Linux News: Standards: Norwegian Geeks Take to the Streets to Protest OOXML

Dozens of IT experts held a peaceful demonstration on Wednesday to protest the ISO's acceptance of Microsoft's Office Open XML as a worldwide computer document standard. The protest's organizer, Steve Pepper, is the former chairman of the Standards Norway committee. He stepped down after Norway decided to support OOXML despite his vote against it.

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Roughly 60 data experts staged a rare and noisy street demonstration in downtown Oslo on Wednesday to protest Norway joining adoption of Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) document format as the international standard.

Last week, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) narrowly voted in favor of using Microsoft's Office Open XML, or OOXML, format as a world standard.

Opponents claimed the move locks out competitors and forces Microsoft customers to keep buying the American software giant's programs.

'Scandalous Behavior'

The peaceful Oslo protest was called by Steve Pepper, who stepped down as chairman of the Standards Norway committee on the issue after being outvoted in the decision that Norway will support the Microsoft standard.

Pepper said the committee ignored the advice of the vast majority of the Nordic nation's software experts. He claimed it was pressured by Microsoft and displayed "scandalous behavior."

Standards Norway has released a detailed review of the committee's decision process to rebut such claims.

"People shouldn't have to pay money to Microsoft to be able to read my documents," Pepper said. He said there was already a good ISO standard, called "OpenDocument Format," or ODF, that allows documents to be opened by programs from different software companies.

Setting the Meta-Standard

Protesters demanded reforms to the ISO to ensure "standardization of standardization."

The marchers, who included Opera Software's Chief Technical Officer Haakon Wium Lie, carried such banners as "Micro$oft: Support ODF" as they gathered in light rain on the street.

Many smiled, though some threatened legal action against the decision.

"It's not often that computer people get together outside for a demonstration," Lie said of the jovial mood.