There are certainly a group of folks out there who will do or say anything to do what they can to block the ratification of OpenXML. For those close to the process, rather than following the drama on various blogs, much of what they say just does not make sense.

I think everybody knows where Andy stands, his article is at odds with many organizations who were in the room, including the BRM convenor and ISO/IEC and several of the attending national body delegations. Much of what he writes in this particular case is just spin coming out of his close circle of friends. The discussion in the comments is a lot more interesting than the article itself. I would hardly describe the orchestrated drama that the article centers on as a “one stop shop” for info on the meeting or its outcome.

Frank Farance in Computerworld is expressing personal views, as far as I understand he does not speak with any concensus position of the United States in the article that you link. INCITS V1′s vote last week should be all the proof that should be needed of that. I will look into the broken link to the INCITS site, the official report describes the BRM as successful at the very top of page one.

There is certainly “spinning” going on around the process and the outcome of the DIS29500 BRM, but it certainly isn’t coming from Microsoft.

Just stumbled on your blog today, and: looky here! Another Microsoft blog that paints a rosy picture of OOXML, and (by way of proof) links to lots of other Microsoft blogs with similar views. Microsoft indulging in a bit of search engine optimisation, perhaps?

This blog post is so unbalanced as to be laughable. That’s not surprising, given your position, but it’s regrettable that you haven’t given even *one* dissenting link. And there is plenty of dissention out there!

Probably the best “one-stop shop” is Andy Updegrove’s blog at
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20080309054524379

Warning to readers: Updegrove’s site has a definite anti-OOXML spin. Keep that in mind while reading. I’ve been reading about OOXML extensively lately, trying to get a balanced picture of what’s going on, and unfortunately it’s apparent that “no-spin” commentary just doesn’t exist.

By the way Oliver, your link to the official report of the HoD for the US is broken. To hear what the HoD (Frank Farance) had to say about the process, readers can go through Updegrove’s site above, or have a look at
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9065958