[odf-discuss] procedure at ISO Ballot Resolution Meeting

[Ian Lynch]

On Tue, 2007-09-11 at 20:20 -0700, marbux wrote:

> 
> If the issue were about logic or credibility, every NB wuld have voted
> no without comments and saved the bother of the Ballot Resolution
> process. There are technical issues involved, but the process actually
> employed to resolve issues is political rather than technical from
> everything I can see, boiling down to a contest for votes. 

So it should be easy to discredit it. Anyone will be able to see it for
what it is if the ground is prepared beforehand. 

> In most of the world, the process has no real government oversight
> --despite the treaty requirement -- and is susceptible to the kind of
> stuffing of the ballot box we have been watching. Most nations allow
> private standardization bodies to form and submit positions on behalf
> of the government without any government checks and balances, and
> membership in the NBs tends to be biased by membership fees.

Sounds like the makings of a good journalistic scandal. If that can find
its way into the mainstream press it makes it very difficult to then
confirm the corruption by actions on the day. 

> The only strong check on the process is the ability for a national
> government to force issues in the WTO dispute resolution process. But
> for the most part, the national governments are not even aware of what
> is being done in their name by the NBs, which tend toward being
> extremely biased by those with vested financial interests. 

S we need a scandal in the mainstream press. Perhaps something suitably
spun to get their attention.

> I've been thinking a lot about what might be done to reform the
> system, but that's an essay I'll have to save for another day because
> of my work schedule (I'm behind, up to my armpits.) I have no
> comprehensive solution, although I'm leaning toward leaving the
> existing standardization process behind and pushing for
> community-developed standards, with developers and vendors excluded
> from voting on market requirements to be fulfilled by the developers
> and vendors. E.g., a hybrid system where government IT departments
> rather than the vendors set the market requirements, exercising the
> procurement power. What is happening right now in the European
> Community with the PEGSCO report and the IDABC ODEF Workshop held in
> Berlin this spring certainly move in that direction. I think the
> danger there is that it might lead to big customer abuse in place of
> big big vendor abuse. 

Simpler to just get the press involved and not worry about the logic and
procedures. As you say it politics so that comes first and reform later.

> There is an interesting 1998 academic paper by Ken Krechmer of the
> Univesity of Colorado's International Center for Standards Research
> that attempts to identify all of the interests that must be served by
> an open standard.  < http://www.csrstds.com/openstds.html>. Here's the
> abstract:
> 
> This paper develops the argument that many Information Technology
> standardization processes are in transition from being controlled by
> standards creators to being controlled by standards implementers. The
> users of standardized implementations also have rights that they wish
> addressed. Ten basic rights of standards creators, implementers and
> users are identified and quantified. Each of these ten rights
> represents an aspect of Open Standards. Only when all ten rights are
> supported will standards be open to all.
> 
> 
> It builds atop an earlier work by Bruce Perens and is worth the read
> if you'd like a more analytic view of various interests in the
> standard setting process and where the overlap exists. It's an
> over-simplified model, of course, but good food for thought and
> discussion. 

Useful background for Gold INGOT students but needs simplifying for that
level.

Ian
-- 
New QCA Accredited IT Qualifications
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