Subject to Debate: Against Organizational Membership in IEEE Standards

by Geoffrey O. Thompson

There are currently discussions under way in the Standards Procedures Committee (ProCom) about amending the Standards Board Bylaws to make provision for adding representation by organization. While the intentions behind such a change are good, I would like to argue against such a move. Perhaps this will lead to further discussions that will ultimately result in a more appropriate composition for the IEEE Standards hierarchy.

The current situation in the IEEE is that all participation is by individual experts. This situation is unique in my experience as a standards participant. All other standards organizations that I have encountered have membership by organization, country, or other large entity that represents a significant commercial interest in the standard being produced.

The individual emphasis chosen by IEEE results in a high level of work generated by true volunteer effort. In my own arena, the Computer Society, contentious standards issues very often have a lot to do with competitive market positioning. To enhance the value of their products, companies seek to sponsor volunteer standards. A company works to get a Project Authorization Request (PAR) approved and organizes a working group that is dominated by individual members from a single company. The result of this too easily can be a "sweetheart standard," a standard that has not really had broad review and very nicely reflects the company product. This practice can easily produce one of two kinds of standards--standards that are not specified in sufficient detail to assure interoperability, or standards that shouldn't have been generated in the first place because there really wasn't sufficient interest from the broad marketplace as a whole.

The proposed solution to this problem of adding organizational membership to the existing membership of individual experts would probably exacerbate the problem by producing the worst possible combination. Big organizations are already too well represented at the higher levels of the IEEE Standards hierarchy. Those organizations paying for individuals to come and represent their interest will also take out an organizational membership to concentrate their power further.

Any changes we make should be in the direction of diversity, not concentration. The problem needs to be addressed, but organizational membership is not the solution. Let's try something else. Do you have any suggestions? Please send your thoughts to Terry deCourcelle (t.decourcelle@ieee.org) and she will see that they are submitted to ProCom for consideration.

Geoffrey O. Thompson is the chair of the IEEE P802.3 working group and is a member of the IEEE Standards Review Committee.