[kictanet] Say NO to OOXML campaign
Judy Okite
judyokite at gmail.com
Mon Aug 13 17:24:38 EAT 2007
Dear Listers,
the so said campaign,final deliberations will be held tomorrow and possibly
the voting will take place on kenya's positon regarding this matter. please
do not let it,pass without you having a say that could greatly affect or
build this industry.
Below are some of the issues,that can be found on the net,concerning this
matter. please Vote No.
Kind Regards,
Six questions to national standardisation bodies [Also available as PDF
(28k) <http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-questions.pdf>]
The following six questions relate to the application of the ECMA/MS-OOXML
format to be accepted as an IEC/ISO standard. Unless a national
standardisation body has conclusive answers to all of them, it should vote
no in IEC/ISO and request that Microsoft incorporate its work on MS-OOXML
into ISO/IEC 26300:2006 (Open Document Format).
This is a summary document. More detailed information is available online.
- http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections
- http://www.xmlopen.org/ooxml-wiki/index.php/DIS_29500_Comments
- http://www.noooxml.org/arguments
1. Application independence?
No standard should ever depend on a certain operating system,
environment or application. Application and implementation independence is
one of the most important properties of all standards.
* Is the MS-OOXML specification free from any references to particular
products of any vendor and their specific behaviour? *
2. Supporting pre-existing Open Standards?
Whenever applicable and possible, standards should build upon previous
standardisation efforts and not depend on proprietary, vendor-specific
technologies.
MS-OOXML neglects various standards, such as MathML and SVG, which are
recommendations by the W3C, and uses its own vendor-specific formats
instead. This puts a substantial burden on all vendors to follow Microsoft
in its proprietary infrastructure built over the past 20 years in order to
fully implement MS-OOXML. It seems questionable how any third party could
ever implement them equally well.
* What is the benefit of accepting usage of such vendor-specific
formats at the expense of standardisation in these areas? Where will other
vendors get competitive, compatible and complete implementations for all
platforms to avoid prohibitively large investments? *
3. Backward compatibility for all vendors?
One of the alledged main advantages of MS-OOXML is its ability to
allow for backward compatibility, as also referenced in the ECMA
International press
release<http://www.ecma-international.org/news/PressReleases/PR_TC45_Dec2006.htm>.
For any standard it is essential that it is implementable by any third
party without necessity of cooperation by another company, additional
restricted information or legal agreements or indemnifications. It is also
essential to not require the cooperation of any competitor to achieve full
and comparable interoperability.
* On the grounds of the existing MS-OOXML specification, can any third
party regardless of business model, without access to additional information
and without the cooperation of Microsoft implement full backward
compatibility and conversion of such legacy documents into MS-OOXML
comparable to what Microsoft can offer? *
4. Proprietary extensions?
Proprietary, application-specific extensions are a known technique
employed in particular by Microsoft to abuse and leverage its desktop
monopoly into neighboring markets. It is a technique at the heart of the
abusive behaviour that was at the core of the decision against Microsoft by
the European Commission in 2004 and Microsoft is until today continuing its
refusal to release the necessary interoperability information.
For this reason, it is common understanding that Open Standards should
not allow such proprietary extensions, and that such market-distorting
techniques should not be possible on the grounds of an Open Standard.
* Does MS-OOXML allow proprietary extensions? Is Microsoft's
implementation of MS-OOXML faithful, i.e. without undocumented
extensions? Are there safeguards against such abusive behaviour? *
5. Dual standards?
The goal of all standardisation is always to come to one single
standard, as multiple standards always provide an impediment to competition.
Seeming competition on the standard is truly a strategic measure to gain
control over certain segments of a market, as various examples in the past
have demonstrated.
There is an existing Open Standard for office documents, namely the
Open Document Format (ODF) (ISO/IEC 26300:2006). Both MS-OOXML and ODF are
built upon XML technology, so employ the same base technology and thus
ultimately have the same theoretical capabilities. Microsoft itself is a
member of OASIS, the organisation in which the ODF standard was developed
and is being maintained. It was aware of the process and invited to
participate.
* Why did and does Microsoft refuse to participate in the existing
standardisation effort? Why does it not submit its technological proposals
to OASIS for inclusion into ODF? *
6. Legally safe?
Granting all competitors freedom from legal prosecution for
implementation of a standard is essential. Such a grant needs to be clear,
reliable and wide enough to cover all activities necessary to achieve full
interoperability and allow a level playing field for true competition on the
merits.
MS-OOXML is accompanied by an unusually complex and narrow "covenant
not to sue" instead of the typical patent grant. Because of its complexity,
it does not seem clear how much protection from prosecution for
compatibility it will truly provide.
Cursory legal study implies that the covenant does not cover all
optional features and proprietary formats mandatory for complete
implementation of MS-OOXML. So freedom of implementation by all competitors
is not guaranteed for the entire width of the proposed MS-OOXML format, and
questionable even for the core components.
* Does your national standardisation body have its own, independent
legal analysis about the exact nature of the grant to certify whether it
truly covers the full spectrum of all possible MS-OOXML implementations?
*
All these questions should have answers that should be provided by the
national standardisation bodies through independent counsel and experts, and
in particular not by Microsoft or its business partners, which have a direct
conflict of interest on this issue.
If there is no good answer to any one of them, a national body should vote
no in ISO/IEC.
On 8/7/07, Dorcas Muthoni <dmuthoni at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks Judy,
>
> M$ has been targeting people in the sector and KBS (Kenya Bureau of
> Standards) misleading them to adopt a proprietary, incomplete and patented
> standard as if it were an open standard.
>
> Kenyans, reject this move. We do not want Kenya to pass support for
> something blindly.
>
> It would be nice to hear if they have targeted the ministry.
>
> MS's OOXML has been proved to be long, incomplete, patented,and unsuitable
> as an ISO standard.
>
> This is a software issue, here is a useful coverage on this matter:
> http://www.dwheeler.com/blog/2007/06/05/
>
> More on ISO Standardization
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Organization_for_Standardization
>
> Muthoni
>
> On 8/7/07, Judy Okite <judyokite at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Dear Listers,
> >
> > Just to alert you on the ongoing campaign.......this product is
> > substandard,but M$ is determined to launch it. Please do not get caught in
> > between and make a wrong decision.... briefly scrutinize the links below and
> > make a well defined decision. Say NO to this product,sadly M$ has a strong
> > hold in our country,but its within your rights to demand for a worthy
> > product.do not be fooled/coarsed or get caught in marketting gimmick.
> > Please spread this news out and wide.
> >
> > Kind Regards,
> >
> > The campaign to stop Microsoft getting the Office format approved by
> > ISO is on. MS's OOXML has been proved to be long, incomplete, patented,and
> > unsuitable as an ISO standard. There is also an existing standard, ODF, as
> > you know.
> >
> > The FFII has been fighting OOXML in Europe and Latin America, and FTISA
> > has beat it in South Africa. Together with these guys, we should be able to
> > kick OOXML out of the rest of Africa. There are ISO votes in Ghana, Nigeria,
> > Cote-d'Ivoire, Botswana, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, and Congo. Microsoft
> > have, I heard, gone to Nairobi in force to try to force the vote there.
> >
> > What we need to do is work with the ISO national boards to understand
> > that OOXML is really broken, and we then need to make sure those
> > boards can't be stuffed with Microsoft puppets, as happened in the US,
> > Italy, Azerbaijan, Romania, and elsewhere. We just want national
> > boards to vote "NO" until all the technical problems in the format are
> > fixed.
> >
> > The FFII has collected information on this campaign,
> > see www.noooxml.org.
> >
> > But to start with, I'd like to invite you to join this mailing list:
> > https://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/noooxml-africa
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > - Pieter
> > ph at imatix.com
> > --
> > Judy Ann Okite,
> > +254-721237507,+254-734252336
> > P.O. BOX 2228 00100,
> > NAIROBI,KENYA.
> >
> >
> > "Even if you are on the right track, you'll still get run over if you
> > just sit there."
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
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> >
> >
>
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--
Judy Ann Okite,
+254-721237507,+254-734252336
P.O. BOX 2228 00100,
NAIROBI,KENYA.
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll still get run over if you just
sit there."
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