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 IBM policy can be found here, and a summary of the recommendations of that discussion is here, and I’ll discuss both of them below (as usual, I’ve also pasted in the full text of each below, for archival purposes).  Let’s start with the IBM Policy, and then I’ll give some background on the Wiki discussion, and highlight some of the recommendations that arose from the combined opinions and debate of the group.

IBM I.T. Standards Policy:  The IBM policy sets forth a pledge of future conduct for IBM in its very substantial standards-related conduct, which includes the deployment of thousands of engineers in the working groups of hundreds of consortia and traditional, accredited standards organizations around the world, from narrow, single-standards-focused consortia up through ISO and the IEC.  That conduct will be based upon IBM’s pronounced support for:

[T]the consistent and fair application of standards development practices for all stakeholders, whether they be consumer, governmental, commercial, or open source, in emerging and mature economies alike.

That litany honors the fact that not all of these groups are currently adequately represented in the standards development process, though all are profoundly affected.  In pursuit of the goal of improving that process, IBM confirms that it “does now, and will continue” to adhere to a list of principles in order to assure that its participation in the standards development process will be conducted “with integrity, innovation and good faith.” 

Read closely, these principles will have concrete, rather than merely aspirational meaning, including joining – and resigning – from standards organizations based not only on their technical value to IBM, but also on whether they conform to the same principles of openness in membership and intellectual property rights (IPR) policies.  The principles would also mean that IBM would push for more global participation in standard setting, work for rules reform to avoid undue influence by vendors, push for ensuring that open standards will be set under policies that will ensure that they can be implemented in open source software, and regularize and optimize IPR policies themselves.  Specifically,The principles of the new policy are as follows:

• 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.

The policy also gives examples of specific actions that IBM pledges to take in active pursuit of the goals cited, a few of which clearly are intended to make the conduct alleged to have occurred during the OOXML process more difficult to carry out in the future, such as working “for process reform in standards organizations so that proxies or surrogates cannot be used in standards creation and approval.”

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.

Updated:  Bob Sutor, the driving force behind this announcement at IBM, has now posted a blog entry expanding on what the IBM Principles are intended to mean.

Wiki Recommendations:  As noted, the Wiki process brought together the active participation of 70 knowledgeable, representative (both by discipline, type of invovlement and geography) standards experts during a six week process, led by five moderators, of which I was one.  The discussion was conducted under five main topics: 

• Transparency and accountability of the Standards Process (I moderated this topic)
• Quality and Creation of the Technical Standard
• Rating and Accreditation
• Policy and Societal Implications
• Intellectual property in Standards

 Each topic inspired active, and often spirited, participation and a wide variety of views.  Part way through the process, an effort was made to focus the participants towards making “actionable recommendations” that could then be shared with the general public for further debate and (in the case of IBM) actual incorporation into policy.  While described as “recommendations,” this should be understood to mean in many cases to mean “supported by a sufficient number of participants to justify being recommended for ongoing consideration and debate.”  Other recommendations can be considered true recommendations, based upon broad consensus.

In order to lead to action, the recommendations have been resorted into groupings that would be approviate for implementation by identified categories of stakeholders:

• Governments
• Standards Development Organizations (SDOs)
• Standards Community
• Quasi-Governmental and Non-Governmental Agencies
• International Organizations
• Intellectual Property [admittedly an apple to the organizational orange, but this category cuts across all of the others]
• Academia

Some of the recommendations are obvious and hallowed (if not always currently honored in the breach), while others are most radical, with those under the government heading being most striking.  Those recommendations are as follows: 

• Call on lawmakers to regulate intellectual property component of standards
• Encourage adoption of new procurement rules requiring good ratings from trusted sources
• Recognize the existence of “Civil Information & Communication Technology Standards,” the need for government to protect them and promote them through procurement policy
• Elevate the importance of standards in the missions of the Departments of Justice and Commerce, and National Institute of Standards & Tech.  These agencies would guide the creation, publication, and rewards associated with standards
• Elevate the priority of protecting standards in the missions of the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice
• Raise government awareness throughout the world to the deliverables of the Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services (IDABC)

 

With the exception of the last bullet, each of these would constitute a fairly radical shift in the balance of power between the public and private sectors in standard setting, and particularly so in the United States.

 

• There are far reaching examples in other categories as well, including the following, under the SDOs category:
• Develop and maintain an organization to create a quality index of existing SDOs and best practices for SDOs to motivate existing and new SDOs
• Discourage non members from ambushing standards — create organization to expose prior art of patent speculators
• Create a clearinghouse to determine the value of patent to standards

 

And these, under the Standards Community heading:

• Create standards and intellectual property-oriented clearinghouse with watchdog or accreditation responsibility
• Create an organization to apply open source-style ratings to intellectual property policies, such as patent non-assertion covenants.  This will encourage more consistency and certainty, and promote free and open source-friendly patent commitments
• Apply open-government rules to standards creation process to ensure transparency, limit undue influence, and increase public confidence in standards
• Create “commitment registry” for ex-ante disclosures and patent pledges, ideally in cooperation with the US Patent & Trademark Office
• Encourage “minimalist” specs while discouraging competition-limiting proprietary extensions.  This will limit intellectual property conflicts, and leave room for future development, innovation, accuracy and consensus
• Create “Underwriters Laboratory-type” organization to provide patent certification prior to SDO submission
• Pilot Peer to Patent-style program to determine what patents may be essential to a standard, and which ones are not

 

And these under the Quasi-Governmental category, the first being of particular importance to me

 

• Define civil ICT standards, and promote their development and use
• Harmonize national standards development policies
• Elevate mission of UN Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards & UN Development Programme

 

And again, for International Trade Organizations (the fall out of the OOXML process is particularly clear in the first two bullets):

 

• Call for review and pervasive reform of ISO/IEC JTC 1 directives and processes
• Reinforce World Summit on the Information Society Declaration of Principles — states that open standards are important to IT diffusion in the developing world

 

And finally these, under the Intellectual Property heading: 

• Call on lawmakers to regulate intellectual property component of standards
• Create “commitment registry” for ex-ante disclosures and patent pledges, ideally in cooperation with the US Patent & Trademark Office
• Discourage non members from ambushing standards — create organization to expose prior art of patent speculators
• Elevate the importance of standards in the missions of the Departments of Justice and Commerce, and National Institute of Standards & Tech.  These agencies would guide the creation, publication, and rewards associated with standards

 

Clearly, these are ambitious and controversial recommendations.  But they have also been carefully considered, and tailored to the real needs of the marketplace.  I feel, as do the other moderators and participants that helped generate them, that it is important and necessary to take this dialogue to the next step, and actively pursue implementing those recommendations that can find consensus, and that can bolster the integrity, transparency and effectiveness of a process that becomes more vitally important to the modern world with every passing day. 

I hope that you’ll decide to join in and support that effort.  

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IBM I.T. STANDARDS POLICY

 

Preamble

Open standards can help deliver good governance, societal freedoms, economic health, business growth, global competition, and technological innovation. To that end, IBM, supports the consistent and fair application of standards development practices for all stakeholders, whether they be consumer, governmental, commercial, or open source, in emerging and mature economies alike. IBM does now, and will continue, to adhere to the following principles, informing IBM’s participation in the standards community with integrity, innovation and good faith:

The tenets of IBM’s new policy are to:

• 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.

For example, IBM will:

• Review and take necessary actions concerning its membership in standards organizations.
• In the regions and countries where we do business, encourage local participation in the creation and use of standards that solve the problems and meet the requirements of all affected stakeholders around the world. We will advocate governance policies in standards bodies that encourage diverse participation.
• Advance governance rules within standards bodies that ensure technology decisions, votes, and dispute resolutions are made fairly by independent participants, protected from undue influence.
• Work for process reform in standards organizations so that proxies or surrogates cannot be used in standards creation and approval.
• Collaborate with standards organizations and stakeholders to streamline and consolidate intellectual property licenses and policies, with a focus on enabling software applications to become more easily interoperable by the use of open standards.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

WIKI RECOMMENDATIONS

 Following are suggestions that were proffered by individuals during the wiki.  They do not necessarily reflect unanimous or consensus views.

 Government

• Call on lawmakers to regulate intellectual property component of standards
• Encourage adoption of new procurement rules requiring good ratings from trusted sources
• Recognize the existence of “Civil Information & Communication Technology Standards,” the need for government to protect them and promote them through procurement policy
• Elevate the importance of standards in the missions of the Departments of Justice and Commerce, and National Institute of Standards & Tech.  These agencies would guide the creation, publication, and rewards associated with standards
• Elevate the priority of protecting standards in the missions of the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice
• Raise government awareness throughout the world to the deliverables of the Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services (IDABC)

Standards Development Organizations (SDOs)

• Develop and maintain an organization to create a quality index of existing SDOs and best practices for SDOs to motivate existing and new SDOs
• Encourage member-pledges to make early disclosures of intellectual property
• Discourage non members from ambushing standards — create organization to expose prior art of patent speculators
• Create a clearinghouse to determine the value of patent to standards
• Adopt Web 2.0 and 3.0 technologies to enhance transparency during the standards development process

Standards Community

• Create standards and intellectual property-oriented clearinghouse with watchdog or accreditation responsibility
• Create an organization to apply open source-style ratings to intellectual property policies, such as patent non-assertion covenants.  This will encourage more consistency and certainty, and promote free and open source-friendly patent commitments
• Apply open-government rules to standards creation process to ensure transparency, limit undue influence, and increase public confidence in standards
• Create “commitment registry” for ex-ante disclosures and patent pledges, ideally in cooperation with the US Patent & Trademark Office
• Encourage “minimalist” specs while discouraging competition-limiting proprietary extensions.  This will limit intellectual property conflicts, and leave room for future development, innovation, accuracy and consensus
• Create “Underwriters Laboratory-type” organization to provide patent certification prior to SDO submission
• Pilot Peer to Patent-style program to determine what patents may be essential to a standard, and which ones are not

Quasi-Governmental and Non-Governmental Agencies

• Define civil ICT standards, and promote their development and use
• Harmonize national standards development policies
• Elevate mission of UN Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards & UN Development Programme

International Trade Organizations

• Call for review and pervasive reform of ISO/IEC JTC 1 directives and processes
• Renforce World Summit on the Information Society Declaration of Principles — states that open standards are important to IT diffusion in the developing world
• Enourage better application of World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade

Intellectual Property

• Call on lawmakers to regulate intellectual property component of standards
• Pilot Peer to Patent-style program to determine what patents may be essential to a standard, and which ones are not
• Create an organization to apply open source-style ratings to intellectual property policies, such as patent non-assertion covenants.  This will encourage more consistency and certainty, and promote free and open source-friendly patent commitments
• Create “commitment registry” for ex-ante disclosures and patent pledges, ideally in cooperation with the US Patent & Trademark Office
• Encourage “minimalist” specs while discouraging competition-limiting proprietary extensions.  This will limit intellectual property conflicts, and leave room for future development, innovation, accuracy and consensus
• Encourage member-pledges to make early disclosures of intellectual property
• Discourage non members from ambushing standards — create organization to expose prior art of patent speculators
• Create a clearinghouse to determine the value of patent to standards
• Elevate the importance of standards in the missions of the Departments of Justice and Commerce, and National Institute of Standards & Tech.  These agencies would guide the creation, publication, and rewards associated with standards
• Elevate the priority of protecting standards in the missions of the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice

Academia

• Offer standards courses at engineering schools
• Promote academic and policy research and discusssions at law and business schools

 

[Futher material including discussion extracts has been omitted]