Do you love Microsoft?

I guess I need to go into this again, since MS is pushing hard for the US INCITS Executive Committee to vote that way.

MS is clever. In war, it is always a good idea to get your opponents onto the wrong battleground. With great skill, MS just engineered a battle in the Executive Committee about whether the vote should be (A) Yes with 96 comments or (B) Yes with 400+ comments. It then “lost” the battle when the Executive Committee put (B) out for a formal vote.

To repeat, just read 9.6 of the JTC1 Directives. You can only signify “Approval”, or “Disapproval … for technical reasons to be stated”, or abstain. But it is true that by implication any National Body can submit any technical comments it wants provided it does so by the end of the letter ballot period (2 September 2007). It is probably also true that the Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM) is then able to discuss these comments. But, of course, you have still voted an unconditional Yes. The JTC1 Directives are so hopelessly drafted that it is not clear whether you can change your vote to No at the BRM. But that is beside the point, because, of course, your own national rules will almost certainly stop you changing your vote, so if the US goes down this route it will have been tricked by MS into voting an unconditional Yes.

Wake up, Executive Committee! If you actually care about those 400+ comments, you should vote “No with comments”, because then there is the threat that you will not change your vote to Yes until they have been adequately dealt with. MS appears to be putting forward some nonsense about if too many people vote “No with comments”, then the draft will simply be thrown out without a BRM. FALSE. Again, read the JTC1 Directives. It is almost inconceivable that there will not be a BRM. The only way that can happen (at least in compliance with the Directives) is if NO ONE votes “No with comments”.