Open XML Will Have A Ballot Resolution Meeting
As I said in my last post, Open XML did not get approved. Frankly I was going to leave the topic alone for a while given that the process now moves to the ballot resolution process, but someone pointed me to a posting by Rob Weir of IBM that raises questions about the BRM. It is important that we clarify this point as it is really important.
To make things really complicated, some may be confused as to which rules govern the process being discussed. There are ISO/IEC rules for Technical Committees that fall under ISO or IEC control…and then there are ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC 1) rules for technical areas which are jointly under ISO and IEC control. To be very clear – Open XML (DIS 29500) falls under the jurisdiction of the JTC 1 Fast-Track rules, which differ from the ISO/IEC Fast-Track rules in significant ways.
Rather than quoting a whole bunch of legalese at you – I’ll be brief. During the balloting phase of the JTC 1 Fast-Track process, the JTC 1 Subcommittee that has responsibility for the draft international standard (DIS) establishes the time/location of the ballot resolution meeting. This is done before the close of voting and the rules clearly state that the final approval status of the DIS is not determined until after the close of the ballot resolution process.
Rob rightly points out that there are instances where a vote took place and no BRM was held. That is a decision taken by JTC 1 and the contributing body. Like, for example, ODF 1.0 - it received a unanimous vote in favor of the specification and thus the decision was made to not hold a BRM. It is important to recognize that this did not affect the final outcome. I have been told by more than a few folks that this annoyed several national bodies as it meant that their comments (submitted with their “Approve” votes) were not ever directly addressed. This fact contributed to the issues around "Yes with comments" votes, thus my blog posting earlier. Another example was C++/CLI – where the vote was negative and considering that the comments were not going to be addressed by the submitter, the decision was made to cancel the BRM – not affecting the final outcome.
Open XML is different in that the BRM may well affect the final outcome, and thus is very important to hold. ODF 1.0 went through JTC 1 easily not because it was a superior specification (here are some comments I made on this point), but arguably because there was very little interest in the spec at the time. Open XML is clearly a different story. There is HUGE interest in this specification and the implications of the spec on the industry as a whole. OK, it is being held to a higher bar (I have no problem with that provided the rules remain consistent), but that also means it would be out of the question to cancel the BRM.
There will be a ballot resolution meeting at the end of February and this has already been announced on the JTC 1 SC34 web site. Between now and then ALL of the comments will be taken into consideration. I totally agree with the comments others have been making on my previous posting that transparency into this aspect of the Open XML journey is important.
Oh, one more thing from elsewhere in Rob's blog. If I were the head of a National Standards body and being told that my choice to participate in this vote as a P-Member was to be scorned – I would be insulted. While I was not surprised by Rob’s insinuation about the Transparency Index due to the unfortunate situation in Sweden, I am saddened to see that turn into a means for him to insult the integrity of those national bodies. People seem fond of talking about respect in the process, but that only works if you show some yourself. I have a great deal of respect for the work Rob has put into something about which he clearly feels very strongly. I don’t have respect for the line of logic that says the mistake made in Sweden shows that the MS teams and National Body members are acting unethically elsewhere categorically. (Caution, snarky comment - but by Rob's logic, IBM's activities in Argentina in the mid 1990's would suggest a pattern of behavior unacceptable to most. I don't see it that way, individuals who do improper things do not necessarily represent the company as a whole.) I think we could all wish for this entire process to have been less messy.
At this point, I’d like to see things move towards more constructive dialogue. Open XML is being widely adopted, it has significant independent implementations, and now stands to benefit from the hard work put into the comments submitted through the JTC 1 process.
Comments
Anonymous
September 05, 2007
Thanks for the post. Could you clarify what is allowed to happen with the comments? Can they be posted somewhere public, either before or after somebody culls out the duplicates, but before the BRM? Are they considered confidential at all? As you have said, this is a learning experience for all of us in terms of standards, and I would certainly like to be able to understand more. While I am sure Rob Weir and others will address this as well, I'd like to understand your views.Anonymous
September 05, 2007
Jason hi, On a point of process detail, the JTC 1 Directives state that the final decision on the DIS is the result of the BRM's deliberations, and that "if it is impossible to agree to a text [...] the proposal has failed and the procedure is terminated." If the BRM agrees to a set of revisions, the proposer (Ecma in this case) has one month to prepare the final text which is then automatically published as a full International Standard.
- Alex.
Anonymous
September 05, 2007
Jason: Good to hear you're so committed to the BRM. As you imply, now is a great point to clear up issues left over so... At the London NCC/BSI meeting, Stephen McGibbon and Stijn Hendrikse promised that Microsoft would be asking JTC1 to manage the maintenance of DIS 29500, rather than ECMA handling it. Is this in fact Microsoft's intent?Anonymous
September 05, 2007
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September 05, 2007
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September 05, 2007
Simon - one more quick thought. (just a friendly jibe really) Since maintenance is really an issue for an approved standard, can I take this to mean that you are eager to see the DIS move to IS after the BRM? That way the maintenance agreement can be put into use. ;-) JasonAnonymous
September 05, 2007
Only if all the comments are adequately addressed and there's no more gerrymandering, Jason... :-)Anonymous
September 05, 2007
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September 05, 2007
Simon, there is deep irony here that the term "gerrymandering" comes from a Massachusetts politician. (His last name was Gerry and he created an electoral district that looked like a salamander on the map.) Rich - thx for the comment, point taken. I'm not sure of the implications myself at this point, but it is worth some deep consideration. JasonAnonymous
September 05, 2007
Hi Jason, you wrote:"Open XML is being widely adopted, it has significant independent implementations, and now stands to benefit from the hard work put into the comments submitted through the JTC 1 process." Would you mind putting up few URLs to those "significant independent implementations" of Open XML for us who would want to check them out? Thanks!Anonymous
September 06, 2007
Anon - you bet. That would be a good top-level post. I will put in on my to do list. JasonAnonymous
September 06, 2007
what is Open XML? do you mean Office Open XML ( OOXML ) ? ( please don't rename the specification... there is too much confussion in all this rushed standardization to add one more ) If you choosed the name Office Open XML ( confusing with Open Office product ) , stick to it and face the bad decission.Anonymous
September 06, 2007
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September 06, 2007
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September 07, 2007
"OOXML [..] now stands to benefit from the hard work put into the comments submitted through the JTC 1 process.". Unfortunately, many of the comments expose a lack of polish. For an example, forgetting to specify whether trigonometry functions use degrees or radians should have been identified and fixed a long time ago. These kinds of errors - at least in the volume identified by the NBs - raise serious questions as to how much review has actually gone into the proposed standard. Submitting it to Fast Track seems premature. Documenting the MS Office file formats is a huge undertaking, and submitting it as a standard doubly so. MS should be commended for doing this work, since a proper OOXML standard would be a huge benefit. But please MS, do a proper job of it instead of ballot stuffing it through the Fast Track.Anonymous
September 10, 2007
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September 11, 2007
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September 11, 2007
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September 11, 2007
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September 12, 2007
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September 12, 2007
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September 12, 2007
Anthony, Brian Jones talks about technical issues in his blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/) more than Jason does, so you might find a stroll through his archives informative. I don't particularly like Microsoft's solution to this problem, but it's a genuine problem, and dismissing it as a legacy issue isn't a solution at all. The example I like to use to show the problems Office Open XML is trying to solve is to ask what strategy you'd use to import a formula like this from Excel into ODF: =IMREAL(IMEXP(COMPLEX(0, "03/01/1900 03:23:53.606"))) + WEEKDAY("4 March 1900")=0 This exploits several of Excel's bugs and eccentricities, and it's worth spending a while with it to get a feel for what "100% fidelity" really means.- Andrew
Anonymous
September 12, 2007
Anon - you asked me to put up some links to independent implementations of Open XML. I promised a top-level post, and just completed it - hope it is both satisfying and delicious. :-) Thx JasonAnonymous
October 30, 2007
In questi giorni la rete freme di opinioni, molto interessanti, circa le attauali questioni suoi nuoviAnonymous
October 30, 2007
In questi giorni la rete freme di opinioni, molto interessanti, circa le attauali questioni suoi nuovi