Down with standards
Published: 28 Apr 2004 16:35 BST
Robert Glushko has a problem with standards.
There is a clear demand from customers for products that work together based on widely used standards. But Glushko contends that the standards process is stacked in favour of large tech companies, which can control and ultimately benefit most from specifications that are ratified as industry standards.
Glushko, an adjunct professor at the University of California at Berkeley, speaks from experience. As co-founder of XML company Veo Systems, Glushko was involved in early efforts to create business-to-business e-commerce standards using XML, or Extensible Markup Language, in the late 1990s. His involvement in XML led to work with the Organisation for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), which was formed to promote XML-related specifications, and the United Nations' Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (CEFACT).
In 1999, the United Nations and OASIS joined forces to promote ebXML, which was designed to enable electronic business over the Internet, rather than over expensive proprietary networks. But as ebXML began to mature as a technical specification, another set of XML-based specifications collectively called Web services -- which had the backing of IBM and Microsoft -- came onto the scene. Today, Web services are more widely used than ebXML.
Glushko said his experience working on ebXML reflects how powerful interests can derail the work of well-established standards organisations. He also contends that the standards development in governmental organisations, such as the United Nations, is a very politicised process. High-minded goals, such as cheap global e-business standards, can easily be tarnished by money, power and access to powerful bureaucrats.
ZDNet UK sister site CNET News.com spoke to Glushko to get his views on the state of technology standards after revelations that Microsoft paid some travel expenses of UN technical committee members on a CEFACT mission -- a move that critics claim gave the software giant unfair influence in pressing the case for Web services over ebXML standards within the United Nations.
Q: Why have so many standards emerged for electronic commerce?
A: One of the issues here is what a standard is. That is one of the most abused words in the language and people like you [in the media] do not help by calling things standard that are not standards. Very few things are really standard. Standards come out of standards organisations, and there are very few of those in the world.
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