Denmark Backs Up the OOXML Outrage
June 2nd, 2008 by Justin Ryan
The official appeals over OOXML's adoption as an international standard have been coming in left and right over the last week or so, leading up to last Thursday's deadline for appealing the adoption. Now, those appeals are being backed up by a letter of protest from Denmark, delivered directly to the ISO Vice President.
According to the ever-vigilant watchdogs at Groklaw, Denmark's Open Source Leverandørforeningen — the Association for Open Source Vendors — takes issue with the manner in which the OOXML approval was handled by Dansk Standard, and has lodged a formal protest with the ISO. In a letter sent to the head of Dansk Standard, who just happens to be ISO Vice President, OSL alleges a lack of consensus within Dansk Standard and a violation of it's own rules, as well as a violation of the ISO's directives — a charge common to all of the appeals and protests so far. They go on to assert that the fast-track process under which OOXML was considered was not only mismanaged, but rendered void by the ISO's failure to publish a final version of the standard by the end of March.
So far, South Africa and Brazil have lodged formal appeals with the ISO, while several other countries are battling it out against their national standards bodies via their national governments. Jacob Holmblad — the Dansk Standard Director/ISO Vice President — told Computerworld that he will be in Geneva next week, and expects to see the issue addressed while he is there. Something tells us, however, that it will be a long, long time before we finally see the OOXML debacle truly addressed.
__________________________
Justin Ryan is News Editor for LinuxJournal.com.
Submit a tip: Email IRC
Special Magazine Offer -- 2 Free Trial Issues!
Receive 2 free trial issues of Linux Journal as well as instant online access to current and past issues. There's NO RISK and NO OBLIGATION to buy. CLICK HERE for offer
Linux Journal: delivering readers the advice and inspiration they need to get the most out of their Linux systems since 1994.
Sorry, offer available in the US only. International orders, click here.
Subscribe now!
The Latest
Featured Videos
The X Window System is a magnificent platform for many uses, but using it to run an application over a slow network is nearly impossible. This is an introduction to NX, a technology that makes remote applications fly even over commodity internet.
Linux Journal Gadget Guy, Shawn Powers, reviews the Flip Video Ultra, a small portable video camera, and shows us how easy it is to edit the video with Kino.
Thanks to our sponsor: Silicon Mechanics
Recently Popular
From the Magazine
September 2008, #173
Feeling a bit like a Thermian? Never give up, never surrender! Someday, you could go from underdog to top dog. Just take a look at a few of the underdogs we highlight in this issue: Mutt, djbdns, Nginix, Gentoo, Xara and the program voted mostly likely to fail just a few years back—Firefox. If Firefox not radical enough for you, check out Chef Marcel's column for some more alternatives. Having trouble mapping your program data to your relational database? If so, Rueven Lerner shows you some tricks in his At The Forge column.
Need to run GUI applications on your server in the next state? In his Paranoid Penguin column, Mick Bauer shows you how to do it securely. Kyle Rankin keeps hacking and slashing and shows you a few split screen secrets you may not be familiar with. Finally, we all know what happens next February, but only Doc knows what happens afterward.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Newsvine
Technorati







Grammar police
On June 7th, 2008 Grammar Police (not verified) says:
Please, please, please...
"...and a violation of it's own rules..."
That error is *so* primary and annoying!
As a person who uses the English language to make a living, the author has no right to make that kind of mistake!
re
On June 8th, 2008 Justin Ryan says:
Hyperbole aside, I appreciate you pointing out the error; at 110 words per minute, I have a tendency to interchange the two.
Allow me to return the favor with a bit of sage advice I received very early on: "When pointing out the flaws of others, be sure not to leave your own exposed." To wit: "Leave one regular space — never a thin — on both sides of an ellipsis." Id est "Please, please, please ... " and " ... and a violation of it's own rules ... "
__________________________Justin Ryan is News Editor for LinuxJournal.com.
Submit a tip: Email IRC