Standards are often a land war; where members of the standards body act to create de facto standards at the same time they participate in the negotiation of de jour standards. The mix varies. In some contexts the land war dominates. But it’s real politics and certainly tastes dirty. Many standards bodies have clauses in their members agreements to prevent other kinds of dirty gaming. For example clauses to temper the member’s ability to playing stick-up with their patent rights. It’s harder to do in these cases; since it would require the member to temper their striving for market share. This plays off interestingly against the device where a standards body retains for it’s members early access to the specification – a device intended to give the members the reward of early mover advantage. This pattern also reminds me of the scheme were a firm creates a “open standard” so other market players chase his tail lights. Card space is a good example of that move.
Meanwhile there is another delightful introductory paragraph in that posting.