Bonum Certa Men Certa

Decision on OOXML: Potentially Months Ahead

According to ISO, the final decision may be months ahead. [via Leif Lodahl]

The two management boards will then decide whether the appeals should be further processed or not. If they decide in favour of proceeding, the chairmen of the two boards are required to establish a conciliation panel which will attempt to resolve the appeals. The process could take several months.


As an article about this development, consider one from the BBC.

Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela have complained that there was not enough time given to discuss improvements to the format.

[...]

The ratification of OpenXML would be an important seal of approval for Microsoft, which has long been held to task for its failure to embrace open standards.

Government bodies would be more likely to adopt the standard if it had an "open" rubber-stamp as many are concerned that storing documents in a proprietary format could cause problems for future archiving.

The Office OpenXML format was initially approved by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) in April but will now remain on hold while the appeals are investigated.

This could take several months.


There is a good summary of recent events in the links at the bottom. Until a decision is made, Microsoft will pretend that OOXML is pending approval and is therefore "open".

Be warned that Microsoft continues to 'embrace' (and essentially hijack) what was once known as "open source". OOXML is part of this shameless charade, but it goes further. Microsoft now takes an authoritative position as 'open source policeman', to which the apt reply was (see the comment that slants a headline): "Microsoft Says Open Source Is Nothing without the Source Code - Move Over Richard Stallman."

Over the past day we have identified some incidents (mentioned in the IRC Channel) where Sharepoint-dependent bits of software are characterised as 'open source'. The same goes for other such projects that depend on the proprietary Microsoft stack, but that's a story for another post.

Below we append the ODF Alliance Newsletter for June 2008.




SOUTH AFRICA, BRAZIL, INDIA, VENEZUELA APPEAL OOXML VOTE; DENMARK PROTESTS; LEGAL CHALLENGE IN UK



South Africa, Brazil, India and Venezuela have officially appealed ISO's vote on Microsoft's OOXML (DIS 29500), leaving OOXML in limbo until officials in the ISO/IEC hierarchy determine how to resolve the complaints. South Africa's appeal cites instances both before and during the Ballot Resolution Meeting held on Feb 25-29 2008 in which the ISO/IEC JTC1 directives were not followed, voices concern over the circumvention of the consensus-building process by large organizations, and challenges the validity of the final vote...Brazil's appeal raises additional objections to those cited by South Africa, including the failure to allow the Brazilian delegation to present its proposal regarding "legacy" formats and the failure to deliver the final text of DIS 29500 as required under the directives...IEC spokespersons confirmed the receipt of formal appeals from India and Venezuela, though the exact nature of the complaints was not known...Denmark's Open Source Leverandørforeningen (OSL) lodged an official complaint to the ISO vice president and Danish Standard managing director Jacob Holmblad urging ISO to reconsider OOXML in light of the violation of the directives... The UK's Unix and Open Systems User Group (UKUUG) mounted a legal challenge to a British Standards Institute decision to approve the fast-tracking of OOXML.

South Africa -- http://www.tectonic.co.za/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/dis-29500-appeal-letter-iso-2008-0-22.pdf

Brazil -- http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20080529150227123

India -- http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/146468/india_and_brazil_file_appeals_against_ooxml_standardization.html

Venezuela -- http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39427754,00.htm

Denmark -- http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/ISO_complaint_May08.pdf

United Kingdom -- http://www.ukuug.org/ooxml/




ODF ALLIANCE CALLS ON MICROSOFT TO ACT ON ITS COMMITMENT TO IMPLEMENT SUPPORT FOR ODF



In a statement, the ODF Alliance greeted with skepticism Microsoft's announcement of its intention to include support for ODF in the first half of 2009, noting that "the proof will be whether and when Microsoft's promised support for ODF is on par with its support for its own format," while citing the announcement as a reflection of "the strong demand from customers worldwide, especially governments, for access to ODF...”.

ODF Alliance Statement -- http://www.odfalliance.org/press/Release20080521-microsoft-odf.pdf

ConsortiumInfo.org Analysis -- http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20080521092930864




NEW YORK REPORT RECOMMENDS STATE BEGIN ACCEPTING DOCUMENTS IN OPEN FORMATS, INTEGRATE OPENNESS IN PROCUREMENT POLICIES



A report published by the New York State's Office of the CIO and the Office for Technology -- "A Strategy for Openness: Enhancing E-Records Access in New York State" -- concerns issues that feature prominently in the growing public debate over document formats, including choice, cost and mandating in procurement. By far the most thorough review and analysis of the issue to date, the report found that increased numbers of formats for doing the same office tasks increase complexity, add to costs, and do not increase choice. Calling for harmonization between ODF and OOXML, the report concludes that "the use of single, standardized formats increases efficiencies and furthers compatibility and interoperability," and requests that New York State "be added to the list of those who are asking proprietary vendors to directly support document formats such as ODF or other formats that maintain the same level of ODF’s openness." The report notes that "despite expressly being asked, not one of the 114 commentators cited a single study finding higher costs after migration to open format solutions." The report recommends a process culminating in April 2009 that will determine specific changes to procurement policies to "integrate openness... as one of the most desired features" and other requirements to allow state agencies to begin accepting office suite documents in open formats.

New York State Report -- http://www.oft.state.ny.us/policy/esra/erecords-study.htm

ODF Alliance Statement -- http://www.odfalliance.org/press/Release20080522-ny-records-report.pdf




APPEAL LAUNCHED FOR HAGUE DECLARATION ON DIGITAL RIGHTS



A new international group, the Digital Standards Organization ("Digistan"), has launched an appeal for signatories to a declaration calling on governments to: procure only information technology that implements free and open standards; deliver e-government services based exclusively on free and open standards; and use only free and open digital standards in their own activities. The Hague Declaration is premised on the idea that more and more of our basic freedoms (speech, association, assembly, etc..) are exercised on the Internet. Full and effective participation in government and society, and indeed access to public services, education and opportunity, is therefore increasingly dependent upon access to electronic communications. As such, the declaration calls on governments to ensure affordable, equal access to the Internet, recognizing the unique role that free and open digital standards can play in ensuring this result.

http://www.digistan.org/hague-declaration:en




JOIN THE PUBLIC DISCUSSION ON ODF IMPLEMENTATION, INTEROPERABILITY, AND CONFORMANCE



Conformance to the ODF specification and interoperability among ODF-supporting applications is essential. You can help. Join the discussion list regarding the creation of a new OASIS ODF Implementation, Interoperability and Conformance (IIC) Technical Committee. Anyone, including OASIS members and non-members, may subscribe to the list by sending a message to: oiic-formation-discuss-subscribe@lists.oasis-open.org. The preliminary statement of scope for the TC includes providing a means for implementers to create applications which adhere to the ODF specification and are able to interoperate. As such, the TC may publish conformance test suites to confirm the interoperability of ODF-supporting applications and produce a set of implementation guidelines, among other deliverables. Discussion on the e-mail list will be open for 90 days.

OASIS OIIC Discussion List -- http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/oiic-formation-discuss/200806/msg00001.html




NEW OR IMPROVED ODF APPLICATIONS SUPPORT



Document to DAISY DTBook Translator v0.0.4 is an OpenOffice.org plug-in for the creation of "talking" DAISY books for people with print impairments -- http://blogs.sun.com/korn/entry/openoffice_org_plug_in_for

IBM's Lotus Symphony 1.0, a suite of free, ODF-supporting software tools for creating and sharing documents, spreadsheets and presentations, now includes an optional, fee-based service to support the needs of organizations -- http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.jspa

IBM's Lotus Foundations Start is a complete, ODF supporting software appliance that provides the essential software a business needs to focus on running the business -- http://www-306.ibm.com/software/lotus/products/foundations/start/

IBM, Novell and Avnet have teamed up to develop IBM Open Collaboration Solution, which uses ODF-supporting software running on Novell's Suse Linux -- http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200806030016DOWJONESDJONLINE000003_FORTUNE5.htm

Microsoft announced its intention to provide support for ODF in MS Office 2007 by the middle of 2009 -- http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2008/may08/05-21ExpandedFormatsPR.mspx

ODFXSLTRunner is a new tool in the ODF Toolkit project that allows you to apply an XSLT stylesheet to an ODF document without extracting streams from the ODF package, and without having to update the ODF package files with the result of the transformation -- http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/odfxsltrunner_a_new_tool_in




NEW ALLIANCE MEMBERS



Please welcome the following new member: Network Design & Integration (USA).




EVENTS CALENDAR



XML Standards in Government Workshop [17-20 June 2008, Tshwane Univ. of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa] http://www.dst.gov.za/invite/

Red Hat Summit [18-20 June 2008 - Boston, MA] ttp://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/2008/

OpenOffice.org Conference (OOoCon 2008)[5-7 Nov 2008 - Beijing, China] http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2008/




ODF IN THE NEWS



N.Y.'s CIO Urges Interoperable, Vendor-Neutral Document Format [K.C. Jones, InformationWeek] http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/enterpriseapps/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208200342

Alliance Weighs In on Microsoft Interoperability in Education [Dave Nagel, The Journal] http://www.thejournal.com/articles/22639

NY commits to open formats as MSFT supports ODF [Richard Koman, ZDnet] http://government.zdnet.com/?p=3836

Microsoft's ODF support points to OOXML challenges [Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News] http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=17511773-17A4-0F78-31DD0C9EFEAAB15D

Brazil protests ratification of OOXML [Tom Espiner, CNET News.com] http://news.cnet.com/Brazil-protests-ratification-of-OOXML/2100-1013_3-6240580.html?tag=news.1

EU will probe Microsoft's ODF move [Gregg Keizer, ComputerWorld] http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&t...

Forget file formats. The battle is Sharepoint [Matt Asay] http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-9949736-16.html

Louis Suarez-Potts: OOXML Has Zero Effect On ODF [Swapnil Bhartiya, EFY News Network] http://www.efytimes.com/efytimes/26489/news.htm

OpenOffice 3.0 beta : Can it finally replace Microsoft Office? [Preston Gralla, ComputerWorld] http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9085920&pageNumber=2

UK agency says Microsoft hurts student interests [David Lawsky, Reuters] http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/7514478

Eliminating the 'Software Tax' by Using ODF [Erwin Tenhumberg, itv.sys-con.com] http://internetvideo.sys-con.com/read/498422.htm

Microsoft OOXML: Dead Format Walking [Jason Brooks, eWeek] http://blogs.eweek.com/brooks/content/office/microsoft_ooxml_dead_format_walking.html

Dutch Gov releases Open Source tool: Converts Microsoft docs to ODF [Stewart Meagher, The Inquirer] http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/05/27/dutch-gov-releases-open-source

IIT Bombay, Microsoft at loggerheads over standards [Leslie D`Monte, Business Standard] http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?autono=324294&leftnm=8&subLeft=0&chkFlg=

The Embrace, Extend, Extinguish of ODF Begins? - Updated [Groklaw] http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080524063506630

The Fall of Microsoft Office [Anders Bylund, The Motley Fool] http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2008/05/27/the-fall-of-microsoft-office.aspx

IBM to Sell Support for Rival to Microsoft Office [Reuters] http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Enterprise-Apps/IBM-to-Sell-Support-for-Rival-to-Microsoft-Office/

Your Second Economic Stimulus Check Is On Its Way [Phil Shapiro] http://blogs.pcworld.com/communityvoices/archives/2008/06/your_second_eco.html




OOXML protests in India
From the Campaign for Document Freedom

Recent Techrights' Posts

Wayland Pushers Lose the Argument, Use LLM Slop and Chatbots to Make Up Arguments for IBM
Another new low and low blow
What is "MATA"?
Think of it as GAFAM or "Meta"
WebProNews is a Slopfarm
Please avoid linking to WebProNews
Another "Told You So!": XBox Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (Many Recent Reports Were Chaff and Spin), Many Other Divisions Affected
With mass layoffs at Microsoft the world would be much better
 
Links 25/06/2025: Elon Musk’s Lawyers Caught Lying, WhatsApp Faces More Bans
Links for the day
Brian Fagioli Created Another Slopfarm Targeting "Linux" After BetaNews Became a Slopfarm of Phantom Accounts and Pseudonyms
Mr. Fagioli even had slop about a dead Torvalds (hypothetical) as clickbait
Wayland is Perfect, Nobody Can Escape Its Perfection! (Or Not)
Do not form on opinion on Wayland based on politics
Moral Duty for "Linux Sites" to Speak Out Against LLM Slop
My wife has long complained about "Linux bloggers" keeping quiet and thus passive about a growing problem: slop
In Recent Hours Google News Promoted at Least 3 Slopfarms That Relayed Linux Foundation Propaganda Made by Bots or LLM "Bullshit Generators" (as Dr. Stallman Dubbed Them)
Google is circling down the drain and Google News too is hopeless
Linux Journal is a Slopfarm, It's Experimenting With LLM 'Authors'
Is Slashdot next?
Microsoft LinkedIn is Dying and Many More Layoffs Are on the Way
LinkedIn is just a failed acquisition of Microsoft. It causes losses and debt.
Gemini Links 25/06/2025: Combinatorial Music and Self Hosting
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Coming Back to Europe This Autumn to Give More Talks
His last talk in Europe attracted about 400-450 people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 24, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Social Control Media, Technology & Catholicism: Synod on Synodality review and feedback
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
How Many More Women Will Managers at Microsoft Strangle and Tell to Kill Themselves (or Try to Kill)?
The world needs to know what happened
The New BetaNews: 7 New 'Articles', All of Them LLM Slop
BetaNews is basically defunct. Nobody writes there anymore.
statCounter Estimates Only 1 in 300 Iranians Would Use Microsoft for Search
Iranians don't quite trust Microsoft
Gemini Links 24/06/2025: ftpd on FreeBSD and Online Small Web Magazine
Links for the day
Google News Does Great Harm by Promoting Slopfarms as Legitimate News Sites
Slopfarms are sites which are 100% LLM slop
Links 24/06/2025: Trouble at "Open" "AI" and ‘Siarhei is Free’
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/06/2025: Stimulants and Subscription Costs for DRM
Links for the day
When the Microsoft Aggressors Rely on Several Law Firms ('Attack Dogs', 'Guns for Hire'), Not Just One, Lawyering Up Against Techrights (Acting on Behalf of Americans Against UK Publishers)
From serving customers at some restaurant he has moved on to bullying people with demand letters
Links 24/06/2025: OpenAI [sic] May Soon Die (Too Much Debt) and Social Control Media Accused of Being Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda Amplifier
Links for the day
Nirbheek Chauhan in Planet GNOME Explains Why Wayland Pushers Are Losing
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
Polygamy, from Catholic Synod on Synodality to Social Control Media & Debian CyberPolygamy
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Only a Third of or 1 in 3 Web-Connected Devices is a Desktop or Laptop, According to statCounter
we can expect Android to widen its lead
The Days Are Getting Shorter, the First Half of 2025 is Almost Over
We're gratified to see significant increase in traffic and also positive feedback on the work we do
Turning GNU/Linux Into a Political Football
X (not the site) is Free software
X Server Still Works for Many People
A lot of people will grow suspicious of Wayland boosters/pushers if they persist and insist on using these tactics
Exactly a Week Ago "BetaNews Staff" Said "Betanews Is Growing Alongside You". Since Then Every Article (All by "Camila Nogueira") Has Been LLM Slop.
BetaNews is basically a slopfarm
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 23, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 23, 2025
The "Tarzan Effect" in Compilers and Software
What happens when you forcibly make things 'work', either by hacks or by disregarding warnings (like those that compilers tend to issue)?
Gemini Links 23/06/2025: Mass Tourism, Hair Love, and Google Gemini as a Googlebomb
Links for the day
Law Firm Burgess Mee Does Not Fully Deny Participating in Abusive Litigation for Serial Strangler From Microsoft
I am not unfamiliar with these tactics
The Modus Operandi of Wayland Pushers: Make It Political
do what I say or you're a nazi...
Links 23/06/2025: RFE/RL Contributor Vladyslav Yesypenko Released, Recording Industry Cutbacks
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Solicitors (M): Over 99.9% of Our E-mail is Self-Marketing, We Send You 3.5MB E-mails for Less Than 1KB of Text
Why would tech people entrust legal matters to such people?
Peter Moon's (Computerworld) Interview With Richard Stallman
Stallman: If you want freedom don't follow Linus Torvalds
At What Point Does Outsourcing Constitute Malpractice?
Brett Wilson LLP's new staff page is misleading
United Arab Emirates (UAE) Sailing to GNU/Linux, According to statCounter
countries in that region will quickly learn the price of neglecting digital sovereignty
From Do Your Own Research to Do Your Own Search
The Web is full of garbage; search engines amplify this garbage
More People Moving to Geminispace?
at age 6+ Gemini Protocol seems to have gained some maturity and it seems like more people use it
Permutation in LLMs Does, Inevitably, Change Meanings and Therefore LLMs Cannot Properly Rephrase or Summarise Texts
LLMs lack actual grasp or comprehension of what they spew out
Links 23/06/2025: Many Security Breaches, Population Declines
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/06/2025: "America at the Crossroads" and OpenWRT Surgery
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 22, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 22, 2025
Pure Dove
Different means different, and sometimes those who "deviate" from "the norm" have a point
Censorship is a Sign of Weakness Which Invites More Censorship Attempts
revolutionaries don't succumb to pressure from bullies
Why It's Unlikely That LLM Slop Will Dominate the Web in the Long Run
Slopfarms will eventually perish (they have no actual value) and "survivors" on the Web will be sites that never depended on search engines and social control media
GNU/Linux in Argentina Now Measured Near 5%
Like in central Europe, they must be seeing an increasingly hostile US
BetaNews is Fake News, Composed by LLM Slop
nothing in BetaNews is written by humans anymore