Sorry guys. It's bad news, though not unexpected, on the OOXML front. The Maltese vote passed as "yes with comments" which basically means that Malta approves and has thrown in a few suggestions, rather than "no with comments" (which ISO describes as a conditional approval), which would have meant that the standard would have to be corrected before moving on. Now everything depends on how other countries vote but it seems that Microsoft has been spending a lot of money there.
Yesterday, Sweden's national standards body, which had initially voted "yes", recalled and invalidated its own vote after news broke that Microsoft had actually paid people to go and vote for OOXML in the standard body. Once it was out and a scandal was brewing, Microsoft admitted as much though it said that the employee had acted of his own accord and against company policy (Yeah right, I'm sure he paid them out of his monthly salary). Here in Malta (only one day later), the responses to my comments raised by the University representative happened to match exactly - comma by comma - the responses given by Microsoft to the standards body in India. I ran across a perplexing statement in which the responder referred to "IBM's objections" - despite the fact that there's nobody from IBM on the committee. Feeling intrigued, I pasted it into Google and violà! Author: Microsoft. It had already been pretty clear which way this was going even before I read that, so I wasn't surprised when the meeting turned out to be nothing but a string of denials, on a roster basis, by each of the Microsoft voters, that OOXML contains any flaws whatsoever. Actually it was irritating to see them debating the issues, taking a personal interest and often actually admitting that there were real issues, before the vote comes along and all bowing their head and voting to reject the comment. Throughout the meeting, there was one single occasion when the MITTS representative voted to retain one comment but only after it had been toned down a bit. For the rest, Microsoft allowed its voters to approve a handful of very trivial comments as "general comments". The final decision was - 5 votes to send a "yes with comments" vote, and one - me - voting for a "no with comments". Ramon Tel: (+356) 21421600 URL: www.megabyte.net Fax: (+356) 21421590 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] DISCLAIMER The information contained in this electronic mail may be confidential or legally privileged. It is for the intended recipient(s) only. Should you receive this message in error, please notify the sender by replying to this mail. Unauthorised use of the contents is strictly prohibited. Whilst all care has been taken, the Megabyte Group is not responsible for the integrity of the contents of this electronic mail and any attachments included within.
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