Here are the conditions to read the content of the Czech Presidency's website:

How do I download documents from the website?

Next to the titles of the downloadable documents you can see the document type (word, pdf or other format) and its size.

* Acrobat Documents (.pdf)

If you want to download and read a pdf document, you need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. You can download a free version of the programme here: www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/

* Microsoft Word Documents (.doc and .rtf)

In order to read a Word document, you need to have Microsoft Word or another piece of software that can read this type of documents installed on your computer. You can download a free version of the programme here: www.microsoft.com/downloads

* Microsoft Excel Documents (.xls)

In order to read an Excel document, you need to have Microsoft Excel or another piece of software that can read this type of documents installed on your computer. You can download a free version of the programme here: www.microsoft.com/downloads/

* PowerPoint Documents (.ppt)

In order to read a PowerPoint document, you need to have Microsoft PowerPoint or another piece of software that can read this type of documents installed on your computer. You can download a free version of the programme here: www.microsoft.com/downloads

No need to say that Microsoft is an official sponsor of the Czech Presidency:

Here is the list of contributors, the contributions will be published soon:

Your contributions

The draft document from which the final EIF V2.0 will be elaborated was available for external comments till the 22nd September.

IDABC has received 53 comments from various stakeholders:

1. ACT - Association for Competitive Technology
2. AETIC - Spanish Electronics, Information Technology and Telecommunications Industries Association
3. AFDEL - L’Association Française des Editeurs de Logiciels
4. Association des Petites Villes de France
5. ATIX - Viennese Professional Association of Information Technology
6. Bartlomiej Jesionkiewicz (citizen)
7. Bernd Kappenberg (citizen)
8. BITKOM - German Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media
9. BSA - Business Software Alliance
10. Capgemini
11. CEN Cultural Diversity Focus Group
12. CEN/ISSS Forum
13. CompTIA - Computing Technology Industry Association
14. COSS - Finnish Centre for Open Source Solutions
15. Dassault Systèmes
16. DIN - Standards Committee on Information Technology and Applications
17. Dr. Glyn Moody (citizen)
18. ECIS - European Committee for Interoperable Systems
19. EICTA - The European Information, Communications and Consumer Electronics Technology Industry Association
20. ESOMA - European Software Market Association
21. ETSI - The European Telecommunications Standards Institute
22. FASTeTEN - Fully Automated Secured Transactions services
23. GBO.Overheid
24. Gerard Freriks (citizen)
25. Gerry Gavigan (citizen)
26. Hollandopen
27. IASI-CNR - Istituto di Analisi dei Sistemi ed Informatica "Antonio Ruberti" - Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
28. ICC - International Chamber of Commerce of Hungary
29. IDE net
30. Intellect - Information Technology Telecommunications and Electronics Association
31. Jukka Rannila (citizen)
32. LSB - Lithuanian Standards Board
33. Markku Oraviita (citizen)
34. Microsoft
35. National Technical University of Athens
36. Netherlands Normalization Institute
37. Nexor
38. Nicola Guarino (citizen)
39. Norwegian Research Council
40. Open Forum Europe
41. Open Standards Alliance
42. Oracle
43. Pensive SA
44. Philips
45. PLANET SA
46. RedHat
47. Serafin Casamayor Navarro (citizen)
48. Sergio Farruggia (citizen)
49. Slawomir Paszkowski and Rasmus Kirkegaard Mortensen (citizens)
50. Sun Microsystems
51. Universal Interoperability Council
52. VITAKO - German County Association
53. Will J Godfrey (citizen)

Open standards: the European Council refused to supply the contracts concluded with Microsoft
7 Novembre, 2008 - 10:29

Marco Cappato MEP asked the Council to provide him the contract concluded by the Council and Microsoft, and the Study on the Open Source realized by the interinstitutional committee on informatics in 2005. The Council refused to supply these documents. As the Council quoted these documents in an answer given to Cappato's written question on the adoption of open source facilities as support to the institution's work, Cappato claimed for these records.

The Council negative answer was motivated saying that "because these contracts establish specific terms and conditions for the European institutions, the divulgation of those information could jeopardize the protection of commercial interest of Microsoft. Acknowledging that the divulgations of the records are not backed by a clear public interest, the Secretariat general concludes that the protection of Microsoft's commercial interests, being one of the commercial partners of the European institutions, prevails on the divulgation for the public interest".

Regarding the Study made in 2005 the Council "has not keep any copy of the Study. The Secretariat general suggests to ask a copy to the interistututional committee on informatics' archives".

FFII is supporting the petition asking the European Parliament to adopt Open Standards:

Open Parliament is a petition for open standards use in the European Parliament as to enable non-discriminatory access for all European citizens to its representatives irrespective of software choices. "It is important that citizens enjoy the right to access government documents and to view parliamentary records without being required to buy the products of a particular vendor and that they can communicate with the authorities and their services independent of which software vendor they choose." writes FFII board member Georg Jakob in the letter to the MEPs and asks them to base their communications and documentation on open standards.

Here is the agenda for tomorrow:

Thursday, 6 November 2008, at 9.00 and at 15.00
PHS P4B001
rue Wiertz
BRUSSELS
DRAFT AGENDA

[…]

at 15 h.

[…]

Competition

25.
a.) N° 282/2008 by Graham Taylor (British), on behalf of OpenForumEurope, on the implications of ICT lock-in for participative democracy and for competition (in the presence of the petitioners): PETI20081106_sir282-08_EN
b.) N° 147/2008 by Klaus-Jürgen Sauer (German), on being required by the state to purchase Microsoft products:
PETI20081106_sir147-08_EN

There is also a discussion on the role of open standards in the afternoon somewhere in the Parliament (let's hope someone will record it):

Introduction:
Graham Taylor - OpenForum Europe

Economic Impact of Standards
Rishab Aiyer Gosh - Senior Researcher UNU-MERIT

Implementation of Open Standards policy in the Belgium public administration
Peter Strickx - DG Arquitecture & Standards, FEDICT, Belgium

Hugo Lueders, CompTIA

Statement of the Commission
DIGIT (Christos Ellinides)

Statement of the Parliament
DG ITEC

Note that Mr Lueders is a well-known Microsoft & Software Patents lobbyist, who wants to raise a patent tax on every EU citizen who wants to access governmental documents via discriminatory patented standards.

The OpenParliament has also drawn the attention of other Microsoft drones earlier on.

From: Voices for Innovation [mailto:eu@voicesforinnovation.info]
Sent: 22. september 2008
Subject: Policy Alert: Open Source activists secure close to 100 signatures in effort to mandate OSS

Open Source activists secure close to 100 signatures in effort to mandate OSS

Over the past few weeks radical elements in the open source community have intensified their efforts in the European Parliament. They are attempting to significantly change the existing public procurement framework, which follows a policy of technology neutrality, by introducing an open source software preference.

The Parliament’s current approach reflects a much more balanced view, as it uses both proprietary and open source technology. The Members of the European Parliament (MEPs overseeing the Parliament’s IT spending follow the clear line that the Parliament’s IT procurement choices must be based on reasonable and objective criteria, such as “interoperability, cost/value for money, reliability, vendor support, ease of use and security”, thus ensuring the best value for tax payers money. If the Parliament moves away from this established policy we must fear that the choice available to both citizens and institutions will be significantly reduced, limiting the functionality and user-friendliness of the European Parliament’s portals.

Next week their efforts will intensify further, as they are planning to approach Members of the European Parliament with the view of signing and supporting a draft entitled “Written Declaration on the use of Open-source software”. The draft has been tabled for consideration by MEPs in May and calls on the Parliament to migrate its entire computer network to Open Source software as a means to tackle the digital divide in Europe. Open Source proponents need to collect signatures of the 50% +1 Members of the European Parliament by next Thursday. At the moment they are far from reaching that number – clearly as many of the MEPs have seen through the ploy of masking an attempt to change the procurement policy of an institution, with a cause benefiting the disadvantaged members of our society.

It is unclear how the proponents of this draft Declaration draw a link between implementing an ‘Open-source software only’ policy in the European Parliament and confronting the challenges of the digital divide. The major challenges of the digital divide are widely regarded to be the consequence of limited access, poverty, social exclusion, personal factors (age, disability) or education and skills gaps. The exclusion of proprietary software models could potentially result in a significant increase of people without access to technology – thus achieving the exact opposite of what they set out to do - increasing the digital divide in Europe.

In order to address these challenges, governments, industry (including proprietary and OSS vendors) and civil society are already working together to drive greater awareness of the benefits of technology and investing in e-skills and education across the populations – see for example the European Alliance on Skills for Employability. The main goal of the Alliance is to help better co-ordinate industry and community investments, services and other offerings, dialogue and engagement with NGOs and public authorities in a way that enhances the positive impact of ICT literacy and professional training on employability prospects of the young, the disabled, older workers and other unemployed or under-employed people throughout the European Union – thereby seeking to address the digital divide.

The Written declaration therefore falls short of doing anything about its stated objective. In fact it does something much more radical, which many of the ones signing it might well not have been aware of – it drastically changes the procurement policies of European institutions, effectively excluding all but OSS solutions from its use.

Should you be interested in presenting an opinion to your local Member of Parliament please contact ofni.noitavonnirofseciov|ue#ofni.noitavonnirofseciov|ue

More information will be posted up on the following website https://www.voicesforinnovation.org/

Links to the written declaration can be found on the European Commission’s website http://osor.eu/news/meps-petition-european-parliament-switch-to-open-source

Here is the resolution in plain text:

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
2004- 2009

19.5.2008

0046/2008

WRITTEN DECLARATION
pursuant to Rule 116 of the Rules of Procedure by Jean Louis Cottigny, Pierre Pribetich, Michel Rocard, Bronisław Geremek and Daniel Cohn-Bendit on the use of open source software

Lapse date: 25.9.2008

DC\721370EN.doc
PE406.962v01-00
EN

0046/2008 Written declaration on the use of open source software

The European Parliament, – having regard to Rule 116 of its Rules of Procedure,

A. having regard to the growing disparities in access to information and communication technologies in the European Union, reflected in the establishment of a digital divide, a new cause of social disparity which further excludes an already vulnerable population,

B. whereas these new technologies have become an essential tool in areas as varied as employment, education, information etc.,

C. whereas European citizens have the inalienable right freely to access documents and information from the institutions which represent them,

D. whereas the use of open source software is one of the effective ways of reducing this digital divide and whereas this solution, established by some Member States in their administrations, delivers significant results,

1. Calls on the European Union to take the necessary measures to help finance public research on open source software;

2. Calls for Parliament to switch its whole computer network to this type of software;

3. Instructs its President to forward this declaration, together with the names of the signatories, to the parliaments of the Member States, the Council and the Commission, so that they may join forces on this measure.

http://www.europarltv.europa.eu/ supplies video in two primary formats. Our content is primarily streamed in Windows Media Video format and Flash Video. To support our video players, you must be using a PC running a standard Microsoft Operating system or an Apple Mac. We currently fully support our video on Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari browsers on both the PC and Mac.

This is the webpage I got by visiting the Configuration Helping page:

Configuration
Operating system : Linux - undefined
Browser : Firefox - 3.0
Windows Media Player : not detected (version false)
QuickTime : not detected (version false)
Mozilla ActiveX control and plugin support : not detected
Windows Media Player Firefox Plugin : not detected
Players and plugins
Other browser : message to be defined

They also invite people who are not happy to file petitions:

How do I email Members or the President of the European Parliament?

The current composition of the European Parliament is set out under "Members of the European Parliament" - in alphabetical order or searchable by country, group, committee, … or a combination of these criteria. This information covers all - but only - the current MEPs and is updated daily. Email addresses are given only for those MEPs who wish them to be published. It is however possible to send a Petition to the European Parliament via email on the official form - but please read the relevant Help page first!

So let's start a petition then.

(iv) Open Standards

121. Among technology standards, there is particular interest for “open standards”. While there is no universally accepted definition of that term, all open standards have the following common characteristics: (i) the specification is publicly available without cost or for a reasonable fee to any interested party; (ii) any IP rights necessary to implement the standard are available to all implementers on RAND terms, either with or without payment of a reasonable royalty or fee; and (iii) the specification should be in sufficient detail to enable a complete understanding of its scope and purpose and to enable competing implementations by multiple vendors. Some define open standards as publicly available technical specifications that have been established in a voluntary, consensus-driven, transparent and open process, others appear to add to this definition the requirement that an open standard has to be available royalty-free. The defenders of the first definition favor patent policies on a RAND basis, which they believe to maximize flexibility through a commitment to license combined with the right of patent holders to receive reasonable and adequate compensation for their sharing of their technology, and trust in the co-existence of this model and a royalty-free model. They also question how, in a royalty-free environment, investments in research and development could be maintained in the long run and how a broad participation in standard-setting processes could be maintained. On the other hand, the advocates of the latter approach are convinced that society as a whole would benefit from the open and royalty-free access to standards, as it is the case, for example, in the Internet context, which had been established precisely in order to allow the free publication and retrieval of information from the web. According to them, this model would best ensure interoperability, greater innovation and consumer welfare. In addition, they argue that, even where a royalty-free policy is adopted, the benefit of standardization may outweigh the loss of royalty income in certain technologies, simply through greater quantities of a certain product being sold.

122. In this context, the notion of “open source” is often mentioned, but it should not be confused with open standards. While open standards are technical specifications developed in transparent and open processes and are available for implementation on reasonable and non discriminatory terms, but not necessarily royalty free, “open source” rather refers to a software distribution model based on an IPR, mainly copyright. Generally speaking, open-source software refers to software for which the source code (underlying programming code) is made freely available for use, reading the code, changing it or developing further versions of the software, including adding amendments to it (see sub-Chapter (c)(i) below for further details regarding open source). While open source software has been used to implement some ICT standards, other standards are implemented through proprietary software or, as is increasingly the case, through the use of mixed platforms that combine both open source and proprietary software. When governments and other users are in the process of selecting a specific technology to meet their needs for interoperability and/or free use of that technology, in addition to the open or proprietary nature of any software involved, factors such as overall costs, the maturity of the technology, and the support offered, should be taken into account.

According to Groklaw, also Denmark has objected:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080531134006167

PJ also discusses what happens next and how the complaints relate to ISO's code of ethics.

Letter To The Editor

We need to work together on live streaming challenge
Published: Friday 23 May 2008
Jonathan Zuck, President, Association for Competitive Technology

Sir,

Regarding 'Parliament under pressure for shunning free software':

While we sympathise with the FFII petition to the European Parliament
on streaming plenary sessions, we are equally concerned about broad
categorical mandates with regard to software procurement. While the
notion of "non-discrimination" is worthy, the idea of mandates is a
slippery slope. If I only have a slow modem connection in my home,
should I circulate a petition to prevent the distribution of broadband
content by the Parliament because it is discriminatory? In truth,
there are free alternatives for viewing Widows Media including
TurboLinux, Xine, Real and InterVideo.

Obviously the agenda here is political and not the public clamouring
to watch more plenaries on their computers but contrary to the
rhetoric of a vocal minority, commercial software is not the
playground of big business, but primarily of inventive SMEs thriving
in niche markets. Only the protection of their intellectual property
permits those small business innovators to create growth and jobs.

Commercial software must therefore be allowed to compete on a
level-playing field with other software types. Public procurement
decisions should be based on technology neutrality, allowing
governments to buy software on its merit and not through categorical
preferences. To advise otherwise is to demand the imposition of one
business model over another.

As technologists, let's work together to devise a solution to the
streaming challenge presented to the Parliament that does not involve
overthrowing a solid technology but is creative in delivering that
technology to a broader audience.

Jonathan Zuck

President

Association for Competitive Technology ( ACT external )

Washington and Brussels

To correct the article of EurActiv, the 2 petitions are not about free software adoption, but well about free and open standards, which are not the same as free software. So the article of EurActiv misses the point and has a confusing title.

Mr Zuck is also mentioning the possibility to decode the WMV format with other applications then Microsoft Windows Media Player:

In truth, there are free alternatives for viewing Widows Media including TurboLinux, Xine, Real and InterVideo.

We need to be precise about what reasonable and non-discriminatory actually means. A restaurant in apartheid South Africa said it allowed both Boers and English, so was "not discriminatory". It even let some Jews in. However it banned non-whites.

Reasonable and non-discriminatory in patent licensing means "we apply a uniform fee". However with respect to Microsoft's legacy OOXML format, one party controls the standard and the associated patents. All market players need to license except the patent owner. For dominant standards it is a tax on the market. It seems highly unreasonable that such standards should become international standards, mandatory for government users.

You may find it unreasonable for an ubiquitous standard. But there is a more insidious aspect. RAND patent licensing conditions are a tool to ban Free Software, which is entirely incompatible with RAND licensing conditions. Now one side of the debate blames it on the patent licensing conditions, the other side on the software licensing conditions.

The reason I agree with the statement about patents and Free Software not mixing is that there have been terms written into GPL licenses that explicitly conflict with software patents. Okay, that is the choice of the authors and users of those licenses.

It sounds a bit like: well, you chose to marry an African woman, so we cannot let you into the restaurant. Free choice, right?

Yes, Matusow calls his standards with RAND conditions "open standards" and contradicts the commonly accepted definition of "open standards". We should speak about shared standards. These shared standards appear to discriminate less, but they still discriminate against the only real competitor to Microsoft's hegemony.

It is true that ISO, driven by simple pragmatism, allows shared standards. From the ISO/IEC directives:

14.1 If, in exceptional situations, technical reasons justify such a step, there is no objection in principle to preparing an International Standard in terms which include the use of items covered by patent rights – defined as patents, utility models and other statutory rights based on inventions, including any published applications for any of the foregoing – even if the terms of the standard are such that there are no alternative means of compliance.

Generally international standards and patents are like water and oil, and RAND conditions are the soap that allow them to mix. But as the move towards Open Standards evolves, shared standards get more and more unacceptable. Shared standards do discriminate and do appear to be unreasonable.

It is time to adapt the legal definition of reasonable and non-discriminatory to common sense.

The predictions, made in a keynote address by Mike Rhodin, General Manager of IBM Lotus software, at the VoiceCon conference here, include:

1. The Virtual Workplace will become the rule. No need to leave the office. Just bring it along. Desk phones and desktop computers will gradually disappear, replaced by mobile devices, including laptops, that take on traditional office capabilities. Social networking tools and virtual world meeting experiences will simulate the feeling on being there in-person. Work models will be changed by expanded globalization and green business initiatives that reduce travel and encourage work at home.
2. Instant Messaging and other real-time collaboration tools will become the norm, bypassing e-mail. Just as e-mail became a business necessity, a new generation of workers has a new expectation for instant messaging (IM) as the preferred method of business interaction. This will fuel more rapid adoption of unified communications as traditional IM becomes the core extension point for multi-modal communications.
3. Beyond Phone Calls to Collaborative Business Processes. Companies will go beyond the initial capabilities of IM, like click-to-call and online presence, to deep integration with business processes and line-of-business applications, where they can realize the greatest benefit.
4. Interoperability and Open Standards will tear down proprietary walls across business and public domains. Corporate demand for interoperability and maturing of industry standards will force unified communications providers to embrace interoperability. Converged, aggregated, and rich presence will allow businesses and individuals to better find and reach the appropriate resources, removing inefficiencies from business processes and daily lives.
5. New meeting models will emerge. Hang up on routine, calendared conference calls. The definition of "meetings" will radically transform and become increasingly adhoc and instantaneous based on context and need. 3-D virtual world and gaming technologies will significantly influence online corporate meeting experiences to deliver more life-like experiences demanded by the next generation workers who will operate more efficiently in this familiar environment.

Mike Rhodin also takes IBM responsibility for the region North Eastern Europe.

There is an urgent need to reverse the vapor:

"IPR issues: The Commission departments favour the (F)RAND approach to dealing with IPR rights. During the consultation process the (F)RAND approach as such has not been called into question however some comments highlighted the difficulties in providing a clear interpretation of the concepts of "non-discriminatory" and "reasonable". Other comments noted the complexity and the high costs involved in monitoring patent search and patent data bases. Some organisations, such as ETSI already initiated major IPR related activities. Others noted the importance and benefits of intellectual property as an incentive for IPR holders to voluntarily contribute to standardisation; There is a need to further analyse and clarify the situation before initiating any specific actions. The Commission therefore proposes organising a dedicated open consultation workshop in 2008. All stakeholders, and in particular standards developing organisations and public authorities will be invited to present their expectations and share their experiences. Following the workshop it should become clearer whether and what further actions are required."

Also:

"Furthermore, the Commission services believe that where standards are used in a public policy context; they should be issued by organisations that accede to the “FRAND” principles (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) in their IPR policy. Royalty-free handling of IPR is part of FRAND but should not be made mandatory by the legislator or public procurement authority. The Commission is fully aware of the intense debate currently being conducted on IPR issues in ICT standards and on FRAND or royalty-free IPR handling. Since it is clearly very difficult to define objective criteria to determine whether an organisation may be considered to be applying FRAND principles, the Commission will continue to work on this issue."

And:

"7. Intellectual Property Rights: IPRs essential to the implementation of standards will be licensed to applicants on a (fair) reasonable and non-discriminatory basis (F)RAND, which may permit, at the discretion of the IPR holder, licensing essential IPR without compensation. However, Royalty free (RF) IPR cannot be imposed by the Commission or a public procurement authority;"

And finally:

"9. Neutrality and stability: Standards should whenever possible, be performance-oriented rather than based on design or descriptive characteristics. They should not distort the (global) market, and should maintain the capacity for implementers to develop competition and innovation based upon them. Additionally and in order to enhance their stability, standards should be based on advanced scientific and technological developments."

Please, policy and standard makers, kindly do standards and laws which don't disturb the business of monopolies…

And please exclude those FLOSS pirates, they can't use our algorithms for free.

It might be a good idea to contribute to the discussion by submitting your views.

Here is a screenshot (you won't see the video, I am running Xubuntu Linux):

I thought the European Court of Justice asked Microsoft to unbundle the Media Player product out of the de facto, unrefundable and pre-installed Microsoft Windows OEM:

Microsoft forced to split Windows, Media Player by EU

Microsoft will have to begin offering versions of Windows without Windows Media Player built-in, according to a ruling handed down today by the President of the European Union Court of First Instance.

There is still some work to do to get cross-platform and interoperability, in order to get all the citizens (such as the ones running Plan9, Solaris, OpenBSD, Qtopia, Linux PPC, OS/2, etc…) on the same equal foot.

Members of ECIS stress that an open standard has the following characteristics:

[…]

• Available royalty-free or on a FRAND basis that does not discriminate against the open source software development or licensing model.[3]

(The level of royalties is highly dependent on the specific policy context and ECIS refers to its response to recommendaton 10, regarding lack of guidance on what FRAND should be taken to mean in terms of appropriate levels of royalty. ECIS additionally wishes to point out that there is significant use of royalty-free IPR licensing in software standardization.)

This sounds like a reasonable and discriminatory compromise towards shareware or proprietary freeware, no?

There are also some comments by other associations such as EICTA:

EICTA does not have definitive and complete views on IPR policy matters in standardisation and, considering the other objectives of the Commission through this study, welcomes the Commission's intention not to put IPR policy matters into the focus of this study on ICT standardisation in Europe, or to make any policy recommendations in the field of IPR in this context, especially based on the first
interim report.

EICTA generally welcomes the support of the European Commission to help SDOs discuss and establish clear IPR rules for use of IPRs in standards.

There are also some comments from ANEC, the European consumer voice in standardisation:

In addition to the above, the sources on this topic quoted in the study refer exclusively to participation of SMEs in standardisation, not consumers. Of course, when we refer to the participation of consumers in standardisation this should refer to the organised participation of consumers, both at the national or European levels. In this context, reference to individual consumer participation is out of scope.

Source: Rob Weir: "662 resolutions, but only if you can find them"

Microsoft has managed to get JTC1 to clamp down on information. What was a transparent process is now mired in multiple levels of security leading to delay, denial of information to some NB participants and total opaqueness to the public.

Let's review how things worked with ODF.

1. OASIS ODF TC mailing list archives are public for anyone to read
2. OASIS ODF TC public comment list archives are public for anyone to read
3. OASIS ODC meeting minutes, for every one of our weekly teleconferences going back to 2002, are all public for anyone to read.
4. The results of ODF's ballot in ISO are public, including all of the NB comments
5. The comments on ODF from SC34 members are also public
6. The ISO Disposition of Comments report for ODF is also public for anyone to read

Short of allowing the public to read my mind, there is not much more we can do in OASIS to make the process more transparent. (And if you read this blog regularly you already have a good idea of what I'm thinking.)

But what about the OOXML process? Every single one of the above items is unavailable to the public, and in many cases cases is not available even to the JTC1 NB's who are deciding OOXML's fate.

They comment on what is an open standard:

The Gartner report addresses the topic of open standards. However, EICTA notices that the report does not seem to reflect a consistent concept of what constitutes an open standard.[3] EICTA would like to emphasize that there are various ideas about what constitutes an ,,open" standard. Within EICTA, regarding the issue of IPR licensing, there is support for including both RF (royalty free) and (Fair) Reasonable and Non- Discriminatory ((F)RAND) licensing among ,,open licensing concepts".[4]

Well "within EICTA" probably means that they did not ask their 10,000 SMEs indirect members on what was an open standard, but the decision was probably made by a workgroup composed large pro-software patents companies, such as Philips, Alcatel, Nokia, Ericsson, Microsoft, Siemens and the like.

Here is what they recommend:

Therefore, rather than getting stuck on the semantics of an open standards definition, EICTA recommends to refrain from giving such a definition but proposes to take a more pragmatic approach and focus on both technical and non-technical essential requirements and criteria for choice of standards to be used in the EIF/IDABC context and to facilitate decisions from public authorities.

It is up to the governments to decide whether requiring royalty-free patent licensing is the preferred choice as a customer in the context of eGovernment service offerings. Nonetheless, EICTA believes, whether royalty-free or not, that the (F)RAND regime of IPR licensing is appropriate, provided that the (F)RAND conditions are strictly respected by all participants. Specifically, EICTA strongly suggests to public authorities that good standard governance and availability of IPR licenses under the IPR policy of the respective standards organisation or forum are a much preferred solution to avoid vendor dependencies.

For almost all the rest of the IT industry, the choice is clear: Use one only (open) standard to avoid confusion and promote real free competition and an innovation environment. But which one? The response is obvious: The already existing and official OpenDocument Format, ISO 26300, that lets the consumers to choice among the greatest number of office applications (currently are available more than 50 apps. well supporting it [1]).

From the Microsoft side the response is clear also: Let's have two incompatible ISO standards in a way that finally only Microsoft can correctly implement the winner one and in this way it will continue holding the current monopoly in the office applications market. And why Microsoft thinks that "Office OpenXML" (ECMA-OOXML), its proposed standard to ISO, will be the winner standard? So easy, it starts from a dominating or indeed monopolistic position in the market. They think that all the current users of the different versions of its MS-Office suite will naturally migrate to its new format simply updating (paying for) to the recent new version of its current office applications and creating the well known network effect: If anybody sends an OOXML document, who recives it will be forced to use also the same new MS-Office to read it correctly, and at the same time s/he will send more OOXML documents to others in a way, at the end, to force everybody to use the new Microsoft format and the application to which it is tied to. This is the well known "vendor lock-in" classical strategy. Nothing new in IT.

This position is clearly described on this (silly?) Microsoft position paper:
- "Users Get to Decide their Document Formats" [2]
Published: June 15, 2007 | Updated: June 15, 2007

But, why nobody, except Microsoft, will be able to fully and correctly interpret and implement OOXML (officially named ECMA-376 or at this ISO stage as “DIS 29500”)?

Just a few reasons:

1) It is fully covered by software patents and there is no any worldwide legal warranty that they can be infringed without severe penalty. Microsoft just released a tiny "promisse", and the ECMA call-it-standardization-process doesn't warranty the disclosing of _all_ the patents by the members of the standardization committee (in this case, basically Microsoft itself). So, in any moment, we could find a new "235 patent menace" to any or all the "non-approved-by-Microsoft" ECMA-OOXML implementators. Go to history: Microsoft already is threatening in this way today to all Linux distributions.

2) Today nobody implements the proposed standard ECMA-OOXML. Neither Microsoft itself, who implements the sightly but enough different, original and undisclosed MS-OOXML.

3) The ECMA-OOXML specification containing more than 6.000 pages (perhaps should opt for the Guinnes Record) not even is complete. There are a lot of parts of the specification that refer to information that is not public, but Microsoft internal, eg. rules as "autoSpaceLikeWord95" or "useWord97LineBreakRules".

4) The ECMA-OOXML specification is not XML compliant and is tightly coupled to MS-Windows and MS-Office products, preventing in this way any 100% compatible implementation in competing platforms. There are parts of the specification that codify the information in binary format as printer formats (Windows dependant), Windows Metafiles, old binary VML with (just) 600 pages of specification instead of the (textually) "newer and richer" DrawingML proposed by Microsoft itself, "Custom Property Part" that not only is binary but also undefined in the specification, etc. Additionally, more than 10% of the examples mentioned in the specification does not validate XML conformity.

5) The ECMA-OOXML specification contradicts a lot of existing ISO standards such as ISO 8601 (Representation of dates and times), ISO 639 (Codes for the Representation of Names and Languages) or ISO/IEC 10118-3 (cryptographic hash algorithms). But also other open standards widely used as SVG, XForms, XSL-FO, MathML, etc. that on the contrary ISO 26300 respects.

6) The ECMA-OOXML specification includes indeed severe bugs as the one that prevents the representation of any date previous to the year 1900. The reason: It is a legacy bug heritaged from ancient 16bits MS-Office applications that has been implemented as is, instead of corrected, by all the MS-Office versions up to date.

7) Even standards have standards to follow. But ECMA-OOXML does not! ISO clearly states in its ISO/IEC Guide 2:2004, definition 3.2: "Standards should be based on the consolidated results of science, technology and experience, and aimed at the promotion of optimum community benefits." But on the contrary, no other player than Microsoft has been able to provide its "consolidated results", and so, it is intended only for Microsoft benefit.

So, as conclusion, OOXML is just a proprietary specification which is being pushed through the standardization acceptance process to protect Microsoft's interests and preserve the dominant market share that Microsoft Office currently holds.

Please, spread this information and vote against it! [3]

—
Alberto Barrionuevo
FFII Vice President
Open Standards coordinator
OpenXML (OOXML) no debe ser ISO 29500 (ES & PT)

[1] OpenDocument Fellowship: Applications supporting ODF:
[2] Microsoft: "Users Get to Decide their Document Formats"
[3] FFII: Petition "Say NO to the Microsoft Office format as an ISO standard"

7a. (new) Calls on the Commission to establish uniform definitions for such terms as 'open standards' and 'fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licences', and to promote the use of standards in such a way that safeguards a reasonable return on investment for owners of intellectual property, but without creating 'windfall' profits out of intellectual property in standards;

This goes against the recommended definition of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF), which promotes the definition of open standards with royalty-free provisions.

Such RAND definition is promoted by EICTA, as well as the patent attorney of Nokia, which is known to be close from Mrs Bowles.

RAND is of course excluding open source implementations to be distributed freely, and is better renamed by "Non Reasonable and Discriminatory".