IBM threatens to leave standards bodies
Category IBM/Lotus
From The New York Times: IBM threatens to leave standards bodies
News broke yesterday that IBM is planning on examining their membership and role on different standards committees after the ISO OOXML fiasco.
IBM is threatening to leave organizations that set standards for software interoperability because of concerns that their processes are not always fair.
IBM published a new set of guidelines it plans to follow, which include encouraging standards bodies to have rules to protect their decisions from "undue influence," a clear reference to competitor Microsoft.
I'm really torn on this one...
On one hand, Microsoft's gross manipulation of the ISO fast track process is completely unacceptable when it comes to creating, passing, and adopting standards. The voting process is obviously flawed and ripe for corruption. Standards bodies that don't have proper checks and balances in place to prevent that sort of gaming should not be supported. This is not to say that no other vendor has tried their hardest to make sure their technology becomes the "standard". But the Microsoft effort was just flat-out sleezy and unethical.
But on the flip side, ignoring standards bodies that *do* have influence (like ISO) doesn't seem like a good way to make sure you're at the leading edge of technological advances in the industry. This action by IBM seems to be a bit along the lines of cutting off the nose to spite the face.
The reality is probably that IBM's statement is the first hard-line round in an exchange of negotiations aimed to clean up the standards process. I don't expect IBM to walk away from critical standards bodies, but they've also stood up and said "things need to change".
From The New York Times: IBM threatens to leave standards bodies
News broke yesterday that IBM is planning on examining their membership and role on different standards committees after the ISO OOXML fiasco.
IBM is threatening to leave organizations that set standards for software interoperability because of concerns that their processes are not always fair.
IBM published a new set of guidelines it plans to follow, which include encouraging standards bodies to have rules to protect their decisions from "undue influence," a clear reference to competitor Microsoft.
I'm really torn on this one...
On one hand, Microsoft's gross manipulation of the ISO fast track process is completely unacceptable when it comes to creating, passing, and adopting standards. The voting process is obviously flawed and ripe for corruption. Standards bodies that don't have proper checks and balances in place to prevent that sort of gaming should not be supported. This is not to say that no other vendor has tried their hardest to make sure their technology becomes the "standard". But the Microsoft effort was just flat-out sleezy and unethical.
But on the flip side, ignoring standards bodies that *do* have influence (like ISO) doesn't seem like a good way to make sure you're at the leading edge of technological advances in the industry. This action by IBM seems to be a bit along the lines of cutting off the nose to spite the face.
The reality is probably that IBM's statement is the first hard-line round in an exchange of negotiations aimed to clean up the standards process. I don't expect IBM to walk away from critical standards bodies, but they've also stood up and said "things need to change".
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