The Fellowship / Fellows / ciaran / Ciarán's free software notes

Ciarán's free software notes

Ciaran O'Riordan's irregularly kept software freedom journal

Limit entries displayed: [ 2 ] [ 4 ] [ 6 ] [ 8 ]

National standards bodies to approve farcical OOXML

Unofficial counts indicate that OOXML will be approved by ISO because enough national standards bodies changed their vote. Andy Updegrove is keeping a running tally. I just got off the phone to the National Standards Authority of Ireland and, disappointingly, Ireland is among the countries that changed their vote from "disapprove" to "approve" (despite a letter from IFSO).

One of the big problems with OOXML is the danger of software patents. Microsoft published a promise not to sue people for implementing the OOXML specification, but the promise only covers fully-compliant implementations. Microsoft's own implementation is not fully compliant, so if you write your software to interoperate or be compatible with Microsoft's software, you will not be protected by their patent promise. This was pointed out and explained by FSF Latin America recently.

On the technical side, the problems pointed out by FSFE's previous documents still stand:

Allegations of voting irregularities are rife among European standards bodies. More information can be found on Groklaw and on Nooxml.org.

-- 
Ciarán O'Riordan,
Support free software: Join FSFE's Fellowship

Voting today on OOXML

It's now one month since the Geneva Ballot Resolution Meeting. There were complaints about the procedure, and these were refuted by the Convener Alex Brown, but I think it's more important to focus on the substance. By Rob Weir's count, only about 1.5% of problems were fixed at the Geneva meeting.

India subbmitted it's "disapprove" vote last Friday, and I just saw that South Africa has just submitted their "disapprove" vote too. On the other hand, when I checked yesterday, it was looking like the United Kingdom might vote "approve".

In Ireland, a letter from Irish Free Software Organisation called on relevant Irish body to maintain it's "disapprove" vote. No confirmation yet on that.

Meanwhile, the procedure for how to change your vote has been made more complicated, so I hope the national bodies are careful in their submissions. It seems Cuba's "disapprove" vote has already been mis-counted.

And remember, there's still time to phone your national standards body and remind them to submit their "disapprove" vote.

UPDATE: I phone the national standards body of Ireland and was told they won't publish their vote until the deadline - which is midnight Saturday. So it is possible that decisions are being made right up to the last minute, so it *is* worth contacting your national standards body. Also, Groklaw is following this with a few stories and updates to older stories.


[ RSS Feed ]

Right menu

Fellow Events

<< Marzo 2008 >>
Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
  1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31 
Selected Day Today


FSFE Card


DRM.info
© FSFE