It's official. Denmark will vote no with comments on OOXML. Here is the press release. It's in Danish, of course, so here's something in English for you, Leif Lodahl's blog, where he says he just received an email from Danish Standards that the vote will be no with comments. 64 pages of them. And he lists a handy English to Danish translator, but that doesn't help us, so if you instead try the Danish to English page, you get confirmation that they believe the comments need to be addressed before OOXML is ready to be declared a standard. Of course, as Andy Updegrove pointed out yesterday, there has been a last-minute surge in new members on the subcommittee that will work on the comments. We have a human translation now, thanks to Groklaw member The Pirate. Thank you!
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Office Open XML-document standard - Dansk Standard has cast Denmark's
vote
Dansk Standard (the Danish Standard's institute) has on behalf of
Denmark voted "No with Comments" to the proposed standard ISO/IEC DIS
29500 OOXML. This means, that DS will cooperate with the standards committee to
approve Office Open XML as a ISO/IEC standard, if certain problems is
addressed.
The ISO (International Standards Organization) proposal of the standard ISO/IEC
DIS 29500 OOXML has been reviewed since last new year. The proposal is if Office
Open XML ought to become a ISO/IEC standard. DS has as national standards
institute just cast the vote for Denmark.
The treatment of the proposal has happened in a committee under DS, with 33
companies and organizations joining in. The IT & Telecommunications
ministerial board has participated with status as an observer.
ISO/IEC DIS 29500 OOXML went through a public hearing in the spring, where it has
been open for everybody to send in their comments. DS received 39 hearing
comments.
The committee's finding
The committee has worked constructively, and through the late summer very intensely
with -- amongst other things -- the hearing comments. The result of this was that
the committee on a meeting the 24th of August in consensus agreed on a list of
subjects for improvement of ISO/IEC DIS 29500 OOXML. The committee recommended to
DS that these subjects are handed over to ISO. The committee did not conduct a
guiding vote.
The vote of Denmark
DS has based the vote of Denmark on the consensus evaluation among the
contributing parties, and the committee's recommendation.
Denmark will in the following process work for an approval for ISO/IEC DIS 29500
OOXML, if the points of concern raised by the committee are addressed. With
the vote 'No with comments' DS ensures the best starting point for the Danish
wishes for the changes to the standard.
Further process
All national standards organizations must hand in their national vote and
comments to ISO, at the latest by 2nd September 2007. The final decision if
Office Open XML will become a ISO/IEC standard is expected to be made in a common
meeting in Geneva on the 25-29 February 2008. In this meeting DS will
participate as a part of a delegation that has been appointed by the standards
committee. In the delegation, further members will be CIBER Denmark, IBM
Denmark, Microsoft Denmark and the 5th magistrate of Aarhus commune (Children
and Youth)
Further information
Jesper Jerlang, Vice director of DS
(email & phone number)
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