11.21.07
Quick Mention: Standards Expert Gives up on a Broken Standards System
Who wouldn’t?
At this stage, ECMA and the ISO may be broken beyond the point of being repairable. Some people recognise this, some are in the state of denial, and some have vested interests in the poor (and broken) state of the system. Regardless of the consequences, someone had to say something and somebody gladly did.
…bridges such as this have proven to be imperfect, and susceptible to abuse. Currently, SC 34, an ISO/IEC JTC 1 committee, is grappling with DIS 29500 — an ECMA developed standard based upon Microsoft’s OfficeOpen XML specification. Many harried participants in the review process have expressed the view that the “Fast Track” program being used to propel the submission through the adoption process from start to six months was inappropriate for a specification that weighs in at more than 6,000 pages. Moreover, there have been widespread reports of disinformation, vendor pressure, and (in one case) even offers of financial reimbursement to business partners as incentives to join National Bodies in order to vote for approval.
No matter how much hype and disinformation overwhelms Average Joe, the two standards bodies involved ought to feel slightly ashamed. They could have revised the rules as soon as they saw how susceptible their system had become to misuse and gaming.
Whatever the outcome at the BRM and next year’s meetings, one has to pause and wonder if ISO certification and that stamp of approval means much at all.
OOXML: when standards become a question of pricing, not quality.
Posts of interest:
- Microsoft Already Plans to 'Extend' Its 'Standard'; ECMA and ISO Named and Shamed
- How Things Work at ECMA 'Production Line'
- ISO is Still a Winner in Poland, But ISO May Have Lost Its Way
- A Coin-in-the-Slot Standards Organization
- ECMA, Microsoft, and Linspire-sponsored Mail Give More Reasons to Give the Boot (Updated)
- ECMA Open XML Approved Despite IBM Objection
- More ISO Madness -- Only Accepts Microsoft Word Files
- IBM Adds More Force to ODF; The OOXML Plot Dissected Further
- ISO Reform Demanded, OpenISO Formed by Norbert Bollow (Updated)
- OOXML and ODF: Where Do We Go from Here with a Broken ISO?
- ISO No Longer Matters...
OpenISO is definitely something to keep an eye on, but it appears to have been dormant for month. █
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.