Of course, many things happen that are unlawful. To correct them, the appropriate person has to know that action is possible and to want to take it.
So why did Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Kenya, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore and the UK all sit there and do nothing when the JTC1 Secretariat flagrantly ignored the Directives and went right ahead with the 5 month letter ballot?
Good question. I would love to know the answers (plural, because the answer is probably different in each case). In the case of the BSI (the National Body representing the UK), I speculate (with no access to inside information) that it was a desire not to disturb good relations with ANSI, with whom it has to deal on a day-to-day basis on hundreds of other matters.
I rather like the comments of Douglas Hurd, a former British Foreign Secretary, which he made in the context of the Iraq war:
“We are the junior partners to the United States … We seem to have lost that art, which is not an easy one, of being a junior partner, and we must somehow recover it.”
Well put! It seems clear to me, both in this context, and in the Iraq War context, that simply rolling over and putting up with whatever nonsense the US - or its official bodies, like ANSI - serves up, is a serious mistake. No one respects a poodle, least of all the US.
But what exactly, a harassed BSI CEO might say, are we supposed to do? Well there are several things. The first is to insist privately that the matter be referred up to the ISO Technical Management Board and the IEC Standards Management Board (JTC Directives 3.4.3.3). BSI is represented on the TMB, and maybe also on the SMB, so it should then insist in those fora that the matter be referred up to the Councils of ISO and the IEC. At least one person has told me the matter went to the SMB and TMB. Really? What dates were the meetings? Where are the minutes?
Second, it has to involve the UK government, and in particular the FCO (Foreign & Commonwealth Office). Making serious complaints in intergovernmental fora is not a business for amateurs, you need to involve the professionals.
Third, it should consider serious leaking/briefing. The cold light of publicity can be most helpful in focussing peoples’ minds. People are often prepared to do obviously absurd, selfish or wrong things in private, but not in public. Again, leaking/briefing is better done by professionals, so this step is not necessary (for BSI) if the UK government gets seriously involved. But it may be necessary in order to get the UK government involved.
Litigation? Well, it has a certain charm. That way you do get to see all the relevant minutes, and all kinds of embarrassing things come to light in emails (which people failed to delete adequately from all the backup servers etc) during the discovery process. But I don’t see it as a serious runner in this case. Also the timescales are all wrong, and there is no cash directly at stake to motivate the lawyers.
But I certainly think that the BSI, and the other NB bodies in a position to protest have not yet pushed it far enough, or done enough to coordinate with each other. There are important matters of national and public interest at stake. In many ways the OpenXML standard issue is a sideshow. But it throws fascinating light on the behaviour of a monopolist (MS) which stands no chance of being curbed by the market. Governments have got to wake up to the fact that they have been conned, and over an extended period.
Unfortunately, one of our traditional guardians has almost completely failed us. The press seem just incapable of grasping the issues. Well, I guess some financial journalists who have followed the anti-trust cases have grasped the issues, but they only write about such things occasionally, when there is some “newsworthy” event. Whereas there are acres of newsprint and hours of TV and radio time on an almost daily basis from technology journalists who seem completely oblivious to the real issues.
I am constantly amazed to hear businessmen and consumers express irritation with open source lobbyists and others who seek to curb MS’s abusive behaviour or to prod governments into taking action. I can understand why they do not want to join in - they have businesses to run and the “tax” extorted by MS through its monopoly pricing is below their pain threshold. But why are they so hostile when others are trying to get MS to charge lower prices? The sad truth is that propaganda works, and MS has been a highly effective propagandist.
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