2007/6/26, Michael Adams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
Apologies to Henri, corrected your post to bottom posting on a bottom post thread. Mixed posting messes the thread. When in Rome ... On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 19:30:59 +0200 M Henri Day wrote: > > 2007/6/25, Harold Fuchs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > > On 25/06/07, Pueblo Native <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > Harold Fuchs wrote: > > > > Signing *might* make a difference. Not signing will *definitely > > > > not* make a difference. Sounds like a no brainer to me. > > > > > > > > > > > > > And that's the same justification that I've heard for tens of > > > thousands of internet petitions on almost anything and everything > > > in the world, from famine in Africa to the price of gas in town > > > and all things in between. I guess you could say that signing a > > > petition about the amount of third world debt would make more > > > difference than not signing it, but I would prefer to do other > > > things that would make more of a difference. > > > > > > > > I fully agree; doing something that makes more difference than > > signing the petition makes a lot of sense. In the case of third > > world debt there are any number of things an individual can do that > > are better than signing a petition. But in the case of getting a > > technical standard rejected by a bunch of bureaucrats, I'm not so > > sure. I look forward to your suggestions; I'm in the UK if that > > helps. The British Standards Institute, which is documented as > > handling the UK's response to Microsoft's efforts to make OOXML a > > standard does not seem to have any references to its response on its > > web site; or maybe I just need new spectacles ??? > > > > -- > > Harold Fuchs > > London, England > > Please reply *only* to [email protected] > > Perhaps letters to standards institutes in various countries from > interested citizens/subjects would, in fact, have more impact than > signing petitions, if only by letting bureaucrats know that at the > very least, their decisions were being watched by others than > lobbyists. But to my mind, this is less a motivation for not signing > the petition in question here than for sending a letter in addition to > signing the petition.... > > Henri First up i suspect this is more a topic for the discuss list but as it appears here i'll run with it. I've been scratching around on behalf of interested parties to this. Letters should go out and there are a lot of voting countries. To find who to contact in your country see this list: http://www.iso.org/iso/en/aboutiso/isomembers/MemberCountryList.MemberCountryList The right hand column explains the status of the country. More info about this here: http://www.iso.org/iso/en/aboutiso/isomembers/index.html I wonder if someone should open a Wiki page where we can contribute more details about exactly who to contact for each country, email and snailmail. I am going to look more into my home country details to see who to contact there, but to date i haven't even found a number that OOXML is listed under at iso.org. (should i have used whom?) I have found a white paper, in HTML or PDF, that compares OOXML and ODF on for key points of openness. This and other usefull (i didn't say unbiased) information should be invaluable to those willing to write letters: http://fussnotes.typepad.com/plexnex/2007/06/achieving_openn.html Getting well organised up front is the key to a good public pressure campaign and it seems we don't have a lot of time to do this. Another way of bringing this more into the public eye via the media is public protests. Aside: Has anyone else noted that OOXML could be misread as OpenOffice XML thus causing some from either side to back the wrong horse. -- Michael Linux: The OS people choose without $200,000,000 of persuasion.
Sorry, Michael, for not paying sufficient attention regarding bottom or top posting ; usage seems to vary from poster to poster and from posting to posting, and it's been a while since I've been in Rome. In any event, let me thank you for some very useful links - it would be wonderful if a enough OOo users send letters to turn this petition into an effective letter-writing campaign.... Henri
