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| President of EU Academy for Standardisation criticizes OOXML, says duplicative standards conflict with WTO rules |
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Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 05:15 PM EDT
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Here's a story I wasn't expecting, but some of you more familiar with WTO rules perhaps were, a story that the president of the European Academy for Standardisation, Tineke Egyedi, is critical of OOXML being made a standard when ODF exists already, and she believes duplicative standards conflict with WTO rules:Egyedi, a researcher of technical standards, at the Technical University in Delft, the Netherlands, doubts whether ISO should have a taken into consideration a second standard for electronic documents at all. ISO approved the Open Document Format ODF in 2006, says Egyedi: "What are we to do with a second standard, which is overlapping the first? This conflicts with rules of the World Trade Organisation."
The standards specialist refers to the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, which states that duplication or overlap should be avoided.
Egyedi made her remarks last week, at the end of a public discussion on OOXML, she organised for students at her University. During the discussion, representatives of the Dutch government said that an approval by the ISO would not automatically make OOXML ready for use by the Dutch government. This would depend on whether or not OOXMl would be approved by a government commission that sets standards for public administration. So you know what she is talking about, here's the WTO Technical Barriers to Trade agreement [PDF].
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| Authored by: Aladdin Sane on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 05:21 PM EDT |
| Please place corrections to the article, if any, here.
Suggest the
correction in the Title: field of your post.
Thanks.
---
Form
follows function. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Aladdin Sane on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 05:24 PM EDT |
| Please discuss Groklaw News Picks here.
You can find the subjects for
discussion in the News Picks. Here's the link:
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discussion.
---
Form follows function. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: DannyB on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 05:26 PM EDT |
SCO's CEO Darl McBride
In the press he repeatedly lied
"Linux stole our Eye Pee!"
"GPL'ed it for Free!"
But no evidence could he provide.
---
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 05:31 PM EDT |
"The standardizing body within the territory of a Member shall make every
effort to avoid duplication of, or overlap with, the work of other standardizing
bodies in the national territory or with the work of relevant international or
regional standardizing bodies. They shall also make every effort to achieve a
national consensus on the standards they develop. Likewise the regional
standardizing body shall make every effort to avoid duplication of, or overlap
with, the work of relevant international standardizing bodies."
This looks like the relevant part (pages 135-136), I guess. To me it it looks
like ISO is shooting itself in that famous foot. Why did they even consider two,
competing standards? Is it even heard of before?
__________
IMANAL - I'm Absolutely Not A Lawyer (just didn't login)
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Maybe, with severe limitations..... - Authored by: tiger99 on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 05:43 PM EDT
- Maybe, with severe limitations..... - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 05:53 PM EDT
- Maybe, with severe limitations..... - Authored by: lukep on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 06:01 PM EDT
- Different screw heads for different specialties - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 06:03 PM EDT
- Maybe, with severe limitations..... - Authored by: tiger99 on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 06:20 PM EDT
- Maybe, with severe limitations..... - Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 07:32 PM EDT
- Maybe, with severe limitations..... - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 10:42 PM EDT
- pozidrive is more common here than Phillips - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 28 2008 @ 06:39 AM EDT
- Maybe, with severe limitations..... - Authored by: John Hasler on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 05:56 PM EDT
- Maybe, with severe limitations..... - Authored by: Steve Allen on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 11:13 PM EDT
- Are two competing ISO standards even heard of before? - Authored by: Steve Martin on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 05:51 PM EDT
- Are two competing ISO standards even heard of before? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 05:53 PM EDT
- Huh?!? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 06:26 PM EDT
- Huh?!? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 09:02 PM EDT
- Be careful with this line of argument - Authored by: yscydion on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 07:19 PM EDT
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| Authored by: dwheeler on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 06:05 PM EDT |
Hmm, OOXML does not seem to meet these requirements very well, as best as I can
tell. For example:
"2.1 Members shall ensure that in respect of technical regulations,
products imported from the territory
of any Member shall be accorded treatment no less favourable than that accorded
to like products of
national origin and to like products originating in any other country."
Yet OOXML is not practically implementable by any supplier; only one supplier
could reasonably implement it.
"2.2 Members shall ensure that technical regulations are not prepared,
adopted or applied with a
view to or with the effect of creating unnecessary obstacles to international
trade. For this purpose,
technical regulations shall not be more trade-restrictive than necessary to
fulfil a legitimate objective,
taking account of the risks non-fulfilment would create." OOXML is clearly
designed to limit trade on office software, since it prevents arbitrary
implementation of it. (Both technically - due to inadequate definition and
intentional incompatibility with other standards - and legally due to the
inadequate protections provided by its maker).
"2.4 Where technical regulations are required and relevant
international standards exist or their
completion is imminent, Members shall use them, or the relevant parts of them,
as a basis for their
technical regulations....". ODF already exists; so members should use it.
"12.2 Members shall give particular attention to the provisions of this
Agreement concerning developing
country Members' rights and obligations and shall take into account the special
development, financial
and trade needs of developing country Members in the implementation of this
Agreement, both nationally
and in the operation of this Agreement's institutional arrangements." Many
developing countries simply cannot afford to pay for Microsoft Office in massive
numbers; Office costs more than the average annual wage in some countries.
Requiring the use of a standard that can only be implemented realistically by a
single vendor, with such large costs, is nonsense. A standard should be
implementable by all - even organizations inside the developing country.
Several organizations have now made clear that Microsoft's legal declarations do
NOT give people the unambiguous right to implement OOXML. This makes no sense;
instead, use a standard that ANYONE can implement, without concern.
"Annex 3.H. The standardizing body within the territory of a Member
shall make every effort to avoid
duplication of, or overlap with, the work of other standardizing bodies in the
national territory or with
the work of relevant international or regional standardizing bodies." The
implication here is that duplication is bad, which is sensible; yet OOXML
duplicates ODF, except that OOXML is controlled by a single vendor (through the
Ecma rules that allow a single vendor to control the process).
Anyone see differently?
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: tce on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 06:08 PM EDT |
ANSI, American National Standards Institute, is the NB for the USA, and it
delegates to INCITS for IT standards,
including participation on behalf of the USA (via ANSI) for voting on ISO
standards.
ANSI has a document library here:
publicaa.ansi.org/sites/apdl
Which, if you drill in far enough:
Documents/Standards Activities/
American National Standards/Procedures, Guides, and Forms/
2008 ANSI
Essential Requirements
You get this document:
2008
ANSI Essential Requirements
Described as:
The 2008 ANSI Essential
Requirements contains the procedural requirements to which all ANSI Accredited
Standards Developers (ASDs) must comply when applying for accreditation and
submitting documents for approval as American National Standards.
I
believe INCITS would be an Accredited Standards Developer (ASD).
The
ANSI Essential Requirements document is 26 pages of requirements
(Says so right on the cover :-) for proper behavior by its ASD, and I have
excerpted a couple of the first pages below. You can all find your favorite
sections (I have mine!), and look at the rest of it too.
The question
for the ANSI board is: What is your organizational, ethical (e.g. IEEE, ACM), and personal
responsibility to assure that your requirements are met - for the good of your
organization, your mission, the USA and global community, and your professional
standing?
ANSI Essential Requirements: Due process requirements
for American National Standards
1.0 Essential requirements for due
process
These requirements apply to activities related to the development of
consensus for approval, revision, reaffirmation, and withdrawal of American
National Standards (ANS).
Due process means that any person (organization,
company, government agency, individual, etc.) with a direct and material
interest has a right to participate by: a) expressing a position and its basis,
b) having that position considered, and c) having the right to appeal. Due
process allows for equity and fair play. The following constitute the minimum
acceptable due process requirements for the development of
consensus.
1.1 Openness
Participation shall be open to all persons who
are directly and materially affected by the activity in question. There shall be
no undue financial barriers to participation. Voting membership on the consensus
body shall not be conditional upon membership in any organization, nor
unreasonably restricted on the basis of technical qualifications or other such
requirements.
1.2 Lack of dominance
The standards development process
shall not be dominated by any single interest category, individual or
organization. Dominance means a position or exercise of dominant authority,
leadership, or influence by reason of superior leverage, strength, or
representation to the exclusion of fair and equitable consideration of other
viewpoints.
1.3 Balance
The standards development process should have a
balance of interests. Participants from diverse interest categories shall be
sought with the objective of achieving balance.
1.4 Coordination and
harmonization
Good faith efforts shall be made to resolve potential conflicts
between and among existing American National Standards and candidate American
National Standards.
1.5 Notification of standards
development
Notification of standards activity shall be announced in suitable
media as appropriate to demonstrate an opportunity for participation by all
directly and materially affected persons.
1.6 Consideration of views
and objections
Prompt consideration shall be given to the written views and
objections of all participants, including those commenting on the PINS
announcement or public comment listing in Standards Action.
1.7 Consensus vote
Evidence of consensus in accordance with these
requirements and the accredited procedures of the standards developer shall be
documented.
1.8 Appeals
Written procedures of an ANSI-Accredited
Standards Developer (ASD) shall contain an identifiable, realistic, and readily
available appeals mechanism for the impartial handling of procedural appeals
regarding any action or inaction. Procedural appeals include whether a
technical issue was afforded due process.
1.9 Written
procedures
Written procedures shall govern the methods used for standards
development and shall be available to any interested
person.
1.10 Compliance with normative American National Standards
policies and administrative procedures
All ANSI-Accredited Standards Developers
(ASDs) are required to comply with the normative policies and administrative
procedures established by the ANSI Executive Standards Council or its
designee.
2.0 Benchmarks
This section contains information relative to
the implementation of the Essential Requirements set forth in Section 1.0 of
this document and articulates the normative policies and administrative
procedures associated with the ANS process.
2.1 Openness
Timely and
adequate notice of any action to create, revise, reaffirm, or withdraw a
standard, and the establishment of a new consensus body shall be provided to all
known directly and materially affected interests. Notice should include a clear
and meaningful description of the purpose of the proposed activity and shall
identify a readily available source for further information. In addition, the
name, affiliation1 and interest category of each member of the consensus body
shall be made available to interested parties upon request.
2.2 Lack of
dominance
Unless it is claimed in writing (including electronic communications)
by a directly and materially affected party that a single interest category,
individual or organization dominated the standards development process, no test
for dominance is required.
2.3 Balance
Historically the criteria for
balance are that a) no single interest category constitutes more than
one‑third of the membership of a consensus body dealing with
safety-related standards or b) no single interest category constitutes a
majority of the membership of a consensus body dealing with other than
safety-related standards.
The interest categories appropriate to the development
of consensus in any given standards activity are a function of the nature of the
standards being developed. Interest categories shall be discretely defined,
cover all materially affected parties and differentiate each category from the
other categories. Such definitions shall be available upon request. In
defining the interest categories appropriate to a standards activity,
consideration shall be given to at least the
following:
a) producer;
b) user;
c) general interest.
Where appropriate,
additional interest categories should be considered.2
Appropriate,
representative user views shall be actively sought and fully considered in
standards activities. Whenever possible, user participants shall be those with
the requisite technical knowledge, but other users may also participate. User
participation should come from both individuals and representatives of organized
groups. There are several user categories:
1.User‑consumer:
Where the standards activity in question deals with a consumer product, such as
lawn mowers or aerosol sprays, an appropriate consumer participant’s view is
considered to be synonymous with that of the individual user – a person using
goods and services rather than producing or selling
them.
2.User‑industrial: Where the standards activity in question deals
with an industrial product, such as steel or insulation used in transformers, an
appropriate user participant is the industrial user of the
product.
3.User‑government: Where the standards activity in question is
likely to result in a standard that may become the basis for government agency
procurement, an appropriate user participant is the representative of that
government agency.
4.User-labor: Where the standards activity in question deals
with subjects of special interest to the American worker, such as products used
in the workplace, an appropriate user participant is a representative of
labor.
2.4 Coordination and harmonization
Good faith efforts
shall be made to resolve potential conflicts between and among existing American
National Standards and candidate American National
Standards.
2.4.1 Definition of Conflict
Conflict within the
ANS process refers to a situation where, viewed from the perspective of a future
implementer, the terms of one standard are inconsistent or incompatible with the
terms of the other standard such that implementation of one standard under terms
allowable under that standard would preclude proper implementation of the other
standard in accordance with its
terms.
2.4.2 Coordination/Harmonization
ANSI-Accredited
Standards Developers shall make a good-faith effort to resolve potential
conflicts and to coordinate standardization activities intended to result in
harmonized American National Standards3. A “good faith” effort shall require
substantial, thorough and comprehensive efforts to harmonize a candidate ANS and
existing ANSs. Such efforts shall include, at minimum, compliance with all
relevant sections of these procedures4. Developers shall retain evidence of
such efforts in order to demonstrate compliance with this requirement to the
satisfaction of the appropriate ANSI body.
2.5 Notification of
standards development and coordination
....
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: TheBlueSkyRanger on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 06:29 PM EDT |
Hey, everybody!
Am I the only one seeing something interesting here?
M$ took the computer world by storm with Win95, selling people on all kinds of
wonders and a good "Trust us" line.
What is happening now?
The M$ speak isn't working anymore. No one trusts Windows security. No one
trusts Windows DRM. No one trusts WGA. And now, no one trusts M$' definition
of open standards. Remember, there was nary a peep over RTF, which promoted
data interchange but M$ was fully the guardian of.
Has the world finally woken up to how important digital rights and digital
freedom are?
Dobre utka,
The Blue Sky Ranger
Oh, give me a phone, with a modem on loan....[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 07:39 PM EDT |
Slashdot has an interesting article regarding the fact that the US isn't
listening to or acting on rulings against it. See the stories here:
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/26/2224241
What will happen eventually? Will the WTO punish the US? Will they ignore the
US when MS pounds it's fists on the desk to demand that we pay for their
precious IP?
MS if you're reading this, you might want to encourage compliance with rulings
against the US in order to get your way.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: PolR on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 08:35 PM EDT |
I am not familiar with WTO rules, so excuse me if the question sounds stupid.
Sure, if OOXML goes against WTO, this can be raised when lobbying governments.
But beside the argumentative value, what is the point? Are there any
consequences of ignoring a few WTO rules? If governments accept that OOXML is a
ISO standard and set their IT policy accordingly, will they face any downside?
Without some real teeth, WTO may just be a piece of paper that is followed when
convenient and ignored otherwise.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 09:11 PM EDT |
I can't help but show my cynical nature of Microsoft here. Could it be that this
is Microsoft's strategy? Could it be that Microsoft knew this before ODF became
a standard, and when it became apparent that ODF would become a standard,
Microsoft tried to get there first, but now wants to at any expense, so that
they can then get WTO organizations to adopt OOXML and then say, "Oh, look!
The WTO rules say you can only support one. We are already supported, therefore
you can't implement ODF!" Checkmate, end of game for ODF. Could this be
what they are planning, and have been all along?
I know, I'm a cynic and maybe paranoid. Proudly so.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 09:47 PM EDT |
ISO standardizes both the C and C++ programming languages. Should we kill one
of those standards just because they overlap? (if so, let it be C++..)[ Reply to This | # ]
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- President of EU Academy for Standardisation criticizes OOXML, says duplicative standards conflic - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 10:30 PM EDT
- Congrats, Mr. Troll! - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 10:32 PM EDT
- Computer Science contributions...vs vendor lock-in & patent based lock-out - Authored by: tce on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 11:15 PM EDT
- C++ - Authored by: josmith42 on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 11:25 PM EDT
- C++ - Authored by: cold_penguin on Friday, March 28 2008 @ 12:40 AM EDT
- C++ - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 28 2008 @ 06:35 AM EDT
- reasons to dislike C++ - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 28 2008 @ 05:37 AM EDT
- C++ - Authored by: marcosdumay on Friday, March 28 2008 @ 10:50 AM EDT
- President of EU Academy for Standardisation criticizes OOXML, says duplicative standards conflic - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 28 2008 @ 02:28 AM EDT
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