Got this from news(a)ffii.org.
Malcolm.
---------------
PRESS RELEASE -- [ Europe / Economy / ICT ]
========================================================================
FFII opposes Fasttrack adoption of Microsoft OOXML format as ISO
standard
========================================================================
Brussels, 29 January 2006 -- The FFII has sent an open letter to all
delegations of the International Standardization Organization (ISO) to
oppose with contradictions the "fast track" adoption of the Microsoft's
6000-page OOXML specification (ECMA-376) before the deadline of
February, 5th. Microsoft's proposal damages the adoption of the
existing
ISO 26300 standard (OpenDocument) that covers almost the same
functionality in just 600 pages.
The FFII has several concerns with the proposed standard. OpenXML
relies
on undisclosed patents, and undisclosed or incomplete licensing terms
that make any independent reimplementation impossible or heavily risky.
It obliges implementors to reverse-engineer the behavior of old closed
Microsoft applications and formats. It uses non-standard formats for
languages and dates, and specifies known bugs, such as treating 1900 as
a leap year.
Benjamin Henrion, FFII analyst, explains: "Microsoft is pushing through
a overcomplex proposal in a very short time frame. The fast-track
procedure was never intended for specifications of this size and
artificial complexity. It seems clear that the pressure is on ISO to
not
look too closely at the many traps in OOXML, which include patent
minefields that will allow Microsoft to strictly control who implements
this. Microsoft tried to introduce its patents into international
standards before, resulting in the failure of an anti-spam standard."
Multiple associations, companies and bloggers who have looked at OOXML
describe it as a "single vendor standard", since large parts of the
standard simply refer to application behavior, not technical
specifications. Examples include the option to enable "WordPerfect text
alignment".
OOXML was produced in one year by Microsoft alone and ratified as
ECMA-376 by ECMA, a private association that drafts standards on
demand.
It is via ECMA that Microsoft has been able to push for a fast-track
procedure at ISO/IEC. By comparison, the Open Document Format ISO
standard took 5 years of work through ISO/IEC and OASIS and counts with
multiple implementation covering all the main platforms (Symbian,
Windows, Linux, Mac OS, BSDs and Solaris). In contrast, Microsoft's
format has no any implementation in market currently, and in medium
terms it is expected to cover only the Microsoft platform.
Alberto Barrionuevo, FFII Vice-President, concludes: "We ask all ISO
delegations to cancel the fast-track procedure. It is simply impossible
to clarify all the issues and contradictions existing in ECMA-376
within
such a short fast-track time frame. Indeed, this standards-stuffing
attempt undermines the entire credibility of the ISO/IEC process. If
Microsoft can buy a single-vendor 'standard' with impunity, what is ISO
for?"
========================================================================
Links
========================================================================
* FFII's Open Letter to ISO: Contradictions to ECMA-376 fast track
process at ISO/IEC
http://press.ffii.org/Press_releases/FFII_opposes_Fasttrack_adoption_of_Mic…
* Grokdoc: List of Contacts of all ISO delegations
http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_Contacts
* Espacenet (EPO): 14 European software patent applications by
Microsoft
regarding XM
http://v3.espacenet.com/results?sf=a&FIRST=1&CY=gb&LG=en&DB=EPODOC&TI=xml&A…
* OpenDocumentFellowship: Licensing conditions that Microsoft offers
for
Office Open XML
http://opendocumentfellowship.org/files/JTC001-N-8455-3.pdf
* EP12711339: very broad software patent application on data
representation by Microsoft
http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=EP1271339
* Permanent link to this press release
http://press.ffii.org/Press_releases/FFII_opposes_Fasttrack_adoption_of_Mic…
========================================================================
Contact information
========================================================================
Benjamin Henrion
FFII Brussels
+32-2-414 84 03 (fixed)
+32-484-56 61 09 (mobile)
openstandards at ffii.org
(French/English)
========================================================================
About the FFII
========================================================================
The FFII is a not-for-profit association registered in twenty European
countries, dedicated to the development of information goods for the
public benefit, based on copyright, free competition, open standards.
More than 850 members, 3,500 companies and 100,000 supporters have
entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy questions
concerning exclusion rights (intellectual property) in data processing.
Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
Gareth Eason has put together a good letter which will be sent on ILUG's
behalf, here's the current draft:
========================================
Re: Objections to JTC-1 Fast-Track Processing of the ECMA-376 Specification
To whom it may concern,
I, Gareth Eason, write on behalf of the committee and members of the
Irish Linux User Group to voice our collective concern regarding the
Fast-Track Processing of the ECMA 376 Specification by the ISO JTC-1
committee.
As more and more of our critical paperwork gets stored in electronic
form, the ISO body recognise the requirement for an open standard for
storing this data one with which multiple software vendors may comply.
This avoids a monopoly situation emerging whereby a single supplier may
control access to information simply because only they can understand
the format it is stored in. This is particularly true for legacy
documents old documents produced and 'saved' by an older version of
software.
As a predominantly technical body of people within Ireland, we feel it
important to highlight our concerns to the fast-track processing of this
proposed standard for the following reasons:
The ECMA specification runs to some 6,000 pages, impossible to review in
any meaningful fashion within the 30 days permitted.
The concept of the standard potentially conflicts with the ISO body's
own stated goal of one standard, one test, and one conformity
assessment procedure accepted everywhere. ECMA has been publicly slated
as an alternative to an already existing and ratified open document
standard, ISO/IEC 26300:2006.
There appears to be internal inconsistencies within the proposed
standard and significant conflicts with existing ratified ISO standards,
including ISO8601 (Representation of Dates and Times), ISO639 (Codes for
the representation of Names and Languages), ISO/IEC 8632 (Computer
Graphics Metafiles) and more.
There are numerous references to proprietary applications and behaviours
which may be impossible to reproduce without potentially infringing
patents granted to, in particular, Microsoft. No documentation as to
proprietary behaviours is offered in many cases and no legal
indemnification appears to be granted for either reverse engineering or
re-implementation of these behaviours. This renders it legally and
technically impossible for any organisation other that Microsoft to
implement this standard, essentially prohibiting competition the
antithesis of ISO standards.
We would suggest that it is inappropriate to fast-track the processing
of this proposed ECMA 376 standard and that it should be diverted from
its present fast-track processing and should be remanded to Ecma
International for: (i) harmonization with ISO/IEC 26300:2006, the
OpenDocument standard; and numerous other standards that it contradicts;
(ii) development of more suitable intellectual property documents that
actually grant rights to implement the specification.
More information on this proposal, and an analysis to date of the
document can be found at
http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections
Yours faithfully,
Gareth Eason B.Eng, MIET, (Chairperson) , for an on behalf of the Irish
Linux User Group.
========================================
--
Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \ GPLv3 and other work supported by
http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \ Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org
I was talking with Basil Cousins of OFE and some people from FFII today and
it seems there is an accute need to do something before Feb 5th about MS's
application to have OOXML approved as an ISO standard.
I'm merging information from many people and am trusting my sources, so
excuse any errors I make and please correct me where you can.
The situation is that MS have gotten their document format approved by one
standards group (ECMA or ECEA or something), but that group isn't very
strict and mostly requires that the application is submitted in the correct
manner and that the fees are attached.
Next, MS is going for ISO certification, which would be a serious
certification and is important to public sector bodies and many large
private sector ones. MS have a lot of influence over the various ISO
committees and have applied for the approval to be done on a fast-track
6-month procedure.
It would be bad for MS's OOXML file format to be accepted as a standard
because it's a huge spec of 6 or 7 thousand pages, and contains many
requirements such as "behaviour must be the same as Word 97" (without saying
what that Word 97 behaviour is, and of course we can't ever really know
because we can't see the source). So OOXML is not a valid standard, and it
could not be implemented by OpenOffice.org, or KWord, or Abiword, or Emacs.
I'm sure there are plenty of other nasties, and I've heard Groklaw has
published some articles about these.
The structure of ISO is that they have a central committee plus "mirror
committees" in the economically larger nations. Is there a relevent mirror
committee in Ireland?
So we want ISO to take this off the fast-track procedure, and to do that we
have to make the examiners aware that there are flaws and that people are
paying attention to this, so the flaws can't be ignored.
I'm told that the most sure way to get it taken off the fast track procedure
are to point out incompatibilities with existing ISO standards, and I'm told
that the way MS's OOXML stores dates is one example since there is an ISO
standard date format and MS's OOXML uses some other format.
It should be an easy do, but we have to do it. The probable course of
action is an open letter like we used to send to the MEPs.
Anyone got knowledge of ISO procedures?
Anyone got knowledge of ISO representation in Ireland?
Anyone know of incompatibilities between OOXML and other ISO standards?
Anyone got some very concise nasties about OOXML?
Anyone got corrections to what I've heard/said?
--
Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \ GPLv3 and other work supported by
http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \ Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org
1. Looking back and forward
2. Georg Greve at "Nexell informiert"
3. Get Active: Join the Fellowship!
1. Looking back and forward
2006 was an exciting year for the Free Software community and for FSFE.
The Free Software Foundation Europe was and is involved in the
preparation of the new version of the GPL, the world's most successful
Free Software license, in the European Commission's efforts to stop
Microsoft abusing their monopoly, in the UN World Summit on Information
Society (WSIS), the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF), the World
Intellectual Property Organsiation (WIPO), and the EU funded project for
Scientific Education and Learning in Freedom (SELF). Besides that, FSFE
has taken the main initiative to launch drm.info, a portal about the
dangers of Digital Restriction Management.
Probably the most important project for the next year will be the
Freedom Task Force (FTF), which will provide licensing education,
ficuciary activities and license enforcement in the field of Free
Software.
2007 will be an important year for Free Software: With more and more big
players (like Sun or Novell) shifting a growing share of their business
activity towards Free Software, effects of a single move of one of these
players get stronger for both good and bad decisions. The existence of
an independent organisation like FSFE that keeps the focus on the long
term goals is essential for the Free Software ecosystem to remain
balanced.
2. Georg Greve at "Nexell informiert"
In Zurich, Georg Greve gave a lecture titled "What is Free Software and
are Free Software solutions professional enough for our daily business?"
during the "Nexell informiert". "Nexell informiert" is a meeting where
experts are invited to talk and spread awareness about Free Software
issues, organised by the Nexell, an independent team of international
and multilingual CRM professionals.
3. Get Active: Join the Fellowship!
The Fellowship of FSFE is a community for digital freedom. Becoming a
Fellow is the easiest and most direct way to support the Free Software
Foundation Europe and Free Software in general. Fellows contribute in
three ways: financially, through the weight they give to the voice of
FSFE, and - if they want - through the work they do.
To help the Fellows in getting active, FSFE provides some infrastructure
for them to meet and coordinate: blogspace on fsfe.org, an email address
forwarding, a jabber account, and ad-hoc mailing lists - all available
exclusively for the Fellows.
However, probably the nicest thing a Fellow gets from FSFE is the
personalised OpenPGP conformant crypto card, so each Fellow can protect
his freedom and privacy directly and immediately.
https://www.fsfe.org
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html
Rishab Ghosh - the primary author of the Floss Impact report linked below - will be speaking at an event in Dublin on March 2nd.
The event will be organised by OpenIreland - http://www.openireland.org/
Regards,
Brian
----- Original Message ----
From: Shane M. Coughlan <shane(a)shaneland.co.uk>
To: Janet Hawtin <lucychili(a)gmail.com>
Cc: fsfe-ie(a)fsfeurope.org
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 1:18:18 PM
Subject: Re: [Fsfe-ie] What's the point of a free software business event?
Janet Hawtin wrote:
> The report of this study has just be put on line on the European
> Commission DG
> ENTR site at :
> http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/studies/publications.htm
> http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/policy/doc/2006-11-20-flossimpact.pdf
>
> information and contacts for trainers and support folk, what they offer,
> usage migration case studies, licence of product migration case studies.
Thank you. That's a very interesting link.
Regards
Shane
--
Shane Coughlan
FTF Coordinator
Free Software Foundation Europe
+41435000366 ext 408
coughlan(a)fsfeurope.org
Support Free Software > http://fsfe.org
_______________________________________________
fsfe-ie(a)fsfeurope.org mailing list
List information: http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/fsfe-ie
Public archive: https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-ie
____________________________________________________________________________________
8:00? 8:25? 8:40? Find a flick in no time
with the Yahoo! Search movie showtime shortcut.
http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/#news
I've been talking with Brian Cleland and Paul O'Malley about doing a
Dublin-based follow up to last March's "FOSS Means Business" event.
October is the timeframe we're thinking about, so we have to start now or
never.
This should be the (or a) main topic of January's meeting. (I missed the
December meeting because my flight was cancelled due to fog - I'll be at
January's and February's meetings)
So I've been thinking about what's the point? What are the goals? Who is
the audience? What speakers are best?
Should we just get the usual speakers, and brief them that they should act
business-like, and then tell the usual mailing lists, and attract the usual
audience (but they will come with the unspoken knowledge that they should
look and act a bit business-like)? Then we all have an interesting day,
then go home?
Is that it? Is it really just for us? Or did we really think companies
would come and would liberate their software the next day?
I don't think companies are going to liberate their software based on any
inspirational event we can organise. So how does the free software
community get businesses do liberate software?
1. It's by creating a market - by convincing software users not to buy
non-free software.
2. It's by showing decision makers that free software is not risky, that
support is available, that it's not going to disappear, and that they
wouldn't be the first to move to free software.
3. It's by arming our embeds :) -all the free software supports working
inside companies that use or distribute proprietary software -by arming
them with the arguments and the examples and case studies necessary to
make convincing arguments to the decision makers.
Item #1 is what the usual free software events do. So this kind of event
should be aimed at items #2 and #3.
So, do people agree that both items #2 and #3 are worth aiming for and that
an event can do both? What speakers have we seen that are good? What
topics or types of talks are most useful? Are their goals, other than the
three I've given, that we can aim for?
--
Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \ GPLv3 and other work supported by
http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \ Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org
Hi All,
At the last IFSO meeting the subject of copyright policies of academic
publishers came up for discussion. The basic issue is that many acadmeic
publishers require that authors assign copyright to the publisher on the
basis that this will allow the publisher to better disseminate the work.
Many publishers allow the authors to distribute copies of their work
online subject to various restrictions.
The website below documents the policies of many academic journals and
publishers and makes it easy to see what you're permitted to do.
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php
Hope this is useful to some of you,
David
Below is an announcement of a Feb 16-18 conference in Limerick. Entrance is
40 euro.
Website: http://www.skycon.skynet.ie/
Programme: http://www.skycon.skynet.ie/programme.php
Speakers: http://www.skycon.skynet.ie/speakers.php
=========================
The University of Limerick Computer Society is an entirely student run
society which provides a range of IT services to students, staff and
organisations in the University of Limerick. Our network, Skynet, provides
websites, e-mail and personal storage to its members as well as providing a
social group for those interested in IT. Many of the services we provide
would otherwise be unavailable to the University community.
The Society is the oldest of its kind in the country, having been founded in
1992. As celebration of our 15 years, the Computer Society is hosting our
first Free Software Conference in the University, running from Friday, and
16th to Sunday, 18th February 2007.
Confirmed speakers include many pillars of the Free Software community such
as Richard Matthew Stallman, Alan Cox and Robert Chassell. There is also a
significant Irish presence at the conference, which aims to promote Irish
importance in the global IT industry. While the focus of the conference is
Free Software, major industry names such as Microsoft, Sun and Oracle will
also be speaking. The conference will be a chance to meet and greet the
speakers as well as socialise with other guests. Talks shall be followed by
Question and Answer sessions where the speakers can be asked about their
talk or the area they specialise in.
If you believe that your organisation could benefit from the cost-saving
opportunities of free software, now and as it grows into the future, you may
wish to send delegates to the conference. At a ticket cost of only EUR40 for
the weekend, the conference also offers excellent value. Tickets for the
event can be booked online at http://www.skycon.skynet.ie. For information
on marketing opportunities, please contact skycon at skynet.ie.
More information about the Society is available on http://www.skynet.ie.
Details about the conference including speakers can be found at
http://www.skycon.skynet.ie
Kind Regards
Laura Czajkowski
------------------------------
President, UL Computer Society
www.skycon.skynet.ie
=========================
--
Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \ GPLv3 and other work supported by
http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \ Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org