Ciarán’s free software notes

Unofficial counts indicate that OOXML will be approved by ISO because enough national standards bodies changed their vote. Andy Updegrove is keeping a running tally. I just got off the phone to the National Standards Authority of Ireland and, disappointingly, Ireland is among the countries that changed their vote from "disapprove" to "approve" (despite a letter from IFSO).

One of the big problems with OOXML is the danger of software patents. Microsoft published a promise not to sue people for implementing the OOXML specification, but the promise only covers fully-compliant implementations. Microsoft’s own implementation is not fully compliant, so if you write your software to interoperate or be compatible with Microsoft’s software, you will not be protected by their patent promise. This was pointed out and explained by FSF Latin America recently.

On the technical side, the problems pointed out by FSFE’s previous documents still stand:

• Six questions to national standardisation bodies
• Interoperability woes with MS-OOXML
• DIS-29500: Deprecated before use?

Allegations of voting irregularities are rife among European standards bodies. More information can be found on Groklaw and on Nooxml.org.

— 
Ciarán O’Riordan,
Support free software: Join FSFE’s Fellowship

I’m still being impressed by the quality of the reports of the ISO Ballot Resolution Meeting that are appearing. When I read the blogs on Monday, I was worried because I thought Microsoft did a top-notch job of spinning it their way. It was only later when someone reminded me to search the mainstream tech media that I saw that, while it may be a masterpiece, nobody’s buying it. Every report of the vote is critical.

As a friend pointed out, this is a tectonic shift – Microsoft’s credibility has taken a nose dive in the mainstream press. No journalist is willing to reprint Microsoft’s version of the story.

Maybe their real feeling about the vote can be seen by their silence about it on microsoft.com (or if there’s anything there, it’s not prominent) and the silence on the OOXML "community" site.

Two more long, quality post-BRM accounts I’d like to highlight:

• Some clarifications on the OOXML Ballot Resolution Meeting, by Greek delegate Antonis Christofides (with whom I had the pleasure of working on the anti-swapt campaign)
• Art of being mugged, by Rob Weir – part of the US delegation
• And I should add this Vint Cerf interview, on the state of the Internet, but also discussing OOXML (Groklaw)

Some of the key critical statements picked up by the press were from Frank Farance. Farance is a very senior figure in the standards process and was head of the US delegation (which voted against approval) at the meeting. One IDG article quotes him with: "It’s like if you had a massive software project and 80 per cent of it was not run through QA […] I’ve never seen anything like this, and I’ve been doing this for 25 years."

All that said, this is just the media battle. The official result of the meeting was approval – albeit with everyone unhappy about the procedure and a lot of questions of validity. The real vote will take place on March 29th. ISO voting members clearly should reject this application for fast track, but it’s not at all certain that they will. We have to keep up the pressure on the national bodies to scrutinise this application.

— 
Ciarán O’Riordan,
Support free software: Join FSFE’s Fellowship

Rather than declaring victory, my previous blog entry should have said: we have another month of hard work ahead. It seems I missed the not-so-subtle difference between *really should* and *surely will*. I’ve even heard that it currently looks very realistic that OOXML will get final approval.

In checking how I wrongly drew my "victory" conclusion, I found some interesting coverage:

• Andy Updegrove’s Standards Blog – already updated with 8 first hand accounts and with comments posted by BRM Convenor Alex Brown. It’s worth at least skimming the comments for the comments of Alex Brown and the replies by Andy (whose username is "Admin").
• ComputerWorld: Changes to OOXML Draft Standard Waved Through
• Reuters: Bureaucracy swamps ISO meeting on Microsoft format (with quotes from Shane Coughlan)
• Sun’s Tim Bray: BRM narrative a critical review of the process managed by Alex Brown "a good guy in a lousy situation"
• Weak ISO support for changes to Open XML throws shadow over final approval
• Microsoft’s Jason Matusow: The Open XML BRM an unqualified success – if you want to know how Microsoft will spin this, it’s all in this blog entry.
• Microsoft’s Brian Jones: BRM is done, time to sleep a bland blog entry
• Groklaw’s BRM story and Updegrove interview – same link I posted on Friday, interesting comments about the ISO process

So, rather than being an easy celebration, Document Freedom Day is something that we have to work toward.

— 
Ciarán O’Riordan,
Support free software: Join FSFE’s Fellowship

After a week of hard work from many sides, Andy Updegrove comments the result: OOXML failed to achieve majority approval at ISO’s Ballot Resolution Meeting.

This means the problems found in the OOXML specification last September have not been resolved, making final rejection almost certain in 30 days time. [UPDATE: Oops. Rejection’s not at all certain] Groklaw has also just published an interview Sean Daly did with Andy there in Geneva before the result. In it, he explains the government-like privileged position ISO holds, why the ISO process coped badly, and why ICT standards are as important as the freedoms of free software.

One more thing to celebrate on Document Freedom Day this coming March 26th.

— 
Ciarán O’Riordan,
Support free software: Join FSFE’s Fellowship

With ISO’s Ballot Resolution Meeting starting next Monday (Feb 25th), there’ve been a few interesting publications today:

• DIS-29500: Deprecated before use? by FSFE’s OOXML working group, explaining why Microsoft’s format was undeserving from the start, how it now fails even its own criteria for usefulness.
• A Pre-BRM Miscellany, "Photo ID requirements, badged access to the meeting room, prohibitions against cameras and recording devices, no observers, no press."
• Developers warned over OOXML patent risk – ZDNet Australia article about concern over the meaning of terms in Microsoft’s Open Specification Promise
• A photo of a printed copy of the OOXML specification 🙂

Update: I originally misattributed the "Deprecated before use" article – it was actually a group effort, so thanks to Shane Coughlan, Georg Greve, and Marko Milenovic among others.</p/

— 
Ciarán O’Riordan,
Support free software: Join FSFE’s Fellowship