Somebody needs to moderate the moderator

Here is a polite open letter to ISO, which failed quite miserably to handle Microsoft's OOXML. [via Andy Updegrove]

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.

Meta-moderation of some kind is needed here. There needs to be supervision that oversees well-documented and systematic misconduct. The European Commission (EC) stepped in, but unlike ISO, it's not an international body and this hardly suits its scope and goals. Rather than probing ISO, the EC will investigate Microsoft and the stacked technical committees.

Document Freedom Day is approaching and it will generate some proper media coverage ahead of the final decision on Microsoft's OOXML, to be decided by Microsoft itself (by proxies). ⬆

ISO: a wolf in sheep's clothing