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Monday 29 September 2008, 9:23 AM
Has IBM's standards move started something?
It is still early days, though. Nothing happens quickly in IT standards work. It is still only a week since IBM dropped its bombshell, and that's not long enough even for an acknowledgement from ISO - the group has no public statement yet at all on this, that I can see.
There's been support from open source consortium The Linux Foundation, where executive director Jim Zemlin applauds and supports IBM's efforts towards "raising the bar in the standards develolpment proces".
That's a small step, but, as Andy Updegrove points out, "IBM is touching on a widely-felt sense of unhappiness with the status quo. And while the new IBM policy may be more articulate and cohesive than what others may be thinking to themselves, it is giving voice to the type of self-evident best practices that ought, by rights, to be already directing all standards development efforts everywhere. The problem is not that the IBM principles are, or should be, seen as controversial, but that they need to be publicly stated at all."
"IBM has started a ball rolling here that that others should put their shoulders behind," says Updegrove. "Hopefully there will be more such statements in the near future, and more voices added to the dialogue."
PreviousComments on this post
While the existing systems can undoubtedly be improved, nobody seems to be asking the important questions. Why is IBM now asking to change the rules? Why is the company that has benefited from manipulating these opaque rules and processes for half a century, now trying to change them? They aren't just acting "for the good of the industry," that's for sure. If they were, then they would be following Andy's advice above rather than holding a CLOSED meeting to discuss OPENNESS. IBM seems to only want certain voices to be heard in this "dialogue."
http://blog.actonline.org/2008/09/only-ibm-would.html
Thanks for posting that. I'm aware of the irony in IBM's support for open standards, given much of its past history.
However, I'm dubious about a lot of your post at ACT Online. It's interesting (and probably true) to point out that ODF was "weaponised" against Microsoft Office, but it's clear that the ODF weapon was a consortium aimed at breaking a monopoly, while OOXML is a single vendor trying to maintain its grip (that's the full context of the post from Andy Updegrove that you are quoting there).
ACT (the Association for Competitive Technology), which you work for, has been a long-term and consistent supporter of Microsoft and OOXML.
Thanks for the response. I would like to correct a few things, however:
1. I think you misunderstand and therefore misrepresent my point. We don't think that it is ironic that IBM supports open standards. As Andy has said, IBM has been working SSO's longer than anyone in the industry, and have more power in them than any other company. The big irony is that IBM is hosting a closed, non-transparent process, to supposedly bring openness and transparency of standards bodies.
2. Could you be more specific about what you find "dubious" about the post? Even if Microsoft was acting as the big, bad monopoly trying to maintain its grip on the productivity suite market as you suggest... how does that change the point of the post? IBM has a clear business strategy around leveraging its dominance of standards bodies, even Andy admits that. Are you saying that simply because they were trying to "break a monopoly" in the OOXML debate, we should assume they are all sweetness and light? That all their motives are pure, and will continue to be as they attempt to rewrite the rules of standards bodies? If so, do you think that is the appropriate mindset for a reporter/editor to have? Obviously, you wouldn't give Microsoft the same benefit of the doubt.
3. ACT has supported Microsoft's positions on several policy issues throughout the years (including its antitrust cases), however it is misleading so say we "support OOXML." We have been fighting the IBM/Sun efforts to push "ODF mandates" through governments around the world, but never supporting a move toward OOXML or .DOC policies. Instead, we have argued that governments should just say NO to IBM's self interested lobbying, and implement goals-based policies for improving interoperability and long-term preservation of documents.
http://blog.actonline.org/2007/08/mass-officially.html
We did agree with Patrick Durasau, the OASIS editor of the ODF standard, however, that the vast majority of anti-OOXML attacks were the result of FUD and campaigning by IBM/Sun and their friends. In this environment we spoke up in support of standardization of OOXML, but did not claim it to be a better than ODF. Instead, we argued that neither standard is "one-size-fits-all."
http://blog.actonline.org/2007/11/dvds-and-odf-pa.html
Points 2 and 3 are too long to go into here.
If readers want to follow up on ACT, Wikipedia has good links on ACT. Its frequent support of Microsoft positions is a matter of record, as is its explanation that this comes from a desire to support small businesses against government intervention in IT.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_for_Competitive_Technology
Point 1, though. This is IBM's company policy. I don't see why it has to be set in an open process. The company has a perfect right to consult who and how it wants, and then share as much as it wants.
So, just to be clear...you don't have time to actually debate arguments on the merit or specify what you find "dubious," so you' retreat to the bastion of lazy minds and go ad hominem. Well done.
IBM is not just trying to create "company policy." As SVN @ Linux.com wrote:
"The next step in that process is an invitation-only meeting that will be held under the auspices of Yale University in late November." There, IBM and others will hammer out "a call for greater government regulation of standards activities and the formation of new global organizations to avoid patent ambushes and to raise the bar in standards development."
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