South Africa Appeals ISO Decision On OOXML

mauritzhansen sends us a blog post by Steve Pepper, former chairman of the Norwegian standards committee responsible for evaluating OOXML, reporting that the South African national standards body, SABS, has appealed against the result of the OOXML DIS 29500 ballot in ISO. From the blog: "In a letter sent to the General Secretary of the IEC (co-sponsor with ISO of JTC1), the SABS expresses its 'deep concern over the increasing tendency of international organizations to use the JTC 1 process to circumvent the consensus-building process that is the cornerstone to the success and international acceptance of ISO and IEC standards.' Having resigned as Chairman of the Norwegian committee responsible for considering OOXML for exactly this reason, I congratulate South Africa on its willingness to stand up for the principles on which standardization work should be based."

Re:They can't do that

[ShieldW0lf]

Maybe not according to the rules. But, rules can be ignored. Organizations can be ignored. This type of thing will continue, and it will kill ISO because there will be no perception of either trust or authority.

Ubuntu

[DaveInAustin]

Have to think that this might be some good work that Shuttleworth's folks are doing. A lot of the original votes are determined by a lot of lobbying (just like in Congress).

Re:Kinda ironic

[m.ducharme]

I don't think anyone would complain about Microsoft submitting standards for approval. The objections come when the spec for the standard submitted is 6000 pages long and includes some nuggets as "implement this as it's implemented in Windows 95" and associated garbage.

The objections become bellows when the same company, impatient with the approval process, sets out to buy votes to get the "standard" approved with minimal change.

I for one have a great deal of distaste for fanatics of all stripes, and I'm afraid Stallman and his more opinionated supporters do qualify as fanatics, but the process to date of getting OOXML qualified as an ISO standard has been a farce, and no amount of whinging on slashdot by AC fanbois (or MS sockpuppets) is going to change that.

Re:Word is...

[rossendryv]

Sorry, but I find this thread extremely distasteful! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing [wikipedia.org] is a horrible thing and to wish it on anyone!!! And imply that it is OK to do it to poor disfranchised Zimbabweans or Mozambicans is just sickening to me.

another cornerstone: having an implementation

[eean]

It seems outrageous to me that OOXML was approved as a standard despite not having more then one implementation to prove that it's possible for it to be a common format.

However it's freakin' hilarious/sad/odd that there actually isn't even ONE implementation of OOXML and it was approved. Doesn't the ISO have any standards for standards? Or is it just a matter of gaming the process? Maybe the ISO itself should be reconsidered...

Cyberpunk

[bill_kress]

A cyberpunk common theme is multinational industrial concerns having equal or more power than the governments. In fact, the governments seem to have been broken of most power and now are nothing more than location-based unions.

The first time I saw this was actually Max Headroom (I suppose that show could be called the grandfather of cyberpunk).

It always seemed like fantasy to me (a pretty horrifying one), but nothing that could come true.

What's going on these days though feels like the first battles. Industries placing people in top government positions, controlling votes, manipulating laws and standards, Chevron killing villagers who are protesting, all the private police forces protecting industrial concerns in Iraq (and being better equipped than the solders to do so)...

I'm surprised they were as accurate as they were, and I trust their predictions for our future in a corporate-run world if we let it go on--not that I know what to do about it...

We've always been able to overthrow governments that became too problematic. How do you overthrow a multinational conglomerate that is in control of multiple governments? How do you even know who to fight?

Re:Kinda ironic

[g2devi]

> I don't think anyone would complain about Microsoft submitting standards for approval.

Why not? The ISO mandate is to have one standard per task and ensure that any new standard should reuse other ISO standards and not try to reinvent the wheel.

Any company submits a duplicate standard and reinvents ISO standardized from the date stamp to graphics files for no other reason than to get government contracts and ensure vendor lock-in, it's right to complain no matter who is doing the submission.

> I for one have a great deal of distaste for fanatics of all stripes, and I'm afraid Stallman and his more opinionated supporters do qualify as fanatics

Actually, even though I don't subscribe to Stallman's rigid views, I don't see a problem of them.

He and his followers are equivalent to the Amish. The want to live in a world with certain constraints so that they can live in a society with certain rewards.

Anyone who's been the victim of vendor lock-in or abandon-ware or forced obsolescence or had to support software where you don't have access to the source (so you don't even know what's going on) or has had to deal with security (e.g. Sony CDs) or has had to deal with paternalistic vendors that say "You don't need to now that" or "You can only run this software on hardware the vendor decides when the vendor decides for how long the vendor decides in which way the vendor decides and the vendor has the right to change terms whenever he feels like it", should feel sympathetic.

I (or my family or my work) been burned by all the above, and I can understand why someone would want to build all the tools necessary so that they can become self sufficient.
OOXML violates pretty much every one of these issues raised.

I think your distaste has more to do with the evangelicalism within the Stallman camp. There's nothing wrong with evangelicalism per say. How are people supposed to know that there is a better way if they're not informed. The problem comes when the evangelical education and invitation turns pushiness and forced choice. As Sir Winston Churchill once stated, "A [bad] fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.".

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, the "still no cure for cancer" argument. A classic fallacy to discredit any unwanted human activity.

Re:Kinda ironic

[Bert64]

The problem was not so much that their proposed standard was flawed, but the fact they tried to fast track an unfinished standard of that size...
The text is huge, much bigger than most other standards, so there wasn't enough time to review it thoroughly enough, and even then the first vote generated far too many comments to address in the time given before the resolution meeting.
Also the fact the text was written by a single company, without any input from other interested parties.

Instead, it should have been submitted through the normal ISO process, so that the standard could have been brought to a usable state (however long that took) before it was submitted for voting.

Re:Kinda ironic

[firefly4f4]

Why not? The ISO mandate is to have one standard per task and ensure that any new standard should reuse other ISO standards and not try to reinvent the wheel.

I believe the grandparent was referring to to standards *in general*. That is, if they don't:

1) duplicate large parts of an existing standard
2) have an extremely large standard go through the fast track process instead of a more thorough review.

Grandparent does make one mistake, though: the "works like XX application" have been deprecated, and *supposedly* they have been defined in that deprecated section -- IE, use only for interpreting older documents, not new ones, as I understand MS's definition.

Still, this is about the third time I've asked: could someone PLEASE post a link to where those are fully fleshed out in documentation. I've had people tell me time and again that they are fully defined, but I would appreciate being able to see it and read it. Thank you in advance to anyone who does.

This post represents my own thoughts, and not those of my employer.

Re:another cornerstone: having an implementation

[Bananenrepublik]

There was no implementation of standard C++ when C++ was standardized. There was no implementation of standard C when C was standardized. There was no implementation of Fortran 90 / 95 / 2003 when Fortran 90 / 95 / 2003 were standardized. This is fairly common for standards: after all one of the reasons for having standards is to have diverging impementations converge again. Not standardizing one of the existing implementations puts no vendor at an advantage and is therefore bound to happen if different vendors sit at the table negotiating.

NB I'm not saying that OOXML is a good standard.

Re:SA has bigger problems than OOXML

[Stewie241]

But TFA isn't talking about Africa as a continent. TFA is talking about SABS - the South African Body of Standards. As such, it has a concern for standards.

Take this analogy - quirky, but perhaps appropriate - say you have a high tech company and you find a serious flaw in your software. You throw all of your developers on this issue. It takes weeks. Yet, Thursday night, the janitorial staff come by and vacuum the floors and clean the washrooms. Surely there are more important things to be worried about than the floors and the washrooms, but fixing the flaw is NOT THE JOB OF THE JANITOR.

So, sure, they have big issues there, but standards bodies have to deal with standards.

were those other standards "fast tracked?"

[Anonymous Coward]

My understanding is: the fast-track process is designed for existing de-facto standards. Since OOXML is not implemented anywhere, it is hard for me to understand how OOXML would qualify for the fast-track process.