Norwegians take the to the streets to protest their country's decision (by one person) to vote for the OOXML fast track process. Apparently the chairman of the ISO Committee Norway is resigning in protest over the abuse of the process. There's a nice slideshow of the rally here.
Gotta love Norway.
I've been watching the slow motion OOXML train wreck from afar for a while now. It appears that ISO is highly likely to fast track OOXML, which will be a huge disaster for ISO. From looking at first hand accounts and second level analysis, it looks like Microsoft has successfully railroaded the OOXML spec through ISO with no regard to technical or standards issues. Thus, if ISO approves this, the ISO imprimatur is effectively worthless; and that's a shame, since we need standards. The damage done to ISO's credibility, and the impact of its loss, is actually worse than the damage done by the bad OOXML standard.
Note: The opinions expressed in this post, as with all others, are purely mine and do not represent my employer's views. Thought I should mention it again.
