Brazil Appeals OOXML Decision 129
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Brazil is now appealing the ISO's decision to standardize OOXML, following South Africa's lead. Interestingly, part of the reason this took so long was that Microsoft supporters at the meetings kept asking for delays because they 'weren't prepared' to discuss the issues raised. And the ISO as a whole is moving rather slowly, after that delay in releasing the DIS. But at least the ISO is also rewriting the directives in a special working group so this doesn't happen again. Of course, they'd have to be strict about making sure the directives are followed for it to help."
first post! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:first post! (Score:5, Informative)
Instead developers do rely on reverse engineering laws (which have some provisions for patents) as they always have in the past for developing .doc filters.
If developers choose to ignore both the SFLC opinion of those who wrote the GPL and if they choose to ignore reverse engineering procedures and write ooxml filters anyway this does not make it lawful or disprove my point.
OOXML is against Open Source from a legal standpoint, an existing OSS software standpoint (doesn't build upon web standards like SVG but instead proposes things like VML), and against the philosophy of open development (developed at Ecma where even people like Goldberg could only ask for more information from Microsoft rather than actually helping fix or design the format)
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The license that the patented parts of OOXML is available under is not compatible with any open source license.
.doc filters.
Instead developers do rely on reverse engineering laws (which have some provisions for patents) as they always have in the past for developing
You mean now we will have to reverse engineer an ISO standard? Now I have seen it all. Yamaraj [wikipedia.org], I am all dressed up.
Re:first post! (Score:5, Informative)
Provide a legal opinion or stop the FUD.
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This is a legal matter and the experts have spoken against you so get a lawyer to respond to the specific points that the SFLC raise or (and I mean this respectfully) shut up.
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What implementations?
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The story I have heard is that the docx filter is basically a wrapper around the doc importer that was coded up pretty quickly because a doc importer already existed.
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http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/21/1821251&from=rss [slashdot.org]
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No, it's not about open source.
It's about competition. Open, usable standards help commercial companies as much as they do free open source efforts. The only ones disadvantaged are the current monopoly holders.
It won't matter. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem was NOT that they didn't have the rules in place.
The problem was that the rules were NOT followed. And ISO was unable (unwilling) to rectify the "errors" once they had been committed. And ISO is still unwilling to identify the individuals within its organization who committed the "errors" and take any action.
Re:It won't matter. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's one way of looking at it.
The other way of looking at it are that the ISO is naturally really, really slow and these appeals are the appropriate first step in showing that there was a problem.
No. (Score:5, Insightful)
Fixing the errors slowly means that ISO is worthless.
And WAITING for someone to APPEAL the process means that ISO is worse than worthless. They cannot even manage their own internal systems. For a "standards" organization, that is beyond unacceptable. That means they produce corrupted standards.
As evidence, I give you OOXML.
Re:No. (Score:4, Insightful)
Why the anger at ISO for this?
Microsoft deliberately subverted the ISO process. They were able to wield extraordinary levels of influence in committees all around the world. And let's face it, ISO is not the only organsation they have subverted. The US DoJ, state of Massachusetts, Libyan government, etc, etc have all succumbed at one time or another.
How many organsations would have been able to withstand the sort of pressure MS applied to ISO?
If this is evidence for anything, it's that Microsoft is out of control and must be split up, if only to reduce its power of influence.
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Fixing the errors slowly means that ISO is worthless."
What if fixing errors is part of the standard process? Couldn't a bad fix be worse than the errors in following the process?
Re:It won't matter. (Score:5, Informative)
That the final specification text for OOXML is not available [robweir.com] when it was due May 1st (or March 29th, depending on who you listen to) shows how the ISO aren't following their own rules. It also shows that there are a lot of problems getting OOXML into a state ready for public consumption because it's of such poor quality, that it was a premature abortion of a standard in no fit state to be useful to the world.
The ISO/IEC JTC1 and SC34 are now deprecated. Realy standards are made at OASIS.
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The ISO/IEC JTC1 and SC34 are now deprecated. Realy standards are made at OASIS.
"Real" standards are made at W3C. W3C Recommendations are under a royalty-free patent license, allowing anyone to implement them, unlike the "reasonable and non-discriminatory" (RAND) licensing model in other standard bodies including OASIS.
Of course, even W3C has its problems, as some people consider W3C to be dominated by larger organizations. Still, I consider W3C to be the most anti-proprietary standards body.
Now if only Ogg Theora became the baseline video standard for the Web and these larger organiz
HTML5 - do-over (Score:2, Informative)
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Re:It won't matter. (Score:5, Insightful)
The purpose of being a slow, deliberative body is to prevent major errors from being made in the first place.
Making errors quickly and then fixing them slowly is the worst possible combination of attributes for a governing body to have.
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ENT - ISO = DEE (As in Dee Dee Dee?)??
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Well, those fuckers sure managed to jam OOXML down our throats pretty damn fast!
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If a standards organization is in a position where correcting errors isn't feasible be it for technical, administrative, or political reasons, it is already ruined.
The speed of law (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but... (Score:4, Funny)
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That would be the speed of law in a vacuum. since most politicians are lawyers it is a humane way to treat them. after all they aren't rats.
Re:Yes, but... (Score:5, Funny)
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Just measure how fast statements from citizens about "constitutional rights" and "the good of the people" travel through one ear of an average politician and out the other.
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No need, just see how many laws they can think up in an hour. Their heads already contain a vacuum.
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Re:It won't matter. (Score:5, Insightful)
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The reason it makes sense to fast track is because problems with it will already have been addressed by the creator of the technology, and spending a lot of time hypothesizing about potential problems within the ISO doesn't make much sense.
OOXML doesn't qualify, so they were already deviating from the intended purpose before they even began to debate the tech
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That is particularly true since apparently even the creator of OOXML doesn't have a compliant implementation.
When will the US protest? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:When will the US protest? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:When will the US protest? (Score:5, Informative)
OT: your sig (Score:1)
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new rule (Score:5, Interesting)
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The US voted for approval from the start (big suprise: American company gets supported by an uninformed America) so we wouldn't be likely to protest.
Ummm, why would you automatically assume that the American delegates would vote against Google, IBM, Red Hat, Sun [odfalliance.org], and all the other American ODF Alliance members? This isn't "US vs. The World", it's "One US Company vs. The Rest".
Now, we know that M$ [1] stacked the deck here. In a hypothetical unbiased panel, though, voting for Microsoft isn't necessarily voting for the interests of America.
[1] When discussing the crap like they do like this, M$ is a perfectly reasonable abbreviation.
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Too Little Too Late (Score:5, Interesting)
ISO = I Sold Out (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless a bunch of heads roll and replaced non-corp people, the ISO would have a more credibility if they showed a price list than doing this.
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I think it's too soon to say that. Let's see what happens with the handling of the protests. ISO may yet redeem itself.
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It's fair to be outraged now, not to wait for history to judge this.
Re:ISO = I Sold Out (Score:5, Insightful)
This is attempting to correct the problem, yes. But saying that we should withhold judgment because ISO may redeem itself is nonsensical -- the concept of redemption implies that wrong has been done.
As it stands, ISO is worthless. If the appeal process goes anywhere, then we can talk about respecting them again.
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Too soon? They already bought the standard.
I don't think that's correct. It was approved, but IIRC, there are a couple more steps that have to happen before it's really final.
Also, I think the language applied by you and many others is too harsh. ISO's processes were designed in the context of a set of cooperating entities trying to achieve mutual consensus on a standard for the benefit of all. It's really no surprise that Microsoft was able to subvert it. Even within the current framework there is a mechanism to reverse the damage, and the
Re:ISO = I Sold Out (Score:4, Interesting)
ISO's been around for a while, and I can't see that this is the first standard that stood to make the controlling company rich. There's no doubt Microsoft would have remained in control of the standard, 6000 pages of complex specification that even they haven't yet implemented fully can mean nothing else.
So, are we about to see the dirty secrets of ISO revealed? Will we find that the top bods have been lining their little pockets?
I hope not, but I'm very dubious.
Re:ISO = I Sold Out (Score:5, Funny)
Does *not* beg the question (Score:1, Informative)
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It was not easy at all. Stuffing committees, bribing people and allocating staff to stall meetings must cost a bunch of money.
They did it, but it was not _that_ easy.
and the briber? (Score:5, Insightful)
ISO doesn't look good for having accepted the bribery.
What I don't understand is how Microsoft can keep pulling these sorts of stunts, and not suffer for it. What most people think is this: Office file format lock? Never realized formats could be open. WGA? Excused and forgiven. Bundling? Barely noticed, and when it is, feel that's a good thing. The anti-trust lawsuit? Delayed to death, then watered down to nothing. The CPU tax? Under the radar. DRM, and the attempt to suppress all non-MS multimedia formats? Mostly swallowed, because artists deserve a chance to make a profit. Though I understand Zune isn't doing too well. Miserable security? Fooled. Think that's normal, just part of life to have to live with Norton AV, and all the slowness and inconvenience. Vista? Jury is still out on that one, maybe this is the big one that will finally get people to question MS. As for this shenanigan, it will go unnoticed.
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You know, if Microsoft were in any other industry, they would have been sued to oblivion and back by now. Seriously, everything Microsoft has ever made has been shoddy, nonfunctional crap that would be rejected even by the members of the Pinto and Yugo Fans of America club!
Why wait? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why wait? (Score:5, Informative)
In Brazil, there is a working group made up of representatives of government, trade, and public organizations. Some of the trade reps to the working group are pro-MS and pro-OOXML. The group majority was ready to protest, but the OOXML-supporting minority asked them to wait so they could organize their side of the story. The working group, being made up of thoughtful and respectful people, gave them their chance to come up with counter-arguments. When nothing convincing was presented in time before the formal protest had to be lodged, they went and lodged the protest.
This doesn't have to do with the Brazilian government vs. Microsoft Corp. (at least, not on the surface). This was a group of people who represent Brazil at the ISO, some of whom happen to support MS and their views on the world.
Re:Why wait? (Score:5, Informative)
The author of the linked article felt strongly enough about the distinction between protest and appeal that he has resigned his position.
I do not understand fully the difference between the protest and an appeal, but strongly suspect that the former does not lead to a requirement to re-open consideration of whether the proposal should be accepted as a standard.
As the author makes clear in his article, M$ has triumphed again, excellent meeting engineers that they are, and Brazil and the rest of us have lost again.
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It's not worthless because it will help rise the issue to other nations but it's not worth much :(
MOD PARENT UP (Score:5, Informative)
The article is very difficult to read, due to poor English (no offense meant - I don't speak a word of Portuguese!) However, having waded through it, it is clear the parent is correct, and the summary is completely wrong.
The article's author is resigning from the ABNT, specifically because it is not appealing. It is only "protesting", whatever that means. The article claims the failure to appeal is due to Microsoft supporters claiming they did not have enough time to weigh the arguments, which sounds a bit rich in the circumstances.
Luckily, it became right... (Score:4, Informative)
Source:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080529202924937 [groklaw.net]
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20080529150227123 [consortiuminfo.org]
- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property [eff.org]
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
Getting the details right is very important if you want to convince people that you know what you're talking about, or convince them to support your position. This kind of sloppy summary just hurts what seems to be an otherwise important argument.
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Fortunately, as I wrote TFA's author requesting to see ABNT's letter anyway, I was surprised to know that ABNT actually submitted an appeal to ISO. (Which the author himself didn't knew up to the time of blogging).
ABNT's full letter can be found in this other blog [consortiuminfo.org].
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Opendoc (Score:1, Insightful)
If I see the effort that was put in the C standard, compared to the current standards, I can only be very very sad.
Re:Opendoc (Score:4, Informative)
ODF went through the regular vetting procedure; it might have been rushed, but it passed all of the standards checks. OOXML, on the other hand, went through the fast track process normally reserved for formats that are already in use and mature but not yet official standards. Rushing a fast-track procedure on a format that should never have been submitted to it in the first place is miles away from keeping the regular process moving along as fast as possible. At least the end result for ODF was a usable standard, even if it still contained a few flaws that needed to be fixed. OOXML still doesn't even have a published final draft of the standard.
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OOXML, on the other hand, went through the fast track process normally reserved for formats that are already in use and mature but not yet official standards.
I certainly don't want to make light of Microsoft's blatant manipulation of the processes, but in some sense the Microsoft Office formats are `already in use and mature'. Anyone on a standards committee who is only a simple Windows/Office user because s/he is an expert in an entirely different field, may well be astonished that people would be against fast-tracking Microsoft's standards. After all, it's the only document standard they use daily. And of course all protests against the standardization are
Re:Opendoc (Score:5, Informative)
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No, they are NOT.
doc, xls, ppt are "mature". They are not open, though, and will be deprecated (one can hope!).
OOXML (docx etc.) is not mature by any measure or stretch.
Stop spreading falsehoods as truth.
Or, if it was unitentional, think better before speaking.
Re:Opendoc (Score:5, Informative)
In this case however, they submitted a format via EMCA that was bloated, broken, has undisclosed parts that are not documented, and which isn't even compatable with the single product, offered by them, that purports to support the format.
Of course, conflations like you've made above are part of the issue here as well: because Microsoft has a legacy Office set of formats, people might be surprised that others are so against this specific and distinctly seperate format because they think they're the same thing.
However, people on *technical* standards committees are (supposed to be) there because they know the details and the technology. They are by definition experts in the field, otherwise they wouldn't be part of that specific standards committee; they'd be in the one covering technology in their own field of expertise.
The problem here is that a lot of people "from the community" joined because Microsoft paid/pressured them to, with the instruction to push OOXML through. From what I've heard, none of these members actually have a clue about OOXML or office document standards.
This is the problem that ISO is purportedly trying to fix.
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Re:Opendoc (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe, but the Microsoft Office formats, even in the newest version, ARE NOT THE SAME THING AS OOXML! They do not conform to that thing that ISO so euphemistically calls a 'standard!'
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Re:Opendoc (Score:4, Insightful)
Contrast this to OOXML.
What should have it had to have been complete? And similarly would you have approved HTML 2, or HTML 3.2, or HTML 4.01 based because they didn't have feature X?
That's not how standards are or could be. It's about agreeing upon a scope and defining itself within that. It's ok to have complete standards within their scope standardised.
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And even that, in itself, is ludicrously stupid too! Obviously, the answer is "because we already fucking have one, so we don't need another!"
Why is ISO rewriting the rules? (Score:5, Interesting)
or
Is the ISO rewiting the rules so the corruption cannot occur again?
I would not bet my life on the second.
Re:Why is ISO rewriting the rules? (Score:5, Informative)
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Wrong Headline! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wrong Headline! (Score:4, Informative)
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I got the mod points though!
RTFA (Score:4, Insightful)
This difference may very well matter as far as ISO procedures are concerned.
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Gerry
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Explanation plz (Score:3)
Would someone please explain what the deal about the ISO and OOXML is and why it is so important as concisely as possible?
I understand both the importance of open source and standards, but I get kind of lost on what the ISO is, Microsoft's involvement, and what exactly OOXML is. What will the impact of OOXML being standardized be?
Re:Explanation plz (Score:5, Informative)
For a short blurb:
1) MS has been the past few years under some pressure from big customers, particularly governments, to use a non-binary more open format for office documents.
2) It got to the point of some of this clients mandating that the office software they bought should support an open, ISO sanctioned standard for storing office documents.
3) Microsoft responded to this attempting to create an ISO standard, FUDdigly called Office Open XML (in an obvious attempt to thwart an already existing standard, whose reference implementation is Open Office, called Open Document Format, that was alaready sanctioned by ISO)
4) We (as in we, the open source zelots), got really mad at this position because its not tennable from many standpoints:
a) [most important] The submited documentation for supporting OOXML proved to be pretty lame, basically the document "standard" reflected implementation details of the MS Office product line. Such speciffic details are not welcome in any "standard" that should be usable by all.
b) The quality of the proposed standard was also very questionable because, first of all, there is no reference implementation of it. Not even MSOffice supports the documented standard in their docX, pptX..etc. files.
c) There is ALREADY an open standard, the one openoffice uses, called ODF, and it is non-patent-encumbered. COnversely, MS's proposal, was IP encumbered (meaning that they purpoted to keep control of it and reserve the right for them to make proprietary extensions to it and still call it an ISO standard). Additionally the ISO organization traditional stance is that they do not accept competing standards. If there is already one standard, then thats the Office Document ISO standard and none other.
d) In any case, the process to get this thing approved is lengthy and i cant get into it now. Suffice it to say that microsoft bribed many officials GLOBALLY and stalled the proceedings to get their "standard" aproved.
So there. Im gonna ask PJ for a job.
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Gerry
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Dont you think MS should be forced to play fair? They dont have any other incentive to do so!
Re:Explanation plz (Score:5, Insightful)
Well you probably know most of this, but I'll re-iterate it just in case. Basically there are a lot of organisations, particularly governments, who have recently either declared, or have indicated that they're likely to declare, a policy to only use open formats in various situations (such as document storage). This effectively rules out native MS Office formats because they haven't been open.
Such declarations have been treated as great for open formats (such as OASIS), and Open Source, and users generally, because it's much easier to write/maintain applications, open source or otherwise, which implement and use open formats. In other words, if you use an open format, you're much less likely to get locked into a particular software vendor, such as Microsoft, whose closed formats require you to use their software to open them reliably and accurately (at least in theory and according to popular belief in management circles). For the same reasons, open formats tend to be much more useful when exchanging documents. For example, it means that I don't have to buy Windows, install Windows, buy Office, and install Office, just so I can open some kind of law change proposition that a government department might have forwarded to me in an Office 2003 format.
Microsoft has been in danger of losing control over the market, because Office's dominance relies at least partially on format lock-in, and a cascading effect between organisations of document exchange. Organisations often standardise on Office and its formats specifically because they deal with many other businesses and organisations that also use Office. If some key organisations (such as governments) suddenly decide to standardise on open formats, it'll likely have a similar cascading effect whereby other organisations that deal with them will also adapt their systems to be able to interoperate with those open formats. Standardising on open formats means that even if people somehow use MS Office to produce them, organisations that set such a policy won't necessarily be locked into Office any more, and neither will all the organisations that deal with them.
Microsoft's answer was to declare that they'd be standardising and opening the Office 2007 formats, so that the key organisations would still be able to buy and use Office. (They probably could have claimed that Office 2007 would just support an existing open format such as OASIS, but they didn't.) Microsoft wanted to get the ISO to rubber-stamp their new OOXML format to prove to governments and other organisations that it really is open. The ISO (aka the International Standards Organisation) is a highly respected organisation on approving standards, so to get an ISO stamp is basically to declare to everyone that yes it is an open standard and it's been carefully peer reviewed to make sure of this.
The problem is that a lot of people think that OOXML really isn't open, for a variety of reasons which you've probably heard of, and that it's just a tool for Microsoft to keep control of the market using what's really a closed format whilst using double-speak and claiming that it's open, so it'll get accepted. There's also a lot of belief that Microsoft manipulated the ISO and its voting member organisations in some very despicable ways to get their Office 2007 formats rubber-stamped as an "open standard" when it really doesn't deserve to be.
Ultimately this means that employees of governments and organisations which declared they'll be using "open" formats might still standardise their work on Microsoft's OOXML formats, using the ISO's rubber-stamp to justify what they're doing, even though OOXML doesn't actually offer the interoperability benefits that a real open standard should offer, and arguably nobody would win except Microsoft.
Re:Explanation plz (Score:5, Informative)
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Thanks for the replies. It all makes sense now. Microsoft's involvement is not surprising in this. /=
File this one under "too little, too late" (Score:2, Interesting)
They can rewrite their rules until they have a big rewriting orgy. It doesn't matter; the damage has already been done, and in my eyes, the damage is irreparable.
If Microsoft tore appart the ISO this easily, (Score:2)
Also: India has appealed (Score:2)
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/146468/india_and_brazil_file_appeals_against_ooxml_standardization.html [pcworld.com]
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