Microsoft joined the OASIS ODF tech committee, which you CLAIMED you wanted to happen (we all know that was bullshit, you were only saying that for show). Once they start taking part in ODF discussions, I can’t wait for them to shove their spec needs down your throat and watch you try to reject them, which will put the lie to your claims of ODF as one spec to rule the rest.

See also http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-81761/not-very-appealing:iso-iec-kicks-out-appeals

“The two ISO and IEC technical boards have given the go-ahead to publish ISO/IEC DIS 29500, Information technology – Office Open XML formats, as an ISO/IEC International Standard after appeals by four national standards bodies against the approval of the document failed to garner sufficient support.”

http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1151

Was the vote to proceed and that is why ISO is so quiet?

There is nothing in the process that requires the results to be made public. However, since ISO’s press office decided to publicize the lodging of the appeals, I assume they will also issue a press release if/when the appeals are resolved.

From what I hear (indirectly) the appeals are getting a lot of support.

It is a fair point. The XML work done by JTC1 is minuscule in comparison to the number and importance of XML standards done by other standards organization with less pedigree. For example, the W3C, OASIS, or the large number of industry-oriented consortia.

A fair question might be why this is so? There is nothing to prevent a company or individual from petitioning their NB to create a new work proposal in SC34 for the next great XML standard. But this rarely happens.

Many of the things you mention are in fact ISO standards already: JPEG, PNG, the common video standards, POSIX ABI (and Linux!).

You mentioned ISO C and Unicode (actually, Unicode Character Set comes from a consortium which adds extra information to the IS10646 character list, but it is frequently the same I18n people in IS10646, Unicode Consortium, W3C I18n wearing different hats.)

Firewire is not a de facto standard, but an IEEE standard (IEEE is the international standards body that looks after hardware interfaces).

But your premise seems to be that a standard is important if it gets mass adoption and never changes. However, some standards are intended for niche uses and for particular industrial sectors only. And technologies are not static but evolve and cross-pollenate: for example, LDAP grew out of X.500 which grew out of X.400.

As far as people being foolish enough to make a decision based on a stamp, this is in fact exactly what ISO (and the other bodies) themselves say: these are voluntary standards and the responsibility for evaluating whether they are appropriate to use in any situation is the adopters’. You seem to think you are saying something shocking…

All the stamp does is say that the documents have been through a formal development or QA process and successfully been voted for by the interested National Bodies: but standardization takes the form of a check of aspects of documentation and is not any indication that the technology described is necessarily preferred, optimal or even adequate for any specific task.

The ISO standard for Torx screws, for example, does not mean that you cannot use Phillips head screws. But if you do want to use them, as mature ’stabilized’ standards, they have an adequate description (and if the description is not adequate, they have a formalized process for getting the description improved.)

In the mean-time ISO gave us the OSI network stack (i think?), and SGML (how important commercially is it really?). Real winners there?

Unicode (in particular) and C perhaps, but how much of that was ISO and how much was just rubber stamped by them?

I certainly remember during the mid 90’s how ISO was almost completely irrelevant to the creation and growth of the internet and computer systems in general. Why are they suddenly important now?

I’m just starting to wonder if all this stress is worth it. Although having that ISO rubber-stamp might mean it gets considered, any organisation (or govt) will have to deal with it being a useless standard if they are foolish enough to make decisions based soley upon that stamp.

What really should be asked is:

1. Should the appeal of ABNT be processed further (Yes or No)?

2. Should the appeal of BIS be processed further (Yes or No)?

3. Should the appeal of FONDONORMA be processed further (Yes or No)?

4. Should the appeal of SABS be processed further (Yes or No)?

That approach is so natural and common that I do wonder what they are up to with the twisted way the ballot was created. Essentially they’ve introduced additional degrees of freedom into the ballot that don’t map into distinctions relevant to the questions that the Directives asked them to decide. It could just be ineptitude. But this is coming from the Secretaries General of ISO and IEC. I’d expect they know how to create a ballot.

Now, how are the ballots going to be counted? Say that the majority of voters who vote on ABNT in question a) vote YES, and that the majority of voters who use question b) to vote on ABNT also vote YES. Since a) and b) give opposite results, they logically can’t both pass on the same ballot, but this strange voting structure makes this result possible.

I think kawabago is right.

Yes ISO has a good track record for setting standards. But this fiasco shows there is no accountability in ISO. Once it is subverted, there is no mechanism to straighten it up. Although past standards might be OK, we can’t be confident about future standards. Microsoft has shown the way to subvert ISO and the road is wide open to copycats.

ISO is still a standards body, and in general has a fairly decent record of setting good standards.

Which is, itself, even more reason why these appeals should be thoroughly investigated, and not dismissed out-of-hand as the Secretariat would like.

Continuing to recognize ISO as a standards body, that is a mistake.

Perhaps Mr Bryden will take a senior management position at MS itself in their newly formed ‘Standards Office’ due to his ‘familiarity’ with ISO processes.