An Open Letter to ISO
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| 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 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.
|
| [...]
|
| 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 requirment of two independent reference
| implementations for passing a standard. This should increase the quality of
| ISO’s IT standards.
`----
http://blogs.freecode.no/isene/2007/09/07/an-open-letter-to-iso/
Coming soon:
Introducing Document Freedom Day
http://documentfreedom.org/News/20080220
Related:
Norbert Bollow starts OpenISO
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| What do engineers do when they observe a problem? They start a project to fix
| it. A Swiss standard expert who got annoyed by the "Open XML bug" of ISO
| procedures launched OpenISO.org.
`----
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-18681/norbert-bollow-starts-openiso
Fast Track versus PAS
,----[ Quote ]
| So you can see what great power Ecma has over JTC1 -- they can submit any
| standard they want for Fast Track, and no one in JTC1 can stop them, or even
| remove their right to submit Fast Tracks.
|
| This may explain why Ecma is able to command such high membership fees. A
| full voting membership in OASIS, which would allow a company to help produce
| an OASIS Standard for later submission to JTC1 under PAS process, this costs
| $1,100 for a small company. To join the US NB and be able to lobby for a Fast
| Track submission from the US, this will cost you $9,500. But to join Ecma as
| a voting member (what they call an "Ordinary Member") this will cost you
| 70,000 Swiss Francs, or $64,000. That is what no-questions-asked Fast Track
| service is worth. I think that, from Microsoft's perspective, the extra
| $63,900 is money well spent. But what about from JTC1's perspective? They
| don't get this extra money. So what's their excuse for having such permissive
| Fast Track procedures that give Ecma such control?
`----
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2008/02/fast-track-versus-pas.html
Corrupt countries were more likely to support the OOXML document format
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| Is this just a random coincidence? The median of the CPI index of the above
| mentioned 70 countries is 3.95. Of the most corrupted half (CPI index less
| than 3.95) 23 or 77% voted for approval (approval or approval with comments)
| and 7 or 23% for disapproval; 5 abstained. Of the least corrupted half (CPI
| index more than 3.95) 13 or 54% voted for approval and 11 or 46% voted for
| disapproval; 11 abstained - see the table below.
`----
http://www.effi.org/blog/kai-2007-09-05.en.html
Microsoft accused of more OOXML standards fiddling
,----[ Quote ]
| However the 11 new countries are refusing to say how they will vote. These
| include Cote d'Ivoire, Cyprus, Ecuador, Jamaica, Lebanon, Malta, Pakistan,
| Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Uruguay and Venezuela. Most people seem to think
| that these have been put there by Vole to make sure the standard gets pushed
| through.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=42106
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