It seems that Microsoft's stunt at attempting to force their ooxml
standard through the ISO standardization process was not completely
innocuous.

  Because of Microsoft's lobbying, a lot of member countries which had
previously only an observer status raised themselves to principal status
for the exclusive purpose of being able to vote on the ooxml standard
proposal. After the voting most of these new principal members have
completely lost their interest in voting matters and thus don't participate
in the ISO standardization process anylonger.

  This has effectively halted the ISO standardization process almost
completely. They have the rule that at least half of the principal
members must be present in order for any standard proposal to be handled.
Now there are a lot of more principal members than before, and over a half
of them are the new ones which raised their status just because of ooxml
and which immediately lost interest in ISO standardization afterwards.

  Microsoft has succeeded in putting the ISO standardization committee
in a crisis.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>  Because of Microsoft's lobbying, a lot of member countries which had
> previously only an observer status raised themselves to principal status
> for the exclusive purpose of being able to vote on the ooxml standard
> proposal

<snip>

>  Microsoft has succeeded in putting the ISO standardization committee
> in a crisis.

Seems more like poor organisation from the ISO committee to allow such a 
thing to happen, not MS's fault...

The problem is that it's the only standard that MS is interested in.  Take 
car manufacturers for instance, they always get all their suppliers (and 
their sub-suppliers) to help get standards through in this manner.  The 
difference is there are tens or hundreds of standards that are important 
(and new ones come up all the time), not just one, so this problem doesn't 
arise.

Seems like ISO needs to rethink their policy on letting any company become 
"principal" immediately and then "dissappear".  Surely they should have 
realised something like this was possible, and would happen one day?

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scott wrote:
>>  Because of Microsoft's lobbying, a lot of member countries which had
>> previously only an observer status raised themselves to principal status
>> for the exclusive purpose of being able to vote on the ooxml standard
>> proposal
> 
> <snip>
> 
>>  Microsoft has succeeded in putting the ISO standardization committee
>> in a crisis.
> 
> Seems more like poor organisation from the ISO committee to allow such a 
> thing to happen, not MS's fault...
It is nobody's fault. The problem is that the rules have changes faster 
than the time required for a large organisation like ISO to change their 
rules. A few years ago MS couldn't care less if what they did was 
conforming to a standard or not, they were the de facto standard. 
Suddenly they are in danger of losing a large part of what they though 
was a solid monopoly if they do not get an ISO standard fast, so they 
did what every company should do [*] and tried to protect their 
interest. The rules of ISO are basically based on a cooperative model 
for designing good and well discussed standards that may take a few 
years before becoming active, which works as long as nobody has a big 
financial interest.
> 
> The problem is that it's the only standard that MS is interested in.  
> Take car manufacturers for instance, they always get all their suppliers 
> (and their sub-suppliers) to help get standards through in this manner.  
> The difference is there are tens or hundreds of standards that are 
> important (and new ones come up all the time), not just one, so this 
> problem doesn't arise.
> 
> Seems like ISO needs to rethink their policy on letting any company 
> become "principal" immediately and then "dissappear".  Surely they 
> should have realised something like this was possible, and would happen 
> one day?

No I don't think so. I think the MS actions was for most of them 
completely out of the blue. It is the consequence of legislative actions 
far outside the horizon of ISO. In retrospect it is obvious, but I doubt 
if there are many people that know both the legal part and the ISO 
procedures well enough to have seen this interaction coming before it 
happened. And even then there would not have been time enough to adjust 
the procedures. i.e. before there was a large enough group that could 
prevent the  necessary changes.

[*] Assuming the standard capitalist interpretation that ethics don't 
apply to cooperations but to inter-human actions only.

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"Warp" wrote:
>  This has effectively halted the ISO standardization process almost
> completely.

Well, in that particular working group (JTC 1 SC 34), yes. It *is* a rather 
busy working group, but it's not like it's the entire ISO.

But yes, I agree that it's unheard of that all these new P members (except 
Poland and Colombia) are ignoring their *obligations* to vote and instead 
are severely damaging the standardization process. It's obvious that the 
rules of the ISO organization need to be revised and the inactive members 
degraded to O-members.

Rune

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> It is nobody's fault. The problem is that the rules have changes faster 
> than the time required for a large organisation like ISO to change their 
> rules. A few years ago MS couldn't care less if what they did was 
> conforming to a standard or not, they were the de facto standard. Suddenly 
> they are in danger of losing a large part of what they though was a solid 
> monopoly if they do not get an ISO standard fast, so they did what every 
> company should do [*] and tried to protect their interest.

Yes, I think you are right, the problem is that MS (and supporting 
companies) are new to this ISO standards game, if MS want to get involved 
more in the future then so will all the companies that joined purely to 
support MS, then it will be back to running as normal.

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"Rune" <aut### [at] runevisioncom> wrote in message 
news:471d0708$1@news.povray.org...
> "Warp" wrote:
>>  This has effectively halted the ISO standardization process almost
>> completely.
>
> Well, in that particular working group (JTC 1 SC 34), yes. It *is* a 
> rather busy working group, but it's not like it's the entire ISO.
>
> But yes, I agree that it's unheard of that all these new P members (except 
> Poland and Colombia) are ignoring their *obligations* to vote and instead 
> are severely damaging the standardization process. It's obvious that the 
> rules of the ISO organization need to be revised and the inactive members 
> degraded to O-members.

I suggest such a demotion stipulate that a Participation member which is 
demoted to Observer for disregard of obligations, cannot apply to become a P 
again, either for a minimum period, or in the light of their prior breach, 
without demonstrating genuine cause for reinstatement and ongoing commitment 
to the standards process.

-- 
Brian

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"Brian Elliott" <NotForSpam@AskIfUWant> wrote in
news:471db67f@news.povray.org: 
> 
> I suggest such a demotion stipulate that a Participation member which
> is demoted to Observer for disregard of obligations, cannot apply to
> become a P again, either for a minimum period, or in the light of
> their prior breach, without demonstrating genuine cause for
> reinstatement and ongoing commitment to the standards process.
> 

But really the last thing you want is companies voting just because they 
have to, then they'd send the secretary or whatever and say "just pick 
whatever you like honey". Votes would be taken without organisations 
paying due consideration to the implications of the outcome of the vote.  

Just my 2p worth.  

Cheers
Steve

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