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Norwegians leave their Standards Body in protest
,----[ Quote ]
| 13 members of the TC in Norway has left their Standards Body in protest. They
| say that the Standards Body has lost its credibility in the IT area. Remember
| that Standards Norway was voting Yes with the support of only 2 companies
| (Microsoft and Statoil), and against the will of the rest of the technical
| committee.
|
| [...]
|
| Oslo, Monday 29 september 2008
|
| We, the undersigned, are ending our cooperation with Standard Norway.
|
| It is the play when organizations should have our common interest aimed
| to fail the task. Through the work of OOXML Standard Norway has shown,
| with a clear margin, that they are not fit to represent Norway in the
| ISO.
|
| "Standardization of formats for content on the Web is more important than
| ever. A large part of mankind's communication is done digitally, and
| all - ALL - to have the ability to read and write these formats," said
| Haakon Wium Lie.
|
| Standard Norway chose to defy their own technical committee and vote yes
| to a specification that is immature, useless, and unworthy to is called
| an ISO standard.
|
| To Standard Norway has carried this process we consider that the
| organization has lost its credibility in the IT area. Standards Norway
| has set its own commercial interests ahead of what is most societies
| server, technological and academic advisable. "By participating in a
| further work in Standard Norway will we lose our academic credibility,"
| said Arne S. Nielsen.
|
| Therefore, we choose to stay out.
|
| We end our cooperation with Standard Norway because:
|
| * Standard administration has taken the option to emphasize 37 letter
| from Microsoft partners more than their own technical committee.
| * Standard process in Norway has been unpredictable and playing rules
| have been changed by the administration along the way.
| * SN and ISO have committed a series of violations of their own rules
| and other irregularities in the OOXML process.
|
| The undersigned:
|
| 1. Haakon Wium Lie
| 2. Martin Bekkelund (NUUG)
| 3. Petter Reinholdtsen (NUUG)
| 4. Linpro AS v/ Trond Heier Linpro AS v / Trond Heier
| 5. Bjørn Venn
| 6. Steve Pepper
| 7. Arne Sigurd Rognan Nielsen
| 8. Henning Kulander
| 9. Axel Bojer
| 10. Geir Isene
| 11. Thomas Malt
| 12. Anthony Lardahl (NUUG)
| 13. Knut Olav Bøhmer Knut
`----
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-93970/norwegians-leave-their-standards-body-in-protest
Recent:
The Norway Vote - What really happened
,----[ Quote ]
| But lo… at this point, the “rules” were changed. The VP asserted that “Ecma
| has clearly made steps in the right direction.” The most important thing now
| was to ensure that OOXML came under ISO’s control so that it could
| be “further improved”. However, the committee was not allowed to discuss
| this.
|
| The VP thereupon declared that there was no consensus, so the decision
| would be taken by Standard Norway.
|
|
| Halfway through the proceedings, a committee member had asked for (and
| received) assurance that the Chairman would take part in the final decision,
| as he had for the DIS vote back in August. It now transpired that the BRM
| participants had also been invited to stay behind. 23 people were therefore
| dismissed and we were down to seven. In addition to Standard Norway’s three,
| there were four “experts”: Microsoft Norway’s chief lobbyist, a guy from
| StatoilHydro (national oil company; big MS Office user), a K185 old-timer,
| and me. In one fell swoop the balance of forces had changed from 80/20 to
| 50/50 and the remaining experts discussed back and forth for 20 minutes or so
| without reaching any agreement.
|
| The VP thereupon declared that there was still no consensus, so the
| decision would be taken by Standard Norway.
|
|
| The experts were dismissed and the VP asked the opinion of the Secretary (who
| said “Yes”) and the JTC1 rep (who said “No”).
|
| The VP thereupon declared that there was still no consensus, so the
| decision would be taken by him.
|
|
| And his decision was to vote Yes.
|
| So this one bureaucrat, a man who by his own admission had no understanding
| of the technical issues, had chosen to ignore the advice of his Chairman, of
| 80% of his technical experts, and of 100% of the K185 old-timers. For the
| Chairman, only one course of action was possible.
|
| [...]
|
| The meeting was a farce and the result was a scandal. But it’s not over yet,
| and one thing is clear: the “little one” is unfit to represent the interests
| of Norwegian users. It’s time he was told, “Roll over, roll over…”
`----
http://topicmaps.wordpress.com/2008/04/18/the-norway-vote-what-really-happened/
Computer experts stage street protest in Oslo against Microsoft document format
as standard
,----[ Quote ]
| OSLO, Norway: Roughly 60 data experts staged a rare and noisy street
| demonstration in downtown Oslo on Wednesday to protest the adoption of
| Microsoft Corp.'s document format as an international standard and against
| Norway voting for the move.
|
| [...]
|
| He claimed the committee ignored the advice of the vast majority of the
| Nordic nation's software experts, was pressured by Microsoft and
| displayed "scandalous behavior."
`----
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/09/business/EU-TEC-Norway-Digital-Demonstration.php
Photos: http://flickr.com/groups/750232@N22/pool/
OOXML triggers demonstration in Norway: "Let's throw OOXML out of ISO"
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-52412/ooxml-triggers-demonstration-in-norway:let-s-throw-ooxml-out-of-iso
Demonstration outside ISO conference
,----[ Quote ]
| Steve Pepper, the former Chairman of the Norwegian committee responsible for
| deciding the Norwegian vote on OOXML, is calling for a demonstration to take
| place outside the building where SC34, the ISO committee that has been landed
| with OOXML, is holding its spring plenary.
|
| The demonstration will take place outside Håndverkeren, Rosenkrantzgate 7,
| Oslo, Norway, on Wednesday April 9 at 12.00. Among the slogans are:
|
| * No to ISO approval of OOXML!
| * Defend the integrity of ISO!
| * Microsoft: Support ODF!
| * Ecma: Withdraw OOXML!
| * Norway must say no to OOXML!
`----
http://blogs.freecode.no/isene/2008/04/07/demonstration-outside-iso-conference/
2008-04 OOXML irregularities in Norway
,----[ Quote ]
| [...]
|
| * 2007: committee stuffing: the NS/K 185 committee grew from 6-7 persons
| to 30 persons due to the OOXML case...
`----
http://wiki.efn.no/2008-04_OOXML_irregularities_in_Norway
MEPs Question Microsoft's Eligibility for Gov't Projects
,----[ Quote ]
| The Commission, which has not responded yet, is allowed a few weeks to reply.
`----
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/144591/meps_question_microsofts_eligibility_for_govt_projects.html
EU: Europarlement testing Ubuntu, OpenOffice and Firefox
,----[ Quote ]
| The European Parliament's IT department is testing the use of GNU/Linux
| distribution Ubuntu, OpenOffice, Firefox and other Open Source applications,
| the British MEP James Nicholson explained last week in a letter to Italian
| MEP Marco Cappato.
`----
http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/7565
Is Microsoft Now Banned from EU Contracts?
http://www.computerworlduk.com/toolbox/open-source/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=697&blogid=14
Euro MP thinks Microsoft should be banned from government contracts
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/10/member-eu-parliament-asks
Green MEP says Microsoft should be excluded from EU contract awarding procedure
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/106338/from/rss09
EC probes OOXML standards-setting process
,----[ Quote ]
| A spokesman for the European Commissioner for Competition, Neelie Kroes, told
| The Register that regulators were continuing to scrutinise interoperability
| issues related to Microsoft’s products following complaints from the
| Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) group.
|
| As part of that process, the EC formally contacted a number of national
| standards bodies, including the Norwegian Standards Institute (NSI),
| requesting more details about possible irregularities in the OOXML
| standardisation process.
|
| [...]
|
| “It must be stressed that it is not the Commission's intention to influence
| the outcome of this process, but the Commission considers it essential to
| ensure that European competition law is not violated in the course of the
| standard setting process,” he said in an email to El Reg.
|
| In January the EC began formal anti-trust probes against Microsoft in two
| cases where it was alleged that the multinational firm had abused its strong
| market position. As part of the investigation into the first case, the
| Commission said that it would scrutinise OOXML on the grounds that the
| specification doesn't work with those of competitors.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/04/ooxml_ec_investigation_iso/
Related:
EU Commission Investigating Microsoft's MSOOXML Push
,----[ Quote ]
| I hope they think to investigate the smear campaigns that seem to always
| happen to anyone on the other side from Microsoft. What happened to Peter
| Quinn was by no means unique.
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080208151410252
Norway and OOXML
,----[ Quote ]
| There is now a report from Norway on how Microsoft rallied its partners to
| try to get a favorable vote on MSOOXML.
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200708301301334
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