners showed up at the first meeting, not showing up at later meetings. I guess Lars didn't know this. He was not tending this meetings where Microsoft partners did not show. 

Standard Norway wrote that our comment had to be purely technical. Political view point in the 37 letters organised by Microsoft, did not have any merit in ISO they said. Unfortunately the administration in Standard Norway put more weight on the letters than all the technical comments which were submitted. Comments which was not resolved. 

The ISO process with other document standards was almost halted. Number of new members from different nation increased with more than 400 percent. Countries which newer before has showed interest in document standardisation. Unfortunately maney new members did not show interest for other document standards than the OOXML vote. A huge majority of those new national bodies voted yes to OOXML. 

I was a new member in the Standard Norway comity. I'm still a member and will continues my work, keeping ISO responsible for they actions when not living by their own rules. Huge improvements concerning the standardisation process is needed. 

The question now is how the ongoing EU investigation of the ISO OOXML-process will skale. Neelie Kroes from European Commissioner for Competition Policy says: 

"standardisation agreements should be based on the merits of the technologies involved. Allowing companies to sit around a table and agree technical developments for their industry is not something that the competition rules would usually allow. So when it is allowed we have to look carefully at how it is done."

Disclaimer: I write this on my own behalf. I'm still a member of Standard Norway comity for document standards, and I was present at the meetings. I'm glad that Lars are re-joining the comity after a period of absence.

This article is basically bullshit.

What's happened here is that lots of people joined the committee to oppose the standard, and while in the committee that's all they've done. Now that OOXML has been approved, they no longer have any reason to be in the committee, so they are leaving. That's hardly the committee imploding.

So let me say this again: not one of these people have done anything in this committee other than oppose OOXML being taken up as a standard. These people are not key people in the committee. They did try to get other people in the committee to join them, but nobody else wanted to leave in protest over this.

What they are, however, is media-savvy. They've worked on all kinds of IT-related advocacy (anti-DRM, pro-open source, etc etc), so they send out a press release stating that this is a big protest, and the committee is imploding etc etc. This article is basically that press release translated to English and prettied up to look like an article.

I guess at this point people will be wondering how I know this. I've been a member of this committee since 2001, and I know many of the people on that list personally. I voted against OOXML, because I thought it wasn't ready to become a standard. The trouble is: however much you may hate Microsoft, this article remains a piece of useless propaganda.

Down here in Brazil, ABNT (Brazilian technical norms association) officialized the ODF format as a mandatory governament standard as "ABNT NBR ISO/IEC 26300".

At least the IT section of the governament isn't corrupt ^^


Good luck dealing with Microsoft's OfficeBloatware for the rest of your lives.

Regulas is stretching things a bit by trying to tie OOXML to "the Democrats". This whole OOXML thing is Corporatism -- government of business, by business and for business with no notion of common good. We all know who the chief puerps are for that in the US and its nothing to do with our favorite non-Muslim (and definitely nothing to do with socialism).

You may have noticed that we're getting crap pushed on us because corporations have Market Power. Vista's a stinking PoS? No its not, your nose just needs an upgrade (reasonable credit terms available). We are constantly haranged to sign up for stuff that doesn't work as described, costs a lot more than the adverts say and generally is just sub-standard tat. We customers don't have Market Power -- we're just lambs to the slaughter.

Two words: Jack Abramoff

MANY MANY more Republiclowns were in his pocket than were Dems. And stop blaming a two-year Democrat controlled congress for the previous six years of Republican't control.

Why are the effin' bureaucrats allowed to ignore the voting results? Is everyone in Standard Norway a crottin' idiot?

I wonder if this will change anything?
Still, much respect to "the undersigned"

The ISO committee seems to operate like our idiot Democrats in the US. On bribes and stupidity. I guess there are bipartisan idiots and crooks everywhere. I hope Hussein gets in and when they country truly goes to hell and they can't blame Bush the idiot voters in the USA will wake up. Our school children will be brainwashed to sing the Obama song in the United Socialist of America, all hail the messiah our closet Muslim. But I guess we will have hope, LOL

"We end our work with Standard Norway because:

* The administration of Standard Norway trust 37 identical letters from Microsoft partners more than their own technical committee."

Even when you have to use 'doze for stuff and can't avoid it, count your fingers after shaking hands with MS. The way they behave scares me even more than the deficiencies with their platform- if you're going to get locked-in, would you want to get locked-in with them?