Slashdot Mirror
The Inside Story on Norway's Yes to OOXML
Steve Pepper writes "The former Chairman of the Norwegian ISO committee, who resigned two weeks ago in protest against his country's vote of Yes to OOXML, tells the inside story of how the decision was reached: how a single bureaucrat from Standards Norway sidelined the overwhelming majority of Norwegian technical experts and changed Norway's vote from No to Yes. The story is so surreal it's hard to believe." It's as depressing as it is brief.
He's also managed to change their domain suffix to .yes, and their country name to Yesrway.
The real question for me is what can be done now?
- demonstrations? This is what happened in Norway. Sure it would be good to have them elsewhere.
- Virgils? this is what happened in India and almost on the same level.
- moving on a building teams to stifle OOXML adoption by national governments as their standard
- ???
After the vote, did the bureaucrat jump up and starting dancing like a monkey?
After the vote did the bureaucrat start throwing chairs around?
Did the bureaucrat appear slightly chubby and a whole lot balding?
If the answer to any of the above is yes, I might be able to shed some insight on this...
The Mothership
The whole OOXML vote debacle has really showcased corruption of the ISO. Those in the ISO who want to restore the integrity of their organization need to address the massive rule-breaking this vote and Microsoft's role in it present.
Word of advice to ISO: head in the sand is not going to help!!
...SegFaultLikeWord95DoesIt
In this case, a meatspace seg fault. The MCP is getting more powerful. We need a heroic Program to save us all.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Get used to it.
It's Dick Cheney's world, were just living on it - til' he needs to wipe us off.
Microsoft is just another example of the American disease that typifies their culture. By culture, I refer to something that can be grown, in a petrie dish. The American metaphor is that of the cancer, metastatic, it devours everything it can - demolishing its own food supply. Microsoft represents the apotheosis of this "culture" in commerce - as the Rep/Dem political duopoly of endless war represents this in the sphere of political relations.
Vote, little people! Vote! Ha hah ha!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
He's been doing the same thing for 13 years before this outrage convinced him to retire. The man's reputation and belief in fair process are as clear as the abuse he relates. The story can non be told any other way.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
on why & how they changed the vote can be found at their website:
http://www.standard.no/pronorm-3/data/f/0/18/67/6_2401_0/2008-04-01_Standards_Norway_handling_of_the_OOXML_voting_in_ISO__3.pdf
[Senate fills with enormous applause]
Padmé: [to Bail Organa] So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause.
No words of wisedom here.
At this point, in a bizarre and tasteless trans-Atlantic timewarp, Dr. Johnny Fever, Venus Flytrap, Herb Tarlek, and Jeffifer Marlow, dressed as the Spanish Inquisition, burst in, and say, in chorus:
"NO! One expects Les Nessman!"
They bundle up Eugene and haul him off to stunned looks from all present.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
JC: your mood is quite chipper.
Glad to see you're not, like, bummed out, or something, dude.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
i have to agree and as an American i have to say it is one aspect of my country i am ashamed of...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Many (if not most) similar committees and associations are made up not of the right people for the job, but instead those that were corralled into the positions or couldn't find anything better.
On the other hand, Microsoft's primary goal is to maintain their privileged monopoly wherever and however possible. I actually had an eerie conversation with a Microsoft paralegal, who described her job as "palm-greasing officials in the Asian market". She also described how the executive were no longer concerned with making money, "they're in a position to change the world". I asked her what level of government they planned to get elected, and she replied, "why would they run for office? That would be a demotion!" And that was almost 10 years ago.
Assuming she was giving a truthful account, and her office was directly below Bill Gates, so I imagine she does know what goes on, the Microsoft executive believe that since power is available to them, they are entitled to use their influence wherever and however possible, and that their ability to do so justifies itself.
So show me a group of vigilante multi-billionaires and I'll show you dozens of half-witted committees that bend to their will, despite overwhelming reasoning to do otherwise.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
I wondered what alternative standards bodies could exist and I tried to find a web peer method that might work.
/. regulars to tell me what a tit I'm being and why it would never work :-(
The best idea I came up with was a standard body for GPL standards based around something like sourceforge.
If people are familier with wide band delphi estimation then this next bit might sound familiar.
Everybody on sourgeforge has a rating determined by amount of code submitted, and any peer review ratings on their code - this then gives them a weighting value for voting. The more technical they are, the more code they submit the higher their rating is. Everybody can then vote on their amendments or proposals for standards and a moderation scheme would run to promote or demote comments based on their ratings. Changes can then be voted in or removed democratically and the best ideas would naturally float up.
The advantages are:-
1. very large audience peer review of any standard
2. best ideas automatically promoted (even if you are a newbie reviewer if you have a good idea then it should gather momemtum of its own and be promoted)
3. system automatically handles voting, promotion, weighting scale and is therefore impartial arbiter.
4. transparency accross the board, everybody can see how the system works
5. if anybody wants to become more influential then they have to donate more source code to be a prolific reviewer. Everybody benefits.
Ok that is an isolated example, and I chose sourceforge as a well known example.
For standards instead of source there would need to be some changes obviously.
But in this day and age, agreeing on a technical international standard seems an excellent candidate for a web based system. In reviewing this kind of thing I have always thought the more the merrier.
Anyhow, only an idea, a pipe dream really.
I now await the
(I also wondered on how the voting would of turned out if the current provess was peer reviewed - i.e. filmed and distributed for all to see on the standards websites.)
Microsoft have done it for us. The money they paid to push through their "standard" is wasted because the body the standardized it is no longer respected. Their purpose for seeking approval from a standards body has been defeated by the way in which they obtained it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Join OOXML forces and show just how devoted you are: In order to preserve the reputation of this beautiful standard, make sure that no company can use the name if they're not 100% compliant with the complete spec. Chances are that no product can claim full OOXML support, not even MS Office. If "OOXML" doesn't appear on any product's feature list, the standard won't matter.
Apology accepted.
You can find his reasoning explained in a journal article called "The Ballamer Principle: A dissertation on the proportionality of the relationship between Microsoft's annual office furniture budget and strategic failures their global modus operandi." Published by Ikea Press.
I hate printers.
Groklaw also has information on this story for those interested. But some may have missed it because it's part of the update in this story.
It said there were 2 for and 2 against, and about 80% of the people couldn't reach a consensus (sorry folks, 80% saying they could not find a consensus is not the same thing as a consensus against OOXML). Now it doesn't surprise me that a bunch of computer experts in a room couldn't reach a consensus. Getting any computer people to agree on something is like herding cats... it is very difficult. But maybe that is a lesson for people. Some times you have to agree on something. I don't think there is any moral high ground to rail against this bureaucrat who was trying to do his job. He was in a room where, by this article's admission, no one could agree on anything. And a decision still had to be made. The experts it seems weren't willing to come to some common ground and give a coherent recommendation, so he made one himself.
Now hear this!: I don't like OOXML. It is mainly my distrust of MS, I will admit. But they have a track record that doesn't lend itself to trust. However, I still say that computer folks have to start to learn that there are times they can't just go off in their own direction. There are times you have to work together and compromise with the person sitting with you or across the table.
Going by this article, these Norwegian experts couldn't reach a consensus and we see what happened. If 80% had said OOXML is not a good choice and it should not be backed by Norway, I could see people being upset. But it said 2 were for, 2 against, and 80% couldn't come together on anything. That means this was a typical techy cluster **** where no one wanted to give up on their own point. (It is also why we have non techy project managers... they seem to be able to point in a direction and say go... and not worry if it is perfect first.) Suggestion: smarten the **** up and learn to cooperated with someone else for a change. You can't alway "fork" choices in life.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
On the Corruption Perception Index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index, Norway ranked a healthy 9 in 2007 (US was 20th). Let's see if Norway slides.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I find it odd you didn't mention OpenOffice, Google Docs, KOffice, iWork, etc. Most would at least mention OpenOffice sarcastically, as another "option" that couldn't possibly work, but you didn't mention it at all.
Perhaps you don't know that they exist?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
In Sri Lanka, the first round of voting was a "Yes", but there were more technical input later to the standards committee which made it a unanimous "No" for the final vote. But again there was so much lobbying which made it an "Abstained".
The "standard" is enormously complex and is designed so that only Microsoft Word can read/write it, by being directly tied to internal data structures in the existing .doc format. All other programs that try to read it will work approximately as well as current non-Microsoft programs do at loading .doc and excel spreadsheets.
There are also claims that it is impossible to implement the standard without using patented or copyrighted software owned by Microsoft.
1) OOXML is 6000 pages
1a) there are standards just as large, but they were not fast tracked. It takes a long time to actually review that much stuff.
1b) the largest previous fast track standard was ~800 pages.
2) it is patented
2a) FOSS lawyers say the OSP (M$ promise not to sue for patents unless you become a threat) is incompatible with GPL
2b) M$ lawyers confirm that GPL is incompatible with OSP
3) M$ does not currently implement it
4) M$ has hinted it does not plan to implement it
5) This is overblown, but there are a lot of tags like "WorkLikeWord95". These are mostly for backward compatibility, but if you hoped that the 6000+ pages would actually describe how word95/word200x worked so you could read the documents, you will be disappointed.
6) The standard hasn't even been published yet (another ISO rule disregarded - with some sympathy given the size). Nobody knows exactly what they voted on. (Not that technical considerations seem to have mattered anyway.)
The bottom line is that only M$ could possibly implement the "standard", and they will only do so if they see a strategic advantage. M$ Office will be the only "reference implementation", despite not bothering to actually implement it either. M$ will be able to tout their format as "ISO standard" and sell to governments that require that without having to support ODF.
The best defence is for such governments to also require at least 2 functional implementations of a format.
The best part of this scandal is how easily the conspirators got caught. Anybody can blog the truth and their voice will spread and amplify instantly if what they say holds any weight. This is a great demonstration of a new paradigm of security.
This was never the case people!!
This kind of manipulation is as old as the voting system itself. It is possible, it works, and there are some who are extremely good at it. And until yesterday, they could easily get away with it as long as the press didn't side against them. Now, we don't even need the press. We no longer depend on journalists to tell us the story. Whistleblowers no longer wish to remain anonymous, and when an insider demonstrates wrong doing, we listen, we act, and we revolt.
It is only a matter of time before bloggers reach critical mass in politics and everywhere else.
I cannot wait for the day our president is a blogger.
Looks like we have to do a bit of research ourselves. As in
-is the standard reasonably complete and concise? By most accounts, OOXML fails there but ODF looks better. That could be a reason to pick ODF if YOU have to support it
-is it actually supported? For both formats, there appears to be some support. See
http://www.opendocumentfellowship.com/applications and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML#Application_support.
Note that the ODF supporters are mostly Open Source and the OOXML supporters are from the proprietary camp. So depending on the direction your customer/organization leans to, you might not have much choice in the matter...
C - the footgun of programming languages
"Incompetent manager type makes bad technical decision against his technical staff." Welcome to the IT industry. That's the rule that breaks the exception.
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender