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Some twenty years ago, information technology vendors began opting out of the accredited standards system with increasing frequency in order to form organizations they called fora, alliances, and (most often) consortia. The reasons for the schism were several, but the development was remarkable in that the separatists presumed that standards could become ubiquitous whether or not they acquired the imprimatur of one of the “Big Is:” the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). And they were right.

Today, there are hundreds of consortia, and many of these organizations have achieved a size, work output, membership, influence and respect that equal that of their accredited peers. Along the way, the information and (to a lesser extent) communications technology industries have come to rely heavily upon consortia to supply their standards needs. But even as this parallel universe of standard setting has achieved respectability, an interesting trend has developed: more and more standards that have been created by consortia are being submitted to one of the “Big Is” for adoption.

As in most things commercial, the reason for this cross-pollination has to do with the customer — some of which have a bias or (in the case of some governments) a mandate to utilize accredited standards where they exist. With so many standards organizations, both accredited and non, and thousands more standards being developed all the time, there is a logical reason to seek a means to differentiate good standards from those that are less so. Today, it is still the case that the only organizations available to vet standards on a global, representative basis are the Big Is.

In a different setting, this situation might resolve itself through some sort of reunion of parent and wayward child. But the consortium movement is no prodigal child. Instead, consortia represent a predictable and healthy evolutionary forking of a well-established “one size fits all” system that had proven to be too restrictive to accommodate a faster moving industry looking for more flexible rules and a lighter weight process. But as the consortium movement matured and consortium standards proliferated, vendors sometimes wished that a global seal of approval could be obtained from one of the Big Is.

In response, processes were created that permit (for example) consortia to submit successful standards to ISO/IEC JTC1, the Joint Technical Committee formed by ISO and IEC to address the needs of the IT industry, for approval as “Publicly Available Standards.”

But bridges such as this have proven to be imperfect, and susceptible to abuse. Currently, SC 34, an ISO/IEC JTC 1 committee, is grappling with DIS 29500 — an ECMA developed standard based upon Microsoft’s OfficeOpen XML specification. Many harried participants in the review process have expressed the view that the “Fast Track” program being used to propel the submission through the adoption process from start to six months was inappropriate for a specification that weighs in at more than 6,000 pages. Moreover, there have been widespread reports of disinformation, vendor pressure, and (in one case) even offers of financial reimbursement to business partners as incentives to join National Bodies in order to vote for approval.

Even absent such extraordinary circumstances, the traditional infrastructure supports a range of industries that is so broad that IT standards consumers are left with less information about the standards they adopt than some would desire. Can a standard be implemented in open source software as well as proprietary products? Was it initially created through a truly open process, or was it processed by a small group of business allies? Can it be adopted on economically equal terms throughout the world, or is it biased towards developed nations? In short, what exactly does adoption by a Big I actually mean, and is that enough?

The result, I believe, is that new types of global approvals are needed. [Read more here]

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Comments

• Andy Updegrove

  

  Andy Updegrove is a partner and founder of Gesmer Updegrove LLP, a Boston-based technology law firm, and has represented and helped structure more than 80 worldwide standard setting, open source, promotional and advocacy consortia over the past 20 years. He has also represented hundreds of both emerging as well as established technology companies, and is the founder and editor of both the popular website http://www.consortiuminfo.org and the widely-read Standards Blog

• Karen Copenhaver

  

  Karen Copenhaver is a partner in Choate, Hall & Stewart LLP ‘s Business & Technology practice focusing on technology transfer and licensing of intellectual property with a specific emphasis on open source business models. Most recently, Copenhaver was executive vice president and general counsel at Black Duck Software, Inc.