The second half of 2007 has
been an extremely trying time for WG1. I am more than a little glad my 3 year
term is up, and must commiserate with my successor on taking over an almost
impossible task.
WG1 has been struggling
against the rules laid down ISO for a number of years, trying to prepare a
complex multipart standard that needs to take account of work being done in
OASIS, W3C and IETF within the extremely limited timescales laid down by ISO
for completion of standards. While these rules make sense when you have a
single standard, or sufficient members to multi-task, they make it impossible
for a small group to produce a multipart standard. WG1 have frequently had to
ask for extensions to our time limits, and must continue to do so while trying
to produce an integrated suite of standards.
This year WG1 have had another
major development that has made it almost impossible to continue with our work
within ISO. The influx of P members whose only interest is the fast-tracking of
ECMA 376 as ISO 29500 has led to the failure of a number of key ballots. Though
P members are required to vote, 50% of our current members, and some 66% of our
new members, blatantly ignore this rule despite weekly email reminders and
reminders on our website. As ISO require at least 50% of P members to vote
before they start to count the votes we have had to reballot standards that
should have been passed and completed their publication stages at Kyoto. This
delay will mean that these standards will appear on the list of WG1 standards
that have not been produced within the time limits set by ISO, despite our best
efforts.
Unless ISO tightens up on its
rules, and removes or demotes, P members who do not vote as required by ISO
rules I would recommend my successor that it is perhaps time to pass WG1’s
outstanding standards over to OASIS, where they can get approval in less than a
year and then do a PAS submission to ISO, which will get a lot more attention
and be approved much faster than standards currently can be within WG1. The
disparity of rules for PAS, Fast-Track and ISO committee generated standards is
fast making ISO a laughing stock in IT circles. The days of open standards
development are fast disappearing. Instead we are getting “standardization by
corporation”, something I have been fighting against for the 20 years I have
served on ISO committees. I am glad to be retiring before the situation becomes
impossible. I wish my colleagues every success for their future efforts, which
I sincerely hope will not prove to be as wasted as I fear they could be.
Martin Bryan
Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34 WG1
