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Expect a 2nd Official Complaint -- Against UK's OOXML Vote

By Pamela Jones et al.

Adding to the first official protest, against Norway's sudden Yes vote on OOXML, now we have news from ChannelRegister that there will be a second complaint filed, this one about the UK's sudden about-face:

The delay on making any official announcement suggests the ISO is taking a cautious approach before telling Microsoft it can pop open the bubbly. Meanwhile, the Open Source Consortium (OSC) has bemoaned the British Standards Institute's (BSI) own apparent change of heart on OOXML. Last week the BSI adjusted its stance on Microsoft's somewhat controversial file format.

OSC president Mark Taylor said: "Once the BSI finally own up to what they've done, we will be lodging a formal complaint in the UK, as will many others.

The ISO has yet to put out an official announcement, but that article leaks the "news" that OOXML has "passed" and Microsoft, which yesterday said it wouldn't saying anything until OSI did "out of respect for the standards process" today put out a confirmation statement ("there is overwhelming support for OOXML") anyway. I wouldn't say overwhelming support, exactly. Some would call it overwhelmingly appalling. Michael Leenaars of OpenDoc Society says "This must be one of the worst results ever for a standard to pass within ISO/JTC1 in years."

Update 2: ECMA decided not to wait for the ISO official announcement either. That made it possible to announce on April Fool's Day. Perfection. Martin LaMonica details all the leaks.

Oh, and the man who more than anyone seems to have made it happen would prefer that we not hate him for it. Or I think that's what his list is saying. Here's the question I'd like to ask Patrick Durusau: did Microsoft make any threats that unless you supported OOXML they'd fight against the next version of ODF but that if you'd scratch their back, they'd scratch yours? If so, you should tell someone. Like the EU Commission, for instance.

His is not the only effort to paper over the mess. Here's Standards Norway's statement, posted in English by a Microsoft person, which is no doubt very busy indeed today with damage control. It's now available also here.

Full post as published by Groklaw on April 01, 2008 (boomark / email).