IBM Threatens To Leave ISO Over OOXML Brouhaha

barnackle writes "In addition to threatening to leave certain standards organizations over the OOXML shenanigans, IBM created new guidelines for its own participation in those organizations in an attempt to pressure the ISO and ECMA to be more fair in their approval procedures."

Comments

Please help

[mcgrew]

If Sun other large tech companies join them, it will do a lot more good. IRTFA (some kind soul bought me a /. subscription and you can't comment on stories that come "in the future") and part of the end of the article explains why IBM just can't leave the standards bodies. They have their own standards to push, for instance.

Influence

[Smivs]

Surely IBM will have more influence over future ISO decisions if it remains a member. This is particularly true of a 'Big Player' like IBM who will carry a lot of clout.
'Outsiders' can be discounted far more easily as they are simply not part of the process, and could therefore be said to be irrelevant.
IBM should collaborate with other large firms (but presumably not Microsoft) to enforce due diligence in future decisions.

More importantly, if some governments withdraw

[davidwr]

Some countries are already making noises about not automatically adopting ISO standards. The more countries that adopt this "a la carte" approach to ISO, the more it will weaken ISO. The more countries that adopt the a la carte approach "until such time as ISO gets its act together" the more pressure there will be on ISO to get its act together.

Re:More importantly, if some governments withdraw

[db32]

I think that was the whole point. Microsoft poisoned the well so they can sell bottled water.

Re:More importantly, if some governments withdraw

[h4rm0ny]

I think that was the whole point. Microsoft poisoned the well so they can sell bottled water.

A valid point, but once the well has been poisoned, it's folly to keep drinking it. And the analogy breaks down in an important aspect - the Well let itself be poisoned in return for cash. This should be a lesson to other wells everywhere.

But I don't disagree with what you say.

Turn that around

[nine-times]

Surely IBM will have more influence over future ISO decisions if it remains a member.

And surely ISO will be able to stay more relevant if it can retain IBM as a member. Standards bodies can be discounted for more easily if "Big Players" are simply not part of the process.

If IBM were pulling out simply because they weren't getting what they wanted, then the whole thing would seem childish. But when a standards body is approving bad standards because it's being manipulated/corrupted, and attempts to clean up the corruption are not being successful, then the appropriate thing for other "big players" to do is drop support for that standards body.

Strike while the iron is hot

[Paradigm_Complex]

I don't think IBM feels like much of a 'Big Player', considering how much the ISO listened to them in regards to the OOXML stuff. If the ISO is going to act so stupid here, ignoring IBM, why should IBM expect their remarks to be considered by the ISO in the future? While it's true that MS isn't going to... influence the ISO's decisions quite so strongly on every tech-related issue as it did here (and so IBM will still have some voice) it is still a better idea to act now. If this happens again (and again and again), IBM won't have as much ground for fighting it. They'd have to justify why they didn't fight quite so hard before, and even if they make a perfectly reasonable argument (ie, your argument) the very fact they're put in that position weakens them.

IBM - and anyone else who cares to (and is in the position to) make a stance against the ISO's actions - must do it immediately and make it clear.

Re:ISO?

[hobbit]

Why was this modded "troll"? Would you mod IBM "troll" too?

Re:Not all as it seems

[level4]

So what you're saying is you're unable to separate the message from the messenger?

It doesn't matter a damn if IBM owns and operates Groklaw if the information on it is correct and stands up to scrutiny. To date, it has. So what's the problem?

In my opinion, the case of Groklaw is a great example of the public benefit of anonymous speech. If she had outed herself she might have been sued, pulled into court, lost her job, even physically harrassed. But by keeping her anonymity - and her integrity - she's been able to make a pretty big impact in the case, at least to us nerds who care about such things. She did exactly the right thing.

Names are meaningless. And even if you had it, what good what that do? What are you going to do, drive to that address, demand to see her bank statement to ensure there's no payments from IBM?

Where the information comes from is irrelevant. The quality of the information is the only thing that matters. Groklaw has stood the test of time, in my opinion, so you're doing yourself a disservice by downrating it on that basis.

Re:IBM can't "leave ISO"

[Shadowlore]

And another "fascinating" comment by someone who did not RTFA and has no knowledge of the subject.

The /. title changed it to "ISO" instead of "Standards Bodies". That said the TFA did only reference ISO and ECMA, of which IBM is in fact a member.

And ECMA is a member of ISO. So is ANSI, of which you might think IBM is part of? And you'd actually be right.

You said yourself, ISO is comprised of various national standards bodies. Who do you think comprises these bodies? Fairies? ISO is comprised of groups that IBM is a member of. Therefore is it reasonable to state that IBM as a member of several of the bodies that comprise ISO is thus a member of ISO. As such, they can actually leave the ISO by leaving the standards bodies that comprise ISO.

Furthermore nearly every national standards body is in fact incorporated or whatever their country equivalent is. As such, your assertion that "there is no concept of corporate membership" is demonstrably false. ANSI is a not-for-profit U.S. corporation, and is a member of ISO.

QED.

Re:ISO?

[Sgs-Cruz]

Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater here. ISO (and ANSI, BSI, etc.) standards are very important in basically every field of industry. Just because they fucked up bad on digital document formats doesn't mean that we don't need them to define, you know, the standard root radius of a bolt.

Re:ISO?

[Trogre]

I still wonder if this is exactly what Microsoft wanted all along.

So many IT companies purporting to adhere to ISO standard this and that, against which MS, the king of proprietary, cannot compete. Much better to pull the rug out from under them by discrediting the standards body they are accredited against.