Format Standards Committee "Grinds To a Halt" 271
Andy Updegrove writes "Microsoft's OOXML did not get enough votes to be approved the first time around in ISO/IEC — notwithstanding the fact that many countries joined the Document Format and Languages committee in the months before voting closed, almost all of them voting to approve OOXML. Unfortunately, many of these countries also traded up to 'P' level membership at the last minute to gain more influence. Now the collateral damage is setting in. At least 50% of P members must vote (up, down, or abstain) on every standard at each ballot — and none of the new members are bothering to vote, despite repeated pleas from the committee chair. Not a single ballot has passed since the OOXML vote closed. In the chairman's words, the committee has 'ground to a halt.' Sad to say, there's no end in sight for this (formerly) very busy and influential standards committee."
In absentia (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:In absentia (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:In absentia (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone needs to put a bullet in those people over at Microsoft.
Re:In absentia (Score:5, Insightful)
It is quite common for the boards of non-profit organizations to have a provision in their bylaws that allows the rest of the board to remove any member who doesn't turn up for a certain number of meetings as well as a provision that lets any member force a meeting in which anyone who turns up constitutes a quorum under certain circumstances. That isn't undemocratic - it just prevents a few members from locking up the organization. I've had to use such provisions with an organization I was involved in. After several failed attempts to get a quorum, we forced one more meeting to be called. When it was one short of a quorum, we invoked the provision that let us call another meeting immediately with those present constituting a quorum. We then removed two board members who had failed repeatedly to turn up and passed the by-law change (announced two weeks in advance as required for such changes) that lowered the ridiculously high quorum requirement. This reactivated a frozen organization.
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- RG>
Permanently (Score:2)
Re:In absentia (Score:5, Insightful)
Failed due to lack of 50% participation of "P" members...
Hamstrung (Score:5, Insightful)
I've seen this sort of thing happen before, to smaller organizations. You get a huge influx of members for some reason, but then they stop participating. If you didn't anticipate this possibility when drafting your constitution or bylaws, and you have some rule in there that says "changes to the bylaws must be ratified by 50% of the membership" or something similar, you're screwed. You can't change the rules, because nobody shows up, and you can't do anything, because nobody shows up.
Maybe the ISO Standards Committee should dissolve itself and reform under a slightly different name, with a better set of bylaws...
Re:Hamstrung (Score:5, Funny)
I propose the "International Microsoft Sucks Standards Organization" (IMSSO).
Bylaws:
1. Before any vote, all members must stand and re-affirm their (legally binding) pledge to destroy Microsoft, Windows, and all that is associated with them
2. This is followed by the singing of the "Microsoft Sucks" song.
Re:Hamstrung (Score:5, Funny)
You know, I'm all in favor of more organizations for anti-Microsoft geeks, but I've got to warn you that asking us to sing can only end in tragedy. [gnu.org]
To the tune of Knights of the Round Table (Score:4, Funny)
We're Members of the IMSSO,
We bash Bill when ere we're able,
We hate his bloat and legal scenes
And File Allocation Table.
We dine well here in Slashdot,
We eat grits and chips and bawls a lot.
We're Members of the IMSSO,
Our Vista hatred is formidable,
But many times, we're given rhymes
That are quite unsingable.
We're burning time in Slashdot,
We laugh at flying chairs
a looooooot.
In flame wars we're tough and able,
Quite indefatigable,
Between our WoW raids and tinfoil hats,
and mockery of what they call "stable".
Most of us know here at Slashdot,
Microsoft really sucks a lot!
Re:Hamstrung (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to propose the wording "widespread document-format".
Calling it a standard is too much honour. It implies "interoperability", which clearly was never, is not now and will not be ever on MSFTs agenda.
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There is no way for anybody but Microsoft to adequately implement the OOXML 'standard' but it is trivial for others to implement FAT. ODF at least has several existing implementations of varying levels of quality. Most are Open Source and so other implementers have code to look at when they're implementing.
In my opinion, a standard without source really isn't a standard at all. English is not a sufficiently precise language to really adequately describe a standard for computers, especially a complex one
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There is no way for anybody _including_ Microsoft to implement to OOXML 'standard'. Any such implementation would be sufficiently incompatible with Microsoft Office that nobody would buy it.
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ISO 3103 [iso.org] is a standard method of brewing tea for use in sensory tests, which is not the principal purpose for which most restaurants brew tea. While it may be true that most ISO standards are ignored, a case where a standard is not generally applied outside of its area of intended application hardly demonstrates, or even illustrates, that point.
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And... it costs 42 Swiss francs to buy the actual document.
Re:Hamstrung (Score:5, Informative)
Whereas OOXML was not developed in such a matter. It was created by one company using their own code as a reference. Outside groups did not have much influence until it was already in the standards body process, open to "comments". ODF encouraged participation of others from the beginning.
The formats aren't even the issue here though. MS clearly bribed countries in an effort to pollute the ISO process. Evidence of this is popping up all over the place. If OOXML was as worthy as ODF, would OOXML have failed (even in a tainted vote) where ODF had already succeeded?
Re:Hamstrung (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the standards process is about increasing the size of the market by making it efficient for vendors to sell to customers and for customers to buy from them. In a big, efficient market vendors have more customers and customers have more choice, so it's win all around. If everything that ran on electricity had its own unique plug, people wouldn't bother getting their houses wired, at least beyond light fixtures, which hopefully have standard sized bulbs.
If the standards process was really about recognition, there's be no need for it. If everybody has to use Word format because Microsoft is dominant, then there's no reason to go through the charade of committee meetings and product certification. The reason you need the whole bureaucratic procedure is to get competing vendors to agree to do things the same way. In a monopoly dominated market, there is no reason for the monopolist to participate in a standard that will undermine its monopoly. However there is every reason to interfere with the standards setting process.
You are misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
You say, "Word is a standard the way that FAT is a standard" The problem is, we are not talking about the word files that we've all grown to know and hate, we are talking about a new kind of word file that doesn't even exist yet.
Your choice to view the implementations in such a manner totally glosses over the fact that the Microsoft spec is woefully incomplete, there is no way for anyone besides Microsoft to actually implement it, unlike SPF and SenderID, which are relatively trivial network protocols.
You talk about defacto standards and the fact is that this is not even a defacto standard, as not even Microsoft has committed to implementing it. How can you have a defacto standard when there are no implementations?
What you are really saying is that Microsoft is going to jam this thing down our throats, whether we want it or not.
You are really just a troll, in the most insidious sort of way.
Re:Hamstrung (Score:5, Informative)
He was being sarcastic. You are being rather dense.
Both the document formats on offer are thin XML veneers on an existing code base.
That is incorrect. ODF required significant changes to the OpenOffice codebase and represents an incompatible change from the previous OpenOffice XML format. Furthermore, it has been adopted by several other projects and vendors. Microsoft, however, has taken a take-it-or-leave-it attitude towards the standards committee.
The only difference is that one code base is open source and the other is the market leader with 90% plus market share.
That, too, is incorrect: there are many differences in design and functionality. For example, ODF relies on existing web standards for features like mathematics and vector graphics, while Microsoft's XML has numerous unnecessary deviations from web standards.
Word is a standard the way that FAT is a standard.
That may be, but Word is not a standard in the sense of an "ISO standard". Microsoft's format should not become an ISO standard because it doesn't satisfy the requirements for an ISO standard.
If people turn the standards process into a pissing contest they end up hurting everyone. Microsoft made a perfectly reasonable request. They did not ask for exclusivity, they made the IPR openly available.
Quite right, and ISO should reject Microsoft's submission, not because of any kind of competitive issues, but simply because it is a technically bad submission.
It is often more important to recognize a de facto standard than propose improvements. For example, in the US almost all lightbulbs use the flawed Edison Screw mount. From a technical point of view it is inferior to the European Swan Bayonet fixture in almost every way. The Edison screw was chosen as the standard in the Us because it was widely supported and the patents had expired.
And that brings up another point: the patents on Microsoft's submission have not expired yet.
A standards process must either recognize an existing de facto standard or establish a widespread consensus amongst the participants to succeed.
A standards process must also take technical considerations into account, like: whether the specification is sufficient for implementing compliant implementations, whether the specification is interoperable with other standards, and whether the intellectual property situation is clear. The Microsoft submission fails such tests. If a submission fails such tests, there is no point for ISO to approve it. In fact, arguably, the primary purpose of ISO is to verify that submissions satisfy these requirements and certify that they do.
The real question is why Microsoft wants to obtain ISO approval without actually satisfying the requirements. If Microsoft's XML is such a great de facto standard, why bother with ISO approval? It should be sufficient for Microsoft to put their specs on their web site and be done with it. ISO approval only makes sense if (1) a submission actually satisfies ISO requirements, and (2) the submitting organization is willing to listen to industry input and make changes.
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The sarcasm was the attitude I was referring to.
Writing standards is most of my job. Situations like this one in which we have partisan factions are not helpful to the process. At root the problem here is that people think that they can use the standards process to have ODF declared a standard and then have government offices and the like required to use Open Office (and probably Linux &ct.) as it is 'the' 'standard'.
It does not work that way. Th
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You can't disolve something you can't control, you can of course quit from it and reform under a different name but I doubt you could take your ISO approved status with you easilly.
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Maybe the ISO Standards Committee should dissolve itself
It's not the entire ISO that's suffering from Microsoft here. It's not even the joint committee [wikipedia.org] between ISO and IEC. It's only a subcommittee [wikipedia.org] of the joint committee between ISO and IEC.
Perhaps the subcommittee should be dissolved, but that doesn't mean all of ISO should be. Don't burn down the house just because the refrigerator stopped working.
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Don't worry (Score:5, Funny)
That gives me an idea... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:That gives me an idea... (Score:4, Funny)
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ISO is enormously huge and important. It isn't limited to technical specifications. It also define standards for lots of other stuff like food, screws, cars, and timber.
The people who created OpenISO are clueless. Have you seen their website [openiso.org]? They, like many, don't seem to realize that ISO does more than just appro
Calling P-members, Pmembers, P-MEMBERS!! (Score:3, Funny)
Emperor or Chair-Man?
"and none of the new members are bothering to vote, despite repeated pleas from the committee chair. "
They will not listen to the committee chair. If the Chair-Man shouts "P-members!, P-members!!, P-members!!!"
Were they fictional countries? (Score:2)
Re:Were they fictional countries? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they could make voting membership in a computer-standards committee contingent on having some sort of viable technology industry or something. (Of course, in a few decades that would probably knock out the United States, the way we're going...)
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What technology growth is help desk? hell. most software design isn't new ground or innovative.
Gee, we're going to use a pointer, look a linked list! whoop-dee-fucking-doo
The final result of software patents (Score:2)
That's what happens when you can effectively stop your competitors with a patent. Without patents, software companies would be forced to produce true innovations in order to survive. With patents, all you need is to have a bureaucrat grant you a monopoly on some small detail.
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See in particular the previous
Of course, that could just be a complete coincidence. No, really.
So let me get this straight. (Score:5, Insightful)
Allowing mercenary corporate entities to corrupt the standardization process has negative implications? I'm amazed. I never would have guessed that violating the spirit of the rules while abiding by the letter could lead to problems in the future. Nor would I have guessed that punitive/preventative measures would need to be drafted into those rules to prevent abuse.
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If we knew back when SMTP was created the trouble it would become, it would have been a much more rigorous protocol. DNS has required lots of security implimentations as well. In fact, pretty much any early net technology wasn't built with any safeguards in mind. Everyone was pretty much trustworthy.
Then the general public and businesses started using it and suddenly stupid things and evil things started happening. (Broad brush stroke, yea, but I'm summarizing.)
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At one level, there's still a lot of naivety.
This is true. Naivete is surprisingly hard to kill; call them fools or optimists, but a lot of people seem to love to hold onto unrealistic expectations of others far beyond what is rational or predictable.
I think this is one of the main reasons why so much security policy is reactive rather than proactive. Nobody wants to be the person to call out everyone else for being potential criminals, even though everyone rationally knows that it's true.
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Usually, the more detailed the rules, the more subject they are to unstoppable abuse and/or being unenforcable.
Attitude is everything-- Basketball in the 70's was not the same as basketball today because of attitude towards the game. Good sportsmen are viewed as stupid today- and were admired back then.
When you have to start codifying things explicitly, you have probably lost what was good about the activity.
MSFT knew what they were doing (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:MSFT knew what they were doing (Score:5, Insightful)
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I wonder if this isn't an intended byproduct... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Micr
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It's to toe the line.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_the_line [wikipedia.org]
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But hopefully this will come back to bite them. Discrediting standard bodies may irritate some people in high places - although, presumably not in the US.
Re:I wonder if this isn't an intended byproduct... (Score:5, Interesting)
This tactic has been used in international negotiations in the past. A certain Last Remaining Superpower (who shall remain nameless) has done this with numerous international committees since about 2000. Even when they have no interest in the outcome of a given bit of work, they insist on joining the group and actively sabotaging it unless it meets their strategic priorities. It's not enough that it has nothing to do with them; unless these groups are actively supporting the Superpower's agenda, they are blocked and frustrated at the procedural level.
It's not inconceivable that MS would use such tactics. But given the circumstances, I'm inclined to say that if that's what they intended, they could have done it much better. Ultimately, though, even I have trouble believing they could have planned such an outcome.
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Interesting theory.
I worked in
gridlock (Score:5, Funny)
See that? American style democracy is popular overseas.
Re:gridlock (Score:4, Insightful)
http://i.somethingawful.com/goldmine/02-04-2003/torsoboy.jpg [somethingawful.com]
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/comedy-goldmine/gulf-war-ii.php [somethingawful.com]
tough shit (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:tough shit (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's not a nice place out there. At least that's what my parents keep telling me.../returns to basement.
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This assumes that Microsoft and their ilk are using the same definition of "standards."
Unbelievably politically naive (Score:2)
A standards committee is not designed as a battlezone; it's run under the assumption that its members, while they may disagree on the technical details, all want to agree a standard
And standards are designed to create a monopoly situation for a particular technology or technical area. Monopolies are fabulous revenue generation mechanisms if you can get your personal technology ratified as a standard.
I don't believe for a second that MS is the first to attempt this. Not recognising this possibility in the rules is particularly naive.
Re:Unbelievably politically naive (Score:5, Insightful)
(Note, this is different from de facto standards, which use the word "standard" in the context of "it is standard" simply means "common" or "widespread". The
NTSC/PAL being TV standards that mean that Disney, ABC, HBO, etc... all transmit TV in the same way, and that Sony, Phillips, Samsung, etc... can all receive it from any of these. If Disney transmitted in a secret, non-standardised format and required you to purchase a Disney TV to view Disney channels, they'd have a monopoly on TV sales from anyone who wanted to watch Disney on TV.
You could use almost any standard in any field of engineering for the same argument. I'd be hard pressed to find any that support yours. Name 5
Re:tough shit (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you really be that naive? Standards bodies have been corporate battlegrounds ever since they came into being.
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I'd say we just had an excellent example of why they'd be there, wouldn't you?
Chris Mattern
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Countermeasures or Corruption? (Score:4, Insightful)
It will be interesting to see if the ISO fixes this problem (e.g. by withdrawing P status from all the abusers) or not. If ISO decides to do nothing, the only rational reason is to not have to admit that the vote was almost fixed - and that means there is corruption at the highest levels of the organisation.
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Very simple solution (Score:2)
Microsoft doesn't make bugs only in computer (Score:3, Funny)
Now, that a big bad corporation, that have enought power to stop the ISO process.
Ok, Bill what the next move, are you resposible for the Sun to shutoff [slashdot.org], just because you don't know the difference between Sun [sun.com] and the SUN [wikipedia.org] ?
What about your Social responsibility [wikipedia.org].
In a normal country, this kind of organisation would have been shutoff for long.
Wow. (Score:2, Insightful)
How freaking important could a document standard (hard to type without a straight face) be, that it needed to be fast-tracked?
(Yes, I know that's not why they attempted to fast-track it.)
It's a much more complicated change in dynamic (Score:5, Informative)
motions for them to pass since an objection automatically triggers a vote for which quorum will be unobtainable.
In the case of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34, something to do with establishing a liaison with the XML guild, The Netherlands filed an objection triggering a full vote to which the following countries did not respond:
Bulgaria
Brazil
Switzerland
Côte-d'Ivoire (wtf?)
China
Colombia
Czech Republic
France
India
Japan
Kenya
Korea, Republic of
Kazakhstan (insert Borat reference here)
Lebanon
Malta
Norway
Pakistan
Poland
Romania
Sweden
Thailand
Trinidad and Tobago
Re:It's a much more complicated change in dynamic (Score:5, Informative)
The official name for the Ivory Coast, in Africa.
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I think the WTF is that the Ivory Coast, in Africa, is involved in this at all.
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Uh, why? On the one hand, poor countries with relatively little current computer/internet penetration have a substantial interest in how these decisions go, since it plays a big role in determine how expensive it will be for them to improve their condition.
And, on the other hand, poor countries are cheaper for interested first-world corporations to bribe.
So, on either side, it shouldn't be all that surprising.
E
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That's French for Ivory Coast [wikipedia.org], whic is probably how you know the country. They switched to using the French version as the official name even in English a while back.
Membership expiration?? (Score:2)
This is why.. (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:This is why.. (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, no. Both TCP and IP lie across the boundaries defined by the OSI model - TCP is part of layers 5 and 4, and IP is part of layers 3 and 2. TCP is most similar to a transport layer, but it implements things from layer 5 as well. What you have to realise is that way back when (in the time the GP is referring to), there were two competing network systems: there was the system built around protocols like X.25, X.400, X.500, and other ISO/ITU-T stuff. That's the one where email addresses looked like G=Harald;S=Alvestrand;O=Uninett;P=Uninett;A=;C=no. The other system originated at DARPA and should be more familiar: TCP/IP, SMTP, HTTP, and that lot.
The first system was called the OSI protocol suite [wikipedia.org] and corresponded to the OSI network model. The second system was called the internet. OSI lost, and the internet won, largely because OSI involved a lot of complicated many-layered models and a lot of paperwork, while the internet kept things simple.
And for this you should be eternally grateful. OSI was horrible.
Microsoft...AGAIN! (Score:2, Funny)
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can you define that? there is no rule forcing Microsoft to spend its profits inside America.. to hire Americans... to help the people of America, or to give a rats ass about America. Microsoft is a transnational corporation. don't pretend companies are citizens of states. as a living human being citizen you are basically stuck here.. this is your home, your culture, your roots, your identity, (and likely the only place on earth you can't be deported FROM.. well.. until the Bush ad
Does membership lapse? (Score:2)
Test the waters (Score:3, Interesting)
If that turns out to be the only ballot responded they would have a much better case.
No problem. Read the ISO manual (Score:5, Informative)
The "article" is just some blogger blithering. If you read the actual ISO rules [iso.org], it's clear they can deal with this easily enough.
Upon receipt of such a notification, the Chief Executive Officer shall remind the national body of its obligation to take an active part in the work of the technical committee or subcommittee. In the absence of a satisfactory response to this reminder, the national body shall automatically have its status changed to that of O-member. A national body having its status so changed may, after a period of 12 months, indicate to the Chief Executive Officer that it wishes to regain P-membership of the committee, in which case this shall be granted.
The "plaintive notes" the blogger writes about are the "reminder" mentioned above. This is just the step before the automatic status change to O (observer) member. Notice that once reduced to observer status, there's a delay of 12 months before a national standards body can reapply for P (principal) status.
So there's no problem.
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If I had mod points, this would get +1 informative.
Does the ISO also have rules to place formerly P-level countries (and/or companies) on some type of probation?
Obviously ISO needs to revise their rules to prevent vote tampering, as obviously happened with the OOXML vote.
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same as the US elections ... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you limit that again by the fraction of those who go to the polls and have a clue about who the people are they're voting for (usually, they're voting against someone, and don't much care who gets in, so long as it's not candidate X), and are not merely blindly pulling the party lever, then the fraction of intelligent voters in our own system is effectively zero.
It's the death of democracy. As noted by others, if there is no provision to deny eligibility to vote for non-performance on the part of the voters, the system will die. And even if voters do go to the polls but are disgusted by the lack of choice, due to the major parties exercising duopoly control over every aspect of the process, the system dies then too.
It's just a matter of time before some lunatic figures out a way to game the system, either by destroying their opponents (physically, as Hitler and the Brown Shirts did in pre-WWII Germany, or via character smears and lies, as is the tradition in our nation (and several other "democratic" nations)) or wrapping themselves in some demagogic issue and making the election revolve about a single issue. In such circumstances, the aggregate "wisdom of the crowd" is transformed into the lunacy of the mob -- think the French Revolution and Robespierre's Reign of Terror (or our own War on Terror, for that matter).
Once you manage to turn away thoughtful discussion/argument/debate, and limit the process to a small number of controllable groups, democracy dies.
This is the cancer of democratic systems, and the reason why there are no long-running democracies.
Patch Tuesday (Score:3, Funny)
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OK, it would help if the link actually worked... (Score:5, Informative)
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That is only partially correct; some standards are political - the vast majority are extremely mundane. This is true even of the ISO SC34 committee that voted on OOXML. Except for the exceptional event, the vast majority of the work of this committee is technicalities that have little political interest. Virtually all of the members of the committee are on it because they are experts in the field and a