I think I see a way we could be really helpful to the ISO folks having to sort through all the 10,000 comments the various countries filed with their votes on MS OOXML.

Is it time to standardize ISO? In light of the recent events relating to the standardization process of EOOXML, it seems appropriate to look into possible standardization of the process itself.

While many of us have been preoccupied with the OOXML vote, the rest of the world has naturally been continuing to go about its business. One piece of business that took an interesting turn in the last few days is a ruling by a Federal Appellate Court in the United States that breaks new ground in protecting the integrity of the standard setting system.

Although the ISO process gives Malta the same voice as China, the reality is that national support for Microsoft formats is critical to the future of the MS-Office lock-in. We look at the figures behind the NO votes...

"Microsoft is trying to push new file formats that are using ZIP and XML. Are those new file formats any good for Office developers ? In other words, should anyone feel safe to make direct access to file parts, and start getting free of running instances of Microsoft Office and its COM object model, usually through VBA ?"

Jason Matusow claims that "The next 6 months will be where the rubber really meets the road for the work on Open XML." This is nonsense. The work should have been done back in Ecma, before submission to ISO. Fast Track is not a standards development process.

The International Organization for Standardization has voted against a proposal to fast-track Microsoft's Office Open XML format as an international standard. Here's how the vote went: all 41 of the of the countries that had worked on the proposal participated in the vote. There were 17 "yes" votes, 15 "no" votes, and 9 abstentions.

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.