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Format Standards Committee "Grinds To a Halt"
Andy Updegrove writes "Microsoft's OOXML did not get enough votes to be approved the first time around in ISO/IEC — notwithstanding the fact that many countries joined the Document Format and Languages committee in the months before voting closed, almost all of them voting to approve OOXML. Unfortunately, many of these countries also traded up to 'P' level membership at the last minute to gain more influence. Now the collateral damage is setting in. At least 50% of P members must vote (up, down, or abstain) on every standard at each ballot — and none of the new members are bothering to vote, despite repeated pleas from the committee chair. Not a single ballot has passed since the OOXML vote closed. In the chairman's words, the committee has 'ground to a halt.' Sad to say, there's no end in sight for this (formerly) very busy and influential standards committee."
We declare everyone who doesn't vote, to be here-by removed.
Allowing mercenary corporate entities to corrupt the standardization process has negative implications? I'm amazed. I never would have guessed that violating the spirit of the rules while abiding by the letter could lead to problems in the future. Nor would I have guessed that punitive/preventative measures would need to be drafted into those rules to prevent abuse.
when they bought a lot of the votes. Either OOXML will be approved and the standards organization will continue its work or else no other standard will get processed.
I guess if they allow for members to join spontaneously and upgrade their memnbership without showing any commitment to the standards body, then they get to sit in their own shit and do nothing now. Thank you MS for doing your part in exposing the ridiculousness of this standards body's regulations and processes.
Up to now it was pulling a quick one, but with this it has turned into a full-scale abuse.
It will be interesting to see if the ISO fixes this problem (e.g. by withdrawing P status from all the abusers) or not. If ISO decides to do nothing, the only rational reason is to not have to admit that the vote was almost fixed - and that means there is corruption at the highest levels of the organisation.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Their bylaws probably prevent them from doing this except by a vote of all the P-class members.
I've seen this sort of thing happen before, to smaller organizations. You get a huge influx of members for some reason, but then they stop participating. If you didn't anticipate this possibility when drafting your constitution or bylaws, and you have some rule in there that says "changes to the bylaws must be ratified by 50% of the membership" or something similar, you're screwed. You can't change the rules, because nobody shows up, and you can't do anything, because nobody shows up.
Maybe the ISO Standards Committee should dissolve itself and reform under a slightly different name, with a better set of bylaws...
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Maybe they could make voting membership in a computer-standards committee contingent on having some sort of viable technology industry or something. (Of course, in a few decades that would probably knock out the United States, the way we're going...)
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The thing is - why was OOXML tried as a "fast track" item anyway? You know what I mean?
How freaking important could a document standard (hard to type without a straight face) be, that it needed to be fast-tracked?
(Yes, I know that's not why they attempted to fast-track it.)
I don't think they can even amend their rules without the other voting members.
However, they do have conditions whereby the non-voters will eventually get removed for missing too many votes. It's just that that will take a while.
Hopefully, they'll add new rules afterwards to keep those folks from rejoining unless they participate in a lot more votes about many different topics (and make them do more than just vote 'abstain' a bunch of times).
TCP/IP overtook OSI as a network model. While OSI is relatively simpler and more clear cut, it took ISO so long to get it off the ground that by the time it actually solidified TCP/IP had left it in the dust. So far as I know, to this day TCP/IP isn't a true standard as much as it is a de facto standard. I say, let the beurocracies procrasterbate, and the people who actually write software will decide which standard they want. Ultimately a voted-on standard isn't that important if no one uses it.
http://i.somethingawful.com/goldmine/02-04-2003/torsoboy.jpg
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/comedy-goldmine/gulf-war-ii.php
A variation of this same phenomenon has held US elections in its grip for many decades, witness the continuous decline in the fraction of potentially eligible voters who actually vote.
If you limit that again by the fraction of those who go to the polls and have a clue about who the people are they're voting for (usually, they're voting against someone, and don't much care who gets in, so long as it's not candidate X), and are not merely blindly pulling the party lever, then the fraction of intelligent voters in our own system is effectively zero.
It's the death of democracy. As noted by others, if there is no provision to deny eligibility to vote for non-performance on the part of the voters, the system will die. And even if voters do go to the polls but are disgusted by the lack of choice, due to the major parties exercising duopoly control over every aspect of the process, the system dies then too.
It's just a matter of time before some lunatic figures out a way to game the system, either by destroying their opponents (physically, as Hitler and the Brown Shirts did in pre-WWII Germany, or via character smears and lies, as is the tradition in our nation (and several other "democratic" nations)) or wrapping themselves in some demagogic issue and making the election revolve about a single issue. In such circumstances, the aggregate "wisdom of the crowd" is transformed into the lunacy of the mob -- think the French Revolution and Robespierre's Reign of Terror (or our own War on Terror, for that matter).
Once you manage to turn away thoughtful discussion/argument/debate, and limit the process to a small number of controllable groups, democracy dies.
This is the cancer of democratic systems, and the reason why there are no long-running democracies.
Thats an incredibly dimwitted post
Standards aren't compulsory or binding, they are simply a guideline to allow better interoperability between systems. Having a standard created by fiat changes nothing, its still up to each country to decide if its worth complying with.
The fact that your suggesting that having a committee be unable to do anything is better, is baffling, especially when its a committee that is very likely to try and bend over backwards to fast track any standards Microsoft propose, regardless of how useful the standard actually is.
This isn't a case where the entire community has a gained a clearer voice, its a case where the voice has been corrupted to suit the needs of private interests.
To avoid criticism; Say nothing, Do nothing, Be nothing.
"a United States company"
can you define that? there is no rule forcing Microsoft to spend its profits inside America.. to hire Americans... to help the people of America, or to give a rats ass about America. Microsoft is a transnational corporation. don't pretend companies are citizens of states. as a living human being citizen you are basically stuck here.. this is your home, your culture, your roots, your identity, (and likely the only place on earth you can't be deported FROM.. well.. until the Bush administration changes that law) so you have a vested interest in making America a beautiful place to live. corporations do NOT have that prerogative. America could explode for all they cared.
People have to look at each and every corporation with an extremely cynical eye.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
That's utter crap! The point of de jure standards - the kind produced by ISO, where "a standard" is "a specification" - is to *prevent* monopolies, by providing a common specification that *anyone*, as opposed to a single company, can implement. This allows purchasers to pick from multiple interoperable suppliers of goods, providing competition, and reducing the chances that monopolies will form.
.doc file format is an example. It is standard. It is not a standard. Also, de jure standards may well become de facto standards, but the reverse does not hold.)
... no, 3 - name 3 de jure standards that have enabled or supported monopolies. Go on.
(Note, this is different from de facto standards, which use the word "standard" in the context of "it is standard" simply means "common" or "widespread". The
NTSC/PAL being TV standards that mean that Disney, ABC, HBO, etc... all transmit TV in the same way, and that Sony, Phillips, Samsung, etc... can all receive it from any of these. If Disney transmitted in a secret, non-standardised format and required you to purchase a Disney TV to view Disney channels, they'd have a monopoly on TV sales from anyone who wanted to watch Disney on TV.
You could use almost any standard in any field of engineering for the same argument. I'd be hard pressed to find any that support yours. Name 5
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
I would mod you down if I could. You throw out misleading statements left and right.
You say, "Word is a standard the way that FAT is a standard" The problem is, we are not talking about the word files that we've all grown to know and hate, we are talking about a new kind of word file that doesn't even exist yet.
Your choice to view the implementations in such a manner totally glosses over the fact that the Microsoft spec is woefully incomplete, there is no way for anyone besides Microsoft to actually implement it, unlike SPF and SenderID, which are relatively trivial network protocols.
You talk about defacto standards and the fact is that this is not even a defacto standard, as not even Microsoft has committed to implementing it. How can you have a defacto standard when there are no implementations?
What you are really saying is that Microsoft is going to jam this thing down our throats, whether we want it or not.
You are really just a troll, in the most insidious sort of way.
The article is about Subcommittee 34 (SC 34), which pertains to "Document Description and Processing Languages". It is a part of Joint Technical Committee 1, a joint committee between ISO and IEC.
ISO is enormously huge and important. It isn't limited to technical specifications. It also define standards for lots of other stuff like food, screws, cars, and timber.
The people who created OpenISO are clueless. Have you seen their website? They, like many, don't seem to realize that ISO does more than just approve technical documents.
So here's where the problem is:
ISO > JTC1 > SC 34
And you want to replace all of ISO? That's ridiculous!
And why is it that people talk so much about replacing ISO, but nothing about replacing IEC? Is it because their name comes second in "ISO/IEC", and nobody's gotten around to looking after the slash yet?
ISO isn't going anywhere. The joint committee between ISO and IEC isn't going anywhere. Maybe subcommittee 34 of the joint committee between ISO and IEC will be dissolved, but that is nowhere near the enormity of dissolving ISO.