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30 Sep 09

IBM Declares War on Standards Process | BNET

Is this the wrath of Sutor?  Last week he threw the Linux desktop under the bus.  And now this?  No wonder @rcweir  has shut down the slime machine.

excerpt:  IBM has essentially declared war on the technical standards process. The words seem supportive enough, but when you read between them, you can see that a systematic round of arm-twisting is likely about to happen.

Anyone who knows tech is used to the dance that standard setting is. Experts from various companies serve on the committees, each with a sense of what ought to work “best” and trying to wrangle decisions in their direction. This is competitive dominance in action and the stakes are high. That’s what makes Big Blue’s more-collegial-than-thou stance so amusing, with the following “tenets”:

industry.bnet.com/...lares-war-on-standards-process - Preview

ibm standards

07 Jun 09

ODF and OOXML must converge!! AFNOR, the French Standards Body, announces proposals for revisable office document formats

  • French experts have determined that it is technically possible to converge ODF and MS-OOXML, into a single, revisable document format standard?



    The plan has four parts:



    "Firstly, to restructure the ECMA standard in two parts so as to differentiate between, on the one hand, a core of essential and simple functionalities to be implemented (OOXML-Core) and, on the other hand, all the additional functionalities required for compatibility with the stocks of existing office document files created by numerous users, which will be gathered within a package called OOXML-Extensions."



    "Secondly, AFNOR proposes to take into account a full series of technical comments submitted to the draft in order to make OOXML an ISO document of the highest possible technical and editorial quality."



    "Thirdly, it proposes to attribute to OOXML the status of ISO/TS for three years."



    Fourth, "Finally, AFNOR proposes to set up a process of convergence between ISO/IEC 26300 and the OOXML-Core. In order to achieve this, AFNOR will begin the simultaneous revision of ISO/IEC 26300 and of ISO/TS OOXML (subject to the latter being adopted after the aforementioned restructuring), so as to obtain the most universal possible single standard at the end of the convergence process. Any subsequent evolutions will be decided upon at ISO level and no longer at the level of such a group or category of players."









    So there you go.  A solution that removes ODF and OOXML from the clamy big vendor hands of both OASIS and Ecma, and puts the future of a "single revisable document" in the hands of ISO national bodies.

    IMHO, this is a winner.  If they (the ISO national bodies) can control the big application vendors, this will work.  And it's actually quite reasonable.

    They can't even begin to solve the technical challenge of convergence until they separate ODF from OpenOffice and OOXML from MSOffice.  The French have proposed their plan for separating OOXML from MSOffice, by creating a basic OOXMl-Core, and legacy compatible OOXML-Extensions.  Okay, but what about separating ODF from OpenOffice?

    ODF failed in Massachusetts for the love of five lousy generic elements we called the iX "interoeprability enhancements".  That's all it takes to convert existing MSOffice documents, applications and processes to ODF. 

    The five generics dealt with document structure fundamentals that were implemented differently in MSOffice and OpenOffice.  The generics are for lists, fields, tables, sections and page dynamics (breaks).

    There is also the problem with both ODF and OOXML that "compatibility-conformance" is optional.  Meaning, there is no requirement that compliant applications preserve the document markup of other applications.  Bye bye "round trip" fidelity!

    These implementation differentials break the high fidelity "round trip" conversion required by MSOffice bound workgroup-workflow business processes.  And with near 500 million MSOffice workgroups out there, this is hardly a trivial problem.  For Massachusetts, California, Denmark and Belgium this is an ODF show stopper.

    So what's the problem with adding five lousy generics to the ODF specification? 

    It's simple.  Nothing goes into ODF unless OpenOffice supports and implements that feature.  And OpenOffice is unable to support and implement these five generics unless there are significant changes made to the internal layout engine - implementation model. 

    The iX "interoperability enhancements" wouldn't degrade in any way the current OpenOffice conversion fidelity between MS binaries and xml docs, and ODF.  But they wouldn't improve that fidelity either.  The impact on OpenOffice conversion fidelity would be neutral. 

    Where the iX proposals would have an impact is on emerging ODF applications that would design their layout engines to perfectly implement ODF within the new iX interoperability framework.

    In the past year Florian Reuter submitted for discussion no less than five iX based proposals to the OASIS ODF TC members.  The first three iX proposals were submitted on behalf of the OpenDocument Foundation, and were signed off on by Massachusetts CIO Louis Gutierrez.  A fourth iX proposal was presented in November of 2006 on behalf of Florian's new employer, Novell.  And in February of 2007, the fifth iX proposal, also known as the RDF interoperability framework, was submitted to the OASIS ODF Metadata SC.

    A sixth "iX interoeprability framework" is in the works.  It's designed to bring ODF 1.1 and ODF 1.2 into conformance with



    ISO/IEC
    JTC 1 Directives     5th ed., v. 3.0, pp. 11, 145 (PDF), that mandate interoperability. 

    The ISO/IEC JTC 1 Directives for interop conformance requirements are uncompromising.  ODF 1.0 somehow slid through ISO without being held to account.  Interestingly, in May of 2006, ISO specifically refused to grant ODF an exception to interop conformance requirements.

    Here's a brief taste of what ODF 1.1, 1.2 and MS-OOXML face:

    ISO/IEC JTC 1 Directives unequivocally require that standards "specify clearly and unambiguously the conformity requirements that are essential to achieve the interoperability." Since ODF v. 1.2 is intended to become an ISO draft standard, this TC must shoulder the task the Directives place upon it. The Directives provide in relevant part:

    These Directives shall be complied with in all respects and no deviations can be made without the consent of the Secretaries-General.
    ............

    A purpose of IT standardization is to ensure that products available in the marketplace have characteristics of interoperability, portability and cultural and linguistic adaptability. Therefore, standards which are developed shall reflect the requirements of the following Common Strategic Characteristics:

        * Interoperability;
        * Portability;
        * Cultural and linguistic adaptability.

    Interesting huh?  There is the possiblity that come February, MS-OOXML will be put on the three year AFNOR plan.   Next up for ISO/IEC consideration will be ODF 1.1 and/or ODF 1.2.  Maybe by May of 2008? 

    Given the interoperability challenges facing both ODF and MS-OOXML, the world could easily find itself without an ISO approved desktop document standard.

    Although ODF 1.1 was OASIS approved in January of 2007, it has yet to be presented to ISO for consideration.  Meanwhile, ODF 1.2 is in it's final stages before it too goes before OASIS.  Shipping versions of OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, and Novell Office implement ODF 1.2 aspects.  We're way beyond ISO approved ODF 1.0 here!

    I like the French plan.  It's doable.  But speaking as someone who has been there, the ISO national bodies are going to have to wrestle the big vendors to get both an interoperable document standard, and, conforming applications.

    The expected February fireworks are just the start.  For sure there will be no lack of entertainment in 2008.

    ~ge~
     - garyedwards on 2007-09-25
  • AFNOR has recommended to ISO adopting an approach enabling it to guarantee – using ISO processes – mid-term convergence between Open Document Format (ODF) and OfficeOpen XML (OOXML), as well as the stabilisation of OOXML on a short-term basis.
  • Firstly, to restructure the ECMA standard in two parts so as to differentiate between, on the one hand, a core of essential and simple functionalities to be implemented (OOXML-Core) and, on the other hand, all the additional functionalities required for compatibility with the stocks of existing office document files created by numerous users, which will be gathered within a package called OOXML-Extensions. Secondly, AFNOR proposes to take into account a full series of technical comments submitted to the draft in order to make OOXML an ISO document of the highest possible technical and editorial quality. Thirdly, it proposes to attribute to OOXML the status of ISO/TS for three years. 
     
    Finally, AFNOR proposes to set up a process of convergence between ISO/IEC 26300 and the OOXML-Core. In order to achieve this, AFNOR will begin the simultaneous revision of ISO/IEC 26300 and of ISO/TS OOXML (subject to the latter being adopted after the aforementioned restructuring), so as to obtain the most universal possible single standard at the end of the convergence process. Any subsequent evolutions will be decided upon at ISO level and no longer at the level of such a group or category of players.
31 Aug 08

Mozilla Standards Blog » Blog Archive » Fear and Loathing on the Standards Trail (with an Upbeat Coda)

everything we do here at Mozilla is, for the most part, a contribution to the Web platform. I blogged previously about the low esteem I reserve for arguments that favor proprietary platforms (which typically pit rapid proprietary innovation against dawdling Web Platform standardization cycles), but even in that upbeat blog post, I acknowledge that the standards process leaves much room for improvement.

blog.mozilla.com/...ards-trail-with-an-upbeat-coda - Preview

standards mozilla html5 CSS SVG

30 Aug 08

Ajaxian » In Praise of Evolvable Systems

“Why something as poorly designed as the Web became The Next Big Thing, and what that means for the future.”

Well designed but "fixed" systems were over taken by the evolvable but poorly designed Web. I'm wonderig if these same "evolving" principles apply to standard organizations? Put WebKit up against the standard orgs in charge of key WebKit components, and you see clearly that WebKit would fail misably if they stuck to the hapless efforts of the W3C, Ecma and ISO.

Besides the fact that entrenched players such as Microsoft are sitting on those standards orgs in position to dumb down or put into terminal stall much needed innovations. For instance, WebKit deepneds on HTML5, CSS3, SVG, and JavaScript. All of which are stalled at various standards orgs.

As a reaction to this org stall, the WebKit group pushes forward anyway relying instead on OSS Community style innovation and consensus model sharing.

ajaxian.com/...in-praise-of-evolvable-systems - Preview

webkit web w3c standards

26 Feb 08

A Savage Journey … ODF at the OOXML BRM « A Frantic Opposition

  • A Savage Journey …



    <!-- IF YOU'RE GOING TO USE GOOGLE ADS, THIS IS A GOOD PLACE TO PUT THEM -->


    ‘Erupting from my vivid nightmares into the retro 80s faded luxury of a five-star hotel in Geneva, the pictures of the first victim reappeared on the wall.  The head of the Brazilian delegation-it’s only a matter of time now.


    My mind thrashes to disentangle the thrown spaghetti threads of blurred reasoning; who’s next, is it just the heads of delegation they are after, any NB member, P-members only?


    The fog lifts and it’s worse.  Who is behind this, them or us?  We outnumber them, but maybe their plan is more devious.  Must find Bonky Bob, he’ll know what to do.’


    Enough levity for now.  The BRM has held few surprises, other than the rather galling situation where I was forced to publicly toe the INCITS line by the temporary head of delegation, a Microsoft employee, against my better judgement.

06 Mar 07

Microsoft Hit By U.S. DOT Ban On Windows Vista, Explorer 7, and Office 2007 - Technology News by InformationWeek




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    late last year -- can be resolved. "We have more confidence in Microsoft than we would have 10 years ago," says Schmidt. "But it always makes sense to look at the security implications, the value back to the customer, and those kind of issues."


    The DOT's ban on Vista, Internet Explorer 7, and Office 2007 applies to 15,000 computer users at DOT proper who are currently running the Windows XP Professional operating system. The memo indicates that a similar ban is in effect at the Federal Aviation Administration, which has 45,000 desktop users.


    Compatibility with existing applications appears to be the Transportation Department's major concern. According to a separate memo, a number of key software applications and utilities in use in various branches of the department aren't Vista compatible. Among them are Aspen 2.8.1, ISS 2.11, ProVu 3.1.1, and Capri 6.5, according to a memo issued by staffers at the DOT's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.


    Any prolonged ban on new Microsoft technologies by the federal government could have a significant impact on the software maker's bottom line, as Microsoft sells millions of dollars in software to the feds annually.







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    • DOT chief technology officer Tim Schmidt
      DOT's CIO Daniel Mintz
      Federal Department of Transportation       - on 2007-03-06
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Dirty Tricks history - Grokdoc

  • Microsoft dirty tricks wiki:  Hey, this sight is growing quickly, but should come with a graphic warning.  The GrokLaw comments are routinely combed for examples that then find there way as links on the dirty tricks page. 
    - garyedwards on 2007-01-10
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