Things are getting more exciting as we get closer to the Ballot Resolution Meeting for DIS29500 (OpenXML) in Geneva.
I thought it might be useful to look at a few of the terms that have become part of the generic standards lexicon during this process and see if I can define them a little for the more curious among you.
This might be really important as Geneva approaches, being able to speak the relevant lingo opens up access to a whole range of events that various third parties appear to be running alongside the BRM, mostly with the goal of influencing the outcome of the meeting to suit whatever agenda the hosting party has.
Regardless, each one of these events represents a free dinner, free glasses of whatever you fancy and some controversial yet predictable chit chat.
All of these terms appear to be important if you are thinking about blogging about OpenXML during the BRM, or if you’re just planning on mingling at some of the side events… I hear that there will be free boat trips, open bars, and “unbiased” technical experts who just happen to be in Geneva for the whole week to help out.
So, here goes, just a few things that you can drop into conversation to give yourself a little more credibility with this crowd as you enjoy the view of Lake Geneva while sipping on a free glass or wine, beer or fruit juice;
“Troll” – this is a term that is affectionately used to refer to somebody who wants to post a comment on your blog, or write a blog entry of their own, that you do not fully agree with.
Bob Sutor, an IBM Vice President, emphasized the term in a post of his this morning, I’m not sure exactly what his text means (I have not followed Bob’s blog all that closely of late) but I think he is implying that if you don’t agree with him then he would rather not hear from you.
If you do get stuck in conversation with an apparent stranger over a free cocktail then be sure to refer to just about anybody in the community who speaks in favour of OpenXML as a troll.
In Internet parlance trolls are only there to agitate a situation, you have to convince people that to you it is clear that anybody speaking in favour of OpenXML must only be doing so because they enjoy starting arguments with strangers on the interweb, it isn’t possible that they’re just expressing their own valid point of view.
“Corporate Shill” – This is a great way of writing off experts who refuse to tow the line laid down by the ODF Alliance and their members. These guys are easy to spot, they’re probably the ones offering constructive and positive comments during the BRM itself.
It is pretty clear that anybody with expertise on the topic of OpenXML who happens to have good things to say must be on the payroll of one vendor or another. You have to at least pretend that it would be impossible for any unbiased individual to come to any conclusion other than full support for a single standard, that has been developed mostly by your party hosts, without having been corrupted in one way or another.
You can also use this important term to refer to anybody who chooses to commit their own time and resources to turn up in Geneva and add their expertise into the debate who doesn’t just harp on about ODF all the time.
“Corrupt Government Official” – Another useful addition to your phrase book for any evenings spent floating around beautiful Lake Geneva.
This is a term generally used to describe any government employee or official who has arrived at their own conclusions around the current standardization process. Many of these officials decide that support for multiple standards in their market place is good for a healthy ICT environment, some choose to support OpenXML alongside ODF, and others just don’t want to mandate technology standards at all, leaving the market to make its own decisions.
Whichever way, you need to be ready to carry the view that none of these people could possibly have come to any of these conclusions without being corrupt or otherwise being pressured by somebody.
Free thought by senior and experienced government officials in this area is something that you have to pretend just can’t be tolerated, drop your guard for a moment and somebody might take your drink off you.
“Stuffed Committee”- Before you head down to the quay to board your boat you will need to be ready with some smart anecdotes on this topic. A quick search will present you with some pre-reading, usually a third hand blog entry on a site run by somebody who was not actually there and probably wasn’t part of the process that they’re commenting on.
A stuffed committee refers to any national body where Microsoft partners or other organizations who are already working with OpenXML have turned up to join in the technical debate.
You need to think carefully about these groups, and why they came to argue with the likes of IBM and Google. Mostly they represent their own business, their employees and their customers, many of whom already choose to use OpenXML as part of their development cycles and are already building strong expertise deploying solutions built on the existing draft standard. Who would have thought they would have anything useful to add to the conversation? totally outrageous.
“Paid Off Reporter” - There are lots of these around, they are easy to spot, and they are basically any journalist who chooses to write a story that does not align with the views of the ODF Alliance. Usually they are reporters who have spent time researching the issues being debated and are “reporting” on what they have learned along the way.
So, there you have it. These five terms should be enough to give you a grounding in the language that you will need to get through the evenings. My only other word of advice is to ensure that you don’t actually express any opinions of your own during the evening, in particular any opinions supporting OpenXML.
It is easy to move from corporate guest into one of the five categories of folks above… and if that happens you’ll be spending evenings on your own in your hotel, or worse still, engaging in discussions with other more positive BRM participants over dinner somewhere.
Your list is good but I have found a couple of other phrases that can be useful too, in case you get hooked up in a more technical discussion.
“Full of binary elements”. – This one is handy. First of all, you don’t have to prove it. You can just ask if your opponent can disprove it. Second, you don’t have to explain what the problem really is. Anyone asking such a stupid question is obviously a Troll (see above).
MSOOXML – Used to distinguish between OOXML and the format used by Office 2007. They are clearly not the same, how could they? Again, you don’t have to prove anything, just say “the format known as MSOOXML” and everybody else will agree, just to avoid looking like they didn’t do their homework.
Come on, you are doing a strawman here. The problem is that it doesn’t work simply because you don’t believe in it.
Do you know if ECMA corrected this:
“This binary part supports the storage of arbitrary user-defined data.”
?
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“I hear that there will be … “unbiased” technical experts who just happen to be in Geneva for the whole week to help out.”
When I first read that I thought you were talking about Rick Jelliffe. Pot, kettle, black.
Given that everybody turning up for the actual BRM is doing so with the sole intent of improving the text of the standard it is very hard to work out how there will be bias in the room itself.
Take a look at a comment that Alex Brown passed on Bob Sutors blog a couple of days ago, the tone and intent of the ISO meeting is very clear.
“Now, I’m curious … how is it imagined that Rick (or indeed any delegate) can follow some nefarious pro-MS strategy at the BRM? by cleverly arguing for a change that will improve DIS 29500 too much perhaps?”