back to article South Africa launches formal objection at OOXML

The official blessing of Microsoft’s controversial Office Open XML (OOXML) document format as an international standard could be delayed after a formal objection was lodged against it. The South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) submitted an official complaint against the ratification of OOXML to the International …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    South Africa first to locate balls

    Good to see one country finally found theirs. I wonder where my country (Canada) keeps ours? We already know where the US keeps theirs (in Hillary's pants).

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Horns

    I guess ...

    ... Microsoft forgot to pay someone off.

    I'd imagine that a visit, with the strategic placement of currency, will solve this problem for them shortly.

  3. hans
    Gates Horns

    More beetroot and a showa

    This from the county whos idea of a cure for aids is eating betroot, and whos president thinks you can wash aids off in a shower.

    Surprised they are asked for their poinion, but then perhaps the OOXML requires 'speshal muti' ....

    Anan on case noted wishdokta comes a visiting with his shambok :)

  4. Michael Sheils
    Go

    Good

    Now how do we contact the British standards body to convince them to lodge an objection as well?

  5. Kanhef
    Go

    Good news, obviously

    Now that SABS is the first to speak out, hopefully some other national standards bodies will follow suit. Shouldn't take many to scuttle the nightmare that is OOXML.

  6. Neil Greatorex
    Thumb Up

    Good on ya SA!

    Pity BSI don't have the same integrity.

  7. Mark
    Flame

    @hans

    A white southafrican, hans?

    Because that was a complete waste of time there. Mind you, it did get me to remember a catchy song from Spitting Image:

    "I've never met a nice South African

    and that's not bloody suprising, man.

    Cos they're a bunch of arrogant bastards

    with no sense of humour"

    Pik Botha's last words: "It's all going blik"

  8. Nordrick Framelhammer
    Happy

    South Africa found their tiny balls

    Meanwhile the nations with real balls are the ones that told Microsoft to take a flying leap with their "incentives" and voted No right from the start. Countries like Cuba, Brazil, New Zealand and India amongst others all showed the size of their cojones by t-bagging Microsoft in the vote.

  9. Rodney Sloan

    Re: More beetroot and a showa

    "This from the county whos idea of a cure for aids is eating betroot, and whos president thinks you can wash aids off in a shower.

    Surprised they are asked for their poinion, but then perhaps the OOXML requires 'speshal muti' ....

    Anan on case noted wishdokta comes a visiting with his shambok :)"

    Only some morons think eating beetroot is a cure for aids and it's not the president who thinks you can wash aids off in a shower. Most South Africans who are lucky enough to have an education think Zuma (the shower guy) is a fool, so please don't generalise. South Africa's IT industry is on the up and up and I think that is more in line with this article.

  10. Chris Robinson

    @hans

    Hans, lift your knuckles off the ground, pick up a dictionary and learn to spell 'country', 'beetroot' and 'opinion'. The president of South Africa is Thabo Mbeki (unfortunately); I think you're confusing him with Jacob Zuma. In fact, judging from the rest of your mumble I think you're just confused, period.

  11. dodge
    Flame

    Hans, you're a moron

    I can only assume you're not South African, judging by your copious cluelessness.

    And on the subject of beetroot and garlic, luckily one hopelessly incompetent health minister does not an entire nation make...

  12. Adrian Jooste
    Joke

    Thanks Hans

    Now El Reg readers know for sure that South African's are slow, dense but exceptional sportsmen. When will we shake this damn stigma!

  13. Danger Mouse
    Coat

    Hans that do dishes

    To sum up:-

    Hans, you're a soap dodger if ever I seen one, me hearties.

    OOXML sounds like a brand of hair gel, it should be voted out for that reason alone.

    Yeah, that's the one, the one with the two day old cheese sandwich in the right hand pocket.

  14. Steve

    @ dodge

    "luckily one hopelessly incompetent health minister does not an entire nation make..."

    Thank god for that! I wouldn't fancy our chances with "lethal skunk" Brown and "unhackable" Smith.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    with no sense of humour

    Or

    "who smell like baboons"

  16. Matt Bradley
    Flame

    @hans

    Is that Dutch name by any chance?

    Oh dear.

  17. Steve Anderson
    Gates Horns

    Back to the question in hand...

    "That decision follows months of heated arguments on both sides the OOXML debate, with ISO-approved OpenDocument Format (ODF) fanciers in one corner and lovers of Microsoft’s spec in the other."

    I think you mean "lover" singular - the Great Beast. Anyone who has so much as glanced as the spec has vomited out of their eye sockets. If, for some reason, that hasn't put them off and they've spent more than five minutes looking at it, they come out in hives. The really intrepid adventurer developers who are in it "for the experience" find themselves kidnapped at gunpoint BY THEIR OWN BRAINS and forced to eat a bowl of eye balls and hives in vomit. It really is quite horrific.

    Although I hear those on the payroll are willing to put up with eye-vomit in return for special treats from MS-central, which they've yet to realise are hollow, empty promises. "Hey, we can get Vista in our schools for three years with a 5% discount!"

  18. Simon B
    Heart

    Well done South Africa

    At last! a country WITH a brain, well done South Africa, shame others haven't had the balls. Here's hoping your action starts the ballssssss rolling!

  19. Scooby
    Coat

    @Hans

    You are confused mate, South Africa was the originator of the little knowm company called Verisign you may have heard of it, And also a little known Linux distro called Ubuntu, but then again you have probably not heard of either.

    What did the German say when he pushed his mate of a cliff?? "Look ma, no Hans!"

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    God bless the SABS

    amen

  21. Nordrick Framelhammer

    @Simon B

    A country WITH a brain would have voted NO! all the way through the voting process, not come simpering along after the fact, wringing it's hands, head hung down in shame, saying "Please sir,if it is alright with you sir, we think we may have been wrong in voting yes for this great big steaming pile of decaying elephant dung known as OOXML"

  22. Riccardo Spagni
    Paris Hilton

    @scooby

    Eeeek, boet, please don't go proving everyone right and showing your complete ignorance. VeriSign was *NOT* started in South Africa. From the Wikipedia article (I'm too lazy to go hunt through their site to find their history, this will suffice):

    "VeriSign was founded in 1995 as a spin-off of the RSA Security certification services business."

    They went on to aquire Thawte Technologies from Mark Shuttleworth in 1999. Thawte originated in South Africa and was started by Shuttleworth. As an aside, RSA Security has nothing to do with the Republic of South Africa. Rather, the RSA bit was "named for the RSA public key cryptography algorithm, which was in turn named for the initials of its co-inventors: Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Len Adleman."

    An all I did was a bit of research on Wikipedia (you may have heard of it) and I didn't even need to check on Google (you may have heard ot if).

    Paris, because she might've Thawte that VeriSign started in the RSA too. Confusing, ne?

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