Certainly the concept of “one citizen, one vote” must be the bedrock upon which all democratic theory and protections are based. Indeed, any government would presumably have to grant the validity of this tenet, lest its own validity be questioned. After all, at the end of the day, when all else is stripped away, the debatable and the subjective, the polemical and the political, is this not the one undeniable standard upon which everyone must agree, the fundamental principle of natural law that philosophers of any persuasion must certainly unite in supporting?
And yet…
Down through the millennia and even into the present, this simple, seemingly irrefutable standard of equality and representative government has proven to be almost impossible to establish in any democracy as a practical fact.
I Among twenty snowy mountains/ The only moving thing/ Was the eye of the black bird.
II I was of three minds/ Like a tree/ In which there are three blackbirds...
V I do not know which to prefer/ The beauty of inflections/ Or the beauty of innuendoes,/ The blackbird whistling/ Or just after...
Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, 1917
Although much of the brouhaha of the OOXML adoption process has abated, the post-partum process of reviewing how Joint Technical Committee One (JTC1), the ISO/IEC body that gave birth to both ISO/IEC 26300 (ODF) and OXMLISO/IEC IS 29500 (OOXML), continues. More specifically, meetings continue to be held in which a variety of related matters are being considered, including the ongoing maintenance of each standard, and whether and how the Directives that control the deliberations of JTC1 committees might profitably be amended to address the concerns that arose during the consideration of these two overlapping document format standards.
Most recently, representatives of JTC1 and the SWG Directives committee met in Nara (JTC1) and Osaka (SWG), Japan to review these weighty matters. As has been the case in the past, a variety of those directly involved in the ODF/OOXML saga wrote about the results of this latest meeting, including three bloggers who attended the Ballot Resolution Meeting that served as the climax of the OOXML adoptive process: Alex Brown, Rick Jelliffe and Tim Bray. You can find their alternately contrapuntal and contrary observations here, here and here, respectively. I did not attend the gathering in Nara, but I have read the recommendations made at that meeting (as well as Alex's, Rick's and Tim's commentaries on them), and ruminated a bit on the recommendations and the events that inspired them. Here is my own sense of what others have also observed.
This is the latest in a series of occasional essays that I call The Monday Witness. This series focuses on social rather than technical issues, for the reasons explained in the first entry in the series. As always, the opinions expressed here are mine alone.
If you hail from one of the hot beds of high tech - Silicon Valley, say, or (in my case) the Route 128/495 area of Massachusetts, you've doubtless heard the phrase "serial entrepreneur." What those words describe is someone who has started several companies, and the phrase, when used, is invariably regarded as a compliment. These days, if such a serial entrepreneur has some major successes under her belt, that makes her one of the elite of the high tech nobility - someone with the golden touch, that can turn ideas into huge returns for founders and investors alike.
But should this really be a compliment?
That may sound like a silly question, until you remember that in order to start a new company, you need to get rid of the old one - or at least leave it in someone else's care. That isn't how the great companies of the past came to be what they are today, and it makes me wonder where we can look to find the great companies of tomorrow.
How do you measure the value of free and open source software (FOSS)? That's a puzzler, because it's, well, free. Moreover, a popular distribution like Linux can incorporate the contributions of thousands of individuals working remotely from around the world. That means that there are almost no associated overhead costs over and above the time of the developers themselves.
Even the question itself is a bit of a misnomer, because one measure of the value of FOSS is not the cost to build it, but rather the avoided cost of not having to do so. Because you don't have to pay anything to download FOSS, and since the same project that developed the software will continue to maintain it for you, using free software can allow you to launch products and services that, for economic reasons, you would never otherwise attempt. In an effect that's near and dear to my heart, that means that competition can reenter market niches that had become locked up and stagnant because entry costs to new participants were simply too high.
Trying to get a handle on the value of FOSS is still a worthwhile effort, though, because it allows people to appreciate the beneficial effects of FOSS in general, as well as to have greater respect for something that arrives without a price tag. By appreciating the amount of effort that goes into FOSS, not only historically but on a weekly basis, it's easier to appreciate the robustness and responsiveness of the product as well. It also helps anticompetition regulators and legislators appreciate the significant pro-competitive effects that FOSS can have.
Today, the Linux Foundation is releasing a report titled Estimating the Total Development Cost of a Linux Distribution that shows just how valuable FOSS really can be, using the Fedora distribution of Linux and the Linux kernel itself as examples. (Disclosure: I am legal counsel to LF.) The effort is particularly interesting as the authors (LF's Amanda McPherson, Brian Proffitt and Ron Hale-Evans) use the same methodology employed by respected industry expert David A. Wheeler in 2002 to value a related Linux Distribution (Red Hat 7.1). The run up in value wrought by six additional years of global collaboration is an eye popper.
This is the latest in a series of occasional essays that I call The Monday Witness. This series focuses on social rather than technical issues, for the reasons explained in the first entry in the series. As always, the opinions expressed here are mine alone.
Election campaigns bring to mind - usually ruefully - standards of many types. Among them are the levels of civility, truthfulness, and fair play that we wish candidates would exhibit when they compete for our votes. But as the day of final electoral reckoning approaches, the gulf between the standards we favor and the conduct we observe on the hustings tends to widen rather than narrow. To my mind, nothing demonstrates a lack of character in a candidate as the degree to which he or she is willing to slander an opponent.
Holding candidates accountable to reasonable standards of conduct and character in this respect has become more problematic of late, in part because candidates and their parties keep developing new ways to distance themselves from sordid practices, while still reveling in their results. Some of these tactics have become sufficiently notorious to contribute new names to the lexicon of electoral dirty tricks.
The 2004 campaign, for example, gave us a new verb: to "Swiftboat," meaning to spread disinformation through an organization that has pretensions to credibility, and also denies any connection to the campaign of the candidate the disinformation assists. The name, of course, derives from the ostensibly ad hoc association of war veterans that sought to impugn the war record of Democratic candidate John Kerry, a decorated Viet Nam war hero. Most recently, we have a new adjective - "Rovian" - derived from the name of former Bush political mastermind Karl Rove. This word is used to condemn (although sometimes with grudging admiration) conduct that is both artful and wrong - such as collaborating with Swiftboaters (yes, there is a noun form as well).
Note: Nominations for the awards noted below will close on October 8, so please act now
I almost missed this story, until I caught a link to it at Bob Sutor's blog. As I was about to do the same and simply add a link to it to my News Picks column, it occurred to me that there's more of a story here than meets the eye.
That said, let's start with the superficial story, as announced in a posting at the ODF Alliance Web site, issued on September 9, which begins as follows (as usual, the full text appears at the end of this blog entry):
Know someone in your community—an individual, government official, NGO or other entity—who has significantly advanced the cause of document freedom, yet whose actions have not received the public recognition they deserve?...The purpose of the award is to recognize the contribution of individuals or entities in promoting ODF adoption, the mission of the ODF Alliance. Here’s how you can help! Nominate an individual or entity you work with closely or someone you have observed who stands out as a leader in the ODF community.
What's remarkable about this story, of course, is not that the ODF Alliance is giving awards to those that deserve them it (why not? It's a great way to advance the Alliances cause as well), but that there are so many people in so many countries around the world that are eligible by reason of their service in support of what was once an obscure software standard. Now, how often does something like that come along?
As I reported yesterday, IBM has announced a new "I.T.Standards Policy," calling for (among other things) more transparency, openness and inclusiveness in the standards development process, and for the use by standards organizations of fewer, clearer and more open-source friendly intellectual property rights policies. IBM also disclosed the wide-ranging, and in some cases radical, recommendations offered by 70 standards experts from around the world. These recommendations are intended to raise the bar in standards development.
Rather predictably, it was one particular aspect of the IBM announcement that drew the most interest - and headlines. The result was a host of stories with titles like IBM May Quit Technology Standards Bodies (Wall Street Journal), IBM Treatens to Leave Standards Bodies (the New York Times) and, to the same point but more entertainingly, IBM Takes a Blunt Axe to its Dealings with Standards-Setters (Financial Times). Clearly, when IBM threatens, people listen. Still, as I observed yesterday,
While IBM's standards activities are formidible, IBM still controls only one vote within any single standards organization. As a result, it will be significant to see whether it is successful in inspiring other companies (and particularly those that were its allies in the ODF-OOXML competition, such as Google and Oracle) to make statements of active support for these same principles.
I'm pleased to say that such words of support are starting to be offered, beginning with this statement of support from the Linux Foundation:
Although most of the thunder of the OOXML adoption battle has now died away, the after effects of that controversial process continue to linger. Some of the residual effects have been intangible, such as hard feelings on the part of at least four National Bodies over their inability to obtain a formal review of their complaints over how the OOXML adoption process was conducted. But there have been other responses that are more concrete, and directed at taking specific actions to raise the bar and avoid a repeat performance. One of those efforts has been ongoing since late last spring, and today the first tangible results of that effort are being made public.
The process in question was a Wiki-based conversation conducted over a six week period last May and June, involving over 70 government, academic, industry, policy and standards body thought leaders from around the world. And the public parts include the release of the results of that conversation, and the announcement by IBM of a new "I.T. Standards Policy" that will regulate its participation in standards development. That policy is based upon the principles developed in the course of that virtual global conversation. These announcements are the beginning, but not the end, of a dialogue. The next step will be an invitation-only event at Yale University in November that could give rise, among other possibilities, to a new global organization to rate standards development organizations for qualities such as openness and transparency.
The latest blowback from the OOXML adoption process emerged last Friday in Brasilia, Brazil. This newest challenge to the continued relevance of ISO and IEC was thrown when major IT agencies of six nations - Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Paraguay, South Africa and Venezuela - signed a declaration that deploring the refusal of ISO and IEC to further review the appeals submitted by the National Bodies of four nations. Those nations were Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela, and the statement is titled the CONSEGI 2008 Declaration, after the conference at which it was delivered. The Declaration notes, "That these concerns were not properly addressed in the form of a conciliation panel reflects poorly on the integrity of these international standards development institutions," and concludes, "Whereas in the past it has been assumed that an ISO/IEC standard should automatically be considered for use within government, clearly this position no longer stands."
The decision to make the statement flows in part from the fact that the National Bodies of each of the four countries that had filed appeals have decided that it would be fruitless to further press their formal protests. This has left government IT agencies with no choice but to reconsider what, if anything, the adoption of a standard by ISO/IEC JTC 1 should mean to them when they make standards-based decisions. The statement indicates that ISO and IEC have underestimated the possible consequences of not taking the appeals more seriously, and states in part:
This is one of a very occasional series of non-tech essays that I call The Monday Witness. This series focuses on social rather than technical issues, for the reasons explained in the first entry in the series. As always, the opinions expressed here are mine alone.
For those of us who are of a certain age, the 1960s were an era not to have been missed. Indeed, they were a time when idealism seemed to be a responsibility of citizenship, rather than an idle pursuit. As John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King spoke out in words that captured the heart as well as the mind, more and more fell in behind. Their goals and ideals demanded to be your goals and ideals, and all of the lofty aims they espoused seemed to be as achievable as they were morally imperative.
And then, of course, the house of cards began to tumble in, through a succession of events that everyone that lived through them remembers all too well - not just remembers, but remembers frozen and captured in the amber of a terrible series of still images - where you were, and what you were doing. And then, after what seemed an endless moment, the numbing horror of what came next, as if the camera had begun rolling once again.