Sudden ISO registration of "uninterested" countries

Among the controversies at the initial ballot stage was the sudden registration of countries that, according to Geir Isene, CEO of Freecode, had no vested historical interest in standardisation.

Isene believed that countries such as Trinidad and Tobago, Colombia, Cote-d'Ivoire, Cyprus, Lebanon and Malta had no credible track record on standardisation and became participating members of the ISO suspiciously late in the process, with the singular purpose of unconditionally ratifying OOXML.

"You are touching on a complex problem here I think. Even if it were a fair claim, it fits completely within the rules of ISO, so it doesn't make much difference," van den Beld responded.

Van den Beld questions the claim that these countries have had no historical interest in standardisation, citing over 200 different ISO technical committees on all manner of subjects, from wood to ceramics to electronics, where JTC-1 is just one of those committees a country can participate in.

"The ISO is like the United Nations. Each country can join, and each country is completely autonomous and has its own jurisdiction. There are no prescribed rules on how to do standardisation from central ISO in Geneva; each country can use whatever sort of arguments they find useful, and each country can decide on its own where and when to join."

Van den Beld doesn't believe those late-coming countries that voted 'Yes' to OOXML seemed a little suspicious.

"I wouldn't use the word suspicious, that's too negative. Originally there were 28 permanent members in JTC1 and now there are 42, having this spotlight on standardisation by so many more countries is good. Each country can pick where it has expertise and say 'I want to be there, and I don't want to be there' and it is all within the rules of the game," he said.

But van den Beld does admit that the equal voting weight of ISO countries is not entirely proportionate to the influence the outcome of the vote may have within each country.

"For pure technical things, I think it is a little bit strange that Trinidad has the same voting weight as does the US, Japan or Germany or whatever. But on the other hand it is part of the standardisation life."