In an exclusive interview with In.Tech, he said he suspended the process to allow all parties involved to cool off, adding that he is unhappy that the process has become politicised due to the feuding. 

"No time frame has been set to resume the process. I am waiting for everyone to calm down before we do so," he said. 

Once the dust has settled, he said, Sirim would appoint new members to the evaluating committee and begin the process again. 

Sirim, which is responsible for assisting the Department of Standards (DSM) in the standards development process, manages the secretariats for standards development groups in the country. 

The process for the document standard is currently stalled at the technical committee stage, which is intended to evaluate responses from the public to the proposed adoption of Open Document Format as a Malaysian standard. 

Vendors that support the format chosen as the Malaysian standard, stand to gain over their rivals when it comes to winning government procurement contracts, which could collectively amount to millions of ringgit or more. 

If there is no Malaysian standard, government departments and agencies would be free to choose whichever document format they prefer. "There has been unprofessional conduct and a lack of ethical standards among some members of the technical committee," Ariffin said.  

"This is the first time in my 11 years at Sirim where ethics have not been followed." He, however, declined to name the individual members involved, citing his own ethical reasons. 

The committee concerned, which comes under the industry standards body responsible for information technology, telecommunications and multimedia (ISC/G), is designated TC/G/4 (the fourth technical committee, in charge of e-commerce and document standards). 

Ariffin said some TC/G/4 members had taken to belittling other members who did not share their pro-ODF views, both during committee meetings and in personal blogs. 

These pro-ODF members were also attempting to short-circuit the normal consensus process for adopting a document standard, he said. 

He explained that the International Standards Organisation (ISO), which oversees the international technical standards development process, also sets the process by which national bodies like DSM develop their own standards. 

This allows for uniformity, and enables national standards bodies to have confidence in adopting each other's standards where applicable. 

Under this process, disagreements should be worked out in committee, with TC/G/4 members reaching a consensus on issues raised by dissenting stakeholders. 

In exceptional circumstances, such as where public safety and health are at stake, ISO guidelines for setting national standards would permit the relevant industry standards committee, in this case ISC/G, to make the final decision. 

But the ODF supporters chose to ignore the dissenting voices in committee, as well as objections raised in the public responses, to push through approval of ODF by a two-thirds majority, Ariffin said. 

This is a process not provided for by ISO guidelines, he said. 

He believes that these parties within TC/G/4 had become proxies of international bodies with a business interest in promoting ODF and shutting any competing document format out of the Malaysian market. 

The OpenXML format would have been affected had the ODF supporters been successful in their bid. 

Microsoft has promoted OpenXML as a document standard through the European standards body, ECMA, which approved it late last year. 

Desktop productivity suites from rival IBM and other vendors, including Sun Microsystems and the open-source Open Office suite, use ODF. 

But Microsoft Office is by far the most popular desktop productivity suite in use, and documents using OpenXML greatly outnumber documents in other formats. 

There have been recent moves by companies and government agencies around the world to adopt ODF so as not to be tied to Microsoft products. 

Microsoft reportedly plans to provide fileconversion support for ODF later this year. 

Ariffin said there is no chance of ODF or OpenXML being made a mandatory standard in Malaysia, for two reasons. 

First, a standard can only be mandatory when public health or safety is at stake, which is clearly not the case here, he said. 

Second, a mandatory standard would constitute an illicit non-tariff barrier against software products using other document formats, according to him. 

He said this would violate Malaysia's commitments to free trade under the World Trade Organisation. 

The Malaysian document standard would only constitute an advisory endorsement of the document format's suitability for use, said Ariffin.  

"Ultimately, it is up to the general public and users in both the public and private sectors to decide which format they want to use," he said.