[LINK] Standards Australia's standard for "conflict of interest"

[Glen Turner]

The passage of DIS29500, Office Open XML, as an international
standard has just gotten stranger.  I didn't think that was
possible.

There is a Ballot Resolution Meeting next week, where the
Draft Standard, the Comments submitted by national standards
bodies, and the Response to Comments written by EMCA will be
considered.

The Australia Delegation will be two people: Panjan Navaratnam
and Rick Jelliffe.  Navaratnam is a project manager at Standards
Australia. Jelliffe is a consultant, particularly in XML
technologies.

Unfortunately, Jelliffe wrote part of the materials forming
ECMA's Response to Comments.  That is, at the Ballot Resolution
Meeting he will be evaluating his own work.  Hmmm, wouldn't
school children just love that!

You'll also recall that Jelliffe has been a consultant to
Microsoft, most notoriously paid by them to update the
Wikipedia page on OOXML.

In short, he's a most unsuitable choice as a technical advisor
to Navaratnam as he is riddled with conflicts of interest.

Standards Australia's view?  Since Jelliffe was never an
employee of ECMA there is no conflict of interest.

Politicians everywhere will rejoice in this new standards
body-issued definition of "conflict of interest".
You can hear the cries from West Australia now: "No, I
was never and employee of Brian Burke, so there is no
conflict of interest".

-- 
Glen Turner <http://www.gdt.id.au/~gdt/>
0416 295 857 or +61 416 295 857