The OOXML Appeals: What Next?

"What we've seen is that rules and processes that may work well in a collegial environment can break down badly in a hotly contested standards war. In my view, though, it goes deeper than this, in that I think that some of the judgments made by ISO in managing the process were terrible -- such as scheduling a one-week Ballot Resolution Meeting [BRM] to resolve 1,200 issues. But according to the CEOs' interpretation of the directives, there's no way to appeal such a bad call. So we have a system that purports to be consensus-driven, but where the decisions of management can't be contested, even when -- [as] in this case -- four National Bodies think that the process had terrible problems."

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• Red Hat Summit Panel: Who 'Won' OOXML Battle?(Jun 20, 2008)