[A2k] South Africa the first to appeal to ISO on OOXML process

[Andrew Rens]

South Africa the first to appeal to ISO on OOXML process

The South African Standards Bureau, which is the South African authority
which both deals with standards nationally but also represents South
Africa at the International Standards Organisation
<http://www.iso.org/iso/home.htm> (ISO). SABS has appealed against the
controversial process which led to OOXML (or DIS 29500 in ISOspeak)
being designated as an ISO standard. T

SABS made the appeal in a letter
<http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/05/the-south-afric.html> in which
the standards body expressed South Africa's "deep concern over the
increasing tendency of international organizations to use the JTC 1
processes to circumvent the consensus-building process that is the
cornerstone of the success and international acceptance of the ISO and
IEC standards. The ability of large multi-national organization to
influence many national bodies, with the resultant block-voting
over-riding legitimate issues raised by other countries, is also of
concern."

The letter concludes: " we challenge the validity of a process that,
from beginning to end, required all parties involved to analyze far too
much information in far too little time, involved a BRM [Ballot
Resolution Meeting] that did not remotely provide enough time to preform
the appointed purpose of that procedure, and for which an arbitary time
limitation was imposed to discuss and resolve a significant number of
substantial responses, despite the Directives not requiring any such
limitation as to duration."

The letter can be found at:
http://www.tectonic.co.za/?attachment_id=2445
<http://www.tectonic.co.za/?attachment_id=2445>



--
Andrew Rens

Intellectual Property Fellow
Shuttleworth Foundation

Blog: www.aliquidnovi.org

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