[Chapter-delegates] ooXML

[Christian de Larrinaga]

  Geir you raise a different approach which won't fit with the ICTSB  
liaison and probably you should take up directly with your national  
ISO team.


One thing I am pretty sure we (ISOC) do not want to do is criticise  
ISO or for that matter ECMA at a political level. ISOC members are  
involved with a standards organisation so I'd expect it is pretty  
clear to us that there is no perfect way.

No what I am asking is whether there are some technical points that  
emerge from the example of ooxml on the travelator through ECMA that  
we can usefully comment on from a technical perspective to help with  
co-ordination between standards activities at ICTSB (on an EU level).  
As far as I recall ISO is not a member at the EU ICTSB, where W3C,  
ISOC european chapters, and OASIS and some others are.

For instance

- How thin is the talent being spread to cover all the various  
standards activities? Is there something that can be done co- 
ordination wise to help put things into the right place? (Can  
something be done to reduce the number of standards activities)
- Are things falling between the various standards stools for  
instance national, regional and global as well as within industry  
bodies which incidentally is what ECMA call themselves?
- Are we dealing with complexity (and volume of complex material) or  
are we being swamped, if so what can be done?
- Is a view emerging on the way fast tracking from one body to  
another is evolving?

What are we seeing here as a community involved in this area?


best regards,


Christian


On 5 Sep 2007, at 13:28, Geir Isene wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 05, 2007 at 12:14:38PM +0100, Christian de Larrinaga  
> scribed wisely:
>
> [...]
>
>>
>> What are the views of those here who have been involved in this ISO
>> and ECMA ooXML process? Are there some high level points that we
>> would like to raise at the EU ICT Standards Board concerning the way
>> ooXML proceeded?  Michiel I know you took on the liaison role for
>> some time but I don't know what has happened since. What are your
>> thoughts?
>
>
> AN OPEN LETTER TO ISO
>
> Is it time to standardize ISO?
>
> In light of the recent events relating to the standardization  
> process of
> EOOXML, it seems appropriate to look into possible standardization  
> of the
> process itself.
>
> The DIS 29500 (EOOXML) process has revealed several shortcomings,  
> both on
> the national level and on the level of ISO.
>
> The organisations representing each country have very different  
> procedures
> for determining the nations vote in ISO. Some countries will vote  
> only if
> their technical committee is unanimous on the issue. Others will reach
> consensus defined by a 3/4 majority vote or even 2/3 majority. In some
> countries there is no vote and the technical committee is only  
> advisory to
> the national standards organisation. Others yet have a two-stage  
> process
> where the nations vote is determined through two committees. In short
> there is no standard for accepting a standard.
>
> It seems ISO is not prepared for a politicized process where a big and
> influential commercial enterprise will use any means possible to  
> push its
> own standard through to certification.
>
> Committees are flooded by the vendor in support of the standard.  
> Votes are
> bought and results are hijacked. Several national bodies have  
> flawed and
> skewed procedures open for corruption.
>
> The list is much longer, but a few examples should suffice:
>
> Norway -	originally a process decided by unanimity but altered on  
> the fly
> Sweden -	voting seats bought and the result thus hijacked
> Switzerland -	process rigged in favor of the vendor, the chairman
> 		excluded the option of voting "reject" or "reject, with comments"
> Portugal -	process skewed by blaming on lack of available chairs
> Malaysia -	two committees voted unanimously "rejection with  
> comments" and
> 		mysteriously overturned by the government to "abstain"
>
> Even if this is the tip of an ice berg, the examples should warrant a
> thorough examination of the national processes.
>
> The fact that ISO enforces no standard for national bodies opens the
> standardization process for manipulation or corruption. I strongly  
> urge
> ISO to adopt a strict policy for its members detailing the rules  
> for how a
> national body shall determine its vote in ISO and that it enforces  
> such
> policy vigorously.
>
> On the level of ISO, criticism has been raised against the fast track
> process. An investigation should be called to see if EOOXML was  
> unduly put
> on the ISO Fast Track.
>
> During the Fast Track, many new countries have joined as P-Members
> (Participating members) in the technical committee, the JTC1/SC34.  
> Several
> of the countries have no credible track on standardization work, have
> joined very late in the process only to vote an unconditional "Yes"  
> to a
> standard that has obvious room for improvement. It may be purely
> coincidental that prior to the introduction of EOOXML the P-members  
> had an
> average CPI of 6.6 (Corruption Perception Index by Transparency
> International, scale from 1-10, 10 being the least corrupt). The  
> average
> CPI of the new members is 3.2. It is at least possible to corrupt  
> the ISO
> voting system if any country is allowed as P-member late in the  
> process. I
> urge ISO to adopt a policy that P-members may not be accepted later  
> than 3
> months before the committee is to vote.
>
> It may be time also to reevaluate the one country one vote  
> principle. In
> ISO, the Chinese vote carries the same weight as that of Cyprus. In  
> the
> JTC1/SC34 the late-comers includes Trinidad and Tobago, Colombia,
> Côte-d'Ivoire, Cyprus, Lebanon and Malta.
>
> As for approving standards within the field of IT, ISO would greatly
> benefit from adopting the IETF recuirment of two independent reference
> implementations for passing a standard. This should increase the  
> quality
> of ISO's IT standards.
>
> The intent of this letter is to safeguard future standardization  
> and to
> ensure that the processes scale in the face of increased pressure from
> large commercial interests.
>
> The strength, integrity and scalability of ISO have been tested. The
> organizations agility and adaptability will now be measured. May  
> ISO move
> quickly to fix its own PR and more importantly its own standardization
> process.
>
>
> Geir Isene
> CEO FreeCode International
>
> -- 
> Daglig leder / CEO FreeCode AS
> Cell: +47 - 473 44 000
> Phone: +47 - 21 53 69 00  Fax: +47 - 21 53 69 09
> Addr: Slemdalsveien 70, PB 1 Vinderen, 0370 OSLO
> http://www.freecode.no/
>
> r=2Gm/c²    Question: How do you escape?