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There’s a saying that goes something like “even if you like democracy and sausage, don’t watch either of them being made.” Anyone who is been following the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) process related to Microsoft’s Open Office XML (OOXML) won’t be surprised that that’s the saying that came to mind when I read this week’s press release from Microsoft saying the ISO imprimatur for OOXML is close.

Officially, this is about the ISO/IEC DIS 29500/Ecma 376 file formats ratification process. Unofficially everyone in the open source software (OSS) community sees it as another Microsoft attack on OSS. Others see it as IBM, Sun and others piling on Microsoft, with the OSS community simply pawns of the heavyweights.

With a great corporate ability to spin a negative into a positive, Microsoft said, “With at least 87 countries taking part in some way, the Open XML review represents an unprecedented level of participation in the standardization of a document format.” Of course, this participation level is a direct result of either Microsoft or the heavyweights behind OSS—or more than likely both camps—leaving no political stone or tactic unturned in generating participation and comments. In Sweden, Microsoft is alleged to have cooked the books by paying developer partners to join the national body and vote affirmatively. Here in Massachusetts, it looks like leading state employers Sun and IBM tried to stuff the ballot box the other way just as the two apparently had tried to fix a Massachusetts state government endorsement of OSS a few years ago, when IBM ran the process of developing state IT standards and Sun got to vote on accepting those standards. Microsoft was caught flat-footed by the way Massachusetts plays politics at the time. It looks now that Microsoft has learned its political lessons well on a worldwide basis.

According to Microsoft, “although no date has been formally set, the final tally is likely to take place in March 2008. ISO/IEC requires that at least 75 percent of all “yes” or “no” votes (qualified votes) and at least two-thirds of “P” members that vote “yes” or “no” support ratification” because OOXML is on what ISO calls a Fast Track process. “P” members come from 37 countries representing a joint committee of ISO and the International Electrotechnical Commission [IEC].

Just the fact that there are “P” members with one voting level and other members with what looks like a lesser level of say on the issue tells you all you need to know about the process. It makes the UN look functional.

The good news is that users historically don’t care about standards. The OSS community experienced this during the UNIX wars of the 1980s, and is seeing it again in the Free Software Foundation vs. Open Source Initiative debates over the words “free” vs. “open.” This file format exercise is simply a subplot to the main narrative. In the end users want to choose which file formats they’ll use based on business or personal needs just as they want to choose their software functionality irrespective of how it is developed, licensed or distributed.

Open choice is the only standard users care about.

Posted by dennisb in OSS Culture |Digg This|Add to del.icio.us

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