IBM Threatens To Leave ISO Over OOXML Brouhaha

barnackle writes "In addition to threatening to leave certain standards organizations over the OOXML shenanigans, IBM created new guidelines for its own participation in those organizations in an attempt to pressure the ISO and ECMA to be more fair in their approval procedures."

ISO?

Hmm... didn't they used to be some important international standards body at one point, before they got into the marketing business and went under?

I thought they were already gone...

Why is this news?

Re:ISO?

For one simple reason. Gov't procurement procedures still require to purchase standard compliant ware. If there is a national (e.g. ANSI, depending on your nationality) standard, then it is must be ANSI standard compliant. If there is no national standard - then ISO standards must be checked.

We all shouldn't forget why M$ got into the standards game at all. I'm sure it was discussed before here too: one US agency said it can not renew office suit licensing deal with M$ because there is not international standard (guess which *grin* *grin*) for document formats and M$Office isn't compatible with it. M$ partner was more than just surprised and reported to Redmond to pull some strings. IIRC scandal actually erupted when they singed deal anyway without even doing proper public tender, later making up excuses that they were not aware that there are other suppliers.

Re:ISO?

Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater here. ISO (and ANSI, BSI, etc.) standards are very important in basically every field of industry. Just because they fucked up bad on digital document formats doesn't mean that we don't need them to define, you know, the standard root radius of a bolt.

Please help

If Sun other large tech companies join them, it will do a lot more good. IRTFA (some kind soul bought me a /. subscription and you can't comment on stories that come "in the future") and part of the end of the article explains why IBM just can't leave the standards bodies. They have their own standards to push, for instance.

More importantly, if some governments withdraw

Some countries are already making noises about not automatically adopting ISO standards. The more countries that adopt this "a la carte" approach to ISO, the more it will weaken ISO. The more countries that adopt the a la carte approach "until such time as ISO gets its act together" the more pressure there will be on ISO to get its act together.

Re:More importantly, if some governments withdraw

I think that was the whole point. Microsoft poisoned the well so they can sell bottled water.

Not all as it seems

A quick look over at Groklaw [groklaw.net] has a good article about the motivations here. I'd still be cautious, but it's optimistic when IBM stresses open standards as being important to them. I'm actually surprised this didn't happen sooner with the garbage of OOXML.

Re:Not all as it seems

So what you're saying is you're unable to separate the message from the messenger?

It doesn't matter a damn if IBM owns and operates Groklaw if the information on it is correct and stands up to scrutiny. To date, it has. So what's the problem?

In my opinion, the case of Groklaw is a great example of the public benefit of anonymous speech. If she had outed herself she might have been sued, pulled into court, lost her job, even physically harrassed. But by keeping her anonymity - and her integrity - she's been able to make a pretty big impact in the case, at least to us nerds who care about such things. She did exactly the right thing.

Names are meaningless. And even if you had it, what good what that do? What are you going to do, drive to that address, demand to see her bank statement to ensure there's no payments from IBM?

Where the information comes from is irrelevant. The quality of the information is the only thing that matters. Groklaw has stood the test of time, in my opinion, so you're doing yourself a disservice by downrating it on that basis.

Influence

Surely IBM will have more influence over future ISO decisions if it remains a member. This is particularly true of a 'Big Player' like IBM who will carry a lot of clout.
'Outsiders' can be discounted far more easily as they are simply not part of the process, and could therefore be said to be irrelevant.
IBM should collaborate with other large firms (but presumably not Microsoft) to enforce due diligence in future decisions.

Turn that around

Surely IBM will have more influence over future ISO decisions if it remains a member.

And surely ISO will be able to stay more relevant if it can retain IBM as a member. Standards bodies can be discounted for more easily if "Big Players" are simply not part of the process.

If IBM were pulling out simply because they weren't getting what they wanted, then the whole thing would seem childish. But when a standards body is approving bad standards because it's being manipulated/corrupted, and attempts to clean up the corruption are not being successful, then the appropriate thing for other "big players" to do is drop support for that standards body.

Strike while the iron is hot

I don't think IBM feels like much of a 'Big Player', considering how much the ISO listened to them in regards to the OOXML stuff. If the ISO is going to act so stupid here, ignoring IBM, why should IBM expect their remarks to be considered by the ISO in the future? While it's true that MS isn't going to... influence the ISO's decisions quite so strongly on every tech-related issue as it did here (and so IBM will still have some voice) it is still a better idea to act now. If this happens again (and again and again), IBM won't have as much ground for fighting it. They'd have to justify why they didn't fight quite so hard before, and even if they make a perfectly reasonable argument (ie, your argument) the very fact they're put in that position weakens them.

IBM - and anyone else who cares to (and is in the position to) make a stance against the ISO's actions - must do it immediately and make it clear.

Re:Influence

Surely IBM will have more influence over future ISO decisions if it remains a member.

I don't believe that's true. IBM was a part of this OOXML process and yet it was, along with Sun, barred from the portuguese technical committee [boycottnovell.com]. This level of corruption doesn't leave fond memories of the whole process.

Settle down now....

I have some friends and an ex-wife that work for IBM. While I would go as far to say that, by and large, my dealings with them have been fair an ethical, I would resist any sort of "white knight" metaphors, it is still a publicly traded company and stock holders mean more than standards.

It is only that IBM is a technically competent competitor that it *can* compete and win on a level playing field that they promote good standards.

That being said, having dealt with double dealing scum of Microsoft many times in the past, I'll take IBM any day.

Acronym Overload

"..OOXML...IBM...ISO....ECMA"

Danger! Acronym overload!!!

Must....keep.....head.....from......exploding. (MKHFE).

If IBM gets its way...

maybe Microsoft will threaten to leave. Now that would be entertaining.

Re:Great, but does it really matter?

It seems to me this will have little meaning in the long run. It's been shown the ISO is deep in the pockets of M$. Do they really care what IBM thinks or does? I mean they already got their money right?

Well, the cynic in me agrees with you -- I doubt IBM will follow through, and if they did, I doubt it would make much difference.

However, if people start viewing the ISO as irrelevant and just doing what a big company like Microsoft wants, then they run the risk of becoming irrelevant. That might be the kind of thing they take notice of.

I would like to see some correction to the fact that it's a standard that really only MS can implement. Rubber stamping OOXML basically just legitimizes it for governments to buy it.

Cheers

It COULD Matter

If a really major player leaves the organization it is a major "no confidence" vote in the organization itself.

While the official standards are a great idea, a really big player or a consortium of them can easily just create defacto standards that will have a great chance in the real-world marketplace. This is doubly true if they actually make their standards truly open, as IBM seems to advocate.

I'd say that if companies that manufacture about 10% of the market leave ISO, then it is wounded. If it hits a number like 25%, then it's basically useless.

Also, large companies pay an obscene amount in yearly dues to be part of the standards bodies. Losing that cash will sting badly.

Re:Great, but does it really matter?

Do you even have a friggin' clue!

IBM and other raised serious objections to OOXML but OOXML was pushed forward, in violation of ISO's rules. IBM, with all it's clout, could not stop it.

More importantly the procedure that ISO had in place failed everyone. ISO violated its' own rules!

No discussions, no debates, no desents. People either approved OOXML or were forced to be silent.

ISO has been rendered usless as several countries have stated that are withdrawing from ISO and setting up their own standards body.

Re:Ha!

Brought to you by.....IBM! Makers of bloated slow shit! OS/2, DB2, Websphere, and everything else they've ever did!

Er, you do know what IBM stands for, don't you? The "M" stands for "machines" and the "IB" doesn't stand for "Itty Bitty". IBM is primarily a hardware company. They make and have always made what's known as "big iron", i.e. mainframes, although they do and have made such diverse stuff as typewriters (their selectric was the king of the office at one time) and calculators.

Without actually googling I'd hazard a guess they made one of the top ten fastest computers in existance, and I'd bet money they're still in the top one hundred.

BTW it isn't an IBM app but it runs on their mainframes, my favorite database language is NOMAD.

Re:Ha!

"Without actually googling I'd hazard a guess they made one of the top ten fastest computers in existance, and I'd bet money they're still in the top one hundred."

Actually, IBM made 5/10 of fastest supercomputers according to top500... including first three positions...

Re:Ha!

#s 1,2, and 3 as of June of this year according to http://www.top500.org/list/2008/06/100 [top500.org] [top500.org]

Re:Ha!

You obviously don't know what you're talking about. OS/2 was an *excellent* operating system. I admit that the 1.x versions were lacking, but that is common for a new OS. Versions 2.1 and later were certainly not bloated, nor slow. This was a preemtive multitasking operating system with a full graphical shell that ran decently in 8MB of RAM, and ran *very* well in 16MB of RAM. It ran Windows 3.1 applications in a better environment than Windows 3.1 itself (3.1 ran on top of DOS). Yes, the OS was bigger than the Windows/DOS combo. Yes, it did require more resources than Windows/DOS, but that alone does not make it bloated. Windows/DOS was nothing more than a task switching OS. The cooperative multitasking it provided was completely useless. I used OS/2 from 1993 to around 1997 (Warp 4 being the last version). It was an extremely stable OS, and was a pleasure to use. If market share had been decided on technical merits alone, Windows of all flavors would have been many notches below OS/2 on the list. Alas, IBM didn't make a ton of deals with hardware manufacturers to practically give them OS/2 in exchange for not allowing any other OS to be sold on the PCs they sold (for obvious reasons--they were competitors to those manufacturers). Microsoft built its monopoly via those type of agreements with hardware vendors, and that is why we are where we are today.

BTW, there is no need to "educate" me by pointing out that in the old days IBM was just as bad as Microsoft in this regard. I am aware of the anticompetetive practices IBM has done in the past, and would not be surprised to hear about current things they might be doing in that regard. They are a large corporation, after all. And big money provides many people in a business with opportunity to misuse the power it provides. My point was that OS/2 did not "enjoy" the marketshare provided to Windows that was due to this kind of shady bundling deal.

Also, DB2 is no slouch in the database market. It performs quite well in comparison to other RDBMs. All RDBMs are fairly complicated, but I don't think calling DB2 "bloated" is an accurate statement.

I have no experience with Websphere, so I won't comment on that. I also won't argue that IBM never produced any slow or bloated software -- because they have. But to say "OS/2, DB2, Websphere, and everything else they've ever did" were slow and bloated is just making an ignorant statement.

Re:Ha!

Actually, IBM is not primarily a hardware company, but their hardware is definitely big. According to their last annual report, hardware (along with financing) was only 23% of their pre-tax income, down 2% from 2003. Software made up 40% and Services made up the remaining 37%. But their hardware is now focused on bleeding edge tech and R&D, servers, mainframes, and supercomputers.

PDF Warning: ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/annualreport/2007/2007_ibm_annual.pdf [ibm.com]

Re:Ha!

Please... IBM's 32-bit OS/2 ran circles around Windows NT in its day (as a fine example, search for YouTube video of David Barnes demonstrating OS/2 versus NT back in the early 1990's), and I'm sure the Warp 4.5x kernel will run runs around XP, Vista, and probably also Linux and *BSD kernels on similar hardware even today. The OS/2 kernel used rings 0, 2, and 3 which was very usual for x86 code, but it also was extremely good at juggling multiple tasks and threads under load and at dynamically adjusting process/thread priorities to make the entire system smooth.

I remember some magazine doing a test of OS/2 Warp Server versus NT server sometime in the 1994/1995 timeframe, and a single-CPU Warp box trashed a 4-CPU NT box running the exact same benchmarks.

Notes is a bloated hog, yes, but OS/2? The evidence suggests otherwise.

Re:IBM can't "leave ISO"

And another "fascinating" comment by someone who did not RTFA and has no knowledge of the subject.

The /. title changed it to "ISO" instead of "Standards Bodies". That said the TFA did only reference ISO and ECMA, of which IBM is in fact a member.

And ECMA is a member of ISO. So is ANSI, of which you might think IBM is part of? And you'd actually be right.

You said yourself, ISO is comprised of various national standards bodies. Who do you think comprises these bodies? Fairies? ISO is comprised of groups that IBM is a member of. Therefore is it reasonable to state that IBM as a member of several of the bodies that comprise ISO is thus a member of ISO. As such, they can actually leave the ISO by leaving the standards bodies that comprise ISO.

Furthermore nearly every national standards body is in fact incorporated or whatever their country equivalent is. As such, your assertion that "there is no concept of corporate membership" is demonstrably false. ANSI is a not-for-profit U.S. corporation, and is a member of ISO.

QED.