Are international standards organisations no longer incorruptible?
For the last several months Microsoft has been pushing for their Office Open XML (OOXML) office suite file specification to be accepted as an international standard by ISO, presumably to help them gain traction for future government contracts (look, this file specification is an ISO standard, it must be good). As far as ISO/IEC DIS 29500 is concerned, it continues its steady progress towards standardship, however it seems that Microsoft’s push towards this goal hasn’t been without its bodycount. While the ISO site lists 29500 as a deleted standard, complementary reporting shows the process is still ongoing and OOXML will soon become ISO/IEC IS 29500.In an ideal world, standards bodies would be incorruptible and lead to the publication and adoption of consistent standards across the user communities. Anyone who has followed the OOXML progress through ISO would think otherwise. The ongoing stoush regarding Microsoft’s effort to get the ODF-killer that has yet to be properly implemented t
