thelinuxlink.net

Consortium Info preliminary tally of votes.

I was positive Microsoft had bought enough votes and stuffed enough ballots to get the thing rammed through. It's a rare occasion that I would be so happy to be wrong. I hope this link is right.

Well, it is not completely over. Even if they do lose this round, they still have until February 25 (or so) to pacify the comments and possibly turn it around for them.

They could always go through the slow process.

And, of course, this is Microsoft, I'm sure they will find another way to get OOXML ratified as an open standard.

dann wrote:And, of course, this is Microsoft, I'm sure they will find another way to get OOXML ratified as an open standard.

They'll do what they normally do. Buy votes and at the very least smooze the voting members with free vacations and visits to the local tittie bars.

Ars Technica is reporting that the final count is against fast tracking the Microsoft OOXML. There is a great quote from Microsoft in the Ars article (you gotta love the spin):

"We are extremely delighted to see that 51 ISO members, representing 74 percent of the qualified votes, have already voiced their support for ISO ratification of Open XML, and that many others have indicated they will support ratification once their comments are resolved in the next phase of the ISO process," said Tom Robertson, general manager for Interoperability and Standards at Microsoft in a statement. "The high quality of the Open XML format will be improved as a result of this process, and we take seriously our role in working within the Ecma technical committee to address the comments received."

Article here:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20 ... n-xml.html

Oh yeah, I'd put money that MS eventually pushes it through, but it's nice to see a set back, though, so at the very least they have to spend more money to bribe others to vote for them next time around. When they do they'll still have made a mockery of ISO and the standardization process, unless other forces can gather and correct the individual countries problems (ballot stuffing, what happened in Norway, etc.). I don't see that happening, but I'd love to find an organization I trust where I could help the cause through money or whatever. It'd be nice to shore up all the holes in the individual countries' voting system.

Vogateer wrote:what happened in Norway

You probably mean Sweden.

You know, just because Denmark, Sweden and Norway aren't the size of Russia it's still a little irritating to have people from "the big" countries interchange us, or assume that we're the capital of the neighboring country. For example, saying that Denmark is the capital of Sweden, is just as ridiculously sounding to a Dane as saying that Chinese and Japanese are the same language (Which I can say they aren't, Japanese sounds quite a bit different!).

Sorry about the rant, I just had to get it off my chest!

Tsuroerusu wrote:

Vogateer wrote:what happened in Norway

You probably mean Sweden.

You know, just because Denmark, Sweden and Norway aren't the size of Russia it's still a little irritating to have people from "the big" countries interchange us, or assume that we're the capital of the neighboring country. For example, saying that Denmark is the capital of Sweden, is just as ridiculously sounding to a Dane as saying that Chinese and Japanese are the same language (Which I can say they aren't, Japanese sounds quite a bit different!).

Sorry about the rant, I just had to get it off my chest!

Whoa, hold on. Denmark is the capital of Sweden? I thought it was just a city in Norway. Man, I better get out a map sometime.

Tsuroerusu wrote: You know, just because Denmark, Sweden and Norway aren't the size of Russia it's still a little irritating to have people from "the big" countries interchange us, or assume that we're the capital of the neighboring country.

The size of a country does not have anything to do with economy.
You may not know Troels but a beer in Norway is like £6 , in the uk its at most £3, in the states its about £1.50 , check the exchange rates and your see Scandinavian countries have the strongest economy as well as Japan.

I suspect the reason Danmark has been occupied by m$ is because there is a lof of money to be made in a "small" country.

sorry about my tangent , i saw some space on this thread for it and thought what the heck

Tsuroerusu wrote:

Vogateer wrote:what happened in Norway

You probably mean Sweden.

No. I meant Norway:
http://blogs.freecode.no/isene/2007/08/24/3/

What's even more annoying is being labeled as ignorant, careless, or dismissive of other countries because you're an American.

Not to mention that when I went to Europe, Europeans seemed to be under the impression that America consisted of New York, Hollywood, and Disneyland with no knowledge of differences in culture throughout the rest of the U.S. I didn't expect anyone there to know all about the U.S., of course, and I certainly didn't harp on them for being dismissive of areas like the Midwest even if they did make an honest mistake regarding me and my upbringing, because almost everyone I met was just a good person and obviously meant no offense.

Yes the stereotypical "Bad American" exists. Yahoos who know nothing about the world or can even pick out certain countries on a map. You know what these type of people exist in all countries. I've encountered them myself in Europe. After hearing my New Yawk accent some idiot once came up to me and asked me if I was from Ireland? I kid you not.

allix wrote:

Tsuroerusu wrote: You know, just because Denmark, Sweden and Norway aren't the size of Russia it's still a little irritating to have people from "the big" countries interchange us, or assume that we're the capital of the neighboring country.

The size of a country does not have anything to do with economy.
You may not know Troels but a beer in Norway is like £6 , in the uk its at most £3, in the states its about £1.50 , check the exchange rates and your see Scandinavian countries have the strongest economy as well as Japan.

I suspect the reason Danmark has been occupied by m$ is because there is a lof of money to be made in a "small" country.

sorry about my tangent , i saw some space on this thread for it and thought what the heck

My "complaint"/rant didn't have anything to do with economy. Regarding your point about Microsoft. When computers began showing up in quantities in Denmark, it was computers with Microsoft crapware on there. Right from the start it was Microsoft, so there has never really been any sort of competition in that area, maybe for server stuff with NetWare and UNIX, but never for desktop/workstation computing.

Vogateer wrote:

Tsuroerusu wrote:

Vogateer wrote:what happened in Norway

You probably mean Sweden.

No. I meant Norway:
http://blogs.freecode.no/isene/2007/08/24/3/

I see, sorry Vogateer, that one is completely on my shoulders.

Vogateer wrote:What's even more annoying is being labeled as ignorant, careless, or dismissive of other countries because you're an American.

Yeah, I see where you're coming from, and I will admit that this one was my fault entirely, however, if we generalize my point not to just Denmark or Sweden or Norway, but small countries being more or less "looked over" by people in large countries, I hope you can see where I am coming from as well.

Vogateer wrote:Not to mention that when I went to Europe, Europeans seemed to be under the impression that America consisted of New York, Hollywood, and Disneyland with no knowledge of differences in culture throughout the rest of the U.S. I didn't expect anyone there to know all about the U.S., of course, and I certainly didn't harp on them for being dismissive of areas like the Midwest even if they did make an honest mistake regarding me and my upbringing, because almost everyone I met was just a good person and obviously meant no offense.

Well, what do you mean when you say "Europe", because Europe is many many countries? I can guarantee you that your average Dane and Swede would know more about the US than the example you gave.

Patrick wrote:Yes the stereotypical "Bad American" exists. Yahoos who know nothing about the world or can even pick out certain countries on a map. You know what these type of people exist in all countries. I've encountered them myself in Europe. After hearing my New Yawk accent some idiot once came up to me and asked me if I was from Ireland? I kid you not.

Yeah, like you say Pat, there's assholes everywhere! (And now I'll sue you for violating my patent! MUAHAHAAA!! )
I'm sorry about stereotyping, but I hope my, probably not so carefully layed out, rant made at least a little bit of sense.

When I traveled to Europe, I was in Germany for about 5 months, but went to the Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Wish I could have visited more. I also had made some friends from the U.K. while I was in Deutschland.

I can understand where it might get annoying, but I would like to note that though the people I met were all college educated, and their knowledge of basic U.S. history was generally quite good, there was hardly any knowledge of the entire midwest, aside from a romanticized version of the Old West, which the Germans seemed to have a slight fascination. Nothing that close to reality. So even if you're from the U.S., you can easily feel overlooked because your region isn't one of the big names or on the coast. About the main thing people knew about Oklahoma was that there was a musical with the same name. People in the U.S. aren't any better, though, since they expect to find teepees out here.

I should have taken the time in my last post to stress the fact that most people in the U.S. are given horrible schooling. Around here, the joke is that every history teacher's first name is "Coach." Not to mention that the political nature of history means that every special interest group makes sure that any history book used in the classroom is watered down until it's made utterly boring. History should easily be the most exciting class in school for most people, because you can tell exciting stories. Instead it's likely that history will be the driest, dullest, least interesting topic you'll have in high school, and it's no wonder that people aren't interested in it after that kind of experience.

If I know anything about history, it's because I sought out books in the library and had an interest in it, but even then it was after high school. So when you're angry with an American for not knowing as much about the rest of the world, I'd appreciate it if you try to keep that in mind. Sure, we have our share of jerks who are just apathetic, but for the most part there are a lot of decent people who were given a poor start in such subjects by our educational system, and they have no intention of slighting others.

Troels , A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present by Howard Zinn is one of my favourite US history books written by a American.

Norway versus Sweden:

Norwegian Black Metal is the best.

Swedish Black Metal is not the best.

Norway:



Sweden: