More Countries Appeal OOXML Ratification

By Digital Trends Staff Updated October 25, 2009

More Countries Appeal OOXML Ratification

Now the total is up to four. Venezuela and India and joined Brazil and South Africa in appealing against the ratification of Microsoft’s Open Office XML format as the International Organization for Standardization and International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) standard.

They filed their appeals before the Sunday night deadline and the IEC now has 30 days to ensure the appeals conform to the directives. Realistically speaking, though, it’s unlikely that the appeals will overturn the adoption on OOXML. But Groklaw, the open source legal site, has revealed that Morten Kjærsgaard, a member of the Danish technical committee and the head of Open Source Leverandørforeningen (OSL; the Association for Open Source Vendors) has sent a letter of complaint about the adoption of OOXML to the IEC.

"[OSL] hereby lodges a formal complaint to ISO over the certification process after the meetings in Dansk Standard’s committee S-445 (former S-142/U34) as well as the decision to change the Danish vote to a yes in connection with the processing of [ISO/IEC] 29500," Groklaw reported Kjærsgaard as writing. However, the head of the standardization for Dansk Standard, told ZDNet that they did not agree with Kjærsgaard’s complaint, and the letter does not qualify as a formal appeal.

"The appeals process is designed to seek consensus," Jonathan Buck, the director of communications for IEC, told ZDNet.co.uk "The standardization process is about finding solutions, and the onus is on consensus. There are many avenues open for countries to agree or disagree. The process is open, and countries have the right to appeal."

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