Brian Jones: Office Extensibility

I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.

Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.

Maybe I spoke too soon.  I've just seen a report that Venezuela a "P" member, has switched from "Yes" to "No".

It's not over yet!

Cheers,

- Mike

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2008032913190768

Are you happy to work for such companies ?

Hi Brian,

It is conclusive that Norway did not decide "that they now feel Open XML is ready to be an ISO standard". There was a huge negative majority, then through a breathtaking piece of procedural gymnastics, Standards Norway decided to approve: not on technical grounds, but so that they could "be within the further development of the standard"... whatever that means.

I trust that you'll edit your blog post regarding Norway?

Hi Brian,

FWIW, it's Håkon Wium Lie that I believe. He's in my personal list of highly-credible people.

Standards Norway always said that this was not about who could mobilise the most support. It was about the technical argument and Norway's national interest.

Hakon's comments are disgraceful and he has let himself down IMHO. I think he will regret them when he has cooled down. To turn this into an argumentum ad hominem is poor form.

Hakon's technical arguments have simply been shallow and wrong, and are a matter of record.

I understand that quotes attributed to Steve Pepper are actually from Hakon.

I believe Steve withdrew himself from the discussion because he'd already made his mind up. He's entitled to do that, as too are others.

Rob I don't know how you compile your list, but I'd rank Standards Norway above Hakon based on conduct and grasp of the facts.

There is nothing strange about what happen in Norway, though the decision of course was controversial.

In Norway, Standard Norge (SN) makes the decision, there is no vote. There is a commitee, SN K/185, that gives advice to SN. SN listens to the arguments from both sides represented in the committee and makes their decision based on the arugments presented. SN has decided that the arguments for OOXML weighs more than the arguments against OOXML and has based their decision on that. That is according to the rules here in Norway. No reason to accuse SN for using "procedural gymnastics".

Quote Fredrik: "In Norway, Standard Norge (SN) makes the decision, there is no vote."

So then, who in person at SN made the decision?

Of course, if only two or three people make the decision, one doesn't call that a vote anymore.

This might perfectly be according to the rules, but don't excpect all folks to happily accept, or appreciate these answers.

@Stephen:

Steve Pepper did not withdraw from the discussion. He withdrew from the Norwegian delegation to the BRM but participated in the SN K/185 committee meeting.

Norwegian newspapers are quoting the opponents of OOXML (Haakon Wium Lie, Steve Pepper et al) and they are, of course, not happy about the desicion SN made. The "scandal" in their eyes is that SN did not make a desicion based on *their* arguments but on the arguments of the supporters of OOXML standardization.

There was a clear majority against OOXML in SN K/185 but as said earlier, SN K/185 only gives advice to SN. They make their decision based on the arguments from both sides.

This is no surprise to anyone, not even Wium Lie or Steve Pepper.

Hi Fredrik,

"... this was not about who could mobilise the most support" is a great way to dismiss an overwhelming majority in opposition to OOXML! Up to 21 out of 23 representatives voting the way they'd been "mobilised to" by someone else? And here was me thinking that Norwegians were capable of independent thought...

Thanks for your explanation of the process, I was already aware that there would be an executive decision from Standards Norway unless there was a unanimous agreement in SN K/185 - see http://blogs.freecode.no/isene/?p=3.

However, I disagree with your statement that "SN K/185 only gives advice to SN". See http://www.standard.no/imaker.exe?id=18504, "The Norwegian committee SN/K 185 has a meeting on March 28th and will discuss the outcome of the BRM and what will become the final Norwegian vote".

When the directly relevant committee votes overwhelmingly one way but the executive decision is the other, then I call gymnastics.

In any case, my original comment was at Brian who said "Norway ... now feel Open XML is ready to be an ISO standard". A more accurate summary would be "A large majority of Norwegian representatives rejected OOXML, but the SN executive decided to accept it on the basis of wanting to be involved in future work on the standard".

@Stephen, nksingh

I see that you don't share my high opinion of Håkon Wium Lie! Fair enough :-)

nksingh, your version of events is different to how I see them (again). I fear that we'll never agree to anything. But if you're thinking of specific incidents from history, I prefer to remember Wium Lie as the guy that made his browser go "Bork Bork Bork" when MSN targetted Opera with malformed pages (http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2003/02/14/)!

@Rob Brown:

If MSN was targetting Opera with bad data through malicious intent, rather than simple oversight or an honest mistake, then I agree with you that such an action is unethical and I would not support it.  I hope those folks have fixed whatever problem was happening by now, and if not Opera would be well within my approval if it complained to the EU about Microsoft's unfair web portal practices (which has little to do with press reports of their actual complaint and proposed remedies).  

My heartiest congratulations to all who contributed in making Open XML a winner in thse countries. :)

I hope we'll win.

The one SHOCKING piece that came to my attention was that IBM India had written mails to its partners asking them to "influence" our national bodies. The grip of establishments like IBM is clear by the assertions made in the email.

The abstract from the letter can be found here:

http://www.askvg.com/should-india-be-held-hostage-to-unilateral-views-on-open-xml

What is even more appalling is the brazenness with which IBM is assuming that they are the ones voting and not the national body of India -BIS for this standard!

Rob: IIRC, the Opera/MSN kerfuffle was because MSN had changed its HTML to work around an Opera bug.

Opera went and fixed its bug and all of a sudden, the MSN pages that used to work well in Opera started failing.

The MSN people had gone out of their way to ensure that their site looked good in Opera, and it worked great until Opera changed.  Once that change was pointed out, the MSN folks updated their site to remove the workaround.

Formal protest regarding the Norwegian vote on ISO/IEC DIS 29500

I am writing to you in my capacity as Chairman (of 13 years standing) of the Norwegian mirror committee to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34. I wish to inform you of serious irregularities in connection with the Norwegian vote on ISO/IEC DIS 29500 (Office Open XML) and to lodge a formal protest.

You will have been notified that Norway voted to approve OOXML in this ballot. This decision does not reflect the view of the vast majority of the Norwegian committee, 80% of which was against changing Norway’s vote from No with comments to Yes.

Because of this irregularity, a call has been made for an investigation by the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry with a view to changing the vote.

I hereby request that the Norwegian decision be suspended pending the results of this investigation.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Pepper

Chairman, SN/K185 (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34 mirror committee)

(sign.)

this is the only way that your "standard" can pass, and I mean *the only way*.

Groklaw has English translation of Standards Norway's press release, and the levels of self-justification and self-contradiction are quite simply astonishing.  Are there no laws in Norway against self-crimination?

Standards Norway admits that the majority of the committee wanted a "No" vote:

"It is correct that there was a majority of the members in the committee that considered the comments not taken into consideration to a sufficient degree"

But then say that despite the committee majority against OOXML, they had to also consider public opinion:

"the committee therefore focused on the treatment of the received comments [from the public]. It is also so in ISO rules that if the voting results in the standard not being accepted, the received comments shall be worked on, with the intention of having them incorporated into the standard. Then the members can decide if they want to change their "no" to a "yes", and this was exactly what happened for OOXML"

So far, so good.  I mean, public opinion is important, yes?  Except, that in the same press release, they also say this:

"When Standard Norway sent the proposal to the national hearing, it received in all 47 statements, whereof 38 replied yes to the suggestion and 9 replied no. As known most of the yes suggestions had identical wording and was initiated by a campaign from Microsoft Norway."

So, Microsoft has been blatantly astro-turfing in Norway, big time.  (Bigger than anybody else did, anyway).  But having recognised that these "yes" comments were mostly astro-turfed, the chairmen decides that they have to be taken into account anyway?  Sufficiently so to overall the committee vote?  What kind of logic is this?  And if the "anti-OOXML brigade" *had* run an astro-turfing campaign in Norway, would that have guaranteed a "No" vote?  (Assuming that said astro-turfing was more extensive than Microsoft's?)

Cheers,

- Mike

@Brian,

>> you don't see me accusing them of anything.

>> I would suggest the same to you

I make no accusations.  I merely ask questions (you see all the question marks at the end of my sentences?).  There's a difference.

>> I've been extremely impressed with the

>> standards bodies I've met, and I would

>> give them the benefit of the doubt when

>> it comes to how they reached whatever

>> conclusion they did.

For you personally, Brian, I've no doubt of the truth of this.  But Microsoft as a company certainly has not given "benefit of the doubt" where decisions have gone against them.  The standards committee chairwoman in India can testify to that.

Cheers,

- Mike