Over in Denmark, the anger and confusion are not over. We wrote about this last month and reports continue to pour, albeit they’re mostly/only in Danish:
There is growing pressure on Quickoffice to support ODF on iPhone and Symbian.
I use some open office files in my thumbdrive, so that i can easily transition between my home pc (windows) and linux netbook (Asus Eee PC). I hope Quickoffice can support these files, so that I can also use them on my S60 phone (Nokia E71)
Summary: As HTML5 is approaching, vendors continue in their attempts to gain ownership and exclusivity over content using formats and protocols
MICROSOFT’S control of the media is an important subject because it leads to “perception management” [1, 2], as exemplified in the previous post. Glyn Moody reveals that “the Editor of The Next Web Italy, @Contz, is “Junior PR at Microsoft Italy”; tiny conflict of interest there, perhaps…?“
It’s not just publications as such which are affected by Microsoft marketing people. O’Reilly and Microsoft decided to work together some months ago and now we find that O’Reilly is abandoning web standards and requiring that Web users install proprietary software to read books.
Safaribooks online were availabe in HTML-View for a long time and were accessible with free software.
Now the O’Reilly Safari team has decided to stop this and deliver online books in Adobe flash format only for online reading. As expected gnash does not work.
This means reading and browsing O’Reilly books online is no more possible with free software.
This is not about Microsoft, but it shows that O’Reilly lost its way. From a UNIX/Linux-oriented (and thus standards-friendly) origin it found its way into “Web 2.0″ and other such abstract nonsense.
Speaking of standards, Microsoft starts talking about Internet Explorer 9, which is another departure further away from web standards (DirectX in addition to XAML and ActiveX). Microsoft just cannot permit the World Wide Web to be interoperable.
The great promise of HTML5 is that it will turn the web into a full-fledged computing platform awash with video, animation and real-time interactions, yet free of the hacks and plug-ins common today.
While the language itself is almost fully baked, HTML5 won’t fully arrive for at least another two years, according to one of the men charged with its design.
But independently of these details, there’s another big problem with the Open Web Foundation. The Mozilla Foundation has been pushing the idea of the Open Web for some time now; the appearance of this new foundation, with its agreement, is likely to muddy the waters around the concept of the open Web considerably. But then, that’s maybe what some companies involved in the OWF want…
“Another suggestion In this mail was that we can’t make our own unilateral extensions to HTML I was going to say this was wrong and correct this also.”
Summary: More OpenDocument Format (ODF) wins and an important reminder of people who try to harm it, sometimes while pretending to be “helping”
THE OTHER day we wrote about what Alex Brown had been doing in Wikipedia. For those who do not know Brown’s role in Microsoft’s OOXML fiasco, read [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21]. Regarding Brown’s edits (as we showed them a few days ago), one reader wrote privately to say, “I just wanted to let you know what Alex Brown appears to have done from those wiki edits (as far as I can go on the first page). All the criticism is magically gone. “whoops”.”
Right now he makes minor edits to ODF’s article, which is not as bad as the malicious edits from hAl, who got banned for his obvious warping of the ODF article, making it an ODF-hostile article.
But let’s concentrate on the positives, not the negatives from Microsoft and its known cronies.
The OpenDocument Web site introduces readers to two tools, Office-O-Tron and ODFPy, which Bart Hanssens describes as follows:
Office-o-tron is an online validator for office documents. It understands ODF (1.0, 1.1 and draft 1.2) and OOXML (“Transitional”).
Odfpy aims to be a complete API for OpenDocument in Python, essentially an abstraction layer just above the XML format. The main focus is to prevent the programmer from creating invalid documents.
Open Search Server 1.1 with Synonym and ODF Support
[...]
The first stable release of the Open Search Server Java software now includes a Web and file crawler and uploaded documents can be searched. The server can handle MS Word and Powerpoint, Open Document Format (ODF), HTML, XML and PDF files.
On 25 September 2009 the Norwegian Government adopted a new regulation on mandatory IT standards applicable to the entire public sector. As of 1 January 2010 open document standards will become mandatory for all public websites.
As the Minister of Government Administration and Reform, Heidi Grande Røys, stated, the new regulation ensures equal accessibility to the content of all public and communal websites. Users of any municipality or state will be able to visit the websites and read the documents regardless the type of software and computer equipment they use. It is a democratic right for all citizens to have equal access to public information and online services.
Weir and OASIS take ODF a step further into 1.2 while Weir and Hanssens are highlighting this new tool for verification of ODF signatures.
Via this page you can test the eID Applet Signature functionality. This test will demo the creation and verification of ODF signatures. ODF signatures are also supported by OpenOffice.org version 3.1.
KOffice 2 adds a mission statement placeholder to its Wiki while in Wikipedia someone removes the sentence: “The OpenDocument Foundation is not related to any entity doing standardisation work for the Open Document Format.” This is later readded and removed again. Test of patience?
Summary: Just like a filmography-style mafia, Microsoft and its allies proceed from corrupting ISO to bashing ODF from the inside and trying to control it too
MICROSOFT MAY hope that people will forget what it did for OOXML, but the past returns to haunt as more abusive behaviour gets seen. In light of the i4i case for instance [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10], Jomar Silva raises the point that Microsoft lied about patents in OOXML, with the assistance of its special friend Alex Brown [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21].
They also defined the coordinator of the BRM, Alex Brown (who also played a crucial role in the outcome of OpenXML, but that’s subject for another post, because I didn’t revealed yet all I saw in Geneva), and he publishes on his blog a FAQ with the rules of the BRM. This FAQ also circulated as an official ISO document, and can be found here.
Look what is written in this document:
4.1 Will IPR issues be discussed at the BRM?
No. IPR issues in this process are the exclusive preserve of the ITTF. IPR decisions have previously been delegated by all the ISO and IEC members (NBs) to the CEOs of IEC and ISO, and they in turn have examined them and found no outstanding problems. NBs seeking reassurance in such matters must pursue them through other avenues than the BRM.
In other words, the CEOs of ISO and IEC (the highest authorities of the two entities) had assessed the intellectual property issues on OpenXML and found nothing, so no committee around the world have to worry about the issue… I remember that I’ve asked about it few times, and the answer was always the same: “Kid, you are doubting the CEOs of ISO and IEC ?”… but what about the i4i litigation ?
[...]
Most of the ECMA delegates I know are Microsoft employees or business partners of the company. This staff can be anything but “uninformed” and therefore I can’t believe that ECMA didn’t know the litigation too.
So, I change the question asked by Groklaw almost two months ago for a more direct one: Who fooled who?
We all know that all NBs was fooled, that the countries have seen their names used in an unscrupulous way and that all delegates and competent technicians has been fooled too.
I really hope to hear something from the cited parties cited, and I believe that all International Society expect the same. We no longer live in a world where a nonsense fact like this can be accepted, and I’ll not stop until I find an answer (and I know I’m not alone in this quest).
I also would like to know from the ISO/IEC what they have to say about all this. They knew the i4i litigation ?
To finalize, I appeal again to CEOs of ISO and IEC: The G-20 is a reality, and it’s never too late to correct an injustice !
In the comments, the president of the FFII writes:
ISO should pull down the ISO29500 immediately.
No one can implement this specification safely.
ISO29500 should be withdrawn “Now”.
Georg C. F. Greve, the founder of the FSFE, writes about the above: “The first rule of the #OOXML club? Don’t talk about the legal problems!”
Rob Weir has more to say about the role of Alex Brown:
Curiously, NBs were asked to make their final decision without actually seeing the text of the standard they were being asked to approve. ISO leadership denied requests from several NBs, a formal SC34 resolution requesting this text, as well as NB appeals, all which asked to have access to the “final DIS” text that would eventually be published. The ISO chief, in his response to the NB appeals, called the final text of OOXML “irrelevant” (prophetic words, indeed!) and would only permit NBs to have access to a list of over 1,000 resolutions from the BRM, many of which gave great editing discretion to the Microsoft consultant who would eventually produce the final text of the specification.
I discussed why the lack of a final DIS text was a problem back in May 2008:
We are currently approaching a two month period where NB’s can lodge an appeal against OOXML. Ordinarily, one of the grounds for appeal would be if the Project Editor did not faithfully carry out the editing instructions approved at the BRM. For example, if he failed to make approved changes, made changes that were not authorized, or introduced new errors when applying the approved changes. But with no final DIS text, the NB’s are unable to make any appeals on those grounds. By delaying the release of the final DIS text, JTC1 is preventing NB’s from exercising their rights.
Would you make thousands of changes to code and then not allow anyone to test it, and then release it internationally? Of course not. Doing so would amount to professional malpractice. But that is essentially what ISO did with OOXML.
Weir is very careful not to mention names (personalising issues), but it’s obvious who’s who, not to mention the current role these people play in derailing ODF. We shall come to this in a moment. To say that ISO was “gamed” is an understatement. ISO was hijacked and a lot of people corrupted and bribed. There is extensive evidence to show this.
The second in a series of events that will bring together implementors of OASIS OpenDocument Format/ISO 26300 to unilaterally test and discuss implementation issues of ODF with each other. All ODF implementors and/or those looking into the matter are invited to participate in this event on behalf of the Netherlands government and OpenDoc Society.
We wrote about those plugfests before, e.g. in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8910, 11, 12]. Microsoft (and its ecosystem) attended plugfests to throw some criticism at this standard, which it hates but at the same time must watch over. Alex Brown’s friend, who has always been hostile towards ODF, drops Microsoft’s talking points to be used against ODF while Microsoft’s Doug Mahugh makes fun of ODF as well. Those who are not employees of Microsoft often feed the company by insulting ODF “by proxy”, so to speak.
“Those who are not employees of Microsoft often feed the company by insulting ODF “by proxy”, so to speak.”In the latest example seen above, we are witnessing a familiar old pattern of deception. As our reader puts it, “Microsoft is able to spin it as Microsoft vs 1 company (either IBM or Sun depending on the circumstances) with amnesia about the rest. Via OASIS, 600 companies, universities and government agencies were behind the initial development of the first try at a universal office format. About two dozen were taking the lead in development.” This politicisation of the issue (courtesy of Microsoft) has gone on for years.
Microsoft is still striving to control ODF like it controls ISO and Weir must be polite. That’s probably why he also omits names and does not write about the OOXML scandals as much as he used to.
Microsoft’s hijack attempts affect not only the ODF TC. Watch who is involved in the Document Interoperability Initiative: Microsoft, Microsoft allies, and Microsoft-funded groups.
* I’ll be covering the Office 2010 extensions (as was covered by the Office program managers in last month’s DII workshop in Redmond). I will also present the latest news on how we’re working to improve ODF interoperability between Office and other popular applications, and talk about our plans for the future.
* Alex Brown will be covering present and future plans for the Office-o-tron validator project.
* Klaus-Peter Eckert of Fraunhofer FOKUS will present the latest status of the document test library project and other work Fraunhofer is doing to improve interoperability.
Microsoft attempts to control the whole thing, including so-called interoperability. We showed a lot of evidence before [1, 2, 3].
Even in Wikipedia, ODF-hostile content gets injected into the article about ODF by the Microsoft folks, as last shown some days ago. Some references to Microsoft blogs are now being removed, as well as the poison that they have injected.
A more detailed account of how Microsoft subverts Wikipedia (on ODF) can be found in, e.g.:
Summary: The Linux Foundation has officially begun embracing Free video; The BBC dumps Real
ABOUT A day ago, the Linux Foundation took its big step forward and uploaded videos from LPC, not before Ogg versions were made available. We linked to the news a few hours ago, but given the value of what the Linux Foundation has done this time around, it’s worth praising in a separate post. Here for example is the talk from Linus Torvalds — a first among many that we shall post daily.
In other important news, last year we shared this video which shows why BBC media is so Windows oriented. Well, the BBC is now getting rid of RealPlayer options, so it is time to pressure for Ogg or Dirac support from the Beeb.
When streaming services are evaluated against these measures, we take into account where different formats might need to be implemented, evolved or deprecated.
Well, now is the time to adopt the freest format of all. It is neither Windows nor Real, that’s for sure. █
Assuming that I’ve not missed something here, this new Google Sites API seems pretty big to me: it offers a Get Out of Jail Free card to businesses that would otherwise find some of their content locked away in SharePoint. And once that data is liberated, there are plenty of open enterprise content management solutions out there that would be glad to accommodate it – without the lock-in, of course.
As interns on the Google Docs team this past summer, we were excited to be able to work on making Google Docs that much more useful for students like us. We’ve now added a bunch of back to school features which should help our fellow students make the transition from summer to school that much easier — and we hope they’ll be useful to you non-students as well!
There is support for equations now. Since Docs adheres to OpenDocument format (ODF), it will interact nicely with other ODF-compliant software, maybe with the exception of Microsoft Office that does mathematics its own way, thus breaking interoperability [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7].
Microsoft’s server and tools business in the coming year will focus on gaining ground in the high-end database and server market, helping users transition to the cloud and extending its dominance over Linux, according to the division president.
What about UNIX? And if Steve Ballmer says that 60 percent of servers run GNU/Linux, why use the expression “extending its dominance over Linux”?
Is IDG trying to imply that GNU/Linux is behind, that Microsoft is dominant in servers, and that Microsoft is the one with the momentum? Based on the latest results from Red Hat, the most dominant player in the GNU/Linux servers area, their profit is up 37% despite a tough economy, whereas Microsoft’s is down by over 30% for two consecutive quarters. It is very clear who has the momentum. Matt Asay has just published this post with the dramatic headline “Red Hat to collide with Microsoft,” wherein he claims that:
For years, Red Hat has happily sold Linux to Unix shops anxious to save money at equivalent or better performance. During this time, the company largely avoided Microsoft, which has tended to compete much higher up the stack. No longer. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer argues that one of Microsoft’s biggest opportunities lies in enterprise infrastructure and associated application development.
It sure sounds like that dreaded attempt of ISO/Microsoft to take control of ODF, at the expense of OASIS. SC34 is already stuffed with Microsoft people [1, 2], most of whom have their interests disguised. It’s worth remembering that this is an SC34 meeting near Microsoft which is responsible for everything and it’s Microsoft employees who seem most pleased. Henrion from FFII is rightly angry, arguing that one should “Scrap ISO. They have a stupid system of physical meetings around the planet. I don´t have the money to travel to such meetings.”
This SC34 meeting at Microsoft sure seems to have served as a stepping stone in the hijack of ODF, which Groklaw warned about one year ago. Simon Phipps from Sun is seemingly unhappy. He asks Brown (Microsoft mole and OOXML convenor): “What responsibility does SC34 have for ODF beyond forwarding mail to OASIS?” Later he tells a Microsoft employee: “SC34′s role in ODF maintenance probably matches the Linux Foundation’s role in Windows maintenance following your kernel code drop”
Phipps is referring to this incident, which we last mentioned here. Rob Weir just posts this Q&A, leaving no clear indication of how he feels about this development, into which he could as well be pressured. “Rob Weir tells more than we probably want to know,” argues Glyn Moody.
Question: So who owns ODF maintenance?
Rob: The OASIS ODF TC owns the maintenance of the OASIS ODF standard, and WG6 will own this activity for the equivalent ISO/IEC text. However, neither committee has absolute freedom of action, both being governed by applicable procedural rules of their parent organizations, as well as various joint agreements between OASIS and JTC1.
Given the corruption at ISO [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], is this a safe bet? How did it come about and whose proposal was it?
NZOSS has also just reminded the world of XML and OOXML patents from Microsoft. This is a subject that we wrote about in:
Charles from the OpenOffice.org community had this to say:
I remember that a while ago, as I was attending a heated debate on the (in)famous standardization of OOXML. As we were arguing with Microsoft on some specification details, I happened to state all aloud that when it came to this level of security (the topic at hand was security), I had my concerns about the encryption algorithms used by the specification but that in a general sense, security relied much more on the application using the format and the underlying operating system’s level of security. I went on to say that for the specific portion of the draft we were studying, it was perhaps not necessary to waste time in fruitless discussion topics including the behavior of OOXML documents in a computer undergoing a nuclear attack and being stored on a computer facing a zero-day exploit at the same time.
The response from one of the Microsoft spokesperson (I’m coining the term spokesperson, because that’s what most of them were) was a mix of surprise and sarcasm: “Everything happens, today you agreed with us!”. And indeed, I agreed that we should continue to parse the 6000 pages-long draft.
[...]
First, one has to realize that what happened with Novell was a serious attack against free and open source software, but although it was serious, it never really had any major impact on the community itself. What I mean by this is not that it did not have any real and damageable impact on IT companies or OEMs that ended up signing phony IPR deals with Microsoft. I mean by this that when you step back, you end up realizing that even the divide it caused inside the community is not that big. There is no one “Novell Community” and one “FSF Community”. That simply never existed except perhaps in the mind of some Mono architects. Even the Ximian bunch is very much on its own; influential because of monthly salaries, and time to devout to their pet projects and an historical ties to Gnome. But aside this, the impact of the Novell agreement with Microsoft did not create the “grand schism” many feared or wished at that time.
[...]
That is, I believe, the essence of the Codeplex foundation that is described here. Forget the code for a moment, and you might come to the conclusion that either Microsoft wants to impose its views on patents and copyrights, or it genuinely wants to have a fruitful conversation with the free and open source software community. The former is only surprising as it shows a different approach, but if that’s what they’re looking to achieve I am afraid that unless this foundation comes out with the most radically innovative ideas in the field of IPR, it will fail, for the first reason I outlined much above: Nobody will follow them, except people and constituencies who have an economic incentive to do that. What is left, then, if not the latter hypothesis? Interesting times are ahead of us in this case.
Microsoft’s CodePlex Foundation is still seen as undesirable by the Free software community. It’s a subject we covered in:
The next few posts will carry on along the same theme. Microsoft’s bear hugs are merely attempts to take control of its very own opposition, thus diffusing it. █
“[W]e should take the lead in establishing a common approach to UI and to interoperability (of which OLE is only a part). Our efforts to date are focussed too much on our own apps, and only incidentally on the rest of the industry. We want to own these standards, so we should not participate in standards groups. Rather, we should call ‘to me’ to the industry and set a standard that works now and is for everyone’s benefit. We are large enough that this can work.”
Summary: Bits of analysis of Microsoft’s mistakes on Web and document standards
IT IS no secret that Microsoft dislikes open standards; they are not good for the shareholders. The integrity of the company often comes later than short-term gain, so it is not a wise strategy, either. According to this gem, it has just become apparent that OOXML is nothing more than a reactionary move caused by the advent of ODF. It was known all along but there is new compelling evidence to support such an argument.
James D. Mason says:
I spent 22 years as the chairman of what is now ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34. SC34 is the committee that standardized SGML in the 1980s and now is responsible for both ODF, supported by many open-source products, and OOXML, the XML released by Microsoft in response to ODF. Neither ODF nor OOXML has anything to do with ODA/ODIF, which have been dormant since the turn of the current century but were still under development in the 1990s in a committee that was parallel to the one that became SC34.
Our past analysis: OOXML is a response. Thank you very much for the confirmation. Stronger language from Mason found in this article.
Thanks to Andre for finding this out. In his country, Germany, Microsoft has been using Fraunhofer essentially as a shill for OOXML. In light of the very latest deception form Fraunhofer, Jones wrote at Groklaw (News Picks):
ODF is totally open to the world. So where might the bottleneck be found, class? Did you really, really think that Microsoft intended there to be real interoperability? Some of us recall very well what happened in Germany in the OOXML approval process and the role this institute played. Remember their words, as translated from the German by a Groklaw volunteer? –
“The beginning standardization procedure of Office Open XML as an ISO standard will lead to a technological development of both standards – Office Open XML and ODF 1.0. The constructive comments that have been made alongside the DIN approval from leading experts guide the way in direction of interoperability” says the head of the department e-Government at Fraunhofer FOKUS and head of the DIN work group translation of document formats. “We at Fraunhofer FOKUS e-government-lab will support the procedure effectively and accompany our lab-partner Microsoft as a member of ECMA International with our know-how in implementing our recommendations.”
In relation to the patent assault on Free software, Jones later used the OOXML saga as an example too, remarking that it proves Microsoft never wanted to interoperate. “Like Microsoft will run right out and do that [give up on patent threats]“, she wrote, “because it just spent a fortune building up a patent portfolio, and it doesn’t plan on using them against Linux. Dream on. It’s not about hating any company, but there is enough water under the bridge to be able to predict that Microsoft probably will use those patents aggressively, as they already did in the TomTom case, and as they do in FUDly ways already. And what makes anyone think Microsoft wishes to interoperate, after watching the OOXML saga? Best to be realistic about Microsoft. The Linux Foundation may feel it has to say stuff like that, but I don’t.”
Microsoft has a long history of fighting against standards rather than accepting that they are needed. Eventually, inevitably, Microsoft joined ODF but did so poorly in a way that may only harm ODF [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. And now it may do the same to HTML5. As CNET puts it:
The World Wide Web Consortium’s HTML Working Group had been led by IBM’s Sam Ruby and Microsoft’s Chris Wilson. Wilson has stepped down and is being replaced by two others, Paul Cotton, who manages Microsoft’s Web services standards team, and Maciej Stachowiak, who manages Apple’s WebKit WebApps team, according to an e-mail announcement by W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee.
About 4 years ago. I could see that Vista was going to kill any momentum that Microsoft had picked up from XP and I was right. I even called the layoffs happening this year.
Sadly some of my friends are caught up in the whole MS layoff situation, which sucks.
My prediction for the next 5 years? Microsoft is going to do a Novell. They are going to try to keep doing what they have always done, despite losing more and more and more market, until in the end they are forced to adopt open source as their core OS.
Well, until then, Microsoft will suffer financially, quarter after quarter. █
Send this to a friend 
It sure sounds like that dreaded attempt of ISO/Microsoft to take control of ODF, at the expense of OASIS. SC34 is already stuffed with Microsoft people [
