Standards Australia has defended it's decision to abstain from the ISO (International Organisation for Standardization) and IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) ballot to approve Microsoft's Office Open XML format as an international standard, saying Australia still has a chance to approve or disapprove the vote.

"France has voted against adoption of Microsoft Corp.'s document format Office Open XML as an international standard, while Australia has decided to abstain..."

Isn't it the job of those proposing a standard to make their case? If consensus cannot be reached, surely the only responsible decision to to vote against the proposal.

With the countdown on to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) ballot on OOXML, Australia and New Zealand's representatives are keeping their cards close to their chests on which way they will vote.

The Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA) has called on African governments and standards bodies to abstain in the balloting, due to close Saturday, on whether a file format based on Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) should be an international standard.

Next month, national standards bodies will vote for the second time on whether to adopt the Office Open XML (OOXML) document format as an international standard.

"As you will recall, V1, the INCITS Technical Committee that addresses document format standards, was unable to reach consensus on a recommended US vote to either approve or reject DIS 29500, the draft ISO/IEC standard that describes Microsoft's OOXML formats. As expected, Microsoft is seeking to gain a US vote in favor of OOXML..."

The Open Source Industry of Australia (OSIA) has formally contacted Standards Australia, requesting that Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) format not be endorsed by the body as an ISO standard.

I'm hearing now that Kenya has changed its vote from Yes to Abstain! Kenya is a P-Member. There's also an unconfirmed report that the committee in Denmark has asked Denmark Standards to vote No, after the considerable pressure to change the vote to yes reportedly failed.