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2008-03-15

nfoWorks: Tracking OOXML DIS
29500 into the Blue

Technorati
Tags: nfoWorks,
DIS 29500, OOXML, ECMA-376, INCITS, standards-organization governance

I am not tracking every little move that happens in March 2008
as we determine whether or not the edited-per-the-BRM DIS 29500 will
advance to an ISO/IEC IS 29500 and promulgation as an international
standard.  I have other work to do and other things to blog
about.  I shall return to my normal erratic mingling of topics.
I promise.

What's
It All About?

The
US Score So Far

"Who
Are Those Guys?"

Yes,
but WHO Are Those Guys?
4.1 Not
Voting
4.2 Abstention
4.3
The
Loyal Opposition
4.4 Friends
Across the Aisle

Eagerly-Anticipated
Maintenance?

1. What's It All About?

I'm posting this article because of two interesting factors:

OOXML Maintenance might arise at ISO/IEC JTC1 Either
Way

There is some
interest in the US National Body for immediately creating a new JTC1
SC34 work item using an accelerated timeframe.  The new project
would produce an OOXML that has the BRM-recommended changes and also
resolve more deliberatively all other BRM technical comments and
more.  This would be a new OOXML specification (revising IS 29500
if there is one of those).

The projected work
is a little different depending on whether the edited DIS 29500 is
approved or not.  There's a suggestion that it could take 9 months
to two years, depending on the situation and the quality of the edited
DIS 29500.  I have not found the relevant JTC1 procedures
to understand what these accelerated timeframe processes
are.  I also have no statistics on the
degree of under-estimation that happens with "accelerated timeframe"
projects, although there is apparently strong oversight (section 5).

I raise this here as something to keep our eye on.   We
have the prospect of a moving target for a few more years.  The
legacy solution may require legacy handling.

What's the US National Body?

There is some confusion about who these folks are and the interests
they represent.  Here's a scorecard for those playing along at
home.

2. The US Score So Far

United
States Votes to Approve Open XML.  Jason Matusow reports that the
US National Body has concluded a letter ballot that basically affirms its
original approval of DIS 29500 in the September, 2007, ISO/IEC JTC1
balloting.  This is the official result.  There will be a
resolution meeting for this, but I don't think there is any expectation
that the outcome will change.

As Matusow points out, the
vote for approval is 11-4-1 (yes-no-abstain) with one "not
yet voted" (perhaps like voting "present"?).  Either way, the 11
affirmative votes ensure a 2/3 majority.

Whatever adjustments are made, this is the US National Body Executive
Board determination.

This is different than the V1 technical committee
recommendation.   This is the response to a letter
ballot that was conducted following the V1 technical committee
recommendation.  This is the Executive Board
determination.

The V1 technical committee recommended
approval.  There was a lengthy
conference call on Friday March 7, 2008, where the BRM outcome was
discussed and the committee then voted to recommend to the Executive
Board that the original approval of DIS 29500 be affirmed.

The US Delegation to the Ballot Resolution Meeting voted
"no" on some resolutions there.  This was a small
delegation led by  Frank Farance.  These were votes on editing
of DIS 29500 and not on DIS 29500's approval or rejection at ISO/IEC
JTC1.  The most famous delegation "no" vote was a blanket vote on
over 800 proposed responses (and although selected line-item voting was
allowed, the US did not do that).

3. "Who Are Those Guys?"

In the United States, the promulgation of standards is accomplished by
non-governmental bodies.  There is a complex of such
organizations.  Keeping track of them is further complicated by the
different ways they are associated with international activities, such as
ISO/IEC JTC1 and other technical committees of ISO.

The pinnacle US standards organization is ANSI, the American National Standards Institute.
ANSI accredits other organizations to develop standards.  There are
over
200 of those.  Some of them, such as Underwriters Laboratory, are
audited designators, but most standards developers don't certify processes
or products.   My favorite, after tallying the current list, is
the Hydrogen Executive Leadership Panel.  (By the way, OASIS is not
one of these, nor are the W3C and IETF.  Ecma International is not a
U.S. organization, of course.)

INCITS, the InterNational Committee
for Information Technology Standards, "is the primary U.S. focus of
standardization in the field of Information and Communications
Technologies (ICT), encompassing storage, processing, transfer, display,
management, organization, and retrieval of information. As such, INCITS
also serves as ANSI's Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for ISO/IEC Joint
Technical Committee 1."  With respect to ISO/IEC JTC1, INCITS is the
US/TAG and acts as the US National Body in that capacity.  It is the
INCITS Executive Board that just held the letter ballot that affirms the
US approval of DIS 29500.

INCITS has a pot full of technical
committees (and they may have their own subcommittees and working
groups of various kinds).  Technical Committee V1 is on
Office and Publishing Systems.  They are a Technical Advisory Group
for ISO/IEC JTC1 SC34.  We see similar mirroring in other National
Bodies.  The German DIN NIA 34 has a similar function.  V1 was
once a tiny little group.  Now there are 22 members and much is being
said about that.  Whatever the composition signifies, V1 has a broader charge
than just dealing with DIS 29500:

"Since the scope of V1 is quite broad, it is necessary to create
closer liaisons with other technical committees and special groups in
order to establish good relations to avoid duplication of efforts. A
number of new or extended areas are gaining interest in V1 such as Voice
Messaging, Icons, Data Architecture, Font Services, MHS/X.400,
Publishing Applications, Models and others related to Office and
Publishing Systems."

If you wonder where INCITS came from and how it operates, here is more context:

"The InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards
(INCITS) is the forum of choice for information technology developers,
producers and users for the creation and maintenance of formal
de jure IT standards. INCITS is accredited by, and
operates under rules approved by, the American National Standards
Institute (ANSI). These rules are designed to ensure that voluntary
standards are developed by the consensus of directly and materially
affected interests.

"INCITS is sponsored by the Information Technology Industry Council
(ITI), a trade association representing the leading U.S. providers
of information technology products and services. ITI members employ more
than one million people in the United States and in 2000, their revenues
exceeded $668 billion worldwide.

"INCITS was founded as Accredited Standards Committee X3 in 1961. The
last accreditation was April
19, 2001 under the name INCITS."

When I was last directly involved in these activities, around 1970, it
was still X3 and the technical committees had designations like X3.4.2,
X3J3 and X3V1 (if there had been a V1 then).  At that time, ITI was
known as CBEMA, the Computers and Business Equipment Manufacturers
Association.

In addition to standards development being carried out by
non-governmental bodies in the United States, the US also operates under a
voluntary standards regime.  For the most part,
there is no mandating of standards and no one, not even participants in
standards development, are obligated to adhere to a standard just because
it exists.

Of course, adherence to specific standards can be required in
procurement activities, and requirement of particular certification of
standards-conformance might also be required.  This is all
pretty-much outside the purview of the standards developers in the
voluntary model.  (Some standards are given regulatory force,
incorporated in building, electrical, food-processing, and other codes,
but this is not under the authority of standards developers as standards
developers in the ANSI regime.)

Here's the reminder that appeared at the bottom of the just-conducted
letter
ballot:

"Voluntary Standards are developed with the intention and expectation
that the standards will be suitable for wide application. As their use
is likewise voluntary, an affirmative vote does not commit an
organization or group represented on the committee to the use of the
voluntary standard under consideration. If you find that you cannot vote
YES and wish to vote NO or ABSTAIN, please state this and explain the
reasons for your position in the places provided."

4. Yes, But WHO Are Those Guys?

In January, there were 19
members of the INCITS Executive Board, but at this
time there are only 17 voting members on this
question.  Here is how they turned out for the letter ballot.

4.1 Not Voting

AIM Global and Qualcomm, Inc. did not return ballots
and might not (yet) be (voting)
members any longer.

Intel returned a "not yet voted" ballot, as already reported.

4.2 Abstention

The IEEE abstained.
The IEEE, in addition to being a professional association, is also an
accredited standards developer.

4.3 The Loyal Opposition

The four "No" votes are from Adobe,
Farance,
IBM
(PDF
text), and Oracle.

Of these, Farance is not a household
word.  Farance, Incorporated, is a technology firm that is heavily
engaged in the development of standards, with some current emphasis on
metadata and learning technologies.  Frank Farance was the Head of
Delegation to the DIS 29500 Ballot Resolution Meeting.  As part of
the August, 2007, deliberations on a US response to the DIS 29500 ballot,
Farance cast this
ballot recommending conditional approval (that is, "No, with
comments").

A common theme is the impossibility of conducting adequate review of a
6,000 page specification under the fast-track procedure.  IBM and
Oracle both refer to "procedural irregularities" with IBM recording an
extensive challenge to the validity of the INCITS process.

The Farance objection asserts that "A position of 'approval' is
completely unacceptable to us" so it is a procedural appeal too, I
suppose.  The objection goes on to propose a remedy after enumerating
the deficiencies.  More about that below (section 5).

4.4 Friends Across the Aisle

Some of the "Yes" votes are from well-known organizations: Apple,
Hewlett
Packard, Lexmark
International, Microsoft,
and Sony
Electronics.  These five are not enough to carry the day.

The remaining votes include three substantial organizations that are
mostly unfamiliar to me:

Electronic
Industries Alliance (the EIA).  This is a major industry
association and also an accredited standards developer (think EIA RS-232
and RS-449).

EMC,
self-identified as "the world leader
in information management and storage."  EMC provides solutions for
mainframe, IBM DB2, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP.  Documentum is now
their product.  Oh.  I need to get out more.

GS1
US, another non-profit accredited standards developer that focuses
on global supply-chain solutions.
If you need a Universal Product Code to stick on your product packages,
you get it from GS1 US.

The last three "yes" votes are of an entirely different breed:

U.S.
Department of Homeland Security, with an expression of alignment
with NIST and DoD

U.S.
Department of Defense, after consultation with other Federal
agencies and expressing alignment with NIST

U.S. National
Institute for Science and Technology (NIST).  This is a Federal agency
under the U.S. Department of Commerce.  Formerly know as the
National Bureau of Standards, NIST is not in charge of
standardization in the United States.  NIST/ITL (the Information Technology Laboratory)
is an accredited standards developer, however.  NIST has, in the
past, drafted Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) that apply
to agencies of the U.S. Federal Government.  These are often
existing public standards adapted for governmental use.  There is
an extensive report on NIST participation in INCITS with respect to ODF,
OOXML, and the DIS 29500 process (PDF
text).  There is also a NIST
press release on the matter.

5. Eagerly-Anticipated Maintenance?

I'm intrigued by the following statement in the NIST ballot:

"With respect to the 'Additional INCITS/V1 Recommendations Not
Related to this Vote,' included in INCITS Letter Ballot 2558, NIST
interprets these recommendations to be that the USNB should support one
of the following options:

"1) Should DIS 29500 fail to achieve the criteria for approval as an
ISO/IEC standard, DIS 29500, as modified by the BRM, should be submitted
to JTC 1/SC 34 for fast processing, via the JTC 1 combined NP [New Work
Item Proposal] and CD [Committee Draft] ballots process, and progressed
under the JTC 1 accelerated time frame.

"2) Should DIS 29500, as modified by the BRM, achieve the criteria
for approval as an ISO/IEC standard, to correct remaining issues from
the BRM, SC 34 should approve an NP for a revision of IS 29500 using the
JTC 1 5-stage process under the accelerated time frame."

No "Additional INCITS/V1 Recommendations" appear as part of the ballot
form.  There is something about them in the Farance ballot
though:

"Although we disapprove of the DIS 29500 at its present state,
Farance Inc. is supportive of the 29500 technologies becoming an ISO/IEC
standard. We want the work done right and done quickly to address
industry and international needs. Farance Inc. has proposed in INCITS/V1
two New Work Item Proposals [NPs] for SC34: one NP if DIS 29500 succeeds
and a different NP if DIS 29500 fails. These NP proposals were
acknowledged in the INCITS EB ballot wording. We hope these NPs will be
a starting point to trying to fix/finish issues within the 29500 text,
and we hope these immediate needs can be addressed over the next 9-14
months."

It is not clear that NIST is throwing its support behind that idea or
is simply clarifying its understanding.  I have failed to
find the particular JTC1 procedures that are referred to as "the JTC1
5-stage process under the accelerated time frame."  I'm still
looking.

[Update: There are three different schedule
templates for JTC1 New Work Item Proposals: accelerated (24 months
to published standard), default (36 months), and extended (48
months) on the lines of [1:
section
6.3]:

Schedule

Committee Draft (CD)

Approval Draft (DIS)

Published Standard

Accelerated

none

6 months (enquiry draft)

24 months

Default

12 months

30 months

36 months

Extended

12 months

43 months

48 months

The entire section on Programme of Work is important for an
understanding of the process [1:
section
6].

The JTC1 5-stage procedure has 6 stages (0 to 5), [1:
section
12.1]:

Preliminary: A study period is underway
[probably brief for OOXML]

Proposal Stage: the NP is under consideration
(requires balloting and formulation of the work, assurance of
participation, and other important formalities, [could be brief
for post-IS 29500, might be contentious
otherwise])

Preparatory Stage: Working Draft (WD) under
consideration [probably using either IS 29500 or updated ECMA-376
as initial WD]

Committee Stage: A Committee Draft is under
consideration [something tells me there will need to be something
like that either way, using normal processes]

Approval Stage: An FDIS is under
consideration [more-or-less where the Fast-Track DIS 29500 process
started and where DIS 29500 is right now]

Publication Stage: An IS is being prepared
for publication [a process yet to be completed if DIS 29500 is
approved]

My personal reality check suggests that the odds of this getting
off on the right foot (starting work around September-October 2008)
is if there is a  published IS 29500 as a concrete starting
point.   Whatever process is put in place, there must be
room for feedback from implementation experience and any working
agreements that are formulated as part of document interoperability
efforts.  Putting the necessary technical muscle into an SC34
working group and coordinating with NB counterparts (such as
INCITS/V1 and others) will be daunting and time-consuming.
Some way of providing intermediate guidance and (provisional)
interpretations may also be important.  I'm not betting on the
accelerated timeframe even under the best of conditions.]

Here's what I still think.  OOXML is the new COBOL.
Really.  That's a good thing (with a 40-year life span, for
starters), if the energy and pace can be achieved with the requisite
quality and care.

[1] ISO/IEC JTC1: ISO/IEC
JTC 1 Directives, 5th edition, version 3.0.  JTC001-N-8557,
2007-04-05.  1696kB PDF
download available for download at ISO/IEC JTC1 Public Information, Procedural
Documentation.

[update 2008-03-17T19:45Z: I received a very helpful
e-mail through the NIST Media Relations Office, pointing me to the
relevant sections of the JTC1 directives.  The selections, summaries,
and interpretation are all mine.

update 2008-03-16T15:45Z: I learned from an Eric
Lai Computerworld article that AIM Global and Qualcomm are apparently
new members of the INCITS Executive Board.  I updated my observation
about that and who are voting members accordingly.]

posted by orcmid at 3/15/2008
03:43:00 PM, rating

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