OOXML Critic Fired From Finnish Standards Board

Shirke writes "A Finnish computer magazine reports that Finnish Standards Association has fired Mr. Lassi Nirhamo (article in Finnish). Some excerpts: Mr. Nirhamo was chairing the OOXML standard proposal meeting. During the meeting Mr. Nirhamo asked other board members to be excused of his duties and voice his opinion as a private citizen. After this was granted he criticized the standard proposal and resumed his duties as chairman. Mr. Nirhamo has now been let go due to a 'lack of trust.' Independent observers have assessed his chairmanship as 'excellent' and 'one of a kind.' The Association is accepting applications for the position. Anyone interested?"

Comments

So...

[Romancer]

Getting fired for something that's on record that you not only asked permission to do, but got that granted permission documented.

That's a new one to me.

Are these people elected and when's the next open forum meeting?

Re:So...

[hazem]

Getting fired for something that's on record that you not only asked permission to do, but got that granted permission documented.

The key here is that as the chairman of the committee he's supposed to work from a neutral point of view. Sure he has his own personal opinion but he's not supposed to let that influence his job as chairman. By taking the role of chairman you are pretty much agreeing to be bound by that.

When he then openly expressed his opinions about the matter his further judgment will be called into question, especially if his decisions as chairman align with this publicly stated opinions. He gave up his objectivity and by keeping him as chairman, anything that comes out of that committee would be called into question.

Depending on the rules of order in place, the committee probably did not even have the authority to let him "step down" from the chairmanship and back up again.

Re:So...

[10Ghz]

The key here is that as the chairman of the committee he's supposed to work from a neutral point of view. Sure he has his own personal opinion but he's not supposed to let that influence his job as chairman. By taking the role of chairman you are pretty much agreeing to be bound by that.

According to the people who were present during the meeting, he handled the meeting really, really well. He was balanced, and kept the meeting in a tight rein. He also repeatedly underlined the fact that SFS's official stand on the issue will be decided by a vote in that meeting, regardless what the individual members might feel about the issue.

So it was not like the meeting was anti-OOXML. It was fair and balanced. He apparently asked to voice his opinion as a private citizen (a request that was granted) due to pressure from Microsoft. And his opinion was based on facts that Microsoft could not refute.

the committee probably did not even have the authority to let him "step down" from the chairmanship and back up again.

Apparently it did. He asked for a permission, and the permission was granted. If the committee didn't have that authority, why should he be punished for a mistake that others in the committee made?

Re:So...

[Goaway]

Try a relevant analogy: You're a project leader at a company, ask to speak candidly, say, "I hate this project and I wish it would just die", are you really expecting to be allowed to continue leading that project?

Re:So...

[boer]

The issue is not what he said. The issue is that he should have stayed neutral as the chariman for that forum and a representative for the Finnish standards association. He was in a position of trust and acted very unprofessionally when it comes to voicing out any personal opinions in that meeting.

This is my interpretation and yes I can read Finnish.

Error. Help!

[Prysorra]

What you do mod an "informative troll"?

I can tell you've never been involved with ISO!

[Flying pig]

Anybody who has ever been involved in standards, whether ISO, IEC, or their national standards body, knows that this happens all the time. Chairing the meeting is not incompatible with holding strong views. What less ethical chairmen would have done is simply talk to people before the meeting, find people who agreed with their objections, and then make sure they got a chance to express them. If the opposition try and say too much, have a useful retired consultant who can be relied on to stand up and waffle the meeting out.

ISO and IEC are often very political and feelings often run very high in working groups, though this rarely makes it way to the plenary sessions. People shout. Observers try to intervene and have to be shut up. This guy behaved perfectly properly. Your comment about "decisions as chairman" show a bottomless ignorance of procedure. I can only assume that either you have no experience whatsoever of standards work, or your employer is based in Redmond.

ITU

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind that while we are distracted by the ISO circus, M$ has been quietly gnawing away at ITU.

Re:Any more details?

[vinsci]

Reporters may want to talk to Mr Jaakko Lehtinen who participated in the OOXML-meeting at the SFS and wrote this insightful comment (in finnish) regarding the decision to fire Mr Nirhamo:

Translation of the original comment in finnish*:

October 1st, 2007, 22:03 by Jaakko Lehtinen
Re: Wrong opinions

Can it really be, that Microsoft would be involved in this decision as well.

I question what caused this lack of trust. We don't know that, as we're not told. This however causes suspicion regarding the SFS.

You see, I was there at the SFS's ooxml decision meeting, which ended in very even votes for and against and where the state's votes also were 2-2 — first even 3-1 against ooxml.

Mr Nirhamo handled his role as chairman in a very professional manner. He kept the discussion tightly within the agreed 'frame', to use contemporary wording. Some [attendees] tried to start for example comparing the existing standard and the suggested standard against each other, but that was ended immediately, as it was not on the agenda for the meeting. No kind of deviations to other subjects were allowed. Not even from Microsoft.

And it was a very well handled decision meeting, I dare say as someone who has been in meetings with hundreds of pretty big decision makers.

Rarely — hardly ever — have I seen and experienced such a great performance by the chair.

Further about speaking one's mind, he made it clear at least twice, that the SFS doesn't have and can't have any other opinion that the decision of that meeting.

Due to Microsoft's pressure he separately inquired if he can put forward his own opinion of the matter. The representatives of the SFS who were present gave him permission to temporarily diverge from his position as chair and to state his own opinion.

He then showed the facts, that he based his opinion on. These arguments could not be denied by Microsoft either. There are errors and contradictions in the ooxml-suggestion.

I am very sorry about how Mr Nirhamo has been treated and disappointed at the SFS's way of handling the matter, if the alleged lack of trust was due to that meeting.

In that case, the SFS does not deserve my trust.

This looks like a full-blown scandal at the SFS to me. Certainly, the SFS under managing director Pekka Järvinen, can not be trusted to create standards according to the SFS's charter (link in Finnish), which among other things says that the SFS is an independent organisation and that it should represent the interest of Finland.

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*) Although I believe this translation to be very good, I'm not a translator by trade.