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OOXML Vote: Irregularities in Germany and Croatia and a Call for an Investigation of Norway

By Pamela Jones et al.

If Microsoft gets this OOXML format "approved", it will be by irregularities in the voting, it seems. Here's more on what happened in Germany and a report on what is being called a scandal in Norway. And another odd process in Croatia.

If you can read German, here's the story on what happened there. For those who can't, it says that when they went to vote, they were not allowed to vote disapprove, so the choice was to approve or to abstain. It was a tie, 6:6, which means no consensus. So under the rules I've read, that would have meant that they should send a vote of Abstain.

But surprise, surprise!! A solution helpful to Microsoft: the representative from DIN decided to cast a vote, which isn't the process. DIN isn't supposed to vote, because it's supposed to advise. But this, they rationalized, was a vote not about whether to accept OOXML on the basis of *technical* issues, but whether to accept the approval suggestion of the technical committee. So DIN voted to accept DIN's suggestion. Hence Germany ends up in the Approve column. I know. No doubt there will be objections filed.

Norway's at least as bad. Here's an article from Norway, and the translation of the title of the article is, "Scandal in Standards Norway. I didn't write that headline. They did. And here's why. The article says there should be an investigation of the irregularities there, because while there were only two votes to approve, from Microsoft and a business partner, Statoilhydro, and all the others voted no, 21 votes, they approved anyway. Here's how they shuffled the deck in Norway. So they put everyone out of the room, and Standards Norway, three people were left in the room, and they usurped the decision and made it their business to decide to approve anyway.

Unbelievable. If it was happening in only one country, you might think it was local difficulties. But when it happens in place after place, one can only conclude that Microsoft, although outnumbered in a fair vote, has sufficient clout behind the scenes to shove this format into the world's mouth and hold its mouth closed by force until the world is compelled to swallow. Remember that Microsoft memo that surfaced in the Comes v. Microsoft litigation? The one about how to stack a panel discussion at conferences so it would be favorable to Microsoft? The key was to get to be the moderator.

One thing is certain. Unless ISO steps up and fixes this mess, it will lose the world's respect, and rightly so. Either the rules mean something, or they don't, but if they don't standards don't mean anything either.

Full post as published by Groklaw on March 29, 2008 (boomark / email).