NoOOXML

Alan Bryden, Secretary-General of ISO, has sent a recommendation to all countries members of the TMB (Technical Management Board) asking them to throw away the 4 appeals tabled by South Africa, Brazil, Venezuela and India. He does not however justify its position in regard of the JTC1 directives.

Opendocument Format saves our trees. ISO Open XML has been getting more and more fat.

Neelie Kroes, Antitrust Commissioner, mentioned earlier in June about the standards bodies, not targeting ISO in particular: "If they need help in tightening up their rules to avoid being manipulated by narrow commercial interests, or to design the right ex ante rules, then they have my support."

The next ISO SC34 meeting in London will discuss OOXML (non-)future. The meeting will be hosted by the British Library, an ECMA member, supporter of OOXML and advised by Alex Brown.

If you don't trust the OSP (Open Specification Promise), ask for a patent licence at Microsoft. "If you would prefer a written license, or if the formats are not covered by the OSP, patent licenses are available by contacting iplg@microsoft.com" they say on their website.

Richard Stallman said in an interview that Microsoft corrupted many members of ISO.

Microsoft admits they were a bit clueless about the standardisation process, but they do not regret having stuffed the committees at the same time.

While we prepare the domino project for the defense of open standards Stuart McKee announces the Stalingrad of OOXML.

Platform strategist says therefore they "think the large majority of participants in this [ISO OOXML] process believe it accomplished what it was supposed to do"

Who is to be blamed for the OOXML delay?

OASIS has created a new discussion list for members and non-members to explore a proposal to form an ODF Implementation, Interoperability and Conformance (IIC) Technical Committee.

Microsoft communicated Neelam Dhawan would leave Microsoft India voluntarily but she denies that. Dhawan was involved in the Indian OOXML turmoil. A few days ago India filed an ISO complaint against OOXML standardisation.

Venezuela has joined South Africa, India and Brazil to oppose OOXML ISO adoption.

How many complaints are for real? The South African one for sure. But what about the others? Your pleas are at ISO's mercy.

Brazil is the second country to appeal against OOXML. Here is the letter.

No need for the book digitalization project at the British Library anymore.

Do you remember that Mr Jan Van den Beld was rewriting the rules of the Fast Track just for one customer and its OOXML standardisation project? Now there is a special (secret) working group inside ISO rewriting those rules again.

The South African Standards Body SABS have lodged an appeal against the awful fast-track process of DIS29500, or Microsoft Office OpenXML. Please call your Standards Body and ask them to support this complain. You have only 7 days because the deadline is 30 May, 2 months after the ISO vote.

In a recent press release, Microsoft announced it will support ODF natively in the next service pack for Office 2007. Amazing, isn't it?

The New York State group that was told to investigate longterm storage needs in government and ODF/OOXML has produced a report. The most significant finding is that having more than one format doesn't provide increased choice. It confuses and increases complexity and costs instead. It would be better to use single, standardized formats to increase efficiency and interoperability.