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The Freedom-from-OOXML Fight Continues
Early this week, we reported that South Africa became the first nation to appeal the ISO's approval of Microsoft Office Open XML. Now they have been joined by a second appellant, Brazil, and the second round of charges are even more heated than the first.
The OOXML approval process, which has been a nightmare for all involved, was due to end months ago, but has labored on due to continued twisting of ISO regulations. Indeed, the failure to publish a final version of the standard — which the ISO was required to have done over three months ago — is one of the reasons for Brazil's entry into the appeals game. Far more interesting, however, are the allegations regarding the Ballot Resolution Meeting, which by all accounts was an unconvincing shill of a "meeting". According to the letter of appeal, not only did the convenors re-arrange the rules in mid-stream, but actively prevented certain delegations — including the Brazilian one — from presenting their proposals. Additionally, they charge that many of the decisions were made under pressure from the convenors to make quick decisions in order to "give answers to journalists."
Though the window for filing appeals against the approval expired yesterday, observers are suggesting that further appeals could be on the way. One thing is certain: Barring another round of ignore-the-rules-and-catch-us-if-you-can, the ISO won't be getting out of this one without some serious spanin to do.
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Justin Ryan is a Contributing Editor for Linux Journal.
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Comments
please, enough microcrap
I liked LJ better when it stuck to Linux topics, and request that the non-Linux stuff get dropped. There is no shortage of coverage of Microsoft's many misdeeds; it adds no value to LJ to regurgitate what is covered better and in more detail elsewhere. Good Linux content is worth much more. thank you!
And again
As I said the last time an anonymous commenter criticized our coverage of Microsoft news, Breaking News is not just about Linux news. We cover any news which is of importance to and has an impact on the Linux and Open Source communities. We covered, and continue to cover, the Microsoft/Yahoo business because Yahoo is a major supporter of Open Source projects — a characteristic not shared by Microsoft — and a Microsoft takeover would have placed those projects in jeopardy, which is extremely relevant to both the Linux community and the greater Open Source community.
Likewise, we have covered and will continue to cover the OOXML scandal because OOXML is a competing standard to the Open Document Format, an Open Source format based on the format used by OpenOffice.org, an Open Source application. For those who have missed the last twenty years, Microsoft's strategy has been, and continues to be, to eliminate competition by introducing alternatives which they manipulate into market dominance thus becoming de-facto standards, which shuts out, and in many cases, shuts down the competing product. They did it to Corel, they did it to Netscape, they've done a very good job of it with Windows, and they'll do it to anything else they can get away with doing it to, including ODF. This is extremely relevant to both the Linux community and the greater Open Source community.
Breaking News covers a variety of news each day, including news directly related to Linux and Open Source projects as well as news from the wider technology arena that is relevant to Open Source and Linux interests. The title of each article generally gives an impression of what company or group is being discussed — readers are encouraged to choose those articles which are of interest to them.
Justin Ryan is a Contributing Editor for Linux Journal.
it's Linux Journal, not Slashdot
Where did you get the idea that your readership are in the dark about how horrid Microsoft is, and their current antics? I have breaking news for you- WE ALREADY KNOW. You don't do any actual reporting, or add anything new or in-depth - you're just rehashing articles published elsewhere. Like we really need Yet One More News Aggregator. There are thousands of them, and this is all news that is over-abundantly covered. Every column inch that you devote to Microsoft's dirty deeds and other non-Linux stories is that much less coverage of actual Linux news. I would rather see some real reporting on Linux companies and projects that are doing cool things, but being ignored because the same old guck that everyone else is doing is somehow more important.
I miss the Don Marti days- he kept a tight focus on the "Linux" part of Linux Journal. Good Linux news is hard to come by; to me that's a lot more valuable and useful.