According to the
FFII press release:
ISO members failed to disapprove the Open XML format. Microsoft
has compromised the International Standards Organisation (ISO)
during the rush to get a stamp for their Office OpenXML (OOXML),
using unfair practices such as committee stuffing in several
countries and political interventions of ministers in the
standardization process. – –
The OOXML standard proposal, backed strongly by Microsoft,
was originally rejected in an earlier 2
September 2007 vote, but accepted in the recent 2 April 2008
vote.
The vote consists of two parts, both of which must be passed.
The differences in the voting behavior between the 2007 and 2008
votes shows the effect of the lobbying efforts by the
Microsoft.
In the first part of the vote, the “Approval”
and “Disapproval” votes of the P Members (including Secretariat, or
the United States) are counted. At least 66.66% of the P Members
must approve the standard. In 2008, 24 of 32 (75%) voted for
approval.
Most approval votes were gained from the previously disapproving
countries.
| P member votes | 2008 vote | Total | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Approval | Disapproval | Abstention | |||
| 2007 vote | Approval | 14 | 1 | 2 | 17 |
| Disapproval | 7 | 7 | 1 | 15 | |
| Abstention | 3 | 0 | 6 | 9 | |
| Total | 24 | 8 | 9 | ||
In the second part of the vote, the fraction of
“Disapproval” votes (ignoring abstentions) can be at
most 25% for all national bodies (not just ISO members).
In 2008, 10 countries out of 71 (14%) voted for
disapproval.
About half of the previously disapproved and abstained countries
changed there vote to approval.
| All votes | 2008 vote | Total | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Approval | Disapproval | Abstention | |||
| 2007 vote | Approval | 45 | 2 | 4 | 51 |
| Disapproval | 9 | 8 | 1 | 18 | |
| Abstention | 7 | 0 | 11 | 18 | |
| Total | 61 | 10 | 16 | ||
In the 2008 vote there was no significant correlation between
the voting behaviour and the perceived corruption level of
the voting country, unlike in 2007, when the corrupt countries
were more likely to vote for approval. [Actually, in the
recent vote only Canada
and New Zealand of the low corruption countries (as defined
by Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index being
at least 6) voted for disapproval. The majority of disapproval
votes came from countries with relatively high levels of
perveived corruption (Venezuela, Ecuador, Iran, Brazil, China and
India have a below-median CPI; also Cuba and South Africa voted for disapproval).]
There will be a two-month
period to allow national bodies to lodge any formal appeals before
the standard proceeds to official publication. The story may not
be over just yet:
ISO approval: A good process gone bad (Red Hat Magazine 24
March 2008)- Challenges coming to ISO Open XML vote? (CNET News.com 2 April 2008)
- And now the appeals and reactions while OOXML sits on hold (Groklaw 2 April 2008)
Countries protest OOXML result (Australian IT 2 April
2008)
OOXML passed (officially now), but it’s not over yet (Truth
Happens 2 April 2008)- Regarding OOXML
and the need for change (Bob Sutor 2 April 2008) - Isoja ongelmia Microsoftin ISO-standardiehdotuksessa (Effi 26
March 2008) [in Finnish] - EU epäilee
Microsoftin väärinkäyttäneen valtaansa ooxml-standardoinnissa
(Tietoviikko 3 April 2008) [in Finnish]
Material
- The voting data in CSV format (can
be accessed with most spreadsheet etc. software) - Description of the voting
data - R code used to analyze the data
This document is Public
Domain.