50%+ of Standards Norway Tech Ctte Resign Over OOXML Approval

Thirteen of the twenty three members of Standards Norway have resigned over its decision to recommend OOXML to ISO when 19 voted no and 2 voted yes for it (one of whom was Microsoft). The Inquirer has a rough Google translation of the letter, which says things like:

Standard Norway chose to defy their own technical committee and vote yes to a specification that is immature, useless, and unworthy of being called an ISO standard.

and the damning:

The administration of Standard Norway trust 37 identical letters from Microsoft partners more than their own technical committee.

Ars Technica describes that last issue as:

Standards Norway has defended its conduct and asserts that its vote in favor of OOXML approval was based on the outcome of a public inquiry in which a majority of the responses it received encouraged support of OOXML. The standards body has also admitted, however, that a significant number of those responses were identical submissions authored by Microsoft.

All the ex-members say they will continue to work towards meaningful standards outside of Standards Norway.