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ISO Miscounted Cuban OOXML Vote
An anonymous reader notes Groklaw's coverage of the apparent mix-up ISO made with Cuba's vote in the matter of recommending OOXML as a standard. Cuba apparently voted against OOXML in September, but ISO recorded their vote as a "yes" — which is odd on its face, as Microsoft is forbidden to sell any products in Cuba. The Cuban NB head has apparently now officially responded to the BRM, but Groklaw's PJ notes that verification remains problematical, and "...the bottom line to me is that a process that worked perfectly well when folks all trusted each other falls into chaos when there are allegations of dirty tricks or undue pressure."
It's more than that. The normal process is a specification-creating process. The "fast track" process is just ISO urinating on some company's product in an attempt to convince people to use it. Microsoft doesn't want to make a system, they want their existing system to be advertised.
The whole OOXML noise is a joke - but then, ISO shouldn't have a "fast track" process in the first place, and the "standards" worship that is in vogue these days is just silly. The purpose of ISO (and all similar organisations) is for people to come together and create an agreement on how they are going to make their systems work together. If there is no intention for people to make their systems work together, then there is no value in any of it.
A "standard" is not some kind of law about how computer systems have to work (despite what a lot of very stupid people seem to think), it is the symbol and partial documentation of a completed process of development and negotiation, which all parties agree they can work to. If you try to just make up the document without that agreement, then all you have is a worthless piece of paper, since nobody is going to be able to build systems around it even if they wanted to.
When all the proprietary UNIX vendors sat down together and worked out a specification for the common elements of their systems that anybody could write programs against, that was a real standards process which resulted in real benefits, because they started with the intention to make it possible to write portable software and designed a specification which they could and would all implement. When somebody just makes up a new bunch of rules off the top of their head and gets some official-sounding organisation to put out a press release, that's purely marketing, of no particular use to anybody, and it doesn't matter who the organisation is.
He is probably referring to the peering conflict between TeliaSonera and Cogent. See this Slashdot story. I have Telia as an ISP and can't reach Groklaw. This probably mostly effects Scandinavia.
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. --Niels Bohr
There is also an article on groklaw titled: A Delegate from Brazil Challenges "Law of Silence"
A delegate from Brazil is challenging the "Law of Silence," The ad-hoc restrictions on revealing details of the BRM meeting. He alleges that he believes Microsoft has itself violated it. It relates to Microsoft's claim that 98% of issues were resolved at the meeting, which he says is inaccurate, but his question relates to why Microsoft can talk about the BRM and no one else can.
The ISO seems to make "rules" ad-hoc, according to what Microsoft dictates, then they don't even follow their own bogus rules.
The ISO has lost all credibility with me. Unless the ISO completely reforms their processes, I will consider them about credibilitily as an Enderle article.