Calling the past months work-intensive would be something of an
understatement. Fortunately my colleagues
in FSFE did an excellent job of
working on the same project in various countries while I was partially
absent. They also managed to put out
some interesting
comments on the IS29500 approval. What I can say on the issue is
unfortunately fairly limited by the various shrouds of secrecy over
what in my personal opinion should be like any other public interest
process that affects the lives of citizens.
Why are various national standardisation bodies not accountable to
the public they represent in ISO? Why can the public not know what is
going on? If I had a magic wand, non-accountability and intransparency
would be my top two issues to fix in all of this. It could also be a
good idea to get some procedural buffs from the United Nations to make
things more predictable and reliable on a procedural level. Had you
told me a year ago I'd be wishing for the procedural efficiency of the
United Nations, disbelief would have been a likely reaction. Now the
United Nations appear extremely well-functioning in comparison.
Due procedure would allow for fair dialog based on substantial
considerations. In this case it would have allowed discussing
technical issues and answering the most fundamental question for any
specification: Is it technically sound so it can be approved without
further review or modifications?
This question can be answered on technical grounds. There is no
need for attempts at authoritative arguments, assertions about the
quality of future editorial work, or referrals to the maintenance
process. Attempts at answering that question in any of these ways
indeed translate into "No, it is not."
Of course there are also other questions that are relevant when it
comes to standardisation - including the
"Six
questions to national standardisation bodies" that FSFE put out
around July 2007. Answering some of these issues is a little less
clear-cut than the technical side, but can be done in an environment
where people are accountable for their actions and statements. The
media could have helped a great deal at keeping that dialog
honest.
As accountability and transparency are sadly lacking, the past
months often seemed like a gigantic, world-wide re-enactment of Monty
Python's parrot sketch with the involvement of several multinationals
and billions of EUR spent. I am pretty sure the original was more cost
effective -- and thanks to the
wonders Gnash we all
get to enjoy this
classic here:
My only question is: Where is the standardisation store of ISO's brother so I can return IS29500?
Most of you have probably seen in FSFE's latest
newsletter that Sun kindly donated a SunFire T-1000 server to
FSFE's Fellowship.
And while not as probiotic as other recent
blog entries, I think that some of you should be curious to have a
look at its insides. Here is a picture of the actual machine, click on
the picture to get a larger version:
