Standardization by Corporation
Maybe i spoke to soon. This just came in from ISO, the resignation letter of the SC34WG1 Chairman who has completed his three year term.
There is a fascinating statement at the end of the Martin Bryan letter. "The disparity of rules for PAS, Fast-Track and ISO committee generated standards is fast making ISO a laughing stock in IT circles. The days of open standards development are fast disappearing. Instead we are getting “standardization by corporation”, something I have been fighting against for the 20 years I have served on ISO committees. I am glad to be retiring before the situation becomes impossible..."
When corporations join open standards or open source efforts, they arrive with substantial but most welcome financial and expert resources. They also bring marketshare and presence. And, they bring business objectives. They have a plan.
As long as the corporate plan is aligned with the open standards - open source community work, all is fine. In fact it's great. For sure though there will come a time when the corporate plan asserts it's direction, and there is possible conflict. At this point, the very same wealth of resources that were cause for celebration can become cause for disappointment and disaster.
One of the more troubling things i've noticed is that corporations treat everything as a corporate asset to be traded, bartered and dealt for shareholder advantage and value. This includes patents and interoperability issues which not surprisingly are wrapped into open standards and open source efforts. Rather than embrace the humanitarian – community of shared interest drivers of open standards and open source, corporations naturally plot to get maximum value out of the resources they commit.
A primary example of this is Sun's use of OpenOffice, ODF, and an anti trust settlement disaster that left them at the mercy of Microsoft.