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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.
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
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
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.
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.
I suggest you go read the article again.
It wasn't 2 people for and 2 people against. They reached a consensus that 2 of the comments had been satisfactorily resolved and that 2 of the comments hadn't been satisfactorily resolved. They then couldn't come to a consensus on whether the remaining 8 comments were resolved. The 80% number was the number of people that were not satisfied enough to vote yes.
They had agreed that 2 of their comments were not satisfactorily resolved. Which way the remaining 8 comments fell could only increase this number. Roughly 80% of those present didn't want to vote yes.
The final change to yes came down to one man, who seems to have had his mind made up ahead of time.
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 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.