Do you love Microsoft?

1. A vote in the current letter ballot (ending Friday 31 August, unless you want to work weekends) has just two effects:

(A) it gives you a ticket to the Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM);

(B) any comments (formally, “technical reasons”) you append to a No vote get pooled with other NB comments, and the comment pool essentially forms the agenda for the BRM.

2. It is irrelevant whether there is a majority for or against OpenXML (or a split vote) in the letter ballot. There will still be a BRM. [Yes, there are some precedents for not holding a BRM, but it is almost inconceivable that there will not be one in this case.]

3. There are only two kinds of vote: Yes (formally, approve), and No with comments (formally, disapprove with technical reasons). Many people who should know better get this wrong. Look at the JTC1 Directives! [Yes, it is arguable that if you append unique comments (not made by any NB voting no) to a yes vote, they may be accepted as part of the BRM comment pool, but it is not certain. In any case, by voting yes you are signalling clearly that you do not really care about the comments.]

4. Prior to the BRM the comments from all National Bodies will be sorted, “deduped” (duplicates removed), and non-technical comments junked. It is hard to tell at this stage, but it is likely that this process will give somewhere in the range 400 - 1,000 comments. It could take the BRM a substantial amount of time to work through these comments. Much will depend on how the meeting is organized and chaired. It seems unlikely that the BRM will start before February or March 2008. It could have dozens of meetings, spread over many months (formally, these may count as the same meeting with adjournments). In any case, attending the BRM could be a substantial commitment of time. The real votes will take place at the BRM, so to participate you have to find representatives able to commit the time (and remember to vote Yes or No in the letter ballot, voting “abstain” doesn’t count);

5. You can vote however you please at the BRM, without regard to your letter ballot vote - although you may attract some adverse publicity if your votes are flagrantly inconsistent;

6. The BRM is fundamentally a negotiation. That means you have to approach it as a professional negotiator. Technical types are often purists. They say objections X and Y are inconsistent, so I can only put one forward in my “No with comments”. This is completely wrong. A comment is effectively a suggested amendment. A good negotiator often puts forward inconsistent amendments, or amendments he cares little about. One thing is certain, you are not going to get everything you want. Putting forward at the start only the things you regard as absolutely essential is bad negotiating! You need chips you do not value that you can trade for chips you do value.

7. A “no with comments” vote in the letter ballot is effectively a “conditional yes” vote. You are signalling that if you can be adequately accommodated on the comments, then your vote will switch to yes. But suppose you want to vote an “unconditional no”? Then you should put forward “technical reasons” which are in practice impossible to accommodate - for example, that the standard is incompatible with the existing ISO/IEC standard in the area (ODF). Of course, you might decide, after the BRM had agreed to substantial changes to the standard, that although this comment was still valid, you wanted to vote Yes. You are entitled to do so, and no one is likely to complain too much. After all, compatibility with ODF is a matter for your (technical) judgment. On the other hand, whereas no one can stop you voting yes in the letter ballot and then voting a solid no at the BRM irrespective of what changes are proposed, that course is likely to attract criticism. Indeed it might garner ill-will from other NBs that you wish to work with in the future on other matters.