It can be tough, putting effort into standardization activities – particularly if you're not paid to do it by your employer. The tedious meetings, the jet lag, the bureaucratic friction and the engineering compromises can all eat away at the soul. But most people participating (particularly, perhaps, those not paid to do it by their employer) are kept going by the thought that, in the end, their contribution might make a difference. That in some small way the world will become a better place because of their efforts.
So it will come something of a kick in the teeth to see something like this Survey on Open Standards in the Public Sector from the UK government's Cabinet Office. It is hard to know where to start with this: whether it’s the ignorance of what a “standard” (never mind an “open standard”) is; or the thought that having a check-box survey is an intelligent way to form an assessment of technologies leading into a standards policy.
Faced with such clueless fuckwittery it’s tempting simply to ask: what’s the point?