News

This is different. There is a report by Borys Musielak of PolishLinux.org that Poland met to vote on OOXML on Thursday. Of 45 members of the committee eligible to vote, 24 showed up to vote, and it split almost down the middle, with 12 for, 10 against and 2 abstaining. This is extraordinary, since Poland voted yes in September, despite the technical committee being opposed. I call that progress.

But here is the worrying part: when it became clear that there was no consensus, and it was not going to be a Yes vote, the chairman
“decided to allow the missing members to vote by e-mail during the next 10 days”.

What to make of a process that keeps reinventing itself as it goes along?

Will it be possible to meet the deadline to inform the proper individuals by March 29 now? That is a firm deadline, I think, and while I wrote to Alex Brown, Maho Takahashi, Martine Gaillen and Keith Brannon, the last three at ISO.org, back on March 19th, asking for clarification about the rules, I have yet to hear back from any of them. Given the seriousness of the matter, here are more details about the meeting, as well as the text of my email, as part of Groklaw’s public record of the OOXML saga.