There are over 1,000,000 supported standards, with more being developed all the time. The Standards Blog examines how standards are developed, and their impact on business, society, the world, and the future. This site is hosted by Gesmer Updegrove LLP, a technology law firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. GU is an internationally recognized leader in creating and representing the consortia that create and promote standards and open source software. The opinions expressed in the Standards Blog are those of Andy Updegrove alone, and not necessarily those of GU. Please see the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for this site, which appear here.
Tuesday, July 08 2008 @ 05:27 AM PDT
Contributed by: Admin
Views: 272
Microsoft has made many acquisitions for many reasons over its history - 122 to date, according to the list maintained at the Wikipedia. Almost 100 of these have been consummated in the last decade, as the company that triumphed in operating system and office productivity software has sought (often unsuccessfully) to achieve similar success in other domains. Other purchases have demonstrated pragmatic "build versus buy" decisions, serving to add functionalities to products that needed them more quickly and efficiently than in house efforts could achieve.
In its earlier days, Microsoft was much more likely to mimic the products of other companies rather than buy them, in part reflecting its engineering-driven culture, and in part its hardball approach to competition. When it did add features this way, it invariably added them for free into its existing products to make them more desirable. The result was often to drive the originators of those features out of the marketplace, since who would buy what they could get for free? Sometimes, the motivation was more desperate, as with the crash development, and bundling, of Internet Explorer in Window, when Netscape threatened to open a critical breach in Microsoft's control personal computing.
If that sounds vaguely familiar, it should, since Google is following the same course, albeit in a kinder, gentler way, as it adds service upon service, all for free, and all in the service of racking up more and more ad revenues. That's disturbing, because when your goal is ad revenues and not great technology, you may not necessarily produce great technology. But as Google's dominance continues to grow, who will be able to credibly compete against it in those technologies, to ensure that innovation continues?
Thursday, June 26 2008 @ 09:20 AM PDT
Contributed by: Admin
Views: 4,197
Regular readers will notice that I've been woefully silent the last few weeks, at first due to having too many irons in the fire, and for the last ten days due to being on a family vacation abroad, returning not till July 2. As a result, I've been not only behind on blogging, but also on keeping up with the news while limited primarily to Blackberry access since I left. But I thought that it might be useful to take a break and share the "Huh?!?" I experienced when I stumbled across this article by Andrew Donoghue at ZDNet while briefly enjoying an island of laptop connectivity in a hotel lobby in Florence. The article is titled, "Microsoft admits to standards ignorance pre-OOMXL" and is based on remarks by Microsoft national technology officer Stuart McKee. Even more incredibly, it bears the following subtitle:
Microsoft has admitted that, despite being one of the dominant names in IT for over 30 years, it had little or no experience or expertise around software standards until the company was mid-way through the process of getting Office Open XML approved by the International Organization for Standardization.
Why "Huh?" Because Microsoft has been playing the standards game, butting heads over prior technologies such as ActiveX, Java and much, much more with the best of them for decades as a member of hundreds of standards organizations. Moreover, it has held many board seats along the way, and has had a staff of attorneys for some time dedicated to standards matters. That staff includes the former General Counsel of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
Still, while McKee has over-spun the point by a few hundred RPMs, there is an important point to be made on the subject of Microsoft's standards-related capabilities, as I'll explain in greater detail below.
Friday, June 06 2008 @ 05:44 AM PDT
Contributed by: Admin
Views: 1,441
Last week I sent out the latest issue of Standards Today, my bi-monthly eJournal of "News, Ideas and Analysis." This time around, my topic is what I call "The Open Collaboration Revolution," by which I mean the unprecedented ways in which the Internet and the Web are allowing communities to form around projects of all types. The benefits that can be enjoyed as a result of such collaboration are leading those involved to reevaluate the traditional rights of creators and content owners. What they are realizing is that they have more to gain by sharing than hoarding. The result is a new focus on "openness" of all kinds - not just open standards and open source, but open development, open content, open data and more. The promise held out by these new methodologies and the innovative legal tools that have been created to serve them will, I believe, be truly transforming.
What follows below is the Editorial from this issue, titled Patience and the Possibilities of Collaborative and Derivative Expression. If that piques your interest, you may want to read the deeper dive that I take on openness of all types in the Feature Article for this issue, titled Openness and the Pursuit of Knowledge.
Friday, May 30 2008 @ 05:56 AM PDT
Contributed by: Admin
Views: 9,123
Update: This is an overdue update to this blog entry, noting that a late appeal from Venezuela was received and accepted after the deadline recognized by ISO/IEC. I had thought I would write a separate entry on it, but as it is now old news, I am updating this entry so as not to leave a misleading impression that the final count was only three.
Last night was the deadline for filing appeals to the adoption of OOXML by ISO/IEC JTC 1. This morning, a spokesman for the IEC acknowledged the receipt of a total of three appeals by the deadline, with the third and final appeal being filed by India, as reported by Peter Sayers, of the IDG News Service. I have no news as yet whether the fourth country that planned to file an appeal has decided not to do so, missed the deadline, or sent its letter only to ISO (Peter reports that an ISO spokesman declined to confirm how many appeals it has received at this time. The deadline date is a matter of some confusion, as some National Bodies were under the impression that the deadline was June 2, so it remains possible that a fourth appeal will (or already has been) received.
In other technicality news, the IEC spokesman noted that the Brazil letter had been improperly addressed - duplicate copies should have been sent to the CEOs of both the IEC and ISO - but that this technical irregularity would be waived [Jonathan Buck, the IEC spokesman, inaccurately stated to Peter that the Indian appeal, rather than the Brazilian appeal, had been improperly addressed; the IDG story will be corrected shortly]
More substantively, what happens next? Ironically, "what happens next" is described in the same general and sometimes vague Directives that have caused ongoing dissent in the process to date, and figure prominently in the South African and Brazilian appeals themselves.
Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas (ABNT), the National Body representing Brazil, today filed an appeal to the approval of OOXML by ISO/IEC, bringing the current total of appeals to two, with as many as two additional appeals to come, based upon what I have heard from private sources. The text of the Brazilian appeal appears in full at the end of this blog entry, supplied by a trusted source in Brazil.
While this latest appeal overlaps the South African objections in part, it also raises new concerns, some of which are particular to the interests of Brazil, rather than applying to the process as a whole. As a result, it raises not only additional issues, but also ones that present a categorically different basis for appeal as well.
Brazil's objections fall under two main headings, the second of which was also raised by South Africa. That objection relates to the fact that the reconciliation draft of DIS 29500 that was delivered to ISO on March 29 still has not been released, even to the National Bodies. Despite the fact that this release has been requested by many different parties representing multiple viewpoints, no public or private explanation has thus far been given for the failure to follow rules calling for the releasee of the draft within 30 days of the close of the BRM.
Friday, May 23 2008 @ 05:24 AM PDT
Contributed by: Admin
Views: 9,112
SABS, the National Body member of ISO/IEC JTC1 for South Africa, has filed a formal appeal with both ISO and IEC, challenging the Fast Track adoption of OOXML. With the filing of this formal appeal, DIS 29500 is now formally in limbo (i.e., cannot become an approved standard) until the appeal has been addressed.
The cited basis for South Africa's appeal is found in the following text of Clause 11.1.2 of the applicable Directives:
A P Member of JTC1 or an SC may appeal against any action or inaction, on the part of JTC 1 or an SC when the P member considers that in such action or inaction:
- questions of principle are involved;
- the contents of a draft may be detrimental to the reputation of IEC or ISO; or
- the point giving rise to objection was not known to JTC 1 or SC during earlier discussions.
Wednesday, May 21 2008 @ 09:29 AM PDT
Contributed by: Admin
Views: 19,146
Microsoft today announced that it would update Office 2007 to natively support ODF 1.1, but not to implement its own OOXML format. Moreover, it would also join both the OASIS ODF working group as well as the ISO/IEC JTC1 working group that has control of the ISO/IEC version of ODF. Implementation of DIS 29500, the ISO/IEC JTC 1 version of OOXML that has still not been publicly released will await the release of Office 14, the ship date of which remains unannounced.
The same announcement reveals that Office 2007 will also support PDF 1.1, PDF/A and Microsoft's competing fixed-text format, called XML Paper Specification. XML Paper Specification is currently being prepared by Ecma for submission to ISO/IEC under the same "Fast-Track" process by which OOXML had been submitted for consideration and approval.
Yesterday afternoon was when I first began to hear news through the grapevine that Microsoft's Jason Matusow (director of corporate standards) and Doug Mahugh (senior product manager for Microsoft Office) would announce native support of ODF. later in the day, I started to get email from journalists who had been alerted that Microsoft would make a format-related announcement, and were trying to figure out what it would say. Now that the announcement has been made and the first press reports are beginning to surface, there may be more questions to ask about ODF support now than there were yesterday. In this blog entry I'll review what has been said, what has not, and what questions remain.
Friday, May 16 2008 @ 01:07 AM PDT
Contributed by: Admin
Views: 2,468
On Wednesday, I introduced The Hague Declaration to those that visit this blog, promising to write again shortly to introduce the new organization that created the Declaration. That organization is called the Digital Standards Organization (Digistan, for short), and I'm pleased to say that I am one of its founders. In this entry, I'll give you my perceptions of what Digistan is all about, and what I hope it will accomplish.
You'll notice that I just used the words "my perceptions." This is for a number of reasons, the first being that this is still a very young organization that has taken shape, primarily via a listserv. I was welcomed onto the founders listserv on November 12, bringing the total number of participants to 13. Since then, that list has grown. As of today, there are 19 individuals that have agreed to publicly associate themselves with the organization as founders, and it would be fair to say that there is a broad range of views (from conservative to radical) represented in this cross section of experienced professionals. Together, we have been reaching consensus on various pieces of the still-incomplete and evolving puzzle, adding them to the Digistan site as sufficient agreement is reached to make them public, while still allowing the pieces to change to reflect continuing discussion.
The result is that the organization, to an extent, is not unlike the story of the five blind men touching the proverbial elephant, but with a twist. It would be more accurate to say that each of the blind men has arrived on the scene not to find a strange new creature, but rather bearing a piece of the elephant. Today, we are still completing the process of putting the beast together. For this reason, what I write in this entry should be regarded as my perceptions alone, and the rights of the other founders to describe their piece of the elephant, and their vision of the final product, must be preserved.
With all that said, what is innovative new animal we call "Digistan?" Here's how it feels to me.
Wednesday, May 14 2008 @ 05:48 AM PDT
Contributed by: Admin
Views: 1,523
I'm hardly a veteran "China Watcher" in the State Department sense of these words, but I have had a Google alert in place for three or four years to snag standards-related news emerging from this most powerful of emerging economies. This has led me to read a great many articles from the Xinhua state news service over that period of time. I've also read the English version of the Peoples Daily in paper form from front to back during five visits to speak at conferences in Beijing. As a result, I've had a fair opportunity to get a feel for how the state press likes to present its news to the West, and how it makes its points, not only generally, but over the course of ongoing stories as they develop. Every now and then I see an article that really wants to make a point, and today was one of those days.
Tuesday, May 13 2008 @ 01:18 AM PDT
Contributed by: Admin
Views: 2,366
When one thinks of international human rights, one thinks of The Hague - home of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, and the situs of an increasing number of Tribunals chartered to redress the assaults on human dignity that inexcusably continue to plague this planet. It is therefore appropriate that The Hague has been chosen to witness yet another pronouncement in defense of human rights. That pronouncement has been titled The Hague Declaration by the new international group, called the Digital Standards Organization ("Digistan," for short), that crafted it. In this blog entry, I'll talk about what the Declaration is all about, and what it is intended to achieve.
“They own the bat, the ball, the playing field, pay the refs and dictate the terms” -LiMo Foundation supporter David Helfrich, characterizing Google's control of LiMo rival Open Handset Alliance and Android ...Full Story
• Developing a Standards Office for Google Stephe Walli Once More Unto the Breach July 8, 2008 - I've been thinking about this since I published the Standards Primer a month ago. In the next two to five years, Google will be challenged by a technology standards effort that it will need to encourage or manage in its mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Such efforts cannot be erected quickly (as demonstrated most recently by Microsoft), and preparations for that day should begin in the near future. Google is also in a unique position to turn the standards development process on its head.
Here are a number of ideas for how Google can plan for the future in the most flexible and cost effective manner, and contribute a unique and valuable re-think of the standards development process. ...Full Story
• Faster Wi-Fi draft is one year old, but some concerns remain Faster Wi-Fi draft is one year old, but some concerns remain ComputerWorld July 8, 2008 - The Wi-Fi Alliance celebrated the first anniversary of the 802.11n Draft 2.0 certification last week and said the faster Wi-Fi technology's "upward trajectory ... continues unabated."
Despite such confidence, adoption of the technology has been slower than some analysts and vendors had predicted a year ago. That's mostly because some early adopters have found that the 802.11n radios draw more power and provide network speeds that are slower than expected. ...Full Story
• UN says new global tomato standard will ensure buyers get high-quality produce CanadianPress.com July 8, 2008 - GENEVA — You say tomato, I say substandard agricultural product.
A UN food safety meeting has agreed on the first global quality measure for tomatoes after more than six years of wrangling over the popular red fruit. "The standard regulates ... quality and handling issues, and even just definition" of what is a tomato, Tom Heilandt of the Food and Agriculture Organization told reporters Friday....
"It's not forcing all tomatoes to be the same, but it also recognizes that tomatoes have to have certain characteristics in order to be transported internationally," Heilandt said. ...Full Story
• New proposed mileage standards draw critics on both sides Kat Glass McClatchy Newspapers July 7, 2008 - WASHINGTON — Automakers charged Tuesday that proposed new mileage standards are too tough while consumer groups complained that they're too lenient.
The Consumer Federation of America, an alliance of advocacy groups, wants to raise the standard well above the hike the government is proposing. The government's proposal would require automakers' fleets of cars to average 35.7 miles per gallon by 2015. Light trucks would have to average 28.6 miles per gallon....The Consumer Federation of America proposes 39.5 miles per gallon for passenger cars and 30.9 miles per gallon for light trucks by 2015. ...Full Story
• Google finds itself playing catch-up Elise Ackerman Mercury News July 7, 2008 - ....As Google scrambles to release its mobile-phone code sometime later this year, a non-profit consortium of some of the world's biggest telecommunications companies and handset makers has quietly beaten the search giant.
The LiMo Foundation, created in 2007 by Vodafone, NTT DoCoMo, Motorola and four other telecom giants, delivered its first phone in February. It now boasts 18, including the Motorola RAZR2 V8 and MOTO Z6w....Executives from around the industry said they want to ensure that mobile devices do not follow the path of personal computers and become dominated by one or two gatekeepers. ...Full Story
• BSA slams EC's 'narrow-minded' interoperability vision Kelly Fiveash The Register July 7, 2008 - An open standards row is brewing between the EC and a lobbying group for software multinationals over a proposed European framework on interoperability – a draft of which is due to be published on 15 July.
The Interoperable Delivery of European e-government Services to Public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens (IDABC) arm of the European Commission presented an outline of version two of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) at a meeting in Brussels last week ...[calling for]European governments, firms and users [to] “be prepared and volunteer to share and reuse,” and “adopt open standards and specifications”.
However, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) has slammed the EC for continuing to tout what it sees as “narrowly defined open standards” in its fight to achieve interoperability among government IT departments. ...Full Story
• Dispute about Europe-wide definition of open standards Stefan Krempf Heise Online July 7, 2008 - A dispute has been sparked in Brussels about the definition of open standards to promote the interoperability between eGovernment services. According to drafts for a revision of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) which were recently presented by the European Commission's Directorate General for Informatics, the specifications of open standards have to be made available either free of charge, or for a specified nominal fee. If a standard, or parts of it, are protected by patents, the revision stipulates that these parts have to be "made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis" for third party use. This has caused protests by IT business associations like the Business Software Alliance (BSA), which counts Microsoft and Intel among its members. ...Full Story
• First look: KOffice 2.0 Alpha 8 Rodney Gedda Techworld July 6, 2008 - One of the release goals of the next-generation KDE office suite, KOffice 2, is to make the package run on Windows and Mac OS X in addition to Debian Linux.
Just this week KOffice 2.0 Alpha 8 was the first KOffice release with binary packages for all three operating systems, and TechWorld decided to give it a run to see how it is taking shape before the final 2.0 release. ...Full Story
There are over 1,000,000 supported standards, with more being developed all the time. The Standards Blog examines how standards are developed, and their impact on business, society, the world, and the future. This site is hosted by Gesmer Updegrove LLP, a technology law firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. GU is an 
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Microsoft has made many acquisitions for many reasons over its history - 122 to date, according to the list maintained at the Wikipedia. Almost 100 of these have been consummated in the last decade, as the company that triumphed in operating system and office productivity software has sought (often unsuccessfully) to achieve similar success in other domains. Other purchases have demonstrated pragmatic "build versus buy" decisions, serving to add functionalities to products that needed them more quickly and efficiently than in house efforts could achieve.
