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RE: "Open XML" et al... Blech... Re: Microsoft buy

• From: Len Bullard <len.bullard@u...>
• To: Alessandro Triglia <sandro@m...>, 'Jonathan Robie' <jonathan.robie@r...>
• Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 10:02:54 -0500

This case shows the flaw in the premise of national representation.  When WG
committees are heavily populated by pro and anti forces, they begin to work
to thwart the processes or to out maneuver them.  This is the game as played
in all standards and specs orgs and consortia.   Sometimes a work goes under
the radar because the lizards (eat anything anywhere as long as it is
edible) don't care.   We've had a good experience with X3D because the
companies participating decided to create participation agreements to limit
predatory acts such as what has happened to HumanML.  When there is less
publicity, there is less opportunity for that.   Again, leadership and
recognition of mutual benefit fuel the better outcomes.  On the other hand,
the participation agreements play a major role.

In fact, if there is a lesson coming out of this it is the need to look
hypercritically at the intersecting policies over the process and the
participation agreements of the submitting consortia.   The advent of first
to file patents can have a terrible side effect of forcing conversations for
specifications (presuming standards are for mature technology and IP has
already been cared for) into closed doors because the risks to the IP are
simply too great and the tainting of the specification or standard, certain.

As to the comments, I think that is why some are asking for open review.
Given the above, that may not be possible.  Our industry is consuming itself
in litigation and the spoils splatter.  Sun is sued and their public
response is to claim it to be 'an attack on open source'.  That lacks
credibility but worse, it continues to drag open source into private battles
where as a branding approach, it spoils the benefits of open source.

So again, beware unleashing attack dogs.  They circle back.

len


From: Alessandro Triglia [mailto:sandro@m...] 

I think things are a little different in this case.  The members of ISO are
countries (national bodies), not companies.  There are no major players, as
each participating national body has one voice and one vote.  Of course,
each national body may have commercial and other interests, but that is not
the same thing as the commercial interests of a company or a group of
companies.

I am wondering, though, if anyone has made a formal objection about the fact
that OOXML may contain portions that are not fully specified, or that it may
contain normative references to essential artifacts that are not allowed, by
the ISO/IEC rules, to be normatively referenced within an ISO/IEC standard.
(I haven't read the specification and therefore I am not sure whether that
is the case, but this is what I get from many postings that I have read, and
I would be happy to hear this is not true.)  If there is a formal objection
along those lines, I don't think the specification can progress to an
ISO/IEC standard.

Alessandro


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