NoOOXML

Australian XML expert Rick Jelliffe leaves the party line and recommends "No with comments". He also lays his business affiliations open. Rick Jellifewas one of the most notorious defenders of Microsoft's OOXML in Australia and developed a new standards doctrine of National Relevance as a replacement for ISO's Global Relevance policy.

Vote “No”? But aren’t I supposed to be Microsoft’s biggest fanboy? Well, what I mean is a conditional approval, not a rejection. There are some things that can be fixed and should be fixed, and an ISO Ballot Resolution Meeting is the best forum to make sure it happens.

Rick again defends his National Relevance doctrine:

In my comments I have attempted to … limit them to comments relevant to Australian industry. I definitely concentrate on getting the high-level issues right: the name of the standard, the organization of it, the conformance section, the over-abundance of non-normative text, the need to allow standard notations, and a future-proofing issue. My view is that getting these high-level issues right takes the sting out of the tail of many individual problems and edge-cases, and addresses many of the technical issues that people have raised piecemeal,.

…and explains his business relations:

One unexpected bonus was that MS give me three weeks work (plus some preparation), traveling around teaching seminars on Open XML and talking to standards people. …. But the stench of the four-paned beast is hard to wash off: I was in New Zealand on completely unrelated business and I was invited to speak at an Open Source meeting, but some of the attendees seemed to think I was there in MS’ employ.

In January Rick openly talked about an offer from Microsoft's Doug Mahugh to improve the Wikipedia article of Open XML that stirred much controversy in the Wikipedia community.

I'm a little confused. Rick states in his O'Reilly article "My recommendation on Office Open XML: "No with Comments"!" dated 28th August 2007, that

I have no idea how Standards Australia will vote, but I strongly urge them to vote “No with Comments”, specifically with my comments.

and in one of his replies to a comment;

On my travels, when I have been asked about how National Bodies should vote, I have always said that there is nothing wrong with a “No with Comments” vote, if the comments were doable. Indeed, this is exactly the vote that I have recommended to my national body, Standards Australia.

However, according to Lee Welburn's notes from the DIS29500/OOXML forum (see. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070809103920651), which was held only 3 weeks prior;

Rick later said that OOXML would become the "de-facto standard" anyhow, with or without ISO approval, and that ISO was threatened with irrelevance if it did not approve it.

Has Lee Welburn maybe misinterpreted Rick's statements at the DIS29500/OOXML forum or is there a clear change in Rick's stand on the proposed OOXML standard?