Thursday, July 17, 2008
What is Rick smoking?
Former Microsoft consultant Rick Jelliffe has posted his own particular brand of science fiction/fantasy, this time in his favorite subgenre, a parody of a drug-induced psychosis, where after uneasy slumber Rick awakes in some alternate parallel universe and finds that JTC1/SC34 is open and transparent and OASIS is closed, and decides to write a rambling blog post about it.
If you like unintentional humor, you will enjoy reading Rick's over-the-top post.
Rick suggests that organizationally JTC1/SC34 is a more participatory environment for developing standards than OASIS.
Let's test that proposition. Let's compare OASIS and JTC1/SC34.
Who can participate? In OASIS, anyone can participate, from any company, organization, government agency, non-profit corporation in the world. Or you can join as an unaffiliated individual, as many have. You don't need your government's permission to join. You just do it. Most join with a nominal membership fee ($300 for individuals) but membership grants are available in some cases, when the fee would be burden for active individual contributors.
What about participation in JTC1/SC34? First, you must be a member of your NB. How do you become a member of your NB? In the US the price is $1,200 and you must be representing a company or organization. Individuals? Sorry, you are not allowed to participate. In other countries the rules vary. In some cases membership is not available at all at any price. You are essentially wait-listed until an opening becomes available. (Sorry, we don't have enough seats, we heard in Portugal). In some countries, like China, membership is forbidden to native citizens who are employees of foreign subsidiaries in China. In other countries you can't join at all. It is entirely a government decision. So, good luck joining the NB of Syria, where the constitution has been suspended under emergency rule since 1963. (But somehow they managed to make time to vote on the OOXML ballot. Zimbabwe as well, that paragon of open participation.)
Now, it is entirely possible for a standards organization to appear open, but in practice to be inaccessible. So we must look at the complete cost of participation, not just the initial membership fees.
The OASIS ODF TC does its work entirely on an email list, a wiki, and via weekly phone calls, which are toll-free calls for most participants. I don't recall there ever being a face-to-face meeting, certainly not so long as I've been a member. This use of technology lowers the barrier to participation, so anyone can be effective on the TC if they wish. In particular it makes it easier for those who have day jobs and can only contribute to the mailing list during non-work hours.
What about JTC1/SC34? To participate effectively requires attendance at several international meetings each year (Plenary's, WG's, Ad-hocs, BRM's, etc.), as well as participation at NB meetings. Since many of the participants are representative of large corporations or government agencies, a junket mentality prevails and the meetings are often held in some of the most expensive places in the world: Geneva, Granada, London, Kyoto, Jeju Island, etc.
JTC1 does not allow meeting participation by telephone. Since important votes, are held at these meetings, and no provision is made for remote participation, one cannot effectively participate in JTC1/SC34 without a substantial budget for international travel. Attendance at a single meeting — the DIS 29500 BRM — was $3687.52 for me, and I flew coach and ate cheap. How many standards meetings like that can you as an individual or your small company afford per year?
Further, note the nature of your membership — what can you actually do? Can you vote? In OASIS, it is one person/one vote. In the TC, your vote as an individual with a $300 membership fee is counted exactly the same as my vote representing an OASIS Foundational Sponsor. At the organizational level, it is one company/one vote, and the smallest OASIS member organization has exactly the same vote as the largest.
In JTC1/SC34 however, you typically can't vote at all. NB's vote, not individuals, not companies. So your opinion and your wishes are subject to the will of your NB. If your opinion varies from your NB's, you may not be accredited to attend an international meeting, and even if you are able to attend you may not be allowed to speak your opinions. This extra level of indirection and censorship means that you, as an individual, can do little. And to the extent your NB's committee is stacked by a single vendor and their partner community, or your NB decides to overrule or ignore its technical committee, or Microsoft calls your head of state to change the NB's vote, or any of the dozens of other documented shenanigans that recently occurred, your entire membership fee and participation will be an entire waste of time, money and effort.
Membership is OASIS is far more open and inclusive. You join. You discuss. You vote. Period. In JTC1/SC34, you are mired in layers of bureaucracy at the national and international level, in a system crafted by and for the big boys to cut back room deals and manipulate the process to the benefit of large corporations.
(Now that isn't to say that there are not some individual consultants out there who thrive in the JTC1 environment by mastering its dark, dusty, demon-haunted hallways. Even the largest corporations occasionally have need of this expertise, as Rick and others are quite aware. If JTC1/SC34 were truly open and transparent, such skills would not be needed. You certainly don't see anyone selling their services to help companies navigate OASIS, do you?)
What about transparency? As Rick demonstrates, OASIS meeting minutes and agenda are all posted and public. So is our mailing list. So are all of our drafts. So is our member and public comments.
But in JTC1/SC34, most of the documents are private, only accessible to SC34 members by password. And then occasionally JTC1 will step in prevent SC34 from releasing their own work , suppressing documents even from their own SC members. There are no public comments to speak of, and member comments on draft standards are secret.
So when you are back from your "trip", Rick, please let us know again, who wins on openness, participation and transparency?
And for the record, a couple of outright deceptions in Rick's post:
If you like unintentional humor, you will enjoy reading Rick's over-the-top post.
Rick suggests that organizationally JTC1/SC34 is a more participatory environment for developing standards than OASIS.
JTC1's process, based on National Body voting is both effective ... and more genuinely open, because it is impossible to stack either directly or indirecty.
Let's test that proposition. Let's compare OASIS and JTC1/SC34.
Who can participate? In OASIS, anyone can participate, from any company, organization, government agency, non-profit corporation in the world. Or you can join as an unaffiliated individual, as many have. You don't need your government's permission to join. You just do it. Most join with a nominal membership fee ($300 for individuals) but membership grants are available in some cases, when the fee would be burden for active individual contributors.
What about participation in JTC1/SC34? First, you must be a member of your NB. How do you become a member of your NB? In the US the price is $1,200 and you must be representing a company or organization. Individuals? Sorry, you are not allowed to participate. In other countries the rules vary. In some cases membership is not available at all at any price. You are essentially wait-listed until an opening becomes available. (Sorry, we don't have enough seats, we heard in Portugal). In some countries, like China, membership is forbidden to native citizens who are employees of foreign subsidiaries in China. In other countries you can't join at all. It is entirely a government decision. So, good luck joining the NB of Syria, where the constitution has been suspended under emergency rule since 1963. (But somehow they managed to make time to vote on the OOXML ballot. Zimbabwe as well, that paragon of open participation.)
Now, it is entirely possible for a standards organization to appear open, but in practice to be inaccessible. So we must look at the complete cost of participation, not just the initial membership fees.
The OASIS ODF TC does its work entirely on an email list, a wiki, and via weekly phone calls, which are toll-free calls for most participants. I don't recall there ever being a face-to-face meeting, certainly not so long as I've been a member. This use of technology lowers the barrier to participation, so anyone can be effective on the TC if they wish. In particular it makes it easier for those who have day jobs and can only contribute to the mailing list during non-work hours.
What about JTC1/SC34? To participate effectively requires attendance at several international meetings each year (Plenary's, WG's, Ad-hocs, BRM's, etc.), as well as participation at NB meetings. Since many of the participants are representative of large corporations or government agencies, a junket mentality prevails and the meetings are often held in some of the most expensive places in the world: Geneva, Granada, London, Kyoto, Jeju Island, etc.
JTC1 does not allow meeting participation by telephone. Since important votes, are held at these meetings, and no provision is made for remote participation, one cannot effectively participate in JTC1/SC34 without a substantial budget for international travel. Attendance at a single meeting — the DIS 29500 BRM — was $3687.52 for me, and I flew coach and ate cheap. How many standards meetings like that can you as an individual or your small company afford per year?
Further, note the nature of your membership — what can you actually do? Can you vote? In OASIS, it is one person/one vote. In the TC, your vote as an individual with a $300 membership fee is counted exactly the same as my vote representing an OASIS Foundational Sponsor. At the organizational level, it is one company/one vote, and the smallest OASIS member organization has exactly the same vote as the largest.
In JTC1/SC34 however, you typically can't vote at all. NB's vote, not individuals, not companies. So your opinion and your wishes are subject to the will of your NB. If your opinion varies from your NB's, you may not be accredited to attend an international meeting, and even if you are able to attend you may not be allowed to speak your opinions. This extra level of indirection and censorship means that you, as an individual, can do little. And to the extent your NB's committee is stacked by a single vendor and their partner community, or your NB decides to overrule or ignore its technical committee, or Microsoft calls your head of state to change the NB's vote, or any of the dozens of other documented shenanigans that recently occurred, your entire membership fee and participation will be an entire waste of time, money and effort.
Membership is OASIS is far more open and inclusive. You join. You discuss. You vote. Period. In JTC1/SC34, you are mired in layers of bureaucracy at the national and international level, in a system crafted by and for the big boys to cut back room deals and manipulate the process to the benefit of large corporations.
(Now that isn't to say that there are not some individual consultants out there who thrive in the JTC1 environment by mastering its dark, dusty, demon-haunted hallways. Even the largest corporations occasionally have need of this expertise, as Rick and others are quite aware. If JTC1/SC34 were truly open and transparent, such skills would not be needed. You certainly don't see anyone selling their services to help companies navigate OASIS, do you?)
What about transparency? As Rick demonstrates, OASIS meeting minutes and agenda are all posted and public. So is our mailing list. So are all of our drafts. So is our member and public comments.
But in JTC1/SC34, most of the documents are private, only accessible to SC34 members by password. And then occasionally JTC1 will step in prevent SC34 from releasing their own work , suppressing documents even from their own SC members. There are no public comments to speak of, and member comments on draft standards are secret.
So when you are back from your "trip", Rick, please let us know again, who wins on openness, participation and transparency?
And for the record, a couple of outright deceptions in Rick's post:
- Rick says that there are 80 NB's, and thousands people participating in JTC1, but only 13 people participating on the ODF TC. This is a particularly inept comparison. Why is he comparing all of JTC1 to a single OASIS TC? If you look at OASIS overall, you will see that OASIS has more than 5,000 participants, representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. The ODF TC itself has 53 members, including 7 members of JTC1/SC34.
- Rick picks a "random" ODF TC minutes post from a year ago to attempt to suggest domination by a single company. Not so random a choice, methinks. It was a rare joint meeting of the ODF TC and the Metadata subcommittee, which brought in a far greater number of Sun employees than typically participate in a call.
Labels: FUD, OASIS, ODF, OOXML
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# posted by Rob : 7/17/2008 01:50:00 PM 11 comments (policy) links to this post
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Document Format FUD: A Guide for the Perplexed
I've decided to put together a list of misconceptions that I hear, generally on the topic of document formats. I'll try to update this list to keep it current, with the most recent entries at the top. Readers are invited to submit the FUD they observe as comments, and I'll include it where I can.
This inaugural edition is dedicated to the fallout from the recent supernova we know as the OpenDocument Foundation, that in one final act of self-immolation swelled from obscurity to overwhelming brilliance, but then slowly faded away, ever fainter and more erratic, little more than hot gas, the dimming embers no longer sustainable.
Q: Now that the originator and primary supporter of OpenDocument Format has ended its support for ODF, does this mean the end for the ODF standard? (18 Nov 2007)
A: This question is based on a mistaken premise, namely that the OpenDocument Foundation was the originator or steward of the ODF standard. This is an erroneous notion.
The ODF standard is owned by the OASIS standards consortium, with over 600 member organizations and individual members. The committee in OASIS that that does the technical working of maintaining the ODF standard is called the OpenDocument TC. It has 15 organization members as well as 7 individual members. Until recently the OpenDocument Foundation was a member of the ODF TC, one voice among many.
The adoption of the ODF standard is promoted by several organizations, most prominently the ODF Alliance (with over 400 organizational members in 52 countries), the OpenDocument Fellowship (around 100 individual members) and the OpenDoc Society (a new group with a Northern European focus, with around 50 organizational members). To put this in perspective, the OpenDocument Foundation, before it changed its mission and dissolved, had only 3 members.
When you consider the range of ODF adoption, especially in Europe and Asia, the strong continuing work on ODF 1.2 in OASIS, and the strong corporate, government and organizational participation demonstrated in the global ODF User Workshop recently held in Berlin, we seem to be making a disproportionate amount of noise over the hysterics of the disintegrating 3-person OpenDocument Foundation.
A number of analysts/journalists/bloggers didn't check their facts and seem to have fallen into the trap, and ascribed a far greater importance to the actions of the Foundation. Curiously, these articles all quoted the same Microsoft Director of Corporate Standards. I hope this correlation does not prove to be a persistent contrary indicator for accuracy in future file format stories.
Luckily for us, David Berlind over at ZDNet has penetrated the confusion and gets it right:
11/27/2009 Update: Berlind did further research and interviews on this topic and followed up with a podcast and new blog post OpenDocument Format Community steadfast despite theatrics of now impotent ‘Foundation’ on this subject.
Q: The Open Document Foundation has a document, a "Universal Interoperability Framework" that on its title page says "Submitted to the OASIS Office Technical Committee by The OpenDocument Foundation October 16, 2007". What is the status of this proposal in the ODF TC? (18 Nov 2007)
A: No such document has been submitted to the OASIS TC, on this date or any other date. OASIS policy states that "Contributions, as defined in the OASIS IPR Policy, shall be made by sending to the TC's general email list either the contribution, or a notice that the contribution has been delivered to the TC’s document repository". A look at the ODF TC's list archive for October shows that there was no such contribution.
Q: The Foundation claims that the W3C's CDF format has better interoperability with MS Office than ODF has. Is this true? (18 Nov 2007)
A: The Foundation's claims have not been demonstrated, or even competently argued at a technical level that would allow expert evaluation. I cannot fully critique what is essentially vaporware. However, those who know CDF better than I do have commented on the mismatch between CDF and office documents, for example the recent interview with the W3C's Chris Lilley in Andy Updegrove's blog.
Q: So, does IBM then oppose CDF in favor of ODF? (18 Nov 2007)
A: No. IBM supports both the development of ODF and CDF and has a leadership role in both working groups. These are two good standards for two different things.
The W3C, over the years has produced a number of reusable, modular core standards for things like vector graphics (SVG), mathematical notation (MathML), forms (XForms), etc. To use a cooking analogy, these are like ingredients that can be combined to make a dish. ODF has taken a number of W3C standards and combined them to make a format for expressing conventional office documents, the familiar word processor, spreadsheet and presentation documents. ODF is an OASIS and ISO standard.
But just as eggs, butter and flour form the base of many recipes, the core W3C standards can be assembled in different ways for different purposes. This is a good thing.
CDF is not so much a final dish, but an intermediate step, like a roux (flour + butter) is when making a sauce. You don't use a roux directly, but build upon it, e.g., add mik to make a béchamel, add cheese for a cheese sauce, etc., CDF itself s not directly consumable. You need to add a WICD profile, something like WICD Mobile 1.0, before you have something a user agent can process.
This inaugural edition is dedicated to the fallout from the recent supernova we know as the OpenDocument Foundation, that in one final act of self-immolation swelled from obscurity to overwhelming brilliance, but then slowly faded away, ever fainter and more erratic, little more than hot gas, the dimming embers no longer sustainable.
Q: Now that the originator and primary supporter of OpenDocument Format has ended its support for ODF, does this mean the end for the ODF standard? (18 Nov 2007)
A: This question is based on a mistaken premise, namely that the OpenDocument Foundation was the originator or steward of the ODF standard. This is an erroneous notion.
The ODF standard is owned by the OASIS standards consortium, with over 600 member organizations and individual members. The committee in OASIS that that does the technical working of maintaining the ODF standard is called the OpenDocument TC. It has 15 organization members as well as 7 individual members. Until recently the OpenDocument Foundation was a member of the ODF TC, one voice among many.
The adoption of the ODF standard is promoted by several organizations, most prominently the ODF Alliance (with over 400 organizational members in 52 countries), the OpenDocument Fellowship (around 100 individual members) and the OpenDoc Society (a new group with a Northern European focus, with around 50 organizational members). To put this in perspective, the OpenDocument Foundation, before it changed its mission and dissolved, had only 3 members.
When you consider the range of ODF adoption, especially in Europe and Asia, the strong continuing work on ODF 1.2 in OASIS, and the strong corporate, government and organizational participation demonstrated in the global ODF User Workshop recently held in Berlin, we seem to be making a disproportionate amount of noise over the hysterics of the disintegrating 3-person OpenDocument Foundation.
A number of analysts/journalists/bloggers didn't check their facts and seem to have fallen into the trap, and ascribed a far greater importance to the actions of the Foundation. Curiously, these articles all quoted the same Microsoft Director of Corporate Standards. I hope this correlation does not prove to be a persistent contrary indicator for accuracy in future file format stories.
Luckily for us, David Berlind over at ZDNet has penetrated the confusion and gets it right:
...the future of the OpenDocument Foundation has nothing to do with the future of the OpenDocument Format. In other words, any indication by anybody that the OpenDocument Format has been vacated by its supporters is pure FUD.
11/27/2009 Update: Berlind did further research and interviews on this topic and followed up with a podcast and new blog post OpenDocument Format Community steadfast despite theatrics of now impotent ‘Foundation’ on this subject.
Q: The Open Document Foundation has a document, a "Universal Interoperability Framework" that on its title page says "Submitted to the OASIS Office Technical Committee by The OpenDocument Foundation October 16, 2007". What is the status of this proposal in the ODF TC? (18 Nov 2007)
A: No such document has been submitted to the OASIS TC, on this date or any other date. OASIS policy states that "Contributions, as defined in the OASIS IPR Policy, shall be made by sending to the TC's general email list either the contribution, or a notice that the contribution has been delivered to the TC’s document repository". A look at the ODF TC's list archive for October shows that there was no such contribution.
Q: The Foundation claims that the W3C's CDF format has better interoperability with MS Office than ODF has. Is this true? (18 Nov 2007)
A: The Foundation's claims have not been demonstrated, or even competently argued at a technical level that would allow expert evaluation. I cannot fully critique what is essentially vaporware. However, those who know CDF better than I do have commented on the mismatch between CDF and office documents, for example the recent interview with the W3C's Chris Lilley in Andy Updegrove's blog.
Q: So, does IBM then oppose CDF in favor of ODF? (18 Nov 2007)
A: No. IBM supports both the development of ODF and CDF and has a leadership role in both working groups. These are two good standards for two different things.
The W3C, over the years has produced a number of reusable, modular core standards for things like vector graphics (SVG), mathematical notation (MathML), forms (XForms), etc. To use a cooking analogy, these are like ingredients that can be combined to make a dish. ODF has taken a number of W3C standards and combined them to make a format for expressing conventional office documents, the familiar word processor, spreadsheet and presentation documents. ODF is an OASIS and ISO standard.
But just as eggs, butter and flour form the base of many recipes, the core W3C standards can be assembled in different ways for different purposes. This is a good thing.
CDF is not so much a final dish, but an intermediate step, like a roux (flour + butter) is when making a sauce. You don't use a roux directly, but build upon it, e.g., add mik to make a béchamel, add cheese for a cheese sauce, etc., CDF itself s not directly consumable. You need to add a WICD profile, something like WICD Mobile 1.0, before you have something a user agent can process.
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# posted by Rob : 11/18/2007 11:45:00 PM 8 comments (policy) links to this post
