Highlights of the SiS meeting on 27 August

The SiS working group received vast amounts of comments on OOXML, from several parties that had paid the required fee of 600 SEK / 65 EUR (yep...). All of them but one also submitted a recommendation for a resolution to OOXML; 27 companies suggested a YES vote, but did not write even one sentence to justify it. 2 companies that said YES made very brief statements - just as meaningless.

9 companies said NO and (in most cases) presented conditions for approval in appropriate detail (most were at least an A4). In mid-August, we finally concluded a list of 173 suggestions, not counting some general argumentation or the fact that some comments were collapsed into one.

Now, somehow the idea was presented on Monday that this "clear majority" in favour of OOXML as-is should help us in our decision, and that it's important to look at who submitted these comments; I get the feeling that they didn't buy my foolish thought of considering the comments as such (which, as it happens, were basically non-existent on the YES-side). It was also hinted that this approach would be justified (statistically or otherwise), in comparison with e.g. the Eurovision where anyone can call in... (Lordi, anyone?)

Anyway, then there were the thoughts of "diversity" as a reason for many standards, and that "we're not ready for a single language (Esperanto)", wherefore "we aren't ready for a single standard"...

I especially liked one of the companies' presentation:

• ECMA is good (so there)
• The interests of the customers is important (I hinted that maybe, possibly, it's Sweden's interest that's relevant (at the very least), please forgive me)
• There's no time to deal with technical deficiencies (so we just ignore them? Convenient!)
• There will always be problems, no standard is perfect (this is a good thing, right?)
• The fast-track procedure has to be safe (therefore it is, Q.E.D.?)
• It's about taking control from Microsoft (no matter such details as Office 2007 doing something else entirely, or the patent problems, or the un-implementability of OOXML for anyone)
• We say yes to ODF too (therefore there is no problem with adding another standard)

I think that about concludes it; most YES voters didn't bother to justify their stance or to at least suggest that even one of the 170+ proposals need to be sent to ISO.

The only interesting speech at the meeting was given by Georg Greve of Google, who held a very thorough presentation of various problems. Their position is also available as a PDF document.