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The ongoing circus that is the OOXML adoption process in ISO/IEC JTC 1 has helped expose the cracks in the traditional process. Unfortunately, while the consortia that set most IT standards are independent of the traditional process for most purposes, they still have to return to gain the types of global certifications that some governments look for. It's time for consortia to cut the cord completely, and form their own global organization.
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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. Full Story |
