Domain: jtc1sc34.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to jtc1sc34.org.
Comments · 11
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Re:But ODF is a flawed and incomplete standard.
Wikipedia isn't an authoritative source - as this article affirms - but it should give you somewhere to start looking. I don't have any to hand, because I was following the standardisation process at the time, and didn't keep track of the sources I was reading. The relevant passage is:
After a six-month review period, on May 3, 2006 OpenDocument unanimously passed its six-month DIS ballot in JTC 1, with broad participation,[7] after which the OpenDocument specification was "approved for release as an ISO and IEC International Standard" under the name ISO/IEC 26300:2006.
This cites an ISO press release which has since moved, as well as the participation in the voting. Note that it was only reviewed by ISO for six months (if you want an authoritative source, compare the dates of the OASIS and ISO ODF specifications). The standard at this version was a little over 700 pages, meaning that the reviewers working every day would have had to review around 4 pages per day; more if they didn't work weekends. This is far from enough time to be able to do a detailed review.
They trusted that OASIS had done their job doing a proper review, just as they trusted that ECMA had done a thorough review of OOXML. Neither of these seem like good assumptions; ECMA has a track record of producing bad specifications, OASIS had no track record at all.
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Difficulty of AppealingAfter having RTFA (sorry), I don't see where anybody is appealing the decision, yet. The main problem with appealing is that at the ISO/IEC JTC1 level you cannot really file an appeal about the decision-making processes in the national standardization bodies. The reason for this is that the national standardization organizations are not branches of ISO. The power structure is the other way round: ISO is an international cartel of national standardization bodies.
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).
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Re:Comments published as .doc?According to Groklaw they were originally in HTML, but converted to
.doc before publishing:The comments have been officially published, although as
Anybody want to maybe start by confirming the count? .doc files, sigh. Here's the zip file to download. But I thought I'd make them available to you as HTML also, which is how the members got them to make sure everyone has access and because of my idea. I gather someone had to process all the comments to put them into doc format, so one help would be to make sure nothing was overlooked. Other tasks might be to see that duplicates are noted, that they are sorted into various categories, like tech or not, and then subcategorized, etc. I think that might prove helpful too in making sure everything is addressed. -
Re:In absentia
Mayby interesting that in april 2006 out of only a total of 10 P-member 8 members voted on a ballot
http://www.jtc1sc34.org/repository/0726.htm
But a month later in may 2006 a total of 25 our of 27 p-members voted on Opendocument.
http://www.jtc1sc34.org/repository/0728revc.htm
17 more p-members voting in a month ?
Most of those 17 member are also very prominently absent in activity on the example ballots that Andy Upgrove gives as example.
So are the 17 new p-members that entered for the Opendocument vote to blame or the 11 that entered before the OOXML vote ?? -
Re:In absentia
Mayby interesting that in april 2006 out of only a total of 10 P-member 8 members voted on a ballot
http://www.jtc1sc34.org/repository/0726.htm
But a month later in may 2006 a total of 25 our of 27 p-members voted on Opendocument.
http://www.jtc1sc34.org/repository/0728revc.htm
17 more p-members voting in a month ?
Most of those 17 member are also very prominently absent in activity on the example ballots that Andy Upgrove gives as example.
So are the 17 new p-members that entered for the Opendocument vote to blame or the 11 that entered before the OOXML vote ?? -
Re:Always been a MS Shill
No, it is. See http://www.jtc1sc34.org/repository/0904.zip Just a few bugs...
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Re:That statement proves it:Because any spreadsheet program that wants to be compliant with MS-OOXML shall implement that 20-year-old MS Excel date bug? What's the point of putting that in the standard?
For legacy reasons, an implementation using the 1900 date base system shall treat 1900 as though it was a leap year.
and before you askAs to which date base system an implementation uses by default or whether it allows its users to switch between date base systems, is unspecified. See 3.17.6.7 for XML-related details. [Note: As the XML allows either date base system to be used, an implementation must be able to deal with both systems. end note]
I don't know how you call this, but I wouldn't call it "a superb standard". It's a public document btw, download it and read it, don't just believe all these foaming-at-the-mouth slashdotters, what do they know
:-)As a programmer, I'd say it's not a standard at all, because besides these technical bugs that shall be implemented, the document also contains references to technology which is not accessible under RAND conditions. See the various countries' comments in this zip file.
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OOXML ISO Objections
Just a related note, anybody thinking that only few Linux zealots are making a big noise about OOXML by complaining few editorial omissions in the OOXML specs I suggest people to take a look at one example of comments about the spec:
http://www.jtc1sc34.org/repository/0904c.htm
In the zip file you'll find tens of Word (!) documents that contain an incredible long list of comments. They undeniably underline the fact that the spec was never properly reviewed, more likely it was constructed in a hurry and knowingly omitted some key definitions. If you don't agree, just please read the docs again, the amount of criticisms is just breathtaking! -
ISO/IEC policy on patentsIt would significantly help already if ISO/IEC would apply their own policy on patents which says that if there are relevant patents or patent applications, these should be disclosed and then it should be decided whether it is one of the "exceptional situations" where "for technical reasons" the patented ideas should go into a standard anyway. [Details: It is required by the ITU/ISO/IEC patent policy that known patent and patent applications should be disclosed and then the decision should be made whether the patented technology should be included in the standard anyway. The ISO/IEC guidelines for technical work (ISO/IEC Directives Part 1), (section 2.14 on page 30, this section is explicitly referenced from the ISO/IEC JTC1 directives) clarifies that this decision would be made only in exceptional situations and for technical reasons.]
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.)
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Not quite, but...Can comments be of the form "I would need more money in order to vote 'yes'"?
Actually that particular form of corruption is not allowed by the rules (the comments have to be "technical reasons").
However there are other possible ways of corruption that are not disallowed by the rules. For example, in Switzerland, the relevant committee was chaired by H. R. Thomann, a consultant who earns money by representing business interests in standardization organizations. The rules of the Swiss standards organization did not require him to disclose whether he was getting paid by one of the interested companies. Thomann was appointed to this role by Sebestyen who besides his role in the Swiss dtandardization organization is also secretary-general of Ecma. For some more details about this conflict of interests, see SIUG's appeal.
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Conspiracy theories too soon
Guys: I am a member of the group that Microsoft joined, JTC1 SC34. This is a very broad group that encompasses SGML, XML, HyTime, topic maps, Font Interchange and ODF. As per Microsoft's claim, it would probably include Microsoft's formats when they show up at ISO.
http://www.jtc1sc34.org/#scope
The Slashdot heading is VERY incorrect and biased against Microsoft.