More ISO OOXML news ahead of today's deadline

THERE'S MORE news about countries' ISO votes on Microsoft's proposed OOXML document formats ahead of today's deadline for votes to be submitted.

Norway's national standards body Norge Standard has decided to vote "No, with Comments" due to the many as yet unresolved technical issues with OOXML, but it politely characterised the decision as a "conditional yes" vote, presumably to indicate that it's not opposed to Microsoft's proposal in principal, but only wants OOXML to work properly if it's eventually approved.

An English translation of Norge Standard's statement has been volunteered to Groklaw, the central paragraph of which reads:

"A lot of these weaknesses are founded in the attempt to unite the consideration of the old documents with the consideration to the documents of the future. This leads to a complexity that is not expedient with regards to openness and interoperability. Norway's comments and suggestions imply solutions that makes it possible to service both of these needs. The comments reflects the input we have received during the hearing period."

Denmark will also vote "No, with Comments" apparently. It's reported to have 64 pages of technical comments to hand on to ISO, so perhaps it's safe to say that Denmark's concerns about the readiness of the Vole's present OOXML specification are similar to Norway's.

Hungary had earlier voted Yes, but lately has reconsidered and is now reported to have been unable to reach a Yes or No decision, so Hungary will reportedly abstain.

And, Andy Updegrove writes in his ConsortiumInfo Standards Blog that eleven new countries have recently upgraded their ISO memberships to the Participating ("P") level that enables them to vote on proposed standards. The last two countries to suddenly decide that international standards are very important to them are... Malta and Cote-d'Ivoire.

He also reports that 25 new countries have joined the ISO "Document Descriptions and Processing Languages" Subcommittee 34 in just this past year. That subcommittee might well have a role in addressing changes to and approval of OOXML, as well as Microsoft's proposed "Portable XML" alternative to Adobe's PDF document format.

It certainly appears that Microsoft might be "encouraging" standards bodies in various countries to upgrade their ISO memberships to P level and/or join Subcommittee 34 in an effort to overwhelm any opposition to its plans. µ

L'INQS
Groklaw - Norway Decides: No with Comments...
Groklaw - Denmark Votes No with Comments...
ConsortiumInfo

See Also
Microsoft brings in rent-a-mob
Vole's smoking gun ISO OOXML memo surfaces
Microsoft admits bunging cash to partners
ISO boards face OOXML deadline pressure