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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