| Fallout from Office Open XML vote continues |
Oct. 19, 2007
The fallout from the events leading up to the recent vote on whether or not to approve Microsoft's Office Open XML documents format as an ISO standard continues unabated, more than a month after the software maker conceded it had lost that vote.
Work in SC 34, the committee within the ISO/IEC's Joint Technical Committee 1 that addresses document formats and which has a constant stream of standards under active consideration and balloting, has come to a complete halt.
The work stoppage is being attributed to the fact that, after the increase in voting members, known as P members, of SC 34 in the run-up to the ballot on Microsoft's Office OOXML (Open Office XML) submission to the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission, those newly minted voting members have not participated in any of the SC 34 member votes since the OOXML vote.
"One of the more egregious behaviors observed in the recent vote on OOXML was the sudden and last-minute surge to join not only various National Bodies just before they voted on OOXML, but also the relevant committee of ISO/IEC for the same purpose," Andy Updegrove, a partner with Boston law firm Gesmer Updegrove LLP, said in a post on his Standards blog.
An increasing number of countries joined SC 34 at the Observer (O) level during the voting period and then, in the final weeks and days before the voting closed, many of these new members as well as many longer-term members suddenly upgraded their status to Principal (P) membership, thereby gaining greater influence in the final vote under the complex rules under which the committee operates, he said.
To continue reading this article by Peter Galli at eWEEK.com, go here.
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