Last week, 1st of October, was held in Seoul (Korea) a meeting of SC34, the JTC1 committee responsible for standards as the ODF and OpenXML.
At this meeting, Brazil was represented by Microsoft.
I and several other members of our committee protested against this indication, but we had our protests silenced by the Director of ABNT (Brazilian NB) that said that this decision was not our prerogative and that if Microsoft would pay for their own representative’s trip, their indication was approved.
Also reminded us that since the beginning of activities of our group at ABNT, he tells us about having a “financial fund” provided by the committee’s organizations, to cover expenses like this. As we do not have that fund and Microsoft has offered to pay their own expenses, their indication was approved by him (rather not comment on anything about it, I get stomach ache by remembering this sad fact). Just to clarify, the other committee’s members did not indicated any representative because we tought that this wasn’t an important meeting to spend our time and money with.
Last week, after the meeting, I accessed the SC34’s website see the list of attendance and the minutes of the meeting. As always, no list of attendance and only a summary list of decisions taken. I really would like to see the complete list of attendance, to take a look on the origin of the other participants (I heard rumors that the incident in ABNT was repeated in many other countries).
I like to see in resolution n.10, regarding the creation of a group to harmonize ODF and OpenXML that Brazil, United States and United Kingdom are positioned in very similar way, casting a NO vote with similar arguments (lack of the final version of OpenXML specification text). Once again we have to live with a dummy response from ISO.
Continuing the reading of the document, I found at the “Acclamations Section” a particular item, that would transcribe here:
Acclamation C:
SC 34 expresses its appreciation to Microsoft Korea for sponsoring the dinner of Sept 29th.
I’d rather not write here any comment or conclusion about it, but I really would like to read the your comments.
Things like these which cause reactions such as the members of the Norway’s NB, that simply abandoned ISO (cheers to them).
October 7th, 2008 - 6:55 am
A first result of this (Brazil sending Microsoft guys to represent them at SC34) is already in the press:
Delegates from 15 national standards bodies unanimously agreed to send the message to Oasis, because they are unhappy with its work maintaining ODF, said Alex Brown, convenor of WG1, a working group within SC 34. These nations include strong ODF supporters such as Brazil, India and South Africa — countries whose national bodies objected to the approval of Microsoft Office Open XML (OOXML) as a standard, Brown said.
(http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39498926,00.htm)
October 7th, 2008 - 10:10 am
[…] “At this meeting, Brazil was represented by Microsoft. I and several other members of our committee protested against this indication, but we had our protests silenced by the Director of ABNT (Brazilian NB) that said that this decision was not our prerogative and that if Microsoft would pay for their own representative’s trip, their indication was approved.” —Homebmit, Meeting of JTC1/SC34 in Korea: It is the end of the world (as we know it) […]
October 7th, 2008 - 11:00 am
[…] ODF [1, 2, 3], a warning from Brazil arrives. Microsoft is indeed hijacking the process and now represents an entire very large country in a meeting that involved ODF. Last week, 1st of October, was held in Seoul (Korea) a meeting of […]
October 8th, 2008 - 12:25 am
[…] http://homembit.com/2008/10/meeting-of-jtc1sc34-in-… […]
October 9th, 2008 - 2:10 pm
There are so many ways *outside* of the formal process by which you can legally, easily and quickly undo the injustice done. But it seems none of those ways appear practical to you. I cannot see why or how. If you don’t want to actually obtain the result of the protest, then it means that you just want to keep protesting.
This has its own value, but I used to earlier believe that actual work needs to be done, and urgently at that. I now am strongly convinced against that belief. The whole idea is not to reverse the tide, but merely to point it out as long as possible, but not necessarily as widely as possible either.
It’s more like a Jedi training academy to see if you come through with the correct answers honestly. It gives people time to think and evaluate and choose. Under the existing social thought-system propagated by countless forces, nano and tera, the result is inevitably going to be lethargy. One would think that you guys would like to fight that lethargy and do some urgent, useful lasting work that is used by at least a few hundred real people. Sadly, I find no indication of this because everything I have done has met with nayes, procrastination, politicking, nitpicking and even outright attack.
This is becoming mindlessly wasteful, I think even for you, isn’t it?
I don’t see how even you are in favor of such an order in the opensource community. I am not qualified to say a thing about the structure of communities, but I can say that if the real goal was to materialize results, this would not be the way hackers would approach the problem.
In short, I seem to have got my problem definition itself wrong. I thought that working for common good is better done with actual running programs with a minimum decency and decorum maintained throughout.
If you want ISO “chiefs” to behave well with you, *you*, the OSI chiefs, have to behave well with people supporting / helping you.
Till then, it is going to be “few towering individuals” as against “everybody helped out”. When will you *implement* this?
Making heroes or villains out of people is not a good thing. The former is worse.
Making everyone come together and help out is much better.
GPL3 and Novell’s deal was fast-tracked by FSF in almost spectacular fashion. Then why not everything else? Why shed so many people’s blood on the way? Why take so many frustrations upon yourselves and us?
Why keep people poor for that much longer? Who wins?
I’m not asking you to make me a leader (or a dealer…) by asking you to obey this. I am asking you to *please* consider the trouble so many are going through and it can be averted by some timely hacks. Why don’t you guys adopt a softer stand? Why always bicker, fight, quarrel, giggle, corner each other?
See how Firefox download day actually *did* something.
Michael Jackson may not be everyone’s favorite, but why not take a few correct lines of his seriously? Why not help the living, before they are dead.
The “High Beings” Doctrine has thrown me out long long ago.
“1+1 = 2 failures.”
Even my PC rejects it outright ( or is it the other way round…?) !!
In short, your aim is not to change the standardization, but merely to make it an issue. It’s not the end, it’s the means. This means that the end itself will never be reached and that too deliberately !! There, you lose me.
I’m not playing this political game.
October 13th, 2008 - 3:37 pm
Nice overview.. Loved it…Keep Me updating.. Site Bookmarked
October 15th, 2008 - 5:46 pm
[…] I couldn’t resist, this is a bit old but it may have gone unnoticed: More stunning clues about the SC 34’s integrity and transparency. […]
June 9th, 2009 - 7:12 am
[…] “At this meeting, Brazil was represented by Microsoft. I and several other members of our committee protested against this indication, but we had our protests silenced by the Director of ABNT (Brazilian NB) that said that this decision was not our prerogative and that if Microsoft would pay for their own representative’s trip, their indication was approved.” —Homebmit, Meeting of JTC1/SC34 in Korea: It is the end of the world (as we know it) […]