NoOOXML

The SC34 Secretariat Manager's resignation has been announced and pending for many months now. It is quite wrong to link it to SC34's increase in membership.

- Alex.

Thanks for clearing that up, too, Alex! ("Alex" as in Alex Brown, I presume? It's nice to see you posting comments here, as there are bound to be some further misinterpretations and confusions ahead.)

As far as I understand it, the only thing "new" about that announcement in red text was that Japan has now accepted to take over the Secretariat duties. However, by itself, the brief message on the ISO website does indeed give the impression that the resignation as such was recently announced. While this is incorrect, I can totally see why first time visitors to the site are likely to misinterpret the message. You might want to look into making the information more clear in this respect, by pointing out in the message that the resignation has been pending for quite some time. There are probably a lot more people visiting iso.org now than there has ever been before!

[Update: the wording has now been changed at the ISO website to avoid confusion.]

Could you perhaps also give us any input on the second part of the post, the one that said that the new P-members are interested mainly in the DIS 29500 issue and are less willing to participate in other SC34 issues? It would certainly be interesting to know if there is any truth in that.

According to this:

http://www.jtc1sc34.org/repository/0902.htm

and this:

http://www.jtc1sc34.org/repository/0907.htm

" P-members please return your vote directly to the SC 34 Secretariat by due date; this is not a default ballot and this does require a response from all P-members. Note that this a re-issue of N0870 due to a lack of sufficient response from participating members. All members have an obligation to vote (including those who voted on the earlier ballot that received an insufficient response)."

It looks like that rumour is true.

More than a few "old guard" P-members also failed to vote, so it seems that there would have been a problem getting enough votes even within only the old, smaller group, but yes, all the new members failed to respond. That is indeed a problem. Let's hope they shape up, or SC34 will be crippled.

@stegu

On P-Members, yes - it's certainly true that recent SC34 ballots have had poor responses. ISO has mechanisms to deal with this, and National Bodies that persist in neglecting their responsibility to vote risk finding themselves unceremoniously demoted to O-member status.

- Alex Brown.

@Alex

I apologize if my post concerning the announcement of the new Secretariat seemed to link the increase in SC 34 membership to the previous Secretariat Manager's resignation. That was not my intent at all.

I intended the comment following the announcement as a separate issue, and it is one that Murata seems very concerned about. I'm sure most do not want these newly registered P-members to cause problems by ignoring all the other SC 34 work (at least in the short term).

@ Anonymous (221.39.206.161)

No need to apologise - I think I was in error to assume that the two things were implied as linked. But, this being groklaw, I was assuming the most sensational reading was the correct one ;-)

- Alex.

@myself

s\groklaw\noooxml

Yes it is strange.

I know that question has been asked by at least one person at the NB level to ISO but no-one I know has received an answer yet. I'm hoping the answer will be posted on Alex's website if it comes.

If the answer is that website is complete, my two favourite theories being suggested for the surge in SC34 membership are.

1. Microsoft got the rules wrong and stacked the wrong committee

or

2. Microsoft, once it saw all that sc34 deals with thought it might be worthwhile to paralyse the committee.

we live in interesting times….