Tim Bray: [OOXML] BRM narrative
March 2 2008
Over dinner, I said to my wife, I really feel like there is a lot of intrigue in my life right now. Reading about the ISO ballot resolution meeting for Microsoft ecma's OOXML proposal, though, takes intrigue to a whole different level:
The process was complete, utter, unadulterated bull____. I'm not an ISO expert, but whatever their "Fast Track" process was designed for, it sure wasn't this. You just can't revise six thousand pages of deeply complex specification-ware in the time that was provided for the process. That's true whether you're talking about the months between the vote and when the Responses were available, the weeks between the Responses' arrival and the BRM, or the hours in the BRM room.It is impossible, from a distance (maybe I should have stopped in Geneva last week?), to figure out what really happened there. The Microsoft spin patrol has done overtime, with Brian Jones describing a meeting that might as well have ended with everyone holding hands and singing hymns together, Jason Matusow claiming an "unqualified success", and Stephen McGibbon busy commenting on every blog in the world as to why observers are wrong. The opposed-to-OOXML crowd seems to have a lot more depth to their comments, though there are some misleading ones out there, too. I just spent 30 minutes lost in these various blogs -- Consortium Info, Rob Weir, Bray's follow-up, Computerworld, OpenMalaysia, and many, many more.
As the time grew short there was some real heartbreak as we ran out of time to take up proposals; some of them, in my opinion, things that would really have helped the quality of the draft.
This was horrible, egregious, process abuse and ISO should hang their heads in shame for allowing it to happen. Their reputation, in my eyes, is in tatters. My opinion of ECMA was already very negative; this hasn't improved it, and if ISO doesn't figure out away to detach this toxic leech, this kind of abuse is going to happen again and again.
All I can say is -- some days it feels like solving major medical challenges of the modern era would be easier than this.
Link: Tim Bray: BRM narrative >
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- 2
Philip Storry http://www.not-so-rapid.com | 3/3/2008 4:53:33 AM
"Rob Weir's account is unbelievable."
And yet Rob Weir is one of the most credible voices in the debate, as is Tim Bray for that matter.
Looks like the attitude was "Hey, we'll never get through all this in time, let's throw out the rulebook". When it should have been "Hey, that's nuts - you can't fast track that. Go to the back of the queue and do it the slow way, so that we get time enough to do it".
That's the fundamental problem, right there. If you want a fast-tracked standard, then it shouldn't be too large.
(Or, if it's a new version of a previous standard, then the differences between the two shouldn't be too large.)
- 3
Peter Wilson | 3/3/2008 5:13:27 AM
Sounds like "HD DVD vs BlueRay" all over again...
Pete
- 4
Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 3/3/2008 6:59:53 AM
@3 - Actually, this is nothing like HD DVD vs. Bluray. In that case, each specification was developed and promoted by a single vendor working only for commercial purposes, and the two specs were pretty much identical in complexity for implementors.
In OOXML case, there is a single vendor working only for commercial purposes pitting a spec that is hugely complex for implementors against a spec developed and supported by over 500 member organizations, most of whom have no commercial interest in it, that is designed to be simple and flexible in use, and has a large number of competing real world examples.
- 5
Kevin Mort | 3/3/2008 7:07:52 AM
So did they drop the 'Office' part of OOXML? Funny because I keep seeing references to simply OpenXML, which I tend to believe is very little other than an attempt to mask what this really is.
I also think that if this is such an important thing, then it should never have been allowed to enter a fast track process. I just love how MSFT declares victory after all of the manipulation they've input to the process, like things went well on the merits of the proposal.
Rob Weir's account is unbelievable.
For all the "rules is rules" and "due process" yadda yadda that we had from ISO, Ecma and MS leading up to the BRM, it now seems that they made the whole thing up on the hoof. I mean, 90% of all the comments get a free pass, without any discussion of them?
If this "standard" passes, it will be the end of ISO as a credible body, more's the pity.
Cheers,
- Mike