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And now the appeals and reactions while OOXML sits on hold

By Pamela Jones et al.

Now that OOXML has been shoved through, (and if you are new to the story, here's a very complete and succinct history of what happened by James Hogarth on Tideway), we find it cut and bleeding on the other side. What about appeals of the travesty? There is an appeal process, although you may have noticed that Standards Norge's decision was objected to elsewhere. Perhaps folks have gotten the idea that ISO is a bit tilted at the moment. But here's what ISO says about appeals:

"Subject to there being no formal appeals from ISO/IEC national bodies in the next two months," the text of the standard will be published as ISO/IEC 29500, ISO said Wednesday.

Here's what it means if there are any such appeals:

If any national standards organizations do make appeals to JTC1, the Joint Technical Committee of ISO and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) that worked on the draft, then Microsoft may have to wait several months longer while the appeal is heard, according to Section 11 of the ISO/IEC JTC1 Directives.

That is if the appeals are unsuccessful. So Microsoft has to wait at least two more months for appeals to be filed and heard. So, that means to me that it will be more than two months, unless ISO just rubber stamps rejections of appeals as fast as they are filed. Which seems sadly possible.

Full post as published by Groklaw on April 02, 2008 (boomark / email).