Anand Vaidya wrote: > On Friday 21 March 2008 06:30:39 Anton wrote: > >> 'case nothing got changed: >> http://www.robweir.com/blog/2008/03/how-many-defects-remain-in-ooxml.html >> >> Singapore might say 'yes' again without any real reason why. >> > > Then, maybe, this time, we should not let the person who makes the decision > get away so easily, rather, make him/explain his rationale. [ if (s)he make > a bad decision.] We should write to the press, IDA, citizens can write to > their MPs etc. > > Note that the Technical Committee recommendation was to vote: NO > > Is there any plan of action from the LUGS committee? >
<lugs hat="on"> At the moment all I can say is that LUGS has contributed to the process - let's wait until after the 29th to talk about it... </lugs> I do encourage anyone with plans on writing to their MPs or IDA to present a moderate stance. DIS 29500 should be 'Disapproved' based on presenting tangible and (Singapore) relevant outstanding technical issues with the spec as it stands currently and flaws in the standardization process. My belief is that national bodies should be obliged to at minimum vote 'Abstain' unless they have truly reviewed and understood the implications of all of the technical issues (anything less smells of a bought political vote). I personally support anyone wishing to create a 'truly' open standard which can demonstrate interoperability, is free from any IP issues and has an 'open' custodian (such as Oasis with ODF) so that the global community can be involved in its refinement. If this could be achieved with a future version of the OOXML spec then I would support. It currently does not meet these basic requirements of a true open standard besides its present fundamental technical issues. I even believe that supporters of OOXML should vote 'Disapprove' at this present time due to the outstanding technical issues with the spec as they should not be wanting a sub-standard standard. Time needs to be taken by ECMA and Microsoft to get it right - they are fully entitled to pursue the standardization process - if they persist by properly addressing the global communities issues, it will eventually go through. Getting Microsoft to open up this information is actually a step forward - although their desire for an 'ISO' label on this currently sub-standard technical document is purely a political move unless they can demonstrate a true desire to 'properly' incorporate the global communities' concerns and follow a more appropriate community based standardisation process (which can then work on resolving technical issues, tightening up the spec for interoperability, harmonization with other standards and removal of support for proprietary undocumented binary blobs). Perhaps they should also release an open source reference implementation... :) Michael. _______________________________________________ Slugnet mailing list [email protected] http://www.lugs.org.sg/mailman/listinfo/slugnet
