An Open Letter to ISO
September 7, 2007 10:03 am StandardizationIs it time to standardize ISO?
In 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 DIS 29500 (EOOXML) process has revealed several shortcomings, both on the national level and on the level of ISO.
The organisations representing each country have very different procedures for determining the nation’s vote in ISO. Some countries will vote only if their technical committee is unanimous on the issue. Others will reach consensus defined by a 3/4 majority vote or even 2/3 majority. In some countries there is no vote and the technical committee is only advisory to the national standards organisation. Others yet have a two-stage process where the nations vote is determined through two committees. In short there is no standard for accepting a standard.
It seems ISO is not prepared for a politicized process where a big and influential commercial enterprise will use any means possible to push its own standard through to certification.
Committees are flooded by the vendor in support of the standard. Votes are bought and results are hijacked. Several national bodies have flawed and skewed procedures open for corruption.
The list is much longer, but a few examples should suffice:
Norway - originally a process decided by unanimity but altered on the fly
Sweden - voting seats bought and the result thus hijacked
Switzerland - process rigged in favor of the vendor, the chairman excluded the option of voting “reject” or “reject, with comments”
Portugal - process skewed by blaming on lack of available chairs
Malaysia - two committees voted unanimously “rejection with comments” and mysteriously overturned by the government to “abstain”
Even if this is the tip of an ice berg, the examples should warrant a thorough examination of the national processes.
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.
During the Fast Track, many new countries have joined as P-Members (Participating members) in the technical committee, the JTC1. Several of the countries have no credible track on standardization work, have joined very late in the process only to vote an unconditional “Yes” to a standard that has obvious room for improvement. It may be purely coincidental that the countries that came late in the process score much lower on the Corruption Perception Index by Transparency International. It is possible to corrupt the process by pressuring countries to join a process and vote without sufficient knowledge. I urge ISO to adopt a policy that P-members may not be accepted later than 3 months before the committee is to vote.
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.
The strength, integrity and scalability of ISO have been tested. The organizations agility and adaptability will now be measured. May ISO move quickly to fix its own PR and more importantly its own standardization process.
The publicity that ISO has been given through the DIS 29500 process is phenomenal. ISO and standardization in general has reached a peak in public awareness. I hope the organization will use this publicity to show strong integrity and potential.
The intent of this letter is to safeguard future standardization and to ensure that the processes scale in the face of increased pressure from large commercial interests.
Geir Isene
CEO FreeCode International
September 7th, 2007 at 21:07
Geir,
I second everything you wrote. Couldn’t have said it better.
It is time to call ISO’s integrity. If there will be business as usual in
following-up the comments received during ballot I strongly question the
legitimity of this important organization.
Dr. Eckhard Licher
- Secretary to ISO/TC 39/SC 4 -
September 7th, 2007 at 22:04
thanx for your thoughts! someone had to do it. its incredible that a standards body like ISO can be so blatantly corrupt, and despite all pointers towards corruption, mischief, microsoft seems to be getting away lightly. its disgusting to note that there aren’t many voice who condemn microsoft’s behavior. i looks like a case of big money flowing all over the world. microsoft knows whats at stake, and a loss of the format war will cost them their stable cash cow, the office, which they force it down everyone’s throat. its time to over throw them and their corrupt party.
September 8th, 2007 at 03:06
IEEE is just as corrupt. Their HLA standard for simulation was approved before it was ever tried in practice. The US Deputy Secretary of Defense then mandated it. Later it was discovered it didn’t work, but by then too many careers had been staked on it. The US DoD now has a dog of a simulation standard. If IEEE had done their job, this wouldn’t have happened. Standard bodies that can be bought are useless.
September 8th, 2007 at 03:15
Nice letter. Thanks!
Are you sending this letter officially to ISO? If not, will it come to the attention of the decision makers in ISO?
Definitely, the ISO process needs changes to provide such manipulations. If the reforms can be carried out before the next round of manipulations in the upcoming BRM, ISO’s reputation will be not be sullied.
September 8th, 2007 at 03:16
Correction:
Please read “Definitely, the ISO process needs changes to provide such”
as “Definitely, the ISO process needs changes to prevent such”
September 8th, 2007 at 03:18
[…] we already have an OpenSUSE, how about an OpenNovell? [/sarcasm] Meanwhile, an open letter to ISO was dispatched as well. From the letter: Norway - originally a process decided by unanimity but altered on the […]
September 8th, 2007 at 04:43
I disagree on only one point
“It may be time also to reevaluate the one country one vote principle.”
It makes sense to give large countries/entities a larger vote when it comes to the details of a standard, but the basic need/desire to implement a standard is a boolean decision. Just because China is huge doesn’t mean it should be able to veto a standard into ISO that is useless to the majority of the worlds’ other member countries.
Aside from that, great letter.
September 8th, 2007 at 06:35
Geir
You’re absolutely right. This sort of corruption and gaming of the system should never have been allowed to happen. And with the widespread publicity this incident has generated, I suspect the credibility of both the ISO and Microsoft has been badly damaged.
I fully agree with your proposals for dealing with this, and I hope I never see such a thing happen again.
September 8th, 2007 at 08:01
Can this be organised into an online petition on the likes of the one at NOOOXML.
September 8th, 2007 at 08:16
I think it is very ironic that THE standards organization has NO standard for determining a standard.
Well said.
Jerry
September 8th, 2007 at 09:37
I have my doubts about “a policy that P-members may not be accepted later than 3 months before the committee is to vote”
If this were to happen in future, it could work to the advantage of the company intending to push through its own standard, since they’d be the only ones to know when their proposal is going to be submitted. While nobody is looking, it stuffs as many NBs as possible with its supporters, then submits its proposal for the fast-track procedure, and when people notice what’s happening it will be too late for them to participate.
September 8th, 2007 at 10:19
Committees and organisations are not corrupt, but people can be. This is what has been used time and time again - influencing decision makers who don’t stand firmly in their shoes or, worse, don’t care about the side effects in business and in law. It just leaves me wondering: if that tactic doesn’t work any more, what’s next? Straight out mob tactics and kidnapping? Ve have ze nuke and ve are nod afraid to uuse iet? It all feels exceptionally desperate to me (or arrogance in extremis, take your pick).
For the amount of talent that company has bought this is simply pathetic. I’d make it a “do not buy” in share terms because this is bound to go wrong, and that moment seems to be getting nearer if I read this behaviour right.
September 8th, 2007 at 10:49
[…] través de Ars Technica llego a una carta abierta que Geir Isene, CEO de Freecode, escribe a ISO, comentando estos recientes problemas y poniendo de […]
September 8th, 2007 at 15:13
Thanks! Well said!
September 8th, 2007 at 15:30
It would be usefull to set up a website like NOOXML and collect underwriters of your open letter to ISO and then present it to them
September 8th, 2007 at 16:36
Geir,
A very well articulated letter, thanks.
I have been following and blogging about M$’s scandalous treatment of the ISO with this process. It is almost beyond belief that a company can seemingly get away with what they have…
One thing I would urge all readers to do is to lobby your local MP. In the UK there is increasing awareness of Open Source, and our MPs are generally happy to listen to individuals’ concerns.
Only by increasing the VOLUME on this subject, will there be any pressure for change.
Alan
The Open Sourcerer
September 8th, 2007 at 16:43
It would seem that the standards-process could simply prevent new members from voting on any standards already on the table. That would prevent ballot-stuffing by adding countries that are only interested in the one issue already on the table. It should also help limit involvement to those countries that are truely interested in creating real standards through open processes.
September 8th, 2007 at 16:46
Very nice letter. Thanks for putting this together.
I’d like to propose that there be some penalty or disqualification process for ISO units that are “bought off” so as to discourage countries from allowing corrupt ISO voters into their organizations.
We cannot have our standards process be corrupted by greed!
Shannon VanWagner
September 8th, 2007 at 18:43
new members should not be allowed to vote in standardization processes started before they joined.
September 8th, 2007 at 19:07
ISO reputation as a approver of World standard has been tarnished. Not so much for the way they do business but for showing the World they can be manipulated by big money. Microsoft probably spend millions of dollars to buy votes and to influence the voting procedure by corrupting the system. Fortunately, for all concerned, Microsoft’s efforts failed. Will this type is immoral, underhanded cheating of the “system” happen again? Most likely. Microsoft has learned from the experience and will in all probability, try it again. ISO, please - wake up. Fix your voting system. Show the World that you are a true leader in approving standards.
September 8th, 2007 at 23:33
Instead of a passive time-based test for being a P-member: “member for >3 months” or “member before standard proposed”, I would prefer something effort-based: “particpated in 3 meetings/teleconferences”, “prepared a evaluation of some section of the draft”, “has experience implementing the draft” …
This would reduce the change of members just turning up to vote on someting they have no real interest in or knowlege about.
September 9th, 2007 at 01:31
I think a point you have missed is that a number of these new voters had no participation, that I am aware of in the standards discussion. They just came along and voted as they were told.
I think it should be necessary for the voting bodies to have participated in the process so they at least have opportunity to understand what they are voting about. Standards are after all supposed to be about technical quality and compatibility with existing standards, something that OOXML is obviously not!
September 9th, 2007 at 02:37
Great letter. Thanks.
I’m not so sure about your proposal that new P members not be allowed to vote if they changed their status to P less than 90 days before the vote. I don’t think the idea of not allowing new members to participate in new standards that are already under discussion. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I’m intrigued by David Bowen’s proposal that they be required to have participated.
September 9th, 2007 at 11:46
When performing an overhaul of a process to make it resistant to corruption, one should think of how the new process could be corrupted as well. Once the ‘corruption resistant’ process is in place, it can be much more difficult to fix it.
I have two changes to propose to bolster the current process; each proposed change is more complicated than I’d like in an attempt to make it more corruption-resistant.
First, I’d limit the various countries’ ISO processes to no more than their technical committee voted. That is, if the technical committee votes ‘Yes, with comments’, the country cannot vote ‘Yes’, no comment. If the technical committee votes ‘No, with comments’, the country cannot vote ‘Yes’ or ‘Yes, with comments’. Note that this would put a requirement on countries to *have* a technical committee. Any discrepancies found should result in the vote being converted to what the technical committee voted, and the offending country’s ISO process fined. If the country does not pay the fine within a month, they cannot participate in future votes until they pay. The fine should probably be limited to no more than double the ISO membership dues.
Second, I personally believe that any restriction on who can vote on any proposal, and whether they vote as a regular member or ‘P’ member, must itself be augmented with an anti-corruption measure, or you’ll actually make things worse instead of better. My proposal would be:
I would suggest that the process only allow one additional opportunity to meet the requirements - if you’re two meetings short, you’d be the swing vote, and you’re not at the next meeting, there can be another vote at the next meeting. If there isn’t a vote then, and you do make the meeting after that, if you still don’t meet the criteria via a non-meeting-count manner, the vote won’t be deferred again for you. It may be deferred for someone else, however.
September 9th, 2007 at 15:06
lets be clear here:
I think the ISO body knows the problems for a long time, now just more apparent and in light of more media attention
it should act now if it does not want to carry over the legacy shadow of companies that buy-in to ISO
September 9th, 2007 at 16:54
The solution seems obvious to me: weigh a nation’s vote based only on the length of time it has participated in the ISO process. The factor should be something like log2(number of months).
September 10th, 2007 at 03:49
Heavens! A truly radical thought! Next you’ll suggest legislators be required to read the bills they vote on.
September 10th, 2007 at 15:21
[…] An Open Letter to ISO” […]
September 11th, 2007 at 14:40
It’s necessary to think about substitute the norms of the german DIN clube by Open Norms.
The manner of decision by DIN (what is a privat clube, principally supported by the industry) shocked many observers. In its decision process, was openly said to do some abreviations of the process exactly to avoid contrary means.
And its decision is contrary to the population’s opinion, as in Germany open software inclusive Linux are used by plenty people …
September 11th, 2007 at 15:48
Brasil’s NB defined consensus as “no justified objection”.
Many stoppers and non-stoppers comments arrised with justification during the discussion period. Microsoft, asside from voting “Yes”, could not produce technical justification to drop the stoppers comments. The only logical conclusion was the “No” position, that Microsoft loudly objected but could not address propper. So the final result was consensus being “No”.
Could Microsoft justify with technical merits these comments as being non-stoppers, would the result been other.
September 16th, 2007 at 22:41
[…] Isene (CEO de Freecode) ha propuesto una serie de modificaciones para la ISO mediante una carta abierta a ISO. La razón en la cantidad de escándalos que ha habido durante el […]
October 2nd, 2007 at 15:06
[…] read more | digg story […]
December 11th, 2007 at 04:44
I have read recently that ISO has had much difficulty getting anything done since the OOXML vote because the P members who showed up just for that vote have not shown up since, leaving ISO without a quorum and unable to vote.
Perhaps the way to deal with this would be to have a rule that any P member failing to show up for any three or more consecutive votes automatically has his P status revoked and cannot vote again as a P member for a minimum of one year from the date of revocation.
March 12th, 2008 at 11:41
I think the fraud at ISO has everything to do with ECMA first and foremost.
It began with ECMA allowing Microsoft to co-chair the TC45 group, arguable to say the least since this thing is from Microsoft (it’s like Monsanto co-chairing the US FDA), and never disclosing any of the meeting minutes.
Obviously, that was the poison pill. You can clearly see where it goes from that.
Then, we’ve had a few business partners such as Novell who agreed to be part of this fraud by joining Microsoft at ECMA. Novell, as everyone knows, is also in bed with Microsoft on anything “open source”.
Then, we’ve had the ISO secretary, in January 2007, allowing ECMA 376 to proceed after the 30-day contradiction check period, despite vocal protest letters from national bodies that ECMA 376 was indeed contradicting existing ISO standards.
In fact, there is a way to fix this. It’s to instruct our governments to ignore fast-tracked ISO standards. If we can get our governments to mandate that all standards related to Office document models should not be allowed to go through fast-track, Microsoft has no more incentives to exploit whatever loophole.
April 9th, 2008 at 20:00
[…] Østmoen’s photo of me appealing to ISO to create a standard for standardization. After I sent my Open Letter to ISO, the UN/CEFACT have according to Computerworld (dk) started it’s process to create a standard […]
March 27th, 2009 at 08:23
I too think ISO should be fair enough to every client whether big or small, size should not be considered, every one must be treated equally.
John