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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.
The Emperor will just dissolve the Senate.
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.
...of the MS efforts. Discrediting the standards process (and, by implication, the standards produced through it) is just as good, or better, for them then getting a spot as a second standard alongside ODF. If the standards bodies aren't credible, than the only "standard" that matters is "what's dominant in the marketplace today", and Microsoft has that locked up right now.
In the chairman's words, the committee has 'ground to a halt.'
See that? American style democracy is popular overseas.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
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."
but also in world process !
Now, that a big bad corporation, that have enought power to stop the ISO process.
Ok, Bill what the next move, are you resposible for the Sun to shutoff , just because you don't know the difference between Sun and the SUN ?
What about your Social responsibility.
In a normal country, this kind of organisation would have been shutoff for long.
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
Here we go.
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.)
motions for them to pass since an objection automatically triggers a vote for which quorum will be unobtainable.
In the case of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34, something to do with establishing a liaison with the XML guild, The Netherlands filed an objection triggering a full vote to which the following countries did not respond:
Bulgaria
Brazil
Switzerland
Côte-d'Ivoire (wtf?)
China
Colombia
Czech Republic
France
India
Japan
Kenya
Korea, Republic of
Kazakhstan (insert Borat reference here)
Lebanon
Malta
Norway
Pakistan
Poland
Romania
Sweden
Thailand
Trinidad and Tobago
OpenISO could just invite the members of ISO and effectively render ISO obsolete. They could abstain to vote on all ISO decisions and do everything through OpenISO. It may take a few million dollars to establish, but I say it's worth it.
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.
Easy, buy an XBOX360 and don't buy any games.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Microsoft is a marvelous competitor; they are focused and have a great business. It's actually kind of nice to see a United States company actually winning in these days of a declining neoAmerica. However, why do they have to pollute everything that they touch that is outside of their company? Their "embrace, extend, and extinguish" policies are so destructive. It would be nice if they would just stick to business and try to win on the quality of their products. Like Vista...Oh, never mind.
I wonder if they can issue a ballot to drop OOXML altogether, or delay its consideration until all outstanding ballots are resolved.
If that turns out to be the only ballot responded they would have a much better case.
The "article" is just some blogger blithering. If you read the actual ISO rules, it's clear they can deal with this easily enough.
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.
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.
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.
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.
According to the RTFA, it was three missed votes, two of which would have passed had at least 50% voted.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Don't worry ISO, Microsoft will release a patch for your process next Tuesday.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I'm actually fairly certain that Microsoft is in the black on the 360 (even if just a little), whereas the PS3 is still selling in the red. Little things like sticking with DVD, software-emulated backwards compatibility and the like cut costs a lot for them. While Sony promised everything under the sun and attempted to deliver, they failed on most counts, and now they're cutting features from PS3 consoles (and pulling entire lines off the shelves) and making full 180 turnarounds on many issues that were once important/unimportant (such as backwards compatibility and rumble). Microsoft's 360, on the other hand, is adding features as time goes on, and not a single 360 SKU has been retired yet to my knowledge (though the Core will soon be replaced by the Arcade).
So yeah, not the best way to bring down the MS giant. If only Sony and MS would exhaust themselves in a console war to such an extent that nobody could take either of them seriously any more, we'd be set.
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
A la Monty Python...
We're Members of the IMSSO,
We bash Bill when ere we're able,
We hate his bloat and legal scenes
And File Allocation Table.
We dine well here in Slashdot,
We eat grits and chips and bawls a lot.
We're Members of the IMSSO,
Our Vista hatred is formidable,
But many times, we're given rhymes
That are quite unsingable.
We're burning time in Slashdot,
We laugh at flying chairs
a looooooot.
In flame wars we're tough and able,
Quite indefatigable,
Between our WoW raids and tinfoil hats,
and mockery of what they call "stable".
Most of us know here at Slashdot,
Microsoft really sucks a lot!
Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
The Emperor will just dissolve the Senate.
.. .then they will all stand up and listen. They will even ask which way they should vote, and how much money they will get for doing so....
Emperor or Chair-Man?
"and none of the new members are bothering to vote, despite repeated pleas from the committee chair. "
They will not listen to the committee chair. If the Chair-Man shouts "P-members!, P-members!!, P-members!!!"
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....