If we can't stop Microsoft what is the
point?
Global standards-setting body ISO is starting to question its
relevance after it was unable to stop a fast-track approval of a Microsoft
document format.
Brazil, India, South Africa, and Venezuela had appealed
against ISO's stamp of approval for Microsoft Office Open XML (OOXML). A
significant minority of national standards bodies had voted against approving
the Microsoft format. However ISO, together with the International
Electrotechnical Commission, decided not to bother with any negative comments
about the standard.
The state IT organizations of Brazil, South Africa,
Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba, and Paraguay have published a declaration saying they
were no longer confident ISO would be a vendor-neutral organisation. It said
that in the past it has been assumed that an ISO/IEC standard should
automatically be considered for use within government. However if it is going
to have its tongue up the bottom of big software houses, clearly this position
no longer stands.
They say that the bending of the rules to facilitate the
fast-track processing remains a significant concern.