Rage and Fury

So the world voted against MS OOXML. (No more OpenXML, please. Masks have falled down now.)

The question that is worth asking now is  threefold.

• Should the ISO accept to continue the OOXML standardization, through the process called the Ballot Resolution Meeting, considering the  factual evidences of bribery, pressure, and falsification  that have been recorded worldwide? I believe this point is both morally and legally relevant.
• Will the ISO be able to manage the upcoming BRM? What I mean by this is wether the ISO/JTC-1/SC34 will be able to handle that may participants, while facing huge pressure from the OOXML camp and dealing with so many comments in one week?
• Given the number of unresolved comments, will the Ecma be able to tackle most of these in a fair, bona fide way and if not, will OOXML still be pushed out as an ISO standard with as an unfortunate outcome, the loss of credibility of the ISO?

These are at the moment, questions that are luring over the OOXML’s standardization process. More to come about this later.

What I wanted to point out here as well, is that for all the rage and fury I was able to witness from the side of Microsoft, it did not help.  Rage and Fury seldom help. See how the ancient greeks had conceptualized two gods of war: one was Ares, and the other one was none other than Athena. Ares was the rage and fury of war, but ended up in ridiculous postures all the times. Athena was the intelligence, the capacity to outwit its ennemy in war or elsewhere, and she would almost always win. That’s what we saw in the OOXML camp. My only wish now is to see all this change. I would like to see Microsoft stopping its practices and its absolute unwillingness to bring essential modifications to the Ecma standard (are such modifications possible, that’s another question), and effectively work under the guidance of the proposed modifications. I’m afraid that won’t be the case. I would like the BRM to be an opportunity for meaningful discussion around OOXML. But in one week, we simply won’t be able to tackle most of the issues.

Hopefully I’m wrong….