The New York Times reports that hardware/software vendor IBM is threatening to leave the ISO standards body after the controversy regarding Microsoft’s Office Open XML.

IBM published a new set of guidelines it plans to follow, which include encouraging standards bodies to have rules to protect their decisions from “undue influence,” a clear reference to competitor Microsoft.

Microsoft has long been accused of dominating the market for office productivity programs due to its use of closed file formats. Microsoft changed course, however, and submitted its OOXML format to become an international standard, which means other vendors could implement OOXML in their products.

But OOXML was criticized for being unnecessarily complex. Also, Microsoft was accused of pressuring countries to support the standard, which left companies such as IBM fuming. IBM is a long-time backer of ODF.

IBM’s new guidelines are intended to pressure organizations such as the ISO and ECMA, an industry-led standards organization, into rethinking their procedures.

I doubt they’ll do it, since as the article points out, that would mean that IBM would no longer have leverage.

• The New York Times [Print Version]
• Slashdot

Groklaw reports that 6 countries have written an open letter to the ISO saying that the refusal to accept the appeal on OOXML reflects poorly on the ISO.

There is an unexpected reaction from major government IT agencies in six countries condemning the ISO/IEC refusal to act on the four appeals against OOXML, which they say “reflects poorly” on ISO/IEC. They have signed and sent an open letter to ISO, which I’ll show you in full. The countries represented are South Africa, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Cuba. Here’s a paragraph to give you a taste:

Given the organisation’s inability to follow its own rules we are no longer confident that ISO/IEC will be capable of transforming itself into the open and vendor-neutral standards setting organisation which is such an urgent requirement. What is now clear is that we will have to, albeit reluctantly, re-evaluate our assessment of ISO/IEC, particularly in its relevance to our various national government interoperability frameworks. Whereas in the past it has been assumed that an ISO/IEC standard should automatically be considered for use within government, clearly this position no longer stands.

How in the world can ISO/IEC claim that the OOXML approval has not been damaging to ISO/IEC’s reputation now? Have you ever heard of such a thing?

Three of the signatories, South Africa, Brazil, and Venezuela, submitted appeals that were denied.

This is very good news.  These probably aren’t the most powerful countries in the ISO, but I don’t think they can take this backlash lightly.

• Groklaw

Pamela Jones exposes the ISO appeal process, which shows that regardless of what the press release said, the final decision has not been made about the appeals on OOXML.

I’ve been puzzling over something in the ISO press release announcing that the four appeals against OOXML as an ISO standard, from Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela, would go no further. In the press release, it said this:

According to the ISO/IEC rules, DIS 29500 can now proceed to publication as an ISO/IEC International Standard. This is expected to take place within the next few weeks on completion of final processing of the document, and subject to no further appeals against the decision.

Wait a second. What’s that “subject to no further appeals against the decision” part? What rules would those be? When I read the JTC1 Directives, Edition 5, Version 3.0 [PDF], I see in the section on appeals another step you can take if the TMB/SMB decide not to proceed with your appeal, which is what just happened:

11.4 Appeal Against a Decision of the TMB/SMBsAn appeal against a decision of the TMB/SMB shall be submitted to the Secretaries-General with full documentation on all stages of the case.

The Secretaries-General shall refer the appeal together with their comments to the members of the Councils within one month after receipt of the appeal.

The Councils shall make their decision within three months.

So, ask your lawyer, but I read that as saying a denial by the TMB/SMB is *not* necessarily the last word, no matter what the press release said, if an NB wishes to bring the appeal to the next level, which would be to the “Secretaries-General” and “the Council”.

Go PJ. OK, so we have another chance. I hope this time it goes better.

• Groklaw

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’.

• Ars Technica

Due to the appeals of 4 different countries, the ISO will hold off on publishing OOXML.  The process could take months.

Four national standards body members of ISO and IEC – Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela – have submitted appeals against the recent approval of ISO/IEC DIS 29500, Information technology – Office Open XML formats, as an ISO/IEC International Standard.

In accordance with the ISO/IEC rules governing the work of their joint technical committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, the appeals are currently being considered by the ISO Secretary-General and the IEC General Secretary who, within a period of 30 days (to the end of June), and following whatever consultations they judge appropriate, are required to submit the appeals, with their comments, to the ISO Technical Management Board and the IEC Standardization Management Board.

The two management boards will then decide whether the appeals should be further processed or not. If they decide in favour of proceeding, the chairmen of the two boards are required to establish a conciliation panel which will attempt to resolve the appeals. The process could take several months.

According to the ISO/IEC rules, a document which is the subject of an appeal cannot be published as an ISO/IEC International Standard while the appeal is going on. Therefore, the decision to publish or not ISO/IEC DIS 29500 as an ISO/IEC International Standard cannot be taken until the outcome of the appeals is known.

This appeal process sounds sketchy to me.  Hopefully other bodies will appeal as well.  Currently there is no post on Groklaw about this, but I will try to get it up here when one is made.

• ISO

Microsoft Office 2007 will support ODF in full, but not fully implement OOXML. Office 2007 will also support PDF 1.1, PDF/A, and Microsoft’s competing fixed-text format, called XML Paper Specification.

In a surprise move, the company also announced that it intends to participate in the OASIS ODF working group and the corresponding ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 Subcommittee 34 working groups for ODF, as well as the ISO Technical Committee 171 working group for PDF, said Doug Mahugh, senior product manager for Microsoft Office.

…

However, the company is not quick to embrace its own creation. Mahugh stated that Microsoft would not implement the final ISO version of OOXML until Office 14 ships at an unstated date in the future. This variant of OOXML was designated ISO/IEC 29500 at the time it was certified as an ISO International standard in April.

I wonder how long it will take them to implement the enormous spec.

• SDTimes
• Consortium Info
• Slashdot

Update: Check out this analysis from Groklaw.