Bonum Certa Men Certa

No Lessons Learned by ISO?

ISO Sold Out to ECMA



According to the new text which is hosted in Andy Updegrove's Web log, ISO is more interested in burial of evidence (and itself) than in self punishment and cure. Using gentle words, Andy explained why he is troubled.

Why troubled? Because these elements, when added to those that come before, basically add up to a ratification of the conduct of the Geneva BRM. To my reading, not one single element of Recommendation 5 addresses any of the concerns raised relating to the BRM - the voting procedures adopted, the amount of time to be provided in advance to consider proposed dispositions, or the timing of the delivery of a complete specification prior to a vote (admittedly this last element is beyond the scope of the BRM itself, but this concern could have been the subject of a further recommendation).


For information about the unspeakable BRM, see [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]. It's akin to the ACTA, which can almost be characterised as white-collar crime [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 5].

As Groklaw points out, linking to Exhibit A, double standards at ISO prevail as well: "In reducing the number of alternatives to a reasonable minimum, JTC 1 and other SDOs have demonstrated that it is not necessary and may not be desirable to choose only one alternative or option for standardization. Further, JTC 1 notes that the cycle of innovation in the ICT sector has resulted in the continuous introduction of new technologies that improve upon existing standards. Any attempt to choose only one standard would ignore and threaten to inhibit the cycle of innovation that continues to fuel this industry. Therefore, JTC 1 recognizes its commitment to ISO’s and IEC’s 'one standard' principle; however, it recognizes that neither it nor its SCs are in a position to mandate either the creation or the use of a single standard, and that there are times when multiple standards make the most sense in order to respond to the needs of the marketplace and of society at large."

“They fail to establish universality, which renders them moot.”Putting all the corruption involved aside for a moment, it is clear that ISO has grown irrelevant because it fails to respect the rule which speaks of "commitment to ISO’s and IEC’s 'one standard' principle." This, as Benjamin Henrion pointed out last week, means that "ISO is dead for software standards." They fail to establish universality, which renders them moot.

This latest decision which is made in retrospect may be -- as one must remember -- carried out by an ISO that is already occupied by self-serving cronies who perfume their own sins and hope for history to dissolve gracefully, then be rewritten.

Speaking of ISO being ripped apart from the inside, worth watching is the following list of attendants that contains people who are on Microsoft's payroll, such as Rex Jaeschke, Jean Paoli, Doug Mahugh and Isabelle Valet-Harper. It was the same in the BRM and other decision-making phases. Valet-Harper was mentioning the meeting in Jeju, so it could be related to the ODF hijack [1, 2]. The European Commission is hopefully watching this closely.

Speaking of ODF, I exchanged some E-mails with IBM, criticising them for foolishly allowing Microsoft to get involved in ODF after they had fought it viciously, if not illegally. For more information about ODF, here is a report from the latest ODF workshop.

The OASIS ODF Adoption TC and the new OASIS ODF Interoperability and Conformance TC met informally at the OpenOffice.org 2008 conference in Beijing, on November 6, 2008 for an all day workshop.


Playing diplomatic games with Microsoft is pointless. Companies like Google, Oracle, IBM and Sun should turn a cold shoulder to Microsoft after what they had done. History supports such a decision and so are continents that declared Microsoft an abusive monopolist. The industry does not need Microsoft anymore. Microsoft is crumbling anyway.

flickr:2401275078

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
 
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October