The Last Lap

Updated: 1st April 2008, 06:13 PM Malaysian Time (GMT +8)

 The Final Results are IN! Here are the final results of the countries voting for DIS 29500 (more popularly known as Microsoft OOXML). Countries without links are verified from the ISO results.

Participating Countries:

Approve	Disapprove	Abstain
Azerbaijan Cote-d'Ivore Cyprus Czech Republic (link) Denmark (link) Finland (link) Germany (link) Ireland (link) Japan Jamaica Kazakhstan Lebanon Malta Norway (link, another link) Pakistan Saudi Arabia Singapore Slovenia South Korea (link, another link) Switzerland Trinidad and Tobago United Kingdom (link) USA (link) Uruguay Changes: Czech Republic (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Finland (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Kenya (change from "Approve" to "Abstain") South Korea (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Denmark (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Venezuela (change from "Approve" to "Disapprove") Norway (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") United Kingdom (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Ireland (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Slovenia (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Trinidad and Tobago (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Japan (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Turkey (change from "Approve" to "Abstain") Note: Final Approval is NOT by simple majority. See Voting Criteria below.	Canada (link) China Ecuador India (link) Iran New Zealand (link) South Africa (link) Venezuela (link, another link) Changes: Czech Republic (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") South Korea (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Denmark (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Venezuela (change from "Approve" to "Disapprove") Norway (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") United Kingdom (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Ireland (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") France (change from "Disapprove" to "Abstain") Japan (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve")	Australia (link) Belgium (link) France (link) Italy Kenya (link, another link) Malaysia (link) Netherlands (link) Spain Turkey Changes: Finland (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Kenya (change from "Approve" to "Abstain") France (change from "Disapprove" to "Abstain") Slovenia (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Trinidad and Tobago (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Turkey (change from "Approve" to "Abstain")
Count: 24, Changes: 13, Net Change: +7	Count: 8, Changes: 9, Net Change: -7	Count: 9, Changes: 6, Net Change: 0

Observing and Other Countries:

Approve	Disapprove	Abstain
Armenia Austria Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Congo Colombia Costa Rica Croatia Egypt Fiji Ghana Greece Israel Jordan Kuwait Mauritius Mexico Morocco Nigeria Panama Peru Phillipines Poland Portugal Qatar Romania (link, another link) Serbia Syrian Arab Republic Tanzania Thailand Tunisia United Arab Emirates Ukraine Uzbekistan Changes: Cuba (change from "Approve" to "Disapprove") Russian Federation (change from "Approve" to "Abstain") Sri Lanka (change from "Approve" to "Abstain") Thailand (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Israel (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Mauritius (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Mexico (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Peru (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Phillipines (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Note: Final Approval is NOT by simple majority. See Voting Criteria below.	Brazil (link, another link) Cuba (link) Changes: Cuba (change from "Approve" to "Disapprove") Thailand (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Phillipines (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve")	Argentina Chile (link, English translation) Luxembourg Russian Federation Sri Lanka Vietnam Zimbabwe Changes: Russian Federation (change from "Approve" to "Abstain") Sri Lanka (change from "Approve" to "Abstain") Israel (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Mauritius (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Mexico (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Peru (change from "Abstain" to "Approve")
Count: 37, Changes: 9, Net Change: +6	Count: 2, Changes: 3, Net Change: -1	Count: 7, Changes: 6, Net Change: -2

Final Vote:

• Criteria 1: 24/32 = 75.00% (PASS)
• Criteria 2: 10/71 = 14.08% (PASS)
• Overall Result: PASS 

Legend:

• Countries in BLACK are listed as per their September 2007 vote.
• Countries in BLUE have decided their final vote and their final vote does not represent a change in voting from September 2007 (click the links, where available, for the press release).
• Countries in RED have decided their final vote and their final vote represents a change in voting from September 2007 (click the links, where available, for the press release).
• Countries in BROWN are close to deciding their final votes but thanks to intense lobbying, things may change. Note that countries listed in BROWN are SPECULATIVE!
• Countries in stricken-out BROWN have changed their vote from their original September 2007 vote (as noted for each country) and are listed for reference purposes only. Note that this change may not be their final vote.
• Countries in stricken-out GREY have changed their final vote from their original September 2007 vote (as noted for each country) and are listed for reference purposes only.
• Changes list only enumerates countries which change their vote.
• Count is the number of countries in the list.
• Changes = "Number of countries added to a column" + "Number of countries subtracted from a column"
• Net Change = "Number of countries added to a column" - "Number of countries subtracted from a column"

Voting Criteria (JTC1 Directives, page 49):

• At least two-thirds of the P-members voting shall have approved;
• Not more than one-quarter of the total number of votes cast are negative.
• A P-member which has given appropriate notification that it will abstain from participation in specific work items (see 3.1.2) shall not be counted as a P-member when counting votes for drafts relating to such items.

ChangeLog:

Ditesh, 1st April 2008:

• Updated the final results (from ISO)
• Updated France's status (thanks Luc Bollen, Jean-Marie Gouarné)

Ditesh, 31st March 2008:

• Updated Australia's status (thanks Rob Brown)
• Updated Malaysia's status (thanks Yoon Kit)

Ditesh, 30th March 2008:

• Updated United Kingdom's status (thanks Andy Updegrove)
• Updated Ireland's status (thanks Andy Updegrove)
• Updated New Zealand's status (thanks Dio Gratio, orlando)
• Updated South Africa's status (thanks anon, Bob Joliffe)

Ditesh, 29th March 2008:

• Added another link for Kenya (thanks Luc Bollen)
• Updated Norway's status (thanks Chris Auld, Andreas Wagner, Mikael Nillson)
• Updated Venezuela's status (thanks Avi Alkalay, orlando, Dio Gratia, Matt)
• Updated France's status (thanks orlando)
• Updated Chile's status (thanks Carlos)
• Updated Denmark's status (thanks Jeffrey)
• Updated South Korea's status (thanks Frank, The Open Sourcerer)
• Updated Argentina's status (thanks Carlos)

Ditesh, 28th March 2008:

• Changes list made more comprehensible
• Updated Kenya's status (thanks Luc Bollen)
• Updated Finland's status (thanks Luc Bollen)

Ditesh, 27th March 2008:

• Updated Romania's status (thanks Apolodor for the vote link and the translation, much appreciated)
• Updated Cuba's status (thanks Dio Gratia)
• Removed Australia from "Approve" column and revert it back to "Abstain" column; resetted China's, South Africa's, New Zealand's colors.
• Added SPECULATIVE warnings. Countries listed in BROWN are NOT FINAL!

Ditesh, 26th March 2008:

• Changed definition of "Changes" statistic, added "Net Change" statistic
• Added link for Canada (thanks Anonymous)
• Added another link for Brazil (thanks Yoon Kit)
• Updated Brazil's status (thanks Anonymous)
• Updated Belgium's status (thanks Luc Bollen for the vote link and the translation, much appreciated)
• Updated Germany's status (thanks Luc Bollen)
• Updated Czech Republic's status (thanks Luc Bollen, orlando)
• Updated Criteria 1&2 after Czech Republic's flip from "Disapprove" to "Approve"
• Fixed Slovenia typo (thanks John Drinkwater)

Ditesh, 25th March 2008:

• Updated Criteria 2 calculations (removal of abstention votes from the denominator, thanks to commentators on this post)
• Updated Netherlands status (thanks Peter)
• Have not updated the status of Cuba due to possible confusion on whether the email sent by the NB is valid (thanks Anonymous)

Comments

[HalalSurf.Com]

What Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said in my Blog.

Thank you.

[Luc Bollen]

There are 6 countries which Approved before the BRM and changed to either Abstain or Disapprove after the BRM. Six ! ISO has never seen such a thing.

And Brian Jones calls this "[OOXML] Overwhelmingly Approved". Some Microsoft guys have no shame...

[oliver]

Standards Norge have issued a press statement on what happened in Norway, if I am reading it correctly then point #8 in their release addresses the position of the chairman.

http://osrin.net/2008/04/01/norway-and-germany-there-are-no-irregularities/

[Rom]

@Ditesh

Exactly! We are trying to get the Philippines to also file a petition to nullify its vote! There is a problem with how the votes were counted, imho.

Check the two articles and tell me if PSIA voted YES or NO. If NO, then it should have been 5-4 in favor of disapproval.

[Rom]

As a follow-up, can you please tell me if this document might have meant YES or IN FAVOR of OOXML?

http://www.box.net/shared/3yw2f1c004

This is the PSIA letter to our Bureau of Product Standards (BPS) regarding OOXML.

[Ditesh Gathani]

@Rom:

According to ISO, Phillipines submitted an "Approve" vote.

[Rom]

The Philippine team voted 5-4 in favor of approving OOXML. See http://www.mb.com.ph/INFO20080401120787.html

However, according to a PSIA Board Member, they retained their DISAPPROVE vote. So what gives? It should have been 5-4 in favor of DISAPPROVING OOXML.

[Ditesh Gathani]

Froods,

The final OOXML result is out: http://lists.opendocsociety.org/pipermail/members.announce/2008-April/000002.html

I've updated the table to note the final result. Please do post a comment if I made any mistakes that need correction.

Regards.

[Rob Brown]

@Andre Offringa:

hAl is a troll, and a pretty boring one at that. He's very easy to ignore, and I recommend that you do just that :-)

[Andre Offringa]

@hAl : you said "Sending that mail looks like a move of a frustrated person and a sore loser at that." at least he did not express his frustration with words like "loser". I think it is the best he could have done. Sure he will be frustrated, no doubt about that, I would have been, but at least he did something with it.

[hAl]

@Andre Offringa

I think your should say
"A norwegian individual"
as Mr peppers committee never had any formal descision to take but had only an advise roll to Norske Standards and did not manage to come up with a consensus advice.

And after looking at his mail by passing his own standard organization he won't be chairman of that committee for much longer (if he did not resign already).

Sending that mail looks like a move of a frustrated person and a sore loser at that.

[Ali Isingor]

Some further details can be found here (We will translate it in English soon)

http://www.ozgurlukicin.com/haber/tse-ooxml-oyunu-degistirdi/

[André Offringa]

Norwegian has asked to change its vote! See http://blogs.freecode.no/isene/2008/03/31/norwegian-committee-chairman-to-iso-count-the-vote-as-no/

[Rob Brown]

@Anonymous Coward:

Changing Norway to NO wouldn't really change anything; criterion 1 would still be 21/31 = 67.8% = PASS.

There have been reports that Slovenia and Trinidad and Tobago have switched to YES, which means the ballot succeeds comfortably.

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it change anything if Norway would go back to "No"? How many would have to change their vote for OOXML to Fail instead of Pass?

Thanks.

[Ditesh Gathani]

@Luc Bollen, @Jean-Marie Gouarné:

Thanks for the link, updated the page accordingly.

@Avi Alkalay:

Awesome :)

@Anonymous:

Let me email Harish directly.

@Mind Booster Noori:

Yep, the post has been updated.

@Carlos:

The blog owner reverted it to most recent comments first :)

@Peto:

Carlos hit the nail on the head :)

@André Offringa:

My 2 cents is that OOXML has gotten through this particular stage.

@OOXML sucks!!!:

I'm in awe that Microsoft can take on the whole world and despite all the odds and bad publicity, they can still win (albeit not cleanly). Amazing!

@Ali Isingor:

Awaiting further information. Do you have a link?

@John Dingo:

Thanks!

@Gokdeniz Karadag:

THanks, do you have a link?

[Luc Bollen]

According to Charles Schulz: "France finally abstained after an interesting last minute intervention by Microsoft. Odd things happened and the final announcement by the Afnor today would have been a farce if it had not been official."
http://standardsandfreedom.net/index.php/2008/03/31/your-tale-sir-would-cure-deafness-w-shakespeare-the-tempest-i2/

[Avi Alkalay]

I am asking NBs why they voted YES or ABTAIN.

http://avi.alkalay.net/2008/03/ooxml-open-leter-yes-abstain-countries.html

Why YES or ABSTEIN if they have produced technical comments? This is the wrong decision from JTC1 process standpoint.

[Anonymous]

This dude says Japan and Philippines - YES

http://harishpillay.livejournal.com/93527.html

I think he was mentioned in the other post as a Singapore NB member

[Jean-Marie Gouarné]

France switched from NO to ABSTAIN

[Mind Booster Noori]

After this article (with quotes) I think that we can think Australia's abstention as not being speculative...

http://smallr.net/OOXML-Australia-abst

[Carlos]

Hi Ditesh,

If it is not too much to ask, could you change the display so that the most recent comments show up first?

[Carlos]

@Peto:

As discussed earlier in this thread, what matters is the membership in JTC1, not the SC34 subcommittee. And Brazil is an "O" member in JTC1.

Cheers.

[Felix]

@Peto

A possible explanation:

Thailand and Brazil may be P-members today.

However at the time of the September ballot they may only have been O-members.

Don't get your hopes up :-(

[peto]

Thailand and Brazil are P-members!!!!!
http://www.iso.org/iso/standards_development/technical_committees/list_of_iso_technical_committees/iso_technical_committee_participation.htm?commid=45374

[André Offringa]

It doesn't look good... unless some of the formerly approving countries have switched to disaprove or abstain, the OOXML standardization will have been approved. I really don't understand that everybody let this happen... Abusing standardization process in such a way. How can we declare something as the standard, when there is not even an implementation? Blegh, let's call for a Microsoft boycot or something alike.

[OOXML sucks!!!]

The were Inadequacies by the German decision! In Poland as well... M$ sucks!!
Hope OOXML will never become standard!

[Ali Isingor]

Turkey's vote has changed from "Approve" to "Abstain" :)..

Yipppieeee!!!!!

Further will be given soon..

[John Dingo]

great post !!

@Dennis Byron:

You said:

"FYI, you should update your link to the Massachusetts ETRM to the following:
http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=itdsubtopic&L=3&L0=Home&L1=Policies%2c+Standards+%26+Guidance&L2=Enterprise+Architecture&sid=Aitd

The Massachusetts ETRM is now on version 4.1,the politicization has been removed, and the disabled are now supported."

Thanks, it's updated at the Relevant Links at the sidebar here.

Regards,
Hasan.

[Gokdeniz Karadag]

Update on Turkey's vote, confirmed in private communication with Turkish NB officials, Turkey's vote has changed from "Approve" to "Abstain"

[Ditesh Gathani]

@Rob Brown:

Thanks, page has been updated accordingly.

@Arnaud Le Hors, @Kreator:

Yep, others have posted the link but I have heard conflicting accounts on where Trinidad and Tobago stands. So, I've decided to abstain (pun intended) from updating them.

@Dennis Byron:

OpenMalaysiaBlog is intended to bring a greater level of transparency and openness to the open source and open standards debate. To that end, if Microsoft (or any other company) is doing the wrong stuff, we will whack them accordingly. But if they do the right stuff, we will also praise them.

Glad you enjoyed the table, we purposely set it up so that others can follow the progress without being bamboozled with the nitty-gritty details.

Thanks for the ETRM link, I've forwarded it to the blog owner to update.

Cheers.

[Arnaud Le Hors]

Oops, sorry for the duplicate.

[Rob Brown]

Link for Australia:
http://www.standards.org.au/downloads/080331_Aust_maintains_abstain_position_on_OOXML.pdf

[Arnaud Le Hors]

T&T changed to Yes.
See http://ttcs.wordpress.com/2008/03/22/trinidad-and-tobago-bureau-of-standards-votes-approval-of-dis29500/

[vexorian]

_FrnchFrgg_: ISO as a relevant company would still fail absurdly (aka approve OOXML) under the "don't consider abstaining" rule.

[Kreator]

Trinidad and Tobago is Yes

http://ttcs.wordpress.com/2008/03/22/trinidad-and-tobago-bureau-of-standards-votes-approval-of-dis29500/

[_FrnchFrgg_]

Sorry, in my last comment I only remembered the O member changes, in fact the net change is -4 all O+P included, I don't know if that makes the test to succeed or not.

[_FrnchFrgg_]

On ConsortiumInfo.org, there is discussion on the second condition for success of OOXML: "less than 1/4 of NO votes".

The ISO press release and the calculation you use say "no more than 1/4 of NO votes among all votes, with abstain counted", but when the first vote was cast the ISO press release said it failed on both tests, giving the "26%" figure, which can only be obtained if you count the NO among the YES and NO.
There is an inconsistency here, but it's probable that the right rule is the one ISO used for the first press release.

Since the net change of NOs is +1, this test would still FAIL.

[Fredrik E. Nilsen]

@Luc Bollen:

There is nothing strange about what happen in Norway, though the decision of course was controversial.

In Norway, Standard Norge (SN) makes the decision, there is no vote. There is a commitee, SN K/185, that gives advice to SN. SN listens to the arguments from both sides and makes their decision. SN has decided that the arguments for OOXML weighs more than the arguments against OOXML and has based their decision on that. That is according to the rules here in Norway.

[vexorian]

I think next step is to ignore this vote, there have certainly been irregularities in the voting countries that changed their NO to YES , enough to invalidate the pass. I see no sense in accepting a rigged vote.

[Dennis Byron]

This is a great way of illustrating the voting to those of us who do not follow the arcane standardization process. And without the running Microhate commentary

FYI, you should update your link to the Massachusetts ETRM to the following:

http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=itdsubtopic&L=3&L0=Home&L1=Policies%2c+Standards+%26+Guidance&L2=Enterprise+Architecture&sid=Aitd

The Massachusetts ETRM is now on version 4.1,the politicization has been removed, and the disabled are now supported.

[Luc Bollen]

Groklaw (and several other sites) have strange stories to tell about Germany, Croatia and Norway:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2008032913190768

[Ditesh Gathani]

@Dio Gratia, @orlando:

Thanks for the link, updated the page accordingly. New Zealand's "Disapprove" was fantastic news.

@Jean-Yves Pelletier:

If you're coming down to Malaysia, do ping us. We'll be happy to meet up over a beer or two, and swap war stories!

@Ali Isingor:

Very useful information, do keep us updated!

@max stirner:

+1 :)

@Fred:

Thanks for the translation, I've updated the page to point to your comment.

@anon:

Thanks for link, I've updated the page.

@Luc Bollen:

I heard the same thing about Slovenia and T&T but there are no links (officially or otherwise) to validate the information. I guess we'll know for sure on Monday.

About Malaysia - we have NO idea. It's amazing how tight they are keeping it under wraps. I'm tempted to SMS the Microsoft Malaysia managing director and ask her :)

Australia is still an unknown quantity.

@Mike Brown:

My opinion is that, unless there are unexpected surprises, it's game over: Microsoft has won has this round.

[Dio Gratia]

http://www.standards.co.nz/news/Media+releases/NZ+maintains+negative+vote+on+OOXML+Standard.htm
New Zealand has maintained their disapproval vote.

[Gilbert]

It's good to see that people aren't reading too much into these results.

Yes I'm being sarcastic.

[orlando]

The world is no lost ( and we have future)

There are still people with principles

New Zealand -> disapprove, publish it as a technical specification.

http://standards.co.nz/news/Media+releases/NZ+maintains+negative+vote+on+OOXML+Standard.htm

[Jean-Yves Pelletier]

Congratulations for your nice work. I am flying to the East (Hong Kong) next Monday and what I read about you (Groklaw, Updegrove, ...) makes me wish to visit your country. I am from Quebec, a small French nation in Canada (hope Canada will vote no) and it is warm to my heart to see a small nation like yours to stand up to the ugly Microsoft and all its pawns. Vive le Libre.

[Ali Isıngor]

Yesterday, Turkey's The Scientific and Technical Research Council (TUBITAK) and Middle East Tecnical University (actually manages Turkey's Country Code Top-level Domain) along as some free software community representatives (ozgurlukicin.com) made some important meetings with TSE's administration. In theese meetings they explained their concerns over transparency and abuses of voting procedure.

So, we are not sure but Turkey's vote can change from "Approve" to "Abstain"...

[max stirner]

Considering the dire quality of the standard, the above schedule could actually be considered a "corruptibility to US corporate influence" index and should probably be published as such!

APPROVAL - our Lords are in Redmond, consider us the 51st US state!

ABSTAIN - we're honest enough to -almost- say its a pile of shit, but we've read about Hiroshima in the school textbooks

DISAPPROVE - not part of the neoliberal economic order, some degree of sovereignty. At least as far as technical standards go..