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• Vote “No, with comments,” which is the JTC1-prescribed way of indicating “conditional approval” (JTC1 Directives (DOC, pops), Section 9.8)
• Recommend that OOXML be resubmitted as normal working item in JTC1/SC34:
  • Split into a multi part standard: WordProcessingML, SpreadsheetML, DrawingML, Office Open Math Markup, VML, etc.
  • Have each part progress independently, at its own speed, within normal ISO processing stages
  • Encourage participation from OASIS to identify opportunities for harmonization with existing ISO 26300 “ODF”
• OOXML, as the default format in MS Office, is important. But as a standard it is full of inconsistencies, omissions, inaccuracies and errors. No standard is perfect, but OOXML, in its current state, does even not meet the minimum requirements.

source: Rob Weir‘s presentation slides, last slide (pdf)

OOXML is being rushed to become an ISO standard using the fast-track process. This is not good. As end-users we want real commodity document formats that are easy to implement and do not tie us to a specific office suite. Sadly, the purpose of rushing to standardise OOXML is simply to avoid letting it become a commodity document format. By letting OOXML become an ISO standard as it is now, a few companies get to gain a lot, but we are going to lose.

Spread the word.

I copy below the voting country list.

According to Rob Weir, all countries can cast a vote on this; sorry for this misinformation.

The voting countries (Participating countries) are (the list is being updated, please see Participating countries for new list)

Brazil (ABNT) Bulgaria (BDS) China (SAC) Colombia (ICONTEC) Cyprus (CYS) Czech Republic (CNI) Côte-d’Ivoire (CODINORM) Denmark (DS) Finland (SFS) France (AFNOR) Germany (DIN) India (BIS) Italy (UNI) Japan (JISC) Kazakhstan (KAZMEMST) Kenya (KEBS) Korea, Republic of (KATS) Netherlands (NEN) Norway (SN) Sweden (SIS) Switzerland (SNV) Thailand (TISI) Trinidad and Tobago (TTBS) Turkey (TSE) USA (ANSI) United Kingdom (BSI)

In addition, the following countries have observer status (Observer countries), (the list is being updated, please see Observer countries for new list)

Australia (SA) Chile (INN) Greece (ELOT) Hong Kong, China (ITCHKSAR) Hungary (MSZT) Ireland (NSAI) Israel (SII) Lithuania (LST) Mexico (DGN) Romania (ASRO) Spain (AENOR) Sri Lanka (SLSI) Ukraine (DSSU)

The observer countries, though the cannot vote, they can submit comments.