Re: [oiic-formation-discuss] MARBUX POINT OF ORDER, OBJECTION, ANDSUGGESTIONS No. 1

[Shawn <sgrover@open2space.com>]

marbux wrote:
>> Regardless, I do not see her request for a little civility to be out of
>> place.  How was it my mother put it.. oh yes.. "If you don't have something
>> nice to say, don't say anything at all".  I Think that can easily apply
>> here.  With or without the subtleties...
>>
>> I for one am happy to try to remain polite (I'm a Canadian after all.. :) ).
>>  But I can politely and/or firmly disagree when needed.
> 
> I have been polite as I can be under the circumstances by being candid
> about unlawful behavior. 

Didn't say you were not being polite.  Only intended to state that we 
should all try to be civil in our discussions.  And realize that the 
typed word is completely different than the spoken word.  Care needs to 
be given to hopefully avoid issues that body language or tone would 
normally have taken care of.

Had you spent the time I and effort I have
> battling for file formats designed for interoperability and served
> some time on the OpenDocument Technical Committee, you would realize
> that collegiality in standards work is often a mere facade for agents
> of 800-pound gorillas executing anti-competitive and illegal agendas.
> Telling someone that they are acting illegally or reprehensibly is not
> impolite. It is a courtesy that gives them the opportunity to correct
> their behavior.

Difference of opinion.  For me, telling someone they are acting 
illegally, in the manner you have, is akin to saying "do it my way, or I 
will have you charged".  Which is a threat.  Which is counter productive 
to a healthy discussion.  However, making the statement "this act is 
illegal" is slightly different and doesn't seem to threaten as much. 
But admittedly I have not had the luxury (or need) to deal with lawyers 
often.

> I also know that from many years of major litigation that rights are
> forfeited if objections are not made forcefully. As is often said, the
> price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Rights must be exercised or
> they are lost.

I'll leave the interpretation of the law to you then.  But might I say 
that YOUR laws are not necessarily MY laws.  I believe you and I live in 
different nations.  There may be similarities and international law is 
still in the picture somewhere, but I'll refer to local lawyers if/when 
needed.  I can agree with some of your points above.  But we're only 
here to discuss drafting a charter.  I believe your issues belong in the 
next phase of this group's life - if it proceeds that far.

> I am building a record of abuse of rights and responsibilities here.
> Should someone else care to litigate such issues later, such as an
> antitrust prosecutor or a competitors' lawyers, there will be a record
> that abuses were brought to the attention of people who committed them
> in time for them to correct their illegal acts.

Again, this can be interpreted as threatening behavior/statements.  And 
kind of meaningless.  This is a public list isn't it? Unmoderated, 
right?  Every single one of us has a full archive of the messages posted 
to this list.  Not to mention the public list archives.

> OpenDocument and OOXML did not become the interoperability messes that
> they are because people respected the law. May I suggest that you read
> one of the pages that I linked? including at least the first footnote.
> <http://www.universal-interop-council.org/node/4>. It might give you a
> different perspective on what is going on in this meeting. There are
> feasible means to clean up the interoperability mess, but they are
> being ignored in favor of an ambiguous Charter that that does not even
> target round-trip interoperability within our lifetimes. .

The mess came about because because there is more than one way to do 
things.  And there was nothing wrong with that.  This list is supposed 
to be focused on ODF.  We don't care what OOXML or other protocols are 
doing, other than making sure they have access to the information for 
ODF when needed.  And this is still fair, because anyone can freely read 
the ODF standards, and any output from this group, and choose to 
implement it or not.  Nobody is colluding to force a market position. 
We (all of us on this list) are colluding to define how to determine if 
an application implements ODF properly or not.  Other protocols are a) 
out of scope, and b) out of our control anyways.  And with that in mind, 
this whole thread is pretty much off topic. :)

> Whether you realize it yet or not, you are swimming with sharks at
> this meeting. One must ward them off or be bitten.

I suspected there would be sharks in the water when I joined up.  I 
think I'm getting a feel for who the sharks are.  :)  hehe.. But perhaps 
that was a poor choice of words?  Isn't the shark normally associated 
with lawyers?  :) Sorry, couldn't resist the humor. :)

My thoughts.

Shawn