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In what the New York Times is calling a "stinging rebuke," the European Court of First Instance issued a much-awaited judgment at 9:30 AM today in Brussels, Belgium, affirming almost all of the March 23, 2004 holdings by the European Commission that Microsoft had abused its dominant position to further expand its market share. But while the victory is a significant one for the European Commission, how great a defeat is this in fact for Microsoft? Perhaps less than first meets the eye, on which more below.

That's the title of a press release issued yesterday by the Linux Foundation (the full text, as usual, also appears below). Given the number of conferences that are being held on open source licensing issues all the time, you might understandably wonder why LF feels it's necessary to have two more. In fact, there are some pretty good reasons, and hence this blog entry.

Yesterday, OpenOffice.org announced that IBM would become a formal – and substantial - contributor to that organization. But press release was brief, as was an FAQ that was only available at the OpenOffice site for a few hours. As a result, I got in touch with IBM to see if I could interview someone to learn more, and was able to spend a half an hour on the phone with Doug Heintzman, the Director of Strategy for the Lotus division at IBM, someone who knows how the decision was made, and what the future may hold.

In what many will see as a long-overdue move, OpenOffice.org announced today that IBM will become an active supporter of, and contributor to, OpenOffice, the leading ODF-compliant competitor to Microsoft Office. The question that many will be asking is this: What took so long?

While many of us have been preoccupied with the OOXML vote, the rest of the world has naturally been continuing to go about its business. One piece of business that took an interesting turn in the last few days is a ruling by a Federal Appellate Court in the United States that breaks new ground in protecting the integrity of the standard setting system. The ruling may also have relevance to the regrettable conduct witnessed in the recent OOXML vote.

Public announcements of how P members of ISO have voted on OOXML are now rolling in one at a time, and the trend thus far is meaningfully weighted towards "No with comments." If this was a month ago, that would already be enough to block approval. Here's why.

Earlier this week I reported that there were nine new, last minute "P" members of ISO. I also predicted that the number could rise. Well, now that we're down to the wire on the ISO/IEC vote on OOXML, it has. In the last three days, two more countries have made the list: Malta and Cote-d'Ivoire. That assumes that the list if up to the minute, and I won't be surprised to see the count rise by the end of the day.

I'm pleased to note that the Linux Foundation has issued a statement calling for ISO/IEC JTC1 members to vote "No with Comments" on OOXML. The decision to issue the statement follows on the heels of a rising crescendo of reports of last minute additions of individuals to National Bodies which is slanting voting results, and of a similar last minute upgrading of nine (or perhaps by now, more) nations to "P" status in ISO.

Well, you have to hand it to Microsoft. They are nothing if not thorough, and leave as little to chance as possible. Previous reports from all over have indicated sudden, surprising surges of membership in National Body voting committees in multiple countries throughout the world (most recently in Sweden), and I have reported recently (here and here) that there has been a sudden surge of interest among ISO members in upgrading their privileges to "P" status, which will entitle to them (just in time) to a more influential vote on OOXML

As you may know, the Executive Board (EB) of INCITS, the US voting body on OOXML in the ISO/IEC JTC1, posted two simultaneous, seven day written ballots - one to approve, with comments, and one to abstain, again with comments. The votes have now been received back. and are as follows:

to Approve, with comments: 12 for, 3 against, 1 abstaining (six with appended comments).

Abstain, with comments: Unanimous Meanwhile, becoming a voting member of ISO/IEC JTC1 is suddenly becoming very popular.

I headed in to town from the desert this afternoon to gas up and get groceries, and to catch up on all things ODF/OOXML. In scanning my Google Alerts, I ran into this posting by Microsoft's Jason Matusow, himself just in from vacation. In that post, Jason presents, how to say delicately, less than all of the facts about what's happening with the US vote on OOXML.

LinuxWorld does tend to bring out the press releases, and here's one more. As you'll see from the release from the Linux Foundation reproduced below, I'm taking on a more formal role at LF in addition to being an At Large Board member and outside counsel. And I'm very pleased to share the news that Karen Copenhaver, who many of you will already know as one of the best known national experts on open source licensing, is also joining the management team.

Those on both sides of the ODF vs. OOXML competition are always accusing each other of spinning and misrepresenting each other's actions and statements. It's fair, and even important, for both sides to call each other out on actual misrepresentations, since the public is rarely, if ever, going to have first-hand knowledge to rely on. But when one side calls the other out, how does the public know which one to believe?

In a not anticipated move, Massachusetts announced today that Microsoft's OOXML formats have made the grade. The announcement was made even as it appears more questionable whether the National Body members of ISO/IEC JTC1 will conclude that the formats are good enough to be granted global standards status, and despite the fact that the ITD receive comments from 460 individuals and organizations during the brief comment period announced on July 5 - most of them relating to the inclusion of OOXML.

As you may know, V1, the INCITS Technical Committee that had charge of the US vote on Microsoft's OOXML, failed to reach consensus on either approving or disapproving the specification. As expected, Microsoft has turned to the full INCITS Executive Board in an effort to salvage the situation. Between now and Labor Day, a complicated series of fall-back ballots and meetings has been scheduled to see whether the Executive Board can agree to approve or disapprove OOXML, in either case "with comments."

The progress of a technical specification from development to adoption has a certain, often-lamented glacial quality to it, due to the consensus process involved. But while that process may be slow, it is not inexorable, and that which starts does not always finish.

Rob Weir reported today that V1, the Technical Committee at standards organization INCITS charged by the Executive Committee of that organization to review office format specifications, has narrowly failed to approve Ecma 376 (formerly Microsoft's OfficeOpen XML formats). A number of votes were tried across marathon proceedings, including "approval, with comments," "abstention, with comments," and "disapproval, with comments," all of which failed to garner the necessary 2/3s vote needed to report out a consensus decision.

As you may know, a brief comment period (expiring July 20) has been announced by the Mass. ITD during which anyone can agree or disagree with it's decision to add Microsoft's OOXML format to its list of approved "open standards." If this sounds like the right decision to you, then just stand by. If not...

As I reported recently, the Massachusetts ITD has announced its intention to add Microsoft's OfficeOpen XML specification (now Ecma 376) to its list of approved "open standards," subject to a very short comment period that will expire on July 20. I have great concern that such a decision may be as influential outside of Massachusetts as was the original decision by the ITD in August of 2005 to include ODF, and exclude OOXML. That first decision raised the credibility and visibility of ODF dramatically, and it is fair to say that all of the later successes of ODF were made possible by that decision.

As you can imagine, yesterday's news that the Massachusetts Information Technology Division (ITD) may endorse Microsoft's OOXML (now Ecma 376) spread like wild fire among the journalists that have been covering the ODF/OOXML competition. As of nightfall the same day, a Google News search turned up 59 articles (many of which were reprints of the same, syndicated text).