Flooding JTC1/SC34: A mixed blessing
September 24, 2007 8:39 pm StandardizationLast wednesday, there was a new meeting in Standard Norge Committee 185, the ISO /IEC JTC1 SC34 mirror committee (the sub committee where OOXML resorts). Interesting data emerged.
According to Steve Pepper’s presentation, there were only 9 Participating Members in SC34 November last year. Since then, another 29 members have joined. Bear in mind that this sub committee has enjoyed a quiet, rather anonymous life until the bomb shell called OOXML was dropped in its lap late last year. Membership fluctuations have been few and far between. All of a sudden, countries like Malta, Cyprus and Lebanon showed an immediate interest in the sub committee’s technical matters.
Few had registered that it wasn’t necessary to participate in SC34 in order to vote on the fate of OOXML as an ISO standard. The voting countries where the P-Members of its mother, the JTC1. Countries flooded the SC34 to no avail.
Actually, it may prove to be a curse to SC34.
You see, in order to get much done in the sub committee, at least 50% of its P-Members needs to participate in a voting. Even with as much as 20% of the newcomers being interested in more than helping out Microsoft, it leaves less than 40% of the members caring enough to cast a vote. This will slow the the work to a grinding halt. SC34 will be left dead in the waters.
Am I exaggerating? I think not. The first example already proves my point; The letter ballot of 2007-09-03 failed as only 24% cared to vote (the link shows that Norway didn’t vote, but in fact we did). The only voting countries were the P-members from back then - the 9 pre-OOXML member countries. Not one of the newcomers responded.
It may have seemed like a blessing to get all this attention with lots of new committee members. Now it looks like the opposite.
I wonder if Microsoft cares about the consequences of their ISO stuffing. I hope the troubles in SC34 jumpes up and bites the monopoly in its big behind.
December 17th, 2007 at 04:22
Hei Geir.
I slutten av februar er det ballot resolution meeting (BRM) i Geneve for OOXML/DIS29500. En komité fra Standard Norge er tiltenkt delta der for å diskutere endringene som vil bli foreslått (endelige endringer fra ECMA skal publiseres medio januar).
Fristen for å “melde seg på” ved å sende inn liste med deltakere på BRM var 11. desember ellers kan man risikere å ikke få delta. Jeg vil tro SN allerede har ordnet med dette.
Skal du delta på dette BRM? Vet du hvem som reiser på Norges vegne?
Takk for alle svar. Stå på.
PS: Oops, I just noticed I forgot that your blog is in English. I hope you won’t mind this post in Norwegian. Thanks.
December 17th, 2007 at 23:25
In norwegian as a reply to the poster:
Det ser ut til at Steve Pepper og Schazad Rana (på veiene av Microsoft) drar til BRM.
Jeg var som du sikkert har sett meget klar i mine synspunkter, noe som ikke falt i god jord hos Standard Norge. Det kan tenkes at Standard Norge ikke ønsker å sende en så frittalende person til BRM
De svært så klare signalene jeg har fått kan tyde på det.
Dette kan imidlertid bety at Norge faktisk kommer til å endre sin stemme til Ja (med kommentarer - men kommentarene har da ingen praktisk betydning).
Vi får se hva Steve Pepper er laget av.