So it's not official yet, but, things seem to be leaking like a sieve.

Undy Updegrove has details of what looks to be the final vote. http://consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20080401033558908

I'm looking forward to moving our products to support OOXML and to continuing to participate in the development of this standard.

Result of voting

P-Members voting: 24 in favour out of 32 = 75 % (requirement >= 66.66%)

(P-Members having abstained are not counted in this vote.)

Member bodies voting: 10 negative votes out of 71 = 14 % (requirement <= 25%)

Approved

"I am deeply concerned that some national bodies have considered approving DIS29500 'in their national interest'. It is not in the interest of the UK or any other country for DIS 29500 to be published as an international standard in its present form as there are a significant number of unresolved issues, including incompatible licensing conditions, single vendor interest and control as well as those other factors uncovered since the original comment period closed."

He concludes by urging the BSI not to change its stance on OOXML."

I'm a huge fan of Podcasts and one of my favourite podcasts is EconTalk. Now this is an unashamedly free market oriented Economics podcast but it covers some great topics. Here is a great one on Unintended Consequences of Regulation. THe Library of Economics and Liberty also has a good article.

It's this very thing that has jumped up and bitten the New Zealand Government in the ass recently. Bernard Hickey discusses it a bit here but judgging from the comments maybe not in enough detail or in an easy enough form.

It's pretty simple really.

Auckland Airport has been an attractive target for a new cornerstone shareholder. In a fit of naked xenophobia we first scared of the Arabs bt the Canadians have been much more persistent.

First we threw sand in their eyes by chaning the rules around tax and stapled securities. The share priced fell hard.

Next we changed the investment rules for 'Strategic Assets'. The share price fell further.

With the share price falling so aggrresivly (helped in part by the fact that the markets including infrastructure assets have been hammered recently) the Canadian offer suddenly becomes VERY VERY attractive. The difference between the market price and the offer price grew to be quite large. This of course piqued the interest of investors who in turn all voted in favour of the sale.

So in seeking the intended consequence, that of shoring up New Zealand support and ownership, the Government has in fact done quite the opposite.
At the start of the process it was likely that at least one of the councils would have to be convinced to part with their shareholdings in order for the deal to fly. In the end the enthusiasm of the Mum and Dad private holders to take up the offer is what seems to have pushed it over the balance. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this late groundswell of domestic support doesn't see us end up with a higher degree of foreign ownership than might have resulted had a larger proportion of the sellers into this deal been foreign domiciled owners- i.e. I think if the Government had left well alone we'd have seen the Canadians buying more shares from foreigners and less shares from Aucklanders.

"There has been much discussion in the free software community and in the press about the inadequacy of Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) as a standard, including good analysis of some of the shortcomings of Microsoft's Open Specification Promise (OSP), a promise that is supposed to protect projects from patent risk. Nonetheless, following the close of the ISO-BRM meeting in Geneva, SFLC's clients and colleagues have continued to express uncertainty as to whether the OSP would adequately apply to implementations licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). In response to these requests for clarification, we publicly conclude that the OSP provides no assurance to GPL developers and that it is unsafe to rely upon the OSP for any free software implementation, whether under the GPL or another free software license."