The ISO did not give the two thirds approval needed for the appeals from various countries. The concerns go undressed and OOXML marches on.
ISO initially approved OOXML in April following a highly controversial fast-track review process. The decision was condemned by national standards bodies from four countries. These governments attempted to appeal the approval, citing procedural irregularities during the ballot resolution meeting and technical flaws in the standard itself.
A technical management board that was assembled to assess the complaints has now formally rejected the appeals. The board has sided with ISO’s leadership, which has argued that the OOXML process was executed in conformance with the will and expectations of a majority of the participants.
“None of the appeals from Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela received the support for further processing of two-thirds of the members of the ISO Technical Management Board and IEC Standardization Management Board, as required by ISO/IEC rules governing the work of their joint technical committee ISO/IEC JTC 1,” said ISO in a statement.
Shoot…and I was optimistic about the appeal too. If the ISO doesn’t address these concerns, trouble could be abrewin’.