A Clarification, and Some Background
I should make a clarification. Yesterday I mentioned a blog article from Andy Updegrove quoting the South African position on PAS submissions. This position was actually published last February, and likely doesn’t have anything to do with the current OOXML issue, as OOXML was not submitted by Ecma to JTC1 under the PAS process but rather through their Class A Liaison; Ecma is not a PAS Submitter (see the list here). The South African position is still good, I believe; perhaps they could say the same thing about submissions under the liaison process.
Members of ISO committees, including JTC1, the joint committee with IEC, are national bodies such as ANSI, BSI, DIN, AFNOR, etc. JTC1 has created two different means by which an organization other than a national body can submit completed work for approval as an international standard. One is the Fast Track Processing allowed for Class A Liaison members, and the other the PAS (Publicly Available Specification) Transposition process. Both are described in the ISO/IEC JTC1 Directives (their process document), document N8122, sections 13 and 14, respectively. The document is available at www.jtc1.org.
Before submitting work to JTC1, the organization must become certified as a Class A Liaison or PAS Submitter by making an application to JTC1. Qualifications to become a Class A Liaison are described in N8122 Section 3.3.4.2 as
Organisations which make an effective contribution to and participate actively in the work of JTC 1 or its SCs for most of the questions dealt with by the committee.
Then Section 13.1 says that
Any P-member of JTC 1 or organisation in Category A liaison with JTC 1 may propose that an existing standard (or amendment with the approval of the responsible SC) from any source be submitted without modification directly for vote as a DIS (or DAM). The criteria for proposing an existing standard for the fast-track procedure is a matter for each proposer to decide.
While the process to become qualified as a PAS submitter requires an evaluation of the organization and its process, etc., I don’t see anything required to become a Class A Liaison beyond an overlap in topics, which is how I read the description in 3.3.4.2 above. I’ve heard from numerous people within JTC1 that they consider PAS a much more difficult status to achieve, which is perhaps why there is currently only four of them (Free Standards Group, OASIS, OMG, and WS-I).
So, the JTC1 process doesn’t say anything at all about the process – or lack thereof – under which a specification must have been created and approved before it is submitted by the Liaison to a JTC1 SC “without modification directly for vote as a” Draft International Standard. So anything, whether it was created under an open, balanced, consensus-based process or not, can become a DIS without modification. It is up to the national body members of the JTC1 SC to decide if the quality of the specification overrides any lack in the process under which it was created and approved.
There is a required one-month comment period to identify contradictions, which for OOXML we had a couple months ago, and then a five-month ballot period, which is nearing its end. After approval as a DIS by the JTC1 SC, the specification is sent to ISO/IEC for publication as an International Standard.