The truth is that since they didn’t take a vote on that at the BRM, fast-track should be over. Worse yet they didn’t even approve putting out a revised edition of the DIS for a vote, therefore one has to admit they didn’t come to resolution at the BRM and no new vote is needed, and thus fast-track is over.

I don’t see why anybody would blame Alex Brown. Alex was the convener for the meeting, not the responsible for organising the votes and deciding the rules. The votes are handled by ISO ITTF, headed by Keith Brannon.

If it appears that the rules used for the votes were incorrect, my understanding is that Keith Brannon will be blamed, not Alex Brown.

V1, the technical committee, has been heavily stuffed with Microsoft business partners and the 12 of them comprise over half of the committee. Combined they submitted zero technical comments on OOXML. They have voted as a bloc on every technical and procedural vote since they joined V1 last summer.

Luckily, the EB is more balanced. They are the ones, for example, that picked the US BRM delegation. So, the EB decision will be the important one.

I totally agree that tortured logic is needed to reach Alex Browns position. Alex Browns argument does not fly.

At this moment it might be good to review the alternatives that from my point of viwe are compatible with directives:
*dis29500 can be rejected and removed from Fast Track process since the meeting held failed to be a BRM formally since it used rules not compatible with the directives and having a BRM is required. This would mean the sepetember vote stands.
*the BRM might be regarded as a proper BRM, but the proper rules about only P members voting should be applied (result: about 120 Ecma edits will be disregarded)
*Alex Brown might have his way and use the letter ballot rules. This means if the directives are to followed that the BRM might be regarded as a proper BRM, but the rules in 9.6 must be applied to determine the results (result: about 850 Ecma edits will be disgarded)
*ISO might make a public statement that Alex Brown failed to follow directives or inform about intended differences and that the dis29500 has not been given proper treatment, but they trust the NBs to do the right thing. If they are smart they might even blame the mistake on that the quality of the submission from Ecma is not suitable for Fast Track procedures.

In any case it seem quite clear that Alex Brown is the one that will be blamed either way so why stick with the greater evil? Cherry picking of 9.5 but not 9.6 that explains how 9.5 are to be executed is very not folling the directives.

The only defense that Alex Brown perhaps could raise is that the FAQ imply what he intended…but I am fairly convinced that it did not. The only way I can make the FAQ answers work logically is if the 2/3 rule is to be followed…but from what I have read that mean the BRM operated with wrong instructions about voting rules…something that itself give grounds to argue that dis29500 should be removed since no proper BRM took place. That the NBs are given proper information about if proposals was adopted or not is rather essential for them to determine what they focus on during the meeting.

I have just read that INCTIS is advising the US to maintain a YES vote on MSOOXML

Link to story

After all the behaviour at the BRM and the US HoD’s comments… how very disappointing..

Any comments on your part?

James

One must use very tortured logic to arrive at Alex’s conclusions that 9.5 justifies the voting procedures used at the BRM. Here is what you must be willing to ignore to reach his conclusion.

1) First ignore that 9.5 applies to letter ballots, not to meeting votes. We were not and could not be issued a letter ballot in Geneva.

2) Then ignore the fact that the combined voting procedure for a Fast Track, when it does apply, require2 2/3 approval of P-members, and no more than 25% disapproval overall (P-members + O-members). Any voting procedure must define who can vote, and what the approval criteria are. Alex appears to take the definition of the former from 9.5, while ignoring the vote criteria listed in 9.6, substituting a criteria from some place else. This Chinese menu approach (pick one from column A and another from column B) to rule making is deplorable.

3)You must ignore that fact that 13.8 calls for Fast Track BRM votes to be done according to “normal JTC 1 procedures”. How can “normal” procedures be ones which are not even described in JTC1 Directives?

4) You must ignore that fact that 9.1.4 specifies how meeting votes are to be taken, “except as otherwise specified in these directives”. How can the Convenor then ignore this voting procedure and propose another which is specified nowhere in the Directives?

5)Finally, the Convenor would need to ignore the fact that PAS BRM votes explicitly call for the use of of the 9.1.4 majority P-member voting procedure. Every argument that the Convenor has made, if it were correct, would need to apply equally to PAS and Fast Track. But since PAS explicitly calls for the default meeting vote procedure, his argument falls apart. A good sign that you made the wrong choice is that your choice starts contradicting other parts of the Directives.

So, what I’m hearing sounds more like a post facto rationalization of the BRM leadership’s choice than any sort of logical explanation of why that voting procedure was chosen. Remember also that the BRM was offered the choice of other resolution procedures, like requiring 9 votes to pass, or even giving ITTF the ability to include or exclude Ecma proposals after the BRM. These other procedures have absolutely no support in the Directives, and ITTF was bold enough to admit this at the BRM. So the fact that the voting procedure has been similarly improvised is not a surprise to me.

I am including the votes by Microsoft-employed heads of delegation, and the votes by IBM-employed heads of delegation :)

By the way, are you including the Microsoft manager Wemba Opota bulk approval in the calc? ( i have included him )

Orlando ( from Argentina )

Let’s read 9.5 and the following item….

9.5 Combined Voting Procedure
The voting procedure which uses simultaneous voting (one vote per country) by the Pmembers
fo JTC 1 and by all ISO member bodies and IEC national committees on a
letter ballot is called the combined voting procedure. This procedure shall be used on
FDISs, DISs, FDAMs, DAMs and FDISPs.
9.6 FDIS/DIS/FDAM/DAM/FDISP Approval Criteria
For a FDIS/DIS/FDAM/DAM/FDISP to be approved, the count taken by ITTF shall meet the following criteria:
• At least two-thirds of the P-members voting shall have approved;
• Not more than one-quarter of the total number of votes cast are negative.
A P-member which has given appropriate notification that it will abstain from participation in specific work items
(see 3.1.2) shall not be counted as a P-member when counting votes for drafts relating to such items.
Abstentions are excluded from the count.

If Alex Brown is correct the yes votes by brazil, chile,greece, mexico, israel, poland and portugal should be disgarded when counting yes since they were O members in september according to wikipedias list over P and O members.

Additionally only responses were two third of the P members that did not abstain voted yes will be accepted if we follow 9.6.

Looking at the values from the unverified spreadsheet it looks to me like about 250 responses manage to better 2/3 P criteria. The criteria for 1/4 of totalt votes does not matter since most participants abstained.

Is this an omen?

I notice that a spreadsheet claiming to be the combined votes has been linked from Groklaw:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080306134836706

So, anyone who trusts that spreadsheet to be accurate can work out some numbers themselves.

The way that I’d suggest they did it is to:

a) Remove the O members – a publicly available list is at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML_Ballot_Results

b) Compare the results of the votes with the O members included with the votes with the O members excluded, and make a list of the dispositions that would have been affected.

c) Go through that list, checking against the dispositions (a public source is at http://www.dis29500.org/). Remove any dispositions that don’t make any alteration to the text, since these are irrelevant in determining the effect of O vs P voting on the text.

d) Go through that list again, removing the dispositions affected by resolutions that were accepted during the meeting (a public source is linked from http://adjb.net/comments.php?y=08&m=03&entry=entry080306-082306)

e) The remaining dispositions are the ones that would have changed the text if O members hadn’t been allowed to vote.

For added bonus fun, go through each of these (again on http://www.dis29500.org/) and see what they were about, whether they should have been accepted or not in your opinion (for context, please see the Ecma-376 spec available from http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-376.htm), and how your own national body voted on them.

Inigo

The above line is rather critical. If I understand the situation correctly by normal rules only P members can vote, yet the above allow deviations provided that the Secretaries-General agree.

Alex Brown has before the BRM publically stated in the FAQ that all participants will vote. It does not require any streacth of imaganation to assume that the Secretaries-General had read the FAQ and given his consent to what was written there by not objecting.

Problem is then…what did the FAQ imply really. The critical question is if Alex Brown had authority or even the consent from the Secretaries-General for the interpretation that he now argues as true. Alex Brown makes a big number out of that no NB did complain at the BRM about the voting rules…but did the NB really know what he intended a interpretation not compatible with the directives or what had previously been written in the FAQ?

Looking at the FAQ items it is made clear that O and P status matter to BRM. Something the directly conflict with Alex Browns current argument that P and O votes carry equal weight. The FAQ items clearly show that the intention was that 9.5 apply to the voting. Those would mean that 2/3 of the P-votes would be requiered for approval and the negatives votes for O and P votes must must be less than 25%. If 4 p-countries did disapprove then it would take 8 p-countries to approve for the vote to pass. If 32 P and O votes could vote no more than 8 votes could disapprove.

Actually even if we equal P and O members and count all votes toward the P limit it would need 7 votes positive votes out of ten to get a approval.

Are there any paperwork at all that support the idea that BRM would deal with simple majority?

“ITTF explained the voting rules to NB delegation heads before the BRM. If NBs have outstanding concerns they can lodge an appeal and then TMB and SMB will decide.

Alignment of PAS and FT procedures is ongoing work within JTC 1. As you can see, they are currently not the same on thi topic …

- Alex.”

So, there obviously is a discrepancy, and NBs do have the right of appeal…

-Stefan

@Mauricio, remember that P and O membership is entirely at the will of the NB. Either option is available. There is no cost and an NB can change at any time. Each membership category has well-defined rights and responsibilities. So I would not think of it as O-members being “excluded” from the vote, but as O-members participating in the BRM according to the membership category which they themselves selected.

@Orlando, Your numbers match mine. Again, I have not checked them against the meeting resolutions, which in some cases could override the ballot.

Brazil is a P-member at SC34, but a O-member at JTC1.

So indeed, according to the “P-only” rule (i.e. similar to the PAS BRM rules), Brazil should have been excluded from the BRM votes.

i checked the numbers and i obtained the following result if the “only P” directive is correctly applied ( but without excluding the Microsoft manager Wemba Opota bulk approval ):

comments approved: 903
comments disapproved: 124 ( of which no more than five were actually overriden )

hope it helps

Orlando ( from Argentina )

That’s an interesting choice of words to describe the process.

Do you agree with Rob’s position that Brazil (as an O-member) should have been excluded from the vote?

Still not satisfactory.

The fact that heads of delegations were told of this rule invention is immaterial. The Directives say “These Directives shall be complied with in all respects and no deviations can be made without the consent of the Secretaries-General.” It does not say, “You may make up rules so long as you let jet-lagged HoD’s know about it the night before”. The HoD’s had no competency to consider new voting rules, and the Convenor had no competency to offer them.

If I reckon P and O membership as of Sept 2nd, 2007 then I find that there were 7 O-members present and voting at the BRM. If the votes are recounted according to 9.1.4, then only 903 Ecma proposals are accepted. Again, I have not reconciled these with the meeting votes.

The argument from expediency (the text would be better if we ignored the rules) does not seem wise to me. I’m sure the text would also have been better if we had more time for the BRM, if there were more time to review, if the text had been rejected initially and sent back to Ecma for more work, if the contradiction arguments had been heeded, etc.

But at every decision point when JTC1 had the opportunity to improve the quality of the DIS, their argument for pushing these 6,000+ pages forward was “Those are the rules, we have no ability to bend the rules.” So I am unreceptive, now that we are at the end of this fiasco, by arguments that the rules be now be bent “in order to improve the text”.

I’d be very interested in your take on it.