The Open Sourcerer

Remember OOXML? There’s a Law Suit Coming. Croatian Style.

Remember all the débâcle about vote rigging, committee stuffing and other ever-so scandalous ongoings during Microsoft’s failed attempt to get their appallingly bad 6000+ page document specification passed through the ISO in September? No? Click here and start at the bottom…

Amongst many other national standards bodies, there were dubious voting patterns in Croatia. And Radoslav Dejanović

is still trying to enforce HZN (Croatian national standards body, or CSI) to disclose the information on members of their TC that voted unconditional yes for Microsoft OOXML. (more about that on Croatian blog Fuzzy on www.linux.hr)
It’s no more about OOXML. It’s about transparency, about my right to know who are the people that declare standards, and about my right to hold them responsible for their actions.

But without much success it seems. So far at least…

They’re stubborn. So am I. I have reached the point where the only sensible thing to do is to – sue them. Which is what I’m set up to. I have a law on my side, they have the bureaucracy on their. And a powerful ally that wouldn’t really want to have it’s proposed standard rejected.

Who’s going to win? I’m not sure. What I am about to do is to put up a good fight. Even if I lose, I might set the path for someone with more luck/persistence to carry on for the noble cause of government transparency.

Good luck Radoslav, may the community be with you…

Please send him a message of support. After all he only wants to find out the truth, what’s wrong with that? WHO could possibly be worried about the truth?

Help for the DIS29500 (OOXML) Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM)

My business partner Alan Bell, came up with a neat idea over the weekend (whilst I was really busy; playing golf and partying with the kids)…

Microsoft has developed an XML based file format designed to replace the binary formats used by old versions of Microsoft Office. This new file format is called Office Open XML or OOXML and is currently going through a process to ratify it as an international standard backed by ISO. The designation for the standard is Draft International Standard 29500, or DIS29500. The fast track process the standard has followed has been very controversial, in the initial round of votes a large number of comments were raised. These comments will be brought to a Ballot Resolution Meeting in Geneva at the end of February 2008. Currently there is an overwhelming number of comments to resolve at a large meeting in a short time. Many comments are duplicates raised several times by different countries, many are quite trivial and could be addressed easily. Some are really interesting and worthy of discussion.

Our company, The Open Learning Centre, is supporting and maintaining this new site on the net at www.dis29500.org where:

The purpose of this website is to help the countries and the facilitators of the BRM to prepare by sorting and categorising and de-duplicating the comments so that they can focus on the issues of substance.

Currently 2978 comments are listed by country and interested parties are encouraged to review and “de-dupe” the list. And to categorise the comments so issues of substance can be given the attention they rightly deserve.

Oh yes, it’s running and supported on open source software.

Some Fun with Microsoft and OOXML, Ecma-376 or DIS 29500

It’s been a very interesting day.

Early this morning UK time we got this from the big M:

Strong Global Support for Open XML as It Enters Final Phase of ISO Standards Process

REDMOND, Wash. — Sept. 4, 2007 — Today the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) released the results of the preliminary ballot to participating National Body members for the ISO/IEC DIS 29500 (Ecma 376 Office Open XML file formats) ratification process. The results show that 51 ISO members, representing 74 percent of all qualified votes, stated their support for ratification of Open XML. Along with their votes, the National Bodies also provided invaluable technical comments designed to improve the specification. Many of the remaining ISO members stated that they will support Open XML after their comments are addressed during the final phase of the process, which is expected to close in March 2008.

Which roughly translates as “Oh dear – we didn’t get enough votes from the “P” members of the committee to get our proprietary, customer lock-in document format standardised. Now we’ll have to go back and start bribing committees all over again…

However they have already started. The JTS-1 Sub Committee 34 (SC34) has grown in membership dramatically in the last couple of months whereas before that time – it’s membership had barely changed in 2 years. A little curious don’t you think?

Anyway – finally the ISO managed to get a press release out:

A ballot on whether to publish the draft standard ISO/IEC DIS 29500, Information technology – Office Open XML file formats, as an International Standard by ISO (International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) has not achieved the required number of votes for approval.

Approval requires at least 2/3 (i.e. 66.66 %) of the votes cast by national bodies participating in ISO/IEC JTC 1 to be positive; and no more than 1/4 (i.e. 25 %) of the total number of national body votes cast negative. Neither of these criteria were achieved, with 53 % of votes cast by national bodies participating in ISO/IEC JTC 1 being positive and 26 % of national votes cast being negative.

That doesn’t sound much like M$’s statement does it? This translates into something along the lines of “you failed on both counts despite trying to buy your way to instant success.”

As most readers will be aware, the JTC-1 committee has seen 11 member countries change their status from “O” (Observational) to “P” (Participatory) in the last few weeks and at least 15 new members have joined the SC34 subcommittee. Some quick and insightful analysis of the voting numbers was posted in the comments on the noooxml.org website.

– 32 valid votes by JTC1 P-Members : 2/3 is 21.33, and there are only 17 YES votes —> FAILED
– 69 valid votes by ISO Member Bodies. 25% is 17.25, and there are 18 NO votes —> FAILED

Amongst the 30 “original” JTC1 P-Members : 8 Yes, 14 No, 8 Abstain
Amongst the 11 “late-comers” JTC1 P-Members : 9 Yes, 1 No (Ecuador), 1 Abstain (Trinidad & Tobago)
Amongst the 15 “late-comers” SC34 P-Members : 12 Yes, 0 No, 3 Abstain (Chile, Finland, Trinidad & Tobago)

About a possible vote stuffing: I think that the figures speak for themselves.

Luc Bollen

So, without the sudden influx of new membership to the main JTC-1 committee, the vote would have been:

• Yes: 8 (36%)
• No: 14 (64%)
• Abstain: 8 (Ignored from percentages)

That kind of result would have been a definite NO and the whole process would have almost certainly stopped there. And remember that some of these “yes” votes and abstentions were cast after rather dubious goings on: for example, the USA initially votes a resounding “no” then after some reputed phone calls from Gates and Balmer, it changes to a Yes.

Just so we are clear then, the new members of JTC-1 voted Yes: 9, No: 1, Abstain: 1. Now this doesn’t look like a representative sample of the voting patterns of the existing membership does it? It looks like a bit of a whitewash to me. An almost identical voting profile happened with the Sc34 subcommittee existing vs. new membership. No coincidence there then…

Here is a very good visual indication of what the voting looked like without the new “P” members. Very telling I think…

If we now go back and read M$ press release again:

“We are extremely delighted to see that 51 ISO members, representing 74 percent of the qualified votes, have already voiced their support for ISO ratification of Open XML, and that many others have indicated they will support ratification once their comments are resolved in the next phase of the ISO process,”

Really… Pull the other one M$.

Ecma-376, DIS 29500, OOXML: Vote fails to get Majority needed

Well, it looks like this is the final tally based on a leaked doc from Finland (allegedly): 17 Yes, 15 No, 9 Abstentions.

Microsoft have failed to get the required 2/3rds majority so it is on to the BRM in February (Unless in the meantime some of the comments are un-reconcilable whereby the whole process could be thrown out!)

On the noooxml.org site they have a list of all votes cast, including the “O” members.

Acknowledgements: NoOOXML, Andy Updegrove, Groklaw, Andreas Fischer

Any further votes that come in I will try and add to this page as soon as possible. Drop me a comment if you know something more or find any inaccuracies.

Update #1: Apparently Ecuador has voted no: http://lowe.no-ip.info/rvtradio/

Update #2: Thanks for the link Andy, have removed non-members of the ISO JTC1

Update #3: The *** indicate a “new” P status member. Probably a M$ puppet.

Update #4: Andy Updegrove now believes that this voting round will result in OOXML NOT gaining the 2/3 majority needed to gain automatic approval as an ISO standard. [Be sure to read the comments on Andy’s post too – a couple of very interesting messages from Alex Brown]. The ISO should hopefully announce the official result today (04/09/07) or very soon thereafter.

Update #5: It appears that Cyprus voted yes.

Update #6: It appears as though Microsoft did not get enough of the important “P” votes. http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/09-04-2007/0004655552&EDATE=

Update #7: Most of the votes have been leaked. Table is now updated.

So – it’s on with the show… Microsoft will be desperately trying to cajole, bribe, corrupt and bully all the “no” and abstain voters before the BRM next February.

There, they will have a week, to review probably a thousand comments and try to get a majority vote by conceding on some of the issues. But there will be trouble with some of the comments which will not be implementable without sacrificing the lock-in and proprietary hooks that M$ really needs.

May we live in interesting times…

ESR may tell Microsoft to shove its license, after OOXML scandal

Eric S Raymond, co-founder of the OSI, author of many influential writings on Open Source and Technology (Including the now famous “The Cathedral and the Bazaar“) has just spoken out here against Microsoft’s trampling over the ISO standards institute in it’s aim to get their OOXML standardised along-side ODF.

…If Microsoft succeeds (which is beginning to look likely) they will have not merely damaged the prospects of open-source software, they will have ruined the good name of ISO by corrupting its people and processes. Because if OOXML, with all its huge flaws, really does pass, no one who has been conscious while this was going on is going to believe the process it passed through wasn’t a charade bought and paid for by Microsoft marketing.

…This is not behaviour that we, as a community, can live with. Despite my previous determination, I find I’m almost ready to recommend that OSI tell Microsoft to ram its licenses up one of its own orifices, even if they are technically OSD compliant. Because what good is it to conform to the letter of OSD if you’re raping its spirit?

Strong words from a very influential voice.

This whole sordid and smelly process has done nothing to improve the world’s opinion of Microsoft (I think it has made them look even more like a scared rat trapped in a corner). And it has also shown the ISO standards process to be very fatally flawed in that it is now clear that it’s “within [the very lose] rules” for a single organisation to buy, bully and cheat to get their standard approved. Irrespective of its technical merit.

ISO – you know what you have to do come February 2008… This Ecma specification can not be approved. If it does, you and your standards will come to be seen as completely inconsequential, irrelevant and pointless.

Is it starting to go “Pete Tong” for Microsoft?

With only a couple of days to go before the international standards bodies have to declare their votes in the Ecma-376 standardisation process, the blogosphere is really hotting up with all sorts of news and scandal:

• According to this, Sweden has declared it’s vote illegal and will now abstain due to “voting irregularities”. (Yeah, right…)
• New Zealand and India have both said “NO”,
• France should be saying “non” (but it might end up abstaining) after a bit of a fracas,
• In Hungary, the Standards Institution is to reconsider its vote,
• The Brazillians have said no,
• The Swedish debarcle may impact the Danish vote too,
• Hot off the blog – Norway says NO,

It is all getting quite exciting really – better than an episode of “Heros”, but I suspect that Microsoft my well end up with enough votes to scrape through by the rather unusual changes occurring to the status of many small and normally benign countries’ standards bodies…

I’d love to know what the BSi are going to do???

More later I’m sure 😉

Update 01/09/07 – I just found this short analysis of the OOXML v ODF debate from The Brain Wrecked Tech and thought it to be very clear, concise, lucid and worth linking too.