IBM to shun 'rogue' standards bodies

IBM thinks it's time to clean up standards bodies.

The computing giant on Tuesday said that it will review its membership in existing standards bodies and withdraw from those that are not sufficiently transparent in their processes and intellectual property practices.

IBM convened a group of experts this summer to diagnose problems in the "standards community." It published the group's findings on Tuesday.

Participating in standards bodies is fraught with uncertainty and unpredictability, an IBM representative said on Tuesday. Because of "bad behavior" among participants, there is a risk that developing countries will shun existing groups and create their own product standards, he said.

Product incompatibilities are fairly common, such as competing formats for high-definition DVDs. But standards are becoming increasingly important, touching the health care, public safety, and industrial sectors of the economy, IBM said.

Standards Ecma International was harshly criticized by IBM and other companies earlier this year for its role in standardizing Office Open XML, Microsoft Office-derived file formats.

Microsoft succeeded in having Open XML standardized by Ecma International and then the ISO (International Organization for Standardization). It was an effort to appeal to governments and large business customers concerned with long-term document retention.

There was active lobbying on both sides of the debate in the run-up to the vote with a number of national standards bodies complaining that the specification was not appropriately vetted.

No employees of Microsoft appear to have participated in the IBM-led standards process review.

In the past, IBM, too, has been accused of choosing standards bodies to further its commercial purposes. There have been a number of instances where rival vendors developed essentially the same technology and then submitted redundant specifications to standards groups.

In the case of Web services specifications earlier this decade, IBM and Microsoft executives sketched out a wide range of interoperability standards that were further developed in a standards body--a process that many competitors complained was not sufficiently open.

IBM's representative said that Big Blue's review of its standards membership and procedures is not linked to a specific instances, like Open XML's certification. Rather, it's part of a more fundamental review of standard body behavior which it is committing to, with the hope that other companies will do as well.

The IBM representative said that it's "quite possible" that the company will withdraw from some standards bodies. IBM singled out the World Wide Web Consortium as a group with good procedures.

The tenets of its standards policy are these:

• Begin or end participation in standards bodies based on the quality and openness of their processes, membership rules, and intellectual property policies.

• Encourage emerging and developed economies to both adopt open global standards and to participate in the creation of those standards.

• Advance governance rules within standards bodies that ensure technology decisions, votes, and dispute resolutions are made fairly by independent participants, protected from undue influence.

• Collaborate with standards bodies and developer communities to ensure that open software interoperability standards are freely available and implementable.

• Help drive the creation of clear, simple and consistent intellectual property policies for standards organizations, thereby enabling standards developers and implementers to make informed technical and business decisions.

[Commander_Spock]

Wow! Re: "The tenets of its standards policy are these:

? Begin or end participation in standards bodies based on the quality and openness of their processes, membership rules, and intellectual property policies.

? Encourage emerging and developed economies to both adopt open global standards and to participate in the creation of those standards.

? Advance governance rules within standards bodies that ensure technology decisions, votes, and dispute resolutions are made fairly by independent participants, protected from undue influence.

? Collaborate with standards bodies and developer communities to ensure that open software interoperability standards are freely available and implementable. ....]

Given that from reports OOXML is not yet implementable.... one should say:- The Way Go IBM! ;-)

[smilin:)]

"No employees of Microsoft appear to have participated in the IBM-led standards process review. " .. Yet Open XML passed. Now IBM is stomping it's feet and shouting, "I don't want to play with you guys anymore"

Rogue = Standards bodies that don't show bias towards IBM.

[Commander_Spock]

Re: ""No employees of Microsoft appear to have participated in the IBM-led standards process review. " .. Yet Open XML passed. Now IBM is stomping it's feet and shouting, "I don't want to play with you guys anymore"

Rogue = Standards bodies that don't show bias towards IBM." Question: Who to be the judges.... How about asking the "Market Forces Folks" from Merill Lynch et cetera et et cetera. Now we get the "implementation drift" of the OOXML Standards to address the "global" economy figures. Have the CEOs on Wall Street Come Jump With The Golden Parachutes from "Armonk and Company". :-D :-$

[Len Bullard]

Or where the IP conditions don't favor IBM. Don't forget though, IBM is rather big and inconsistent. On one form, eg, document standards, it favors openness and transparency. On another, virtual world or 3D for the web standards, it tries to create its own body and ignores the existing open standards that meet all of the criteria cited above.

Methinks IBM doth talk out both sides of the accumulator.

[Commander_Spock]

Re: "Or where the IP conditions don't favor IBM. Don't forget though, IBM is rather big and inconsistent. On one form, eg, document standards......" When are ya all going to read through the lines where IBM is concerned when "700 billion dollars" might soon be available to help bail out any financial institution that is in trouble or will soon be in trouble due to the current financial and economic fiasco. One has got to remember that IBM already has already captured an earlier announced Federal Housing Loans Origination Port-Folio;

Re:

[IBM Gets Okay To Process Federal Housing Loans]

[IBM said it expects to have approval by year's end to offer mortgage origination services for federally backed mortgages in all states....]

http://www.informationweek.com/news/management/outsourcing/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201805226

So, why bother with a so-called standard (OOXML) that is not easily implementable when there is one (that meets your IT policies) and which has already been approved by the ISO. Huh! Now, extend this to the global economy; and, Bada Bling, Blad De Blah! What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get! ;-) :-$

[jtjt145]

"No employees of Micro$oft participated..." what a load of crap. M$ doesn't need employees to do their dirty work, they have highly-paid gold-partners, bribed government officials and sometimes even functioners inside the standards organization (ECMA) to do that. Money buys you any standard you want, no matter how ridiculous, or impractical (see OOXML), as long as they get paid. But the money will get harder to get by soon.
Thank got, the latest operating system form Micro$oft is so f..king useless, its actually fun to watch its demise.
RF

[jtjt145]

"No employees of Micro$oft participated..." what a load of crap. M$ doesn't need employees to do their dirty work, they have highly-paid gold-partners, bribed government officials and sometimes even functioners inside the standards organization (ECMA) to do that. Money buys you any standard you want, no matter how ridiculous, or impractical (see OOXML), as long as they get paid. But the money will get harder to get by soon.
Thank got, the latest operating system form Micro$oft is so f..king useless, its actually fun to watch its demise.
RF

[CrashPad63]

@jtjt, sounds like sour grapes too me. What exactly is your facts to back these statements up? Any investigation work going on? How about government panel study? Comeon this is between to giant corps that appear to be at odds with one another, and it concerns "Open Standards" who thinks that good things cannot come out of this fight? My god they can fight all they want just give us users more openess to use!