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Good software means lacking in bugs, maintainable, modifiable, scalable, etc...

No, "good software" is a subjective measure.

• Programmers almost always define "good software" in terms of source code characteristics (including design, structure, layout, and derived qualities like perceived maintainability and scalability).
• Users define "good software" in terms of the user experience with includes ease of use (for the task they intend to accomplish), look & feel, and bugs (including user errors!).
• The manager on the customer's side who has budgetary control and final responsibility over the software acquisition will define "good software" to include correctness (meets requirements specification) and promises of maintainability and scalability.

Charles Connell asserts that "Most software is so bad, in fact, that if it were a bridge, no one in his or her right mind would walk across it." How would a layman know if the design of a bridge was bad; or if the bridge was functionally sound despite an outward appearance of rot or corrosion? Many people are afraid of rope bridges, but this negative user experience doesn't prevent them from being useful for particular applications.

The correct definition of "good software" involves quality attributes that are agreed on by all interested parties. Quality cannot be defined in the absence of the consumer. Given real-world budgetary constraints a slow application with a buggy UI may be acceptable to a customer if data reliability is guaranteed. An imperfect tool is often more valuable than no tool at all.

The most important reference you need is ISO 9126 which provides a quality model for software. The Wikipedia page on Software quality is also worth reading, and you may find ISO/IEC 14598 (Software Product Evaluation) worthwhile as well.

Open source is going well in Brazil because the government is really involved in substituting proprietary software for open source. It's happening wildly in the public sector. I was astonished when my girlfriend (which is doing civil service exams) told me that in her last exam there were questions regarding OpenOffice, instead of Microsoft Office, which was the norm a few years ago.
Being a country with a past (or present) of government corruption, I really don't understand why Microsoft's bribes don't work here (but work elsewhere).

BTW: why does it say "Status: deleted" (with an icon of a garbage can) on the ISO 29500 page? I must be hallucinating.

Because that document has been superceded by these four documents.

BTW: why does it say "Status: deleted" (with an icon of a garbage can) on the ISO 29500 page? I must be hallucinating.

Because that document has been superceded by these four documents.

BTW: why does it say "Status: deleted" (with an icon of a garbage can) on the ISO 29500 page? I must be hallucinating.

Because that document has been superceded by these four documents.

BTW: why does it say "Status: deleted" (with an icon of a garbage can) on the ISO 29500 page? I must be hallucinating.

Because that document has been superceded by these four documents.

I think I get what you mean with irregular tables. Paragraph 8.1 says

Table rows may be empty, and different rows might contain a different number of table cells. This is not an error, but applications might resolve this in different ways. Spreadsheet applications typically operate on large tables that have a fixed application dependent row and column number, but may have an unused area. Only the used area of the table is saved in files.

I don't know what you mean with ink.

BTW, there was an effort to include Microsoft Office features into ODF, but Sun explicitly rejected it, saying that ODF should not go beyond StarOffice/OO.o features.

Even if Sun played nasty in OASIS, which I can't comment on because I'm an outsider, don't you think that a lot of new companies suddenly could have joined the OASIS Office committee who all miraculously voted in favour of these Microsoft Office features? I'm sure a way would have been found, and it would have been cheaper than lobbying 87 nations. Without the approval vote of Kazakhstan, CÃte d'Ivoire, and Trinidad and Tobago OOXML wouldn't have passed :-(

BTW: why does it say "Status: deleted" (with an icon of a garbage can) on the ISO 29500 page? I must be hallucinating.

ODF also lacks the ability to embed OLE objects as XML. ODF only stores OLE objects as binary blobs, while Microsoft OFfice allows OLE object to be stored as XML is possible (and binary blobs if not). This makes it possible to traverse a hierarchy of embedded OLE objects using XML parsing.

ISO OOXML uses a single format for spreadsheet dates (the ISO standard), while ODF uses 3 different date formats.

Um.. from ECMA's disposition of comments, about OOXML's 1900- and 1904-based dates:

Regarding the requests that we adopt a single date base, we do not see this as a viable option given the corpus of existing binary documents requiring support for the existing 1900 and 1904 date bases.

I think I'll stop answering your points now.. I'm tired.

Citation, please?

If you want the authoritative source, you'll have to buy the ISO 8879:1986 standard, it costs around EUR140. Aren't "open standards" like HTML great?

I've read the HTML spec and see nothing of the sort.

The HTML specification defines the content model, not how the syntax should be parsed. It gives a brief overview in the introductory material for people unfamiliar with SGML, but it's incomplete and refers readers to the SGML standard I just mentioned. It does, however briefly mention the shorthand syntax in the appendix, which is probably why you missed it.

The purpose for checking attributes is to avoid running into conflicts with future attributes that might be declared as part of the standard.

No, that might be your reason to use a validator, but it's not the validator's purpose in checking them. The validator's purpose in checking them is because it is a syntax checker, and the syntax defines which attributes are acceptable. To complain that a syntax checker is pointing out syntax errors is ludicrous. If you don't want to know about syntax errors, don't use a syntax checker.

strict attribute checking is a waste of time and effort

This has nothing to do with strict attribute checking. The validator doesn't reject XHTML-style empty elements because it thinks the slash is an attribute it doesn't recognise, it rejects it because the element is opened and the greater-than sign becomes character data. This gives rise to problems such as having character data within the <head> element where it isn't permissible, which is a problem quite different to an incorrect attribute.

the HTML standard is fundamentally flawed in that it did not provide a clean, standard way of providing arbitrary tagging of elements with additional information except through attributes, and a strict attribute check makes that impossible.

Look up the class attribute. That's exactly what it's for.

I don't know any definition of pedantic that strict attribute validation doesn't meet

But of course the validator is being pedantic! That's the entire purpose of its existence! What good would it be if it didn't pedantically go through your markup, looking for all the errors it could find?

I'm not disagreeing about the validator being called pedantic, I'm pointing out that complaining about it is like complaining water is wet. It's part of its fundamental nature.

If you want some kind of checker that doesn't check validity, but uses heuristics to point out potential problems, then you want a linter, not a validator.

I find it very obnoxious that the W3C validator doesn't allow you to disable that check

I haven't looked at the source in quite a while, but last time I checked it would be pretty difficult to do so, because the SGML feature that allows those shortcuts is also the SGML feature that allows minimised attributes.

But the validator is open-source, so if you think it's easy, download it and do it yourself. It's pretty obnoxious to use their free service all the time when you could be running it locally anyway.

They just went here...
http://www.iso.org/iso/store/shopping_faqs.htm#shop-online

It's among the vaguest documents I've ever read. All it ensures is "licences with other parties on a non-discriminatory basis on reasonable terms and conditions." IANAL, but it seems like the word "reasonable" leaves far too much room for interpretation.

It's both: The ISO standard number is ISO/IEC 23270:2006.

Contact ISO

Proprietary? ISO/IEC 23270:2003 Information technology -- C# Language Specification
Does not seem to meet the defenition.
Especially with other alternatives out there.

You could try to appeal at the ISO/IEC JTC1 level based on the differences between what the ISO/IEC JTC1 directives say and how things were actually done. I have written up an analysis in which I come to the conclusion that an appeal which is based only on this kind of discrepancies will not be successful.

What I suppose could be done with some chance of success is to file an antitrust lawsuit as well as an appeal and demand in the appeal that ISO/IEC shall defer to the result of the antitrust lawsuit. (Trying to get the standardization organization officials to decide the antitrust concerns themselves would not be a good idea IMO, since standardization organizations are really not equipped for resolving legal conflicts).

I am not sure if ISO is irrelevant when it comes to government purchasing.

Yeah that is why goverments exclusively rely on ISO MOTIS (X.400 family of specs) for mail exchange instead of that "hacked together by nerds" un-ISO protocols like SMTP... Sent over X.25 networks instead of over "Berkeley student project" protocols like TCP/IP...

Good thing HTML 4.0 is an ISO standard otherwise they probably would not even have websites...

ISO website: press release

From the article, "Subject to there being no formal appeals from ISO/IEC national bodies in the next two months, the International Standard will accordingly proceed to publication." I just hope there are some formal appeals.

Here's the ISO press release.
http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1123

Could there be some sort of challenge or appeal coming?

According to ISO press release , "Subject to there being no formal appeals from ISO/IEC national bodies in the next two months, the International Standard will accordingly proceed to publication". So there's still 2 months for appeals from NB's.

ISO has announced it officially here:

http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1123

They say it received the necessary votes to become an international standard, and there's no mention of any controversy!

Steve

Roger Frost
Manager
Communication Services
ISO
Tel. + 41 22 7490111
E-mail frost@iso.org

Jonathan Buck
Director of Communications
IEC
Tel. + 41 22 9190211
E-mail jjb@iec.ch

Link to ISO press release:
http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1123

It's official http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1123

How can I pull a bit to half mast?

http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1123

Read it and weep.

http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1123

Pathetic, if you ask me.

No one, not even MS can implement it because they haven't published a version that makes the required changes

Which "they" to you mean here? ISO (and to a lesser extent, Ecma) would be the proper "they" in this case - not Microsoft - and you never meant to imply otherwise, I hope. Incorporating all of the BRM recommended changes into a usable standard is something that's being worked on right now, and will continue if DIS2900 has in fact passed this vote. It has already been agreed that the parts which reference Word97 (which were always clearly marked as deprecated and optional) will be moved to a new section - also clearly marked 'deprecated and optional'. And while MS may participate in writing those next versions, acceptance is already out of their hands.

Creating standards that for legal reasons are not implementable by such a huge portion of the market, undermines the standards process.

I guess you're going by the SFLC's recent remarks about the OSP here. Oddly they didn't feel the same way about remarkably similar covenants from IBM and Sun. There would seem to be some dissent within SFLC as well, given that Mark Webbink (of SFLC's board, and also speaking as general counsel for Red Hat) has said that he feels the OSP does indeed allow the flexibility to be implemented under F/OSS licenses.

I have. I've even been involved in writing some of them. I dare you to go look at ODF and then look at OOXML. The difference is night and day, even for a layperson.

If you've been involved with the writing of some ISO standards, and you're an advocate of free and open standards, surely it rankles you that many ISO standards aren't freely available, but instead must be purchased for hundreds of dollars ($350 or so for ISO/IEC 26300, a/k/a ODF)? But I digress (sorry) - I have personally looked at both ODF and OOXML. Haven't just taken the pundits opinions on faith - I went and looked. Both have large sections which require much re-reading if one wants to create a good implementation. And OOXML is bigger, but IMO bigger in a good way. It goes into great detail on many things where ODF simply stands mute. Still, this is only a matter of opinion - and we all have those. So yes, the difference is night and day - but we might have to agree to disagree on which is the night and which is the day.

Some committee rubber stamping something does not make it a standard.

And here is the nub of the matter. At the end of the day, all "standards", published by ISO, IEEE and similar orgs are completely optional. Any implementor can choose to implement them, or not. Any buyer can choose to require any amount of standards compliance before buying a product - or not. So, if DIS2900 is approved and published as ISO/IEC 2900, it will simply compete with ISO/IEC 26300 on its own merits. And if OOXML is indeed so bad, then clearly ODF will win, right?

Or will it come back to the quality of the products which implement either of these standards? Of course it will. Large orgs which care about international standards compliance will once again be basically faced with the choice between OO.org and the Office Suite. And the choice will become blindingly obvious, eh?

Do you even understand what the fundemental purpose of an open standard is? Your comment suggests utter cluelessness on this matter.

So you should read those rules again.

Or maybe you should. And point out the exact parts which support your apparent thesis. You may wish to start here, though you're welcome to bring any other references you like. In a nutshell, RAND != free of patents.

All International Standards are reviewed at the least three years after publication and every five years after the first review by all the ISO member bodies. A majority of the P-members [participating members] of the TC/SC [Technical/SubCommittee] decides whether an International Standard should be confirmed, revised or withdrawn.

All International Standards are reviewed at the least three years after publication and every five years after the first review by all the ISO member bodies. A majority of the P-members [participating members] of the TC/SC [Technical/SubCommittee] decides whether an International Standard should be confirmed, revised or withdrawn.

The problem of inactive members occurred in subcommittee 34 (SC34) of the joint technical committee between ISO and IEC (JTC1). It never affected all of ISO, and several specifications have been approved as standards by ISO since then. The problem still prevents SC34 from getting anything done.

ISO has many committees, and most of them contain several subcommittees. SC34 of JTC1 is only one subcommittee among many. Many people think the problem of inactive members affects all of ISO, but it actually only affects a small part of ISO, and IEC is just as affected as ISO is.

Microsoft has really hurt SC34 of JTC1, but ISO is far too large and important for comparatively puny Microsoft to screw over the entire thing.

As I understand it the NEN (Dutch Standards Orginisation) isn't a government organization. Any influence would therefore have to be indirect.

Not likely. Apple's not about to sign up to support a Microsoft API on OS X.

ISO 26300

Most ISO standards are (justly) ignored. Virtually no restaurant in the entire US provides ISO 3103 compliant tea (although they no longer make it with salt water).

The "article" is just some blogger blithering. If you read the actual ISO rules, it's clear they can deal with this easily enough.

• 1.7.4 A technical committee or subcommittee secretariat shall notify the Chief Executive Officer if a P-member of that technical committee or subcommittee has been persistently inactive and has failed to make a contribution to 2 consecutive meetings, either by direct participation or by correspondence, or has failed to vote on questions submitted for voting within the technical committee or subcommittee (such as new work item proposals).

  Upon receipt of such a notification, the Chief Executive Officer shall remind the national body of its obligation to take an active part in the work of the technical committee or subcommittee. In the absence of a satisfactory response to this reminder, the national body shall automatically have its status changed to that of O-member. A national body having its status so changed may, after a period of 12 months, indicate to the Chief Executive Officer that it wishes to regain P-membership of the committee, in which case this shall be granted.

• 1.7.5 If a P-member of a technical committee or subcommittee fails to vote on an enquiry draft or final draft International Standard prepared by the respective committee, the Chief Executive Officer shall remind the national body of its obligation to vote. In the absence of a satisfactory response to this reminder, the national body shall automatically have its status changed to that of O-member. A national body having its status so changed may, after a period of twelve months, indicate to the Chief Executive Officer that it wishes to regain P membership of the committee, in which case this shall be granted.

The "plaintive notes" the blogger writes about are the "reminder" mentioned above. This is just the step before the automatic status change to O (observer) member. Notice that once reduced to observer status, there's a delay of 12 months before a national standards body can reapply for P (principal) status.

So there's no problem.

I'd say pretty well. They managed to get slightly more than half the P-members to vote yes (2/3 required) and 74% of all members to vote yes (75% required). If that isn't pretty well I don't know what is. There will be a new vote in February, and they will probably manage to ram it through then. They just need some more time "convincing" (read: bribing) the right representatives to vote yes.

The publisher of record for a book is the entity that owns the ISBN number. citing http://www.fonerbooks.com/2006/08/isbn.html a Self publishing blog, I'm pretty sure you could find it somewhere deep in the depths of this ISO 2108:2005 http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_ics/catalogue_detail_ics.htm?csnumber=36563 but you have to pay to get it.

So for Harvard Coop to own the rights to these ISBN numbers they would need to be the publishers of the books as well. It would be amazing, but I doubt that the Harvard bookstore writes, prints, and publishes all there own teaching materials.

Here's the list of ISBN numbers that Crimsonreading.org has collected, http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pxZykg0guofL1VaDsFRbwHg from an initial look at the list and the ISBN numbers they do not look as though they all come from the same publisher.

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number if you want to break down the ISBN to Country, Group(language), Publisher, and then individual title numbers.

ODF is an ISO standard (this page is supposed to show it, but it's apparently down): http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPage.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=43485
It's been an ISO standard since November 2006.

I think ODF is an ISO standard now: http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=43485

The fast track process does not officially end until after the next ballot resolution meeting (BRM). According to the ISO press release http://www.iso.org/iso/newsandmedia/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1070, if Microsoft scrapes together enough support at the BRM, then the OOXML standard will be accepted.

On the other hand, if Microsoft doesn't get the support at the BRM, then OOXML is out of the fast track process and referred back to committee for development.

Unfortunately, very likely due to undue influence of Emca on the ISO/IEC JTC1 Fast-Track process (ca 80% of their fast-track submissions are from Ecma, and ISO/IEC seem to consider it good and valuable to get many such submissions) the ISO/IEC rules about patent disclosure are not applied to the fast-track process, but Ecma's much lower standards (requiring only a RAND commitment) are applied. (To this day Microsoft has not disclosed the patent numbers of their alleged patent rights claims on OOXML.)

One of these languages will finally become dominant when they design it by committee and make it an ISO standard, like what happened with C++. The problem is, by the time the language makes it through the standardization process, some upstart will already have another language ready.

It makes me wonder what the value of having so many standards is.

You have to look at how many industries there are when you think about that 1250 number. check here for a listing of the ISO standards by ICS. Everything from health care to math to EE to agriculture to military engineering and back again. You are talking about standards for **everything**. This world is a pretty diverse place.