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New Rules Created For OOXML Vote

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the be-sure-to-hold-your-mouth-right dept.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "There are new rules to follow for any NB that wishes to change their vote on OOXML after the lack of resolution at the recent Ballot Resolution Meeting. After comparing it to previous instructions, it seems that they only have until March 29th, they need to email several specific people, that email must be sent by certain people, and they need to confirm it in writing as well, most likely via registered mail. Even Groklaw's PJ, who made sense of many of SCO's filings, finds all the requirements a little confusing. But anyone who wants to disapprove of OOXML had better dot every 'i' and cross every 't' if they want their vote to count, if past behavior is any indication."

14 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Hmm... by Otter · · Score: 5, Funny
    But anyone who wants to disapprove of OOXML had better dot every 'i' and cross every 't' if they want their vote to count, if past behavior is any indication.

    If spelling counts, the open-source side is pretty much doomed. You might as well have CmdrTaco start drafting a concession speech right now.

    --
    What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
  2. It works the other way too by blowdart · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But anyone who wants to disapprove of OOXML had better dot every 'i' and cross every 't' if they want their vote to count

    Or anyone that has been "bought" (if that is going on) and wants to change their mind has it hard too; but we shouldn't mention that should we?

    1. Re:It works the other way too by blind+monkey+3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Special rules for any company has to be viewed with suspicion, special rules when a company has actually been caught buying votes is even more worrying.
      Worse than that, some people are actually accepting this as SOP and still want to give the "benefit of the doubt" to them.
      A lot of irregularities have occurred in favour of Microsoft, rules have been bent in favour of Microsoft, my suspicion is this will favour Microsoft. You believe, I gather, that it will not favour anyone.... why the change? Again, another change in procedure.....

      --
      BM3
  3. They forgot the part about... by dpilot · · Score: 4, Funny

    You ALSO had to send the filing to the zoning office...

    in a locked basement
    with a sign on the door, "Beware of Alligators"
    in a condemned building

    on the third planet of Alpha Centauri

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
  4. Moral of the story by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ISO doesn't matter anymore. They didn't matter because they were "The ISO", they mattered because they were a place where politics could be set aside and everyone could work together to make standards that work. That was a unique and precious thing. Now they're not these things anymore, and therefore, they are defunct.

    MS didn't drag themselves up a notch here, they just destroyed something special in the world because it got in the way of their dominance. A sad thing.

    --
    -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    1. Re:Moral of the story by MenTaLguY · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It has more to do with the significance of the thing destroyed in this case.

      --

      DNA just wants to be free...
    2. Re:Moral of the story by Zeinfeld · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Its still completely wrong. Standards bodies really do not matter in the way people at slashdot imagine they do. ISO has a complete set of standards for a networking infrastructure, nobody uses it. The Internet was the competition.

      During the early 90s many if not most people who were working on the Internet thought it was only a matter of time before the OSI stack replaced it. Didn't turn out that way despite ISO accreditation.

      ISO standards do not need to be open or unencumbered. It is not a democratic process.

      All the standards process means is that if OOXML is accepted and someone wants to claim their product is OOXML they have to comply with the spec. It does not mean that its open, unencumbered or any good. It does not even mean that it has to work. It does not mean that you have to use the result.

      --
      Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
      Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
    3. Re:Moral of the story by CrazedWalrus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I was reflecting a few evenings ago on the fact that we, as techies, still play with computers because they're fun and we like to build/break/explore stuff. It used to be that people like us could make something in our garage that would make the world stand up and go "Whoa!" (just ask Woz).

      Fortunately for our paychecks, and unfortunately for our hobbies and killer business ideas, computers have grown into An Industry. It's gotten very difficult (not impossible) for a person in their garage to do much worthwhile due to patents, the head starts of competitors, and the fact that the lonesome programmer is severely outgunned by mature software shops. It's a world where good ideas are flattened by a truckload of money from established players. In other words, it's become business as usual -- the same as in other established fields like financial services or retail merchandise.

      I guess that means that we need to learn to play hard ball. I don't really know what that means, except that I think we, as a group, tend to spend a lot of time complaining about the corporations, but don't really spend much time figuring out how to get that same power for ourselves.

      I think the only way would be for the F/OSS world to figure out how to work "like" a corporation without necessarily being one. The first thing to do would be to define what it is about a corporation that gives it its competitive edge, and then figure out how to replicate each point for F/OSS as a whole (as opposed to just Mozilla, Red Hat, etc). Superior software and development models will only get us so far. At some point, we need to learn to fight at MS's level.

      There's no sense challenging someone to a duel of swords when the other guy wouldn't think twice about pulling a gun. That just means we need to work on our marksmanship, or we don't stand a chance.

  5. I guess this proves it by JeremyGNJ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It has long been rumored that Microsoft wants to actually show that ISO is not such a great standards organization. I guess this proves it. As usual, Microsoft wins either way.

  6. Why the outrage? by krlynch · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I fail to understand the outrage in this case. Yes, the OOXML specification sucks and is thoroughly umimplementable. And Microsoft is evil. Check. But these are rules for how National Bodies must proceed to change their votes. We're not talking about some uneducated John Doe here trying to punch a butterfly ballot ... we're talking about institutional groups like ANSI, BSI, JISC, and Standards Australia. If those groups, with their staffs and lawyers, can't figure out how to change their vote, and to use ISO procedural rules to make sure their votes are properly counted, perhaps they shouldn't be able to change their votes. I'm sorry, but this isn't exactly rocket science...

  7. Changing your mind is not always "wishy-washy". by Haeleth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You should have to do more (this much more? Not my decision but it does seem odd) to change your vote. Why'd you change your mind? What made you vote for it in the first place?
    IIRC several countries voted "yes with comments". If their comments were not addressed satisfactorily, they might now want to change their vote. What's "wishy-washy" about voting conditionally and then deciding to change your vote when the conditions are not met?

    Voters might also have initially missed problems in this incredibly long and complicated document that other participants found; they might therefore have voted "yes" initially, and now desire to change that vote to "no" because the evidence available to them has convinced them that the initial "yes" vote was mistaken. What's wrong with changing your mind when presented with new evidence? What's wrong with listening to competing viewpoints and recognising that the person arguing against your initial belief has valid points?

    Or they might have been convinced by Microsoft representatives that OOXML would end global poverty, and have now concluded that the truth doesn't match up to the PR. If someone is convinced by a hard-selling salesman to buy a product they don't need, are they being "wishy-washy" when they cool off and cancel the order? No, they're just displaying common sense.

    Above all, why are people so hostile towards anyone who changes their mind these days? Sticking to your guns regardless is not strong or smart, it's stubborn and stupid. We should applaud people who publicly change their opinions, not condemn them. Wait for someone to actually dither indecisively, or flip-flop repeatedly between two options, before you condemn them. There's nothing wrong with merely taking one side initially and then changing your mind.

    (And, no, I'm not being partisan here. I would say the same in defence of someone who had initially voted against OOXML and had decided, based on the outcome of the BRM, that they would now support it.)
  8. ISO SQL editor's view of OOXML process by pieterh · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's a little of what Jim Melton, the ISO SQL editor, had to say about the OOXML process:

    You've written 6000 pages of specification largely in secret (and, I understand, recently added over 1500 more pages) and given the world five months to read, absorb, understand, review, critique, and establish informed positions on it. Worse, whether it happened because of unreasonable methods, pure random chance, or genuine and unexpected interest, the fact that the size of the JTC 1 Subcommittee that was to vote on the document suddenly exploded gives the appearance that somebody was trying too hard to stack the deck...almost as though it wasn't really desired to have too much real review.

    BTW SQL was one of the largest ever ISO standards and took 20 years to debug. It was still smaller than OOXML.

    And, Please sign the NoOOXML.org petition if you didn't already!

    --
    My blog
  9. Here's why by g2devi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    > But these are rules for how National Bodies
    Precisely. These are National Bodies, i.e. slow moving bureaucracies.

    If you shorten the dates and in addition to that require extra lead time for written letters to arrive to all the right people, you've both dramatically shorted the review time and caused problems for any national body that scheduled their meeting late (so that maximum review was possible). If you think it's easy rescheduling a meeting of all these key people much earlier than what everyone agreed to *months* in advance, you've never held a meeting of any importance.

    And by limiting decent to a single person, they've also increased the chance that the will of the national body could be thwarted by a bribe.

    > If those groups, with their staffs and lawyers, can't figure out how to change their vote, and to use ISO procedural
    > rules to make sure their votes are properly counted, perhaps they shouldn't be able to change their votes. I'm sorry, but this isn't exactly rocket science...

    Sorry, but that's BS. If I give you rules that are impossible to follow, no number of lawyers or staff can follow them any more than if I ask you to draw a Frobizoid without explaining what a Frobizoid is, or ask you to fill out form G in order to get Form F but in order to get form G you have to fill out form F.

    And even if the rules are unambigious to an elite lawyer, the more complicated the rules, the more likely that votes can be thrown out because of procedural rather than technical issue. Given the mistrust in the process so far, I wouldn't be at all surprised if No to Yes transitions happen (because Microsoft knows the rules they wrote) but Yes/Abstain to No votes are rejected because of non-obvious procedural issues.

    Ask yourself this question. Is ISO in place to be a place where lawyers must solve puzzles to get to the next level, or is it a place to create valuable world wide standards that have been proven technically?

  10. PJ is getting sloppy by DRJlaw · · Score: 3, Insightful

    [PJ] Here's what the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34 page says about it, and go by this, not by my guess as to what they mean:

    * In regard to the September 2, 2007 JTC 1 ballot on the fast track DIS 29500 based on Ecma 376, the ballot resolution meeting (BRM) was held in the week of February 25-29, 2008 at the International Conference Centre Geneva http://www.cicg.ch/en/index.php. Within 30 days after the BRM, national bodies voted in the 2 September ballot may change their vote from any of "approve", "disapprove" or "abstain" to any of "approve", "disapprove" or "abstain". Any NB wishing to change its vote must inform ITTF of this intention in writing by 29th March, 2008.

    Vote change shall be communicated by email addressed to Keith Brannon (brannon@iso.org) as well as Maho Takahashi (takahashi@iso.org), Martine Gaillen (gaillen@iso.org) and yourself on copy.

    The following shall be indicated in the subject. "Modification to the vote on DIS 29500 - Country (National Body/e.g. JISC)"

    The name of sender shall be mentioned in the email.
    * In accordance with the JTC 1 Directives, the progress of the specification will depend on the revised status of all previously-received votes after the BRM.

    Please see SC 34 N 932: Frequently Asked Questions regarding DIS-29500 Ballot Resolution Meeting for more details.

    [PJ] I don't know if that [omitted] means you have to do more than just email, or who exactly you'd write to if there is a separate requirement. We get to guess.


    No, we don't, and PJ and the rest of you ought to know better.

    If it originated as letters and is perceived as letters, it's writing. The law and the rest of the world have long since abandoned the idea that a photocopy or a facsimile or an email are somehow not writing.

    Any ambiguity as to the meaning of "must be in writing" is resolved by the requirement that the vote change shall be communicated by email. Not may be communicated by email. Not shall be communicated by email and something they forgot to mention.

    Any semblance of ambiguity in the last point is resolved by the lack of a street address, facsimile number, telex identifier, or literally any other means of communicating with the three individuals other than their email addresses. So much detail concerning the email, but they forgot to mention the rest.

    As for the actual requirements:

    Sending a message to three people. Unconscionable - Never 'cc' anyone. Having an identifiable subject line. Evil - Short messages from an unknown email addresses are never identified as spam. Copying yourself. Unnecessary - Messages never get left in draft form in mail programs, and people happily accept the consequences of their incompetence. Including the name of the sender. Completely unnecessary - SMTP is unspoofable and contact@yourco.org can easily be verified as having the authority to change the vote of a national body.

    This is either an elaborate joke, or PJ has partaken of far too much of the Kool-Aid.