Arve Bersvendsen

Hey, ISO, April Fools was *yesterday*

Words fail me when ISO approves OOXML

Hereafter, I shall refuse to refer to you as a standards body. Accepting an ill-thought-out set of documentation for Microsoft quirky and proprietary technology in a process that has been widely regarded as suspicious with allegations of corruption, co-opting and buying of votes is a cruel and horrible joke. Thank you so much for nothing.

Here’s an interesting factoid for you (via):

Norway ended up “supporting” OOXML, while 80% of the members of The SN/K 185 subcomittee of Standards Norway were opposed to the proposal.

There has been allegations of “comittee-stuffing” to get a particular view through, so it’s rather interesting to see what the original members of the comittee has to say on the matter (those who were members of SN/K 185 prior to the OOXML process started). For reference, these members were:

• Lars Marius Garshol
• Erlend Øverby
• Thomas Flemming
• Keld Simonsen
• Steve Pepper (chairman of SN/K 185)

And, they have all signed an open letter to Standards Norway (the letter is in Norwegian — I’ll try to find an English translation) , opposing OOXML as an ISO standard.

Again, ISO, thanks for exactly nothing.