As its supporters work harder and harder to get approval for its OOXML specification in the JTC1 Fast Track process, there are some very important questions that you should be asking your national standards bodies. These are the folks that represent you on the international standards stage and their actions have very important consequences. For example, ISO standards can appear in government procurement requests and so can help direct the extraordinary amounts of money that flow to vendors each year.
I’ll ask one big question here and then point to some other technical questions.
Who are the members of your national standards body, when exactly did they join,
and what are their primary commercial partnership relationships?
Needless to say, a recent membership surge in order to support OOXML would be exceptional, to say the least, and might have important local and regional consequences in the commercial, political, and even legal areas. Publicize what you find out and discuss if balance is being maintained within your country in standards setting. You might be perfectly happy with what you learn, but, then again, you might not. In any case, you should know. The answers to this question will have implications for years to come.
The next set is “Six questions to national standardisation bodies” from the FSFE. Those are described in the link.