Was the BRM flawed?

Tim Bray, a member of the Canadian delegation that attended the Ballot Resolution Meeting in Geneva, was particularly harsh in his critique of the BRM process, stating:

"You just can't revise six thousand pages of deeply complex specification-ware in the time that was provided for the process."

Bray called the BRM a "horrible, egregious, process abuse and ISO should hang their heads in shame for allowing it to happen. Their reputation, in my eyes, is in tatters. My opinion of ECMA was already very negative; this hasn't improved it, and if ISO doesn't figure out a way to detach this toxic leech, this kind of abuse is going to happen again and again."

Van den Beld said Bray's comments were grossly exaggerated and developed from a completely wrong assumption that the BRM's misgivings were the fault of ECMA.

"It (the OOXML specification) is big, although not as big as some people claim. It is not 6,500 pages - on paper it is - but there are maybe 1500-2000 pages that are called informative text, and there are a few thousand pages that are just XML and references - they are not intended for human reading.

"So if you subtract that you might have 2000 pages max that people should really look at. But if you are against the whole thing you say '6,500 pages, that is crazy!' so that statement is a little bias and unfair."

Frank Farance, head of the US delegation to the BRM, also criticised the BRM, stating that 80 per cent of the changes to the ECMA document delivered in mid-January were not discussed.

Van den Beld agrees that the goal of the BRM should be to address each and every concern, but insists that the various delegations from around the world had more than enough time to resolve issues within the specification.

"The BRM is not only five days, the BRM is the whole period from the end of the ballot until the meeting. The BRM is just the tip of the iceberg."

He says JTC-1 suggested to all the national bodies that they complete as much work as possible resolving the entire list of minor and non-controversial issues before the five day meeting in Geneva, and that ECMA organised teleconferences end e-mail interaction for delegates with serious issues relating to the specification.

"Normally, we have only two months between the end of the ballot and the BRM, but in this case we had since the second of September until the end of February - almost half a year. So if people had so many concerns they better come together, it's so easy to organise, but that is not the job of ECMA."

Van den Beld says it would be up to the ISO or SC34 to arrange more interaction between the delegations, something he believes would have been a good idea in light of the BRM's inability to address all of the concerns.

"I think one of the things that could have helped more is to have some meetings of national bodies, or at least experts to talk more than just during that one week. The excuse I always hear on that issue is that it would be informal, but if ISO or JTC-1 says we would like to do that then all of a sudden it would not be informal. JTC-1 could easily say that."

"I think as an improvement I could see the possibility of having more meetings than just the BRM, because that is a last point that could be an improvement, but not much more."

Van den Beld also dismissed claims that the BRM's proceedings should be made public or more transparent.

"Like in international deals about trade or so, these things are not public, they are trying to get the best out of it for your country, and there are all sorts of interest behind it.

"I think if you want to have an influence on how this process works it makes no sense to put it in a blog or newspaper, you must go through your international body, convince the people in the national body first, and that can take months, then they must bring it up in JTC-1, and at the moment there are 41 other countries trying to do the same thing. It's a huge diplomatic effort.

"If people say this whole ISO process is lousy, out of date and doesn't work anymore or is broken, I challenge anybody to make a new worldwide process."