IBM standards practices

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Rod Van Meter <rdv () sfc wide ad jp>
Date: September 23, 2008 9:12:56 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: IBM standards practices

Hi Dave, for IP if you wish...(I'm a little surprised this hasn't gone
around here yet):

IBM convened a (virtual) panel this summer to review its corporate
position on standards.  It is commonly perceived that this action was in
response to IBM's unhappiness about OOXML being picked over ODF for a
standard document format.

Quoting:

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.

-----

All apple pie and motherhood.  We'll see how it plays out in practice.
IBM has apparently singled out W3C as an organization they're happy
with, and ECMA as one they're unhappy with.

Of course, everyone here knows that by the time something gets to
Standard, it's rarely what was originally envisioned, and a great deal
of camelizing the horse has been done.  The big question is, is the
world a better place *with* the standard than it would have been
*without* it?

IBM's site:
http://www.research.ibm.com//files/standards_wikis.shtml
(the wiki itself where the discussion took place is not obvious; it may
be closed, but there is a summary in PDF.)
One of many news articles about it:
http://www.crn.com/hardware/210603397

                --Rod






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