Standards Australia defends Jelliffe: "He has never developed Microsoft products"

Summary:

Standards Australia seems to defend the position of a Microsoft proxy to advise them on which position to take at the BRM. Where is the money?

Standards Australia defends Jelliffe: "He has never developed Microsoft products"

zoobab 22 Feb 2008 15:46

Look at this press release from Standards Australia, it is really funny how they carefully weight their words:

The article also incorrectly describes Rick Jelliffe as a ‘Microsoft developer’. While Mr Jelliffe consults widely to industry and government including Microsoft, he has never developed Microsoft products.

Let's rewrite it like this to see if it changes something:

Rick Jelliffe is not a ‘Microsoft developer’ as such. While Mr Jelliffe is being paid for consultancy work by Microsoft, he is not developing Microsoft products.

Where is the money?

Re: Standards Australia defends Jelliffe: "He has never developed Microsoft products"

arebenti 22 Feb 2008 16:48

We got the news from many sources that members of the AU Committee were upset because Standards Australia fooled them. Rick Jelliffe as a neutral expert, that is totally unacceptable.

Re: Standards Australia defends Jelliffe: "He has never developed Microsoft products"

joelstobart 22 Feb 2008 16:52

I think that computerworld did make a bit of an error with respect to the developer comment. As I understand it Jelliffe doesn't use windows, particularly. The obvious problem with sending a paid Microsoft consultant is that of balance.

However, it is still an acute embarrassment to send a man who was paid by Microsoft to change Wikipedia articles on odf and ooxml to make them more "accurate" [from Microsoft's point of view - I assume]. If Australia was sending a Sun, IBM, Google, and Microsoft consultants, along with an impartial chair, this would be fine.

I really wish that all this wasted effort that is going into OOXML was going into ODF 1.2, 1.4, … we could have a truly brilliant standard. As it is attentions are divided between the two, and the buying-public is waiting for another betamax/VHF, Blueray/HD standards battle-royal. The scary thing from my point of view is that governments, businesses, and charities are likely to be put off making any forward looking [open] buying decisions until the fight is conclusively won. The easiest way forward is to reject ooxml, and concentrate hard on improving the ODF specification.

- Joel

Re: Standards Australia defends Jelliffe: "He has never developed Microsoft products"

arebenti 22 Feb 2008 17:09

This article?

http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/16C7B66F72705F19CC2573F60010F2B4

The Standards Australia rebuttal does not answer the main concerns:

The only reason Computerworld has obtained for the backflip is the original two employees are unable to attend the BRM.

Director of government affairs at IBM Australia, Kaaren Koomen, who manages a technical person in the OOXML working group, says there were obvious discussions within the committee about who should represent Australia in Geneva and it was satisfied with the two Standards Australia people.

"We were quite surprised there was a change in the delegation without consultation with the committee and when we were advised by Standards Australia of the change there was consternation," Koomen says.

Standards Australia agrees with the Committee to sent a neutral delegation to the BRM and then breaks that agreement by sending no one else than the Open XML "independent expert" Rick J. Someone who worked closely with ECMA to prepare the disposition of comments.

As Rick said:

As I understand it, they picked me exactly on the reasons they pick anyone to be the technical half in a delegation: seniority, experience, subject competence, availability, professionality (e.g. trying to be scrupulous in making them aware of possible conflicts of interest.) Political issues one way or another don't come into it.

I am not head of delegation so I have no vote, of course. But I expect some people will not be happy that I am going at all. That I submitted most of the Australian issues (20 or 22 out of 30), that no-one on the committee has identified any outcomes from our committee that I actually disagree, that I have a kind recommendation from the highest level of ODFdom, and that in this area I think I have a track record of being able to get a good outcome, does not seem to calm them.

and

So how does this get handled? 1) I made sure that I declared potential conflicts of interest, even thought it makes me a sitting target for nongs and trolls and the reserve army of the self-righteous. 2) Standards Australia had me sign in writing a declaration that I would not be being paid by anyone but my company for attendance at the meeting, which I most certainly would not, that I would be on top of our committee's positions and so on. 3) Standards Australia then judged something like that there was no conflict that is different in scale or kind than is usual and supervisable.

Last edited on 22 Feb 2008 19:11 by zoobab Show more

Re: Standards Australia defends Jelliffe: "He has never developed Microsoft products"

Stephane Rodriguez 25 Feb 2008 18:38

I think, in regards to Rick Jelliffe to point out a few facts :

I have had this discussion with him in the past, and he confirmed that he never implemented anything related to Microsoft "OOXML" proposal. It's very important to understand the implications. His domain of expertise is XML, not Microsoft "OOXML". So it's for him to justify why he thinks he can have a better say than technical people in Australia entrenched in file formats.

The other fact is that Microsoft "OOXML" is not about XML. It's angle brackets surrounding binary streams. By binary streams, I mean either litterally (binary parts, attribute values with non XML-encodings, …) but also, and perhaps mainly, all the format stream that was designed with only performance in mind, not XML.

Re: Standards Australia defends Jelliffe: "He has never developed Microsoft products"

arebenti 28 Feb 2008 14:08

It is not against Rick Jelliffe, it is against Standards Australia. They do not regard Rick J. as a neutral expert because of his committee work.