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Possible Manipulation of OOXML Process In Poland
michuk writes "IBM's representative for KT182 (the committee empowered to vote on OOXML in Poland) accused the committee's chair of intentionally manipulating the process. A letter from the president of the body overseeing KT182, sent a month ago to the committee chair for distribution to all committee members, was never distributed. The letter recommended that, if consensus were not achieved on the OOXML vote, then Poland should abstain. This follows up my recent report on the OOXML process in Poland (also covered by Groklaw), it looks like things are going bad this time, at least as bad as in October." The EU is already investigating the Polish process based on complaints last fall. Is anyone tracking all of the allegations and investigations surrounding OOXML?
Heise reports that the vote process in Germany was manipulated, too, although on a more obvious level:
link (German only, sorry)
The members of the German institute for norms (DIN) were basically unable to vote "no", only "yes" and "abstain" were allowed.
Format name itself is cheating and (deliberately) confusing, to begin with.
839*929
The problem with this kind of accusations is the lack of clearly-defined norms regarding how the process is supposed to be run.
Unbiased observers exist only as a theoretical approximation, not in practice, anyway. The next problem is that it is quite natural for any chairperson to see one side as the aggressior and the other side as the victim, based upon which it is quite natural for just about every decent-minded person to want to help the victim. The problem in this conflict is that both sides are making arguments to show themselves as the victim, while very few people are have the skills and knowledge to determine on the basis of objective moral criteria (which are relevant in this complex situation involving technology as well as economics), so that for most people it will again depends on their bias whom they will see as the aggressor and whom they will see as the victim.
The only way out is to have more formalized, standardized processes for dealing with conflict situations so that the chairpersons don't have vast amounts of power to interpret the rules to favor the outcome which they personally think is right.
I sent the following yesterday to:
Mike Low <mike.low@bsi-global.com>
Jean Stride <Jean.stride@bsigroup.com
Adrian Stokes <Adrian.Stokes@cat-ltd.demon.co.uk>
I have not received a reply.
UKUUG is seeking a member who will represent them on the tech advisory committee as our current rep no longer has the time.
**** email sent ****
I am writing is my capacity as Chairman of the UKUUG (UK's Unix & Open Systems User Group).
I was appalled to hear it rumoured that the BSI is intending to approve the fast tracking of the
Microsoft sponsored OOXML format (DIS29500) while there are still so many outstanding questions
about the draft standard. In this letter I make no comment about the long term suitability
of OOXML as an ISO standard, my main issue today is that fast tracking it is wrong.
An ISO standard should be well defined and capable of multiple independent implementations.
The whole point is to allow users of the standard to have products from different vendors
work together just as well as a product from a single vendor. If an ISO standard is
insufficiently precise to allow this then the reputation of ISO as a standards setting
body will suffer severely; with a consequential effect on International trade.
With this in mind, if BSI approves the fast tracking of OOXML it will do severe damage
users' confidence in standards in general and to the reputations of those organisations
who have approved this broken standard: BSI and ISO.
Technical people will regard standards less highly leading to a long term
erosion of use of standards. Do you personally want to be responsible for this ?
I thought that BSI meetings were open, but now find that they are secret. I find this
astounding, it makes me wonder what really happens in those meetings. Will you publish
unedited minutes and allow independent observers in the future ?
The last time that this was aired in public, I remember a BSI member commenting that the number
of comments about this was unprecedented. This shows that there is a great public interest
in this issue and that fast tracking would not meet public approval; people will wonder
who you represent and whose interests you serve.
On the standard itself: I am aware that some of the problems have been addressed, but that
there are large numbers of other ones that are still contentious. There are many parts
that are not properly defined. For these reasons OOXML is not fit for purpose as it stands.
It is possible that these problems may be fixed by the standard being fully discussed,
IE the fast tracking is not appropriate for OOXML.
I call on BSI to act in the interests of the UK public and say 'No to fast tracking of OOXML'.
If I can be of any assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Regards
Also on groklaw:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080328090328998
"Jomar Silva, a delegate from Brazil, which voted No, has now done what he said he would do and has posted what he saw and heard at the BRM. It is a deeply shocking tale of maneuvering the delegates to vote against their will by presenting a kind of Sophie's Choice of options, all designed, according to what I gather from his account, to get a positive result for Microsoft."
NoOOXML.org has been actively reporting on the process and tracking irregularities since last June or so. The list is very long and we're still collecting information.
My blog
See, the name isn't EXACTLY the same, so trademark infringement would require the danger of "confusing similarity" in the minds of the target market. Now, anyone with two brain cells to rub together can easily tell that the two are nothing alike; the Open Document Format used by OpenOffice.org is exactly that - a high-quality, open document format - whereas OOXML is a massive pile of bovine waste products.
;-)
No one with a good understanding of the situation could EVER mistake OOXML for EITHER a high-quality format OR an open format. See, it's quite elementary!
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
deeply flawed meetings with deeply flawed decisions about a proposed deeply flawed standard that exisits solely to further the commercials aims of one particular company.
in the meantime it risks destroying the credibilty of a mahor standard body (to further the commercial aims of one company).
and, of course, it reduces the possible impact of a simpler, superior standard (to further the commercial aims of one company).
the more I read about this the madder I become.
there is an old saying if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it is probably a duck. the simplest explanation in all cases points beck to some seriously disturbing manipulation by one particular company - and the brazen bare faced manor in which it is done is simply breathtaking. sure there is nothing *illegal* in padding up membership of committees to get the votes that you want - but by any measure it is underhanded and a dirty tactic.
If I had 1% of every dollar that changed hands from microsoft to some member of some national standards comittee over the past weeks, I'm pretty certain I could stop working - for life.
It is obvious that the whole process has been abused. If ISO were still capable of reasonable action, they would halt the entire process and conduct a thorough investigation before continuing.
Alas, as ISO is a comittee-driven organization, and too many of the comittee members have been bought, excuse me "convinced", to be a little more microsoft-friendly, that won't happen.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
0) Bill Gates contacted the president of Mexico and ask to approve ms-ooxml
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080327104739103
1) Finland change is vote from Abstention to Yes without voting
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&sid=20080327104739103&title=Finland+Changes+Vote+to+%26quot%3BYes%26quot%3B+after+Questionable+%26quot%3BConsensus%26quot%3B&type=article&order=&hideanonymous=0&pid=682930#c682940
2) Polish NB Chairwoman has changed the voting rules for the email ballot to "If you don't vote, it is counted as a YES", and she has threatened to sue committee members if they spread accusations
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49455/polish-chairwomen-distributes-microsoft-propaganda
3) Romania voted Yes. There is strong suspicion of ballot-stuffing and the Romanian Standardization Organization has so far refused to offer any information other than the vote distribution.
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49319/romania-votes-yes-again-ballot-stuffing-lack-of-transparencyro
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-47722/last-minute-committee-stuffing-in-romania
4) Cuba voted No in September but that its vote was counted as Yes
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080324121844682
5) Brazilian representative alleges that he believes Microsoft has itself violated the "Law of Silence". It relates to Microsoft's claim that 98% of issues were resolved at the meeting, which he says is inaccurate, but his question relates to why Microsoft can talk about the BRM and no one else can. The Brazilian delegate has written to ITTF
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080324220213437
6) Belgium: Yes man invade Technical Committee
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-48345/belgium-also-stuffed-with-microsoft-business-partners
7) Pakistan and Egypt stuffed?
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-48053/pakistan-and-egypt-stuffed
8) USA: The Yes men are back for voting in the United States. OOXML was adopted 17 votes against 4, thanks to Microsoft and their 11 Business Partners.
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-46044/committee-stuffing-also-in-the-united-states:11-microsoft-business-partners
9) German vote Yes: only Yes and Abstain vote admitted. Without very strong pressure from Microsoft Germany would have voted "ABSTAIN", with 9 to 8.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080327231223154
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49525/limited-choice-at-german-din
10) Sweden: the vote is annulled because one member vote two times. No new vote will be cast because there are no time for a new vote (sorry no-link)
11) ISO has violated WTO rules accepting ms-ooxml as possible standard. Tineke Egyedi, president of the European Academy for Standardisation, is critical of OOXML being
Actually, when you think about it, it's a win-win situation - for microsoft.
Either, they get OOXML force-fed to us all, damaging ODF.
Or, their methods will corrupt and destroy faith in the standards process itself. Now ask yourself what one important backbone of Free Software is. That's right - standards. Interoperability is why Free Software can work with each other and we can build global systems out of it.
So, in either case, MS has successfully damaged an important asset of those they consider their enemies. They can't lose.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
MS uses their own DrawingML instead of SVG, their MS Math instead MathML, Dark Blue is coded as 000080 and not 00008B (SVG and ISO), MS country codes instead of ISO country codes, etc. Some of them are documented; some are not. However none of them are approved standards themselves. This means that in order to use OOXML completely, software must use MS standards. For things like DarkBlue and country codes, this is plain silly. Why should everyone in the world conform to uses MS standards when the ISO standard already exists.
Also using MS standards excludes any platform/software MS chooses to exclude including Linux, OS X, BSD, etc. For example the recommended format for DrawingML is Windows Meta File(WMF) which is Windows only and there are no plans to port it to another format or platform.
Besides being anti-competitive, the use of undocumented MS standards can be dangerous. For example, OOXML uses MS hashing and cryptographic functions which are not documented or approved or tested. Are these functions safe and effective? No one but MS knows. Again, there is an existing ISO standard on hashing and cryptographic functions.
OOXML uses units like English Metric Units (EMU) and "twips" (twentieths of a point). While somewhat defined, neither of them conform to any country's known units of measurements. Also in OOXML, different parts uses different units without any explanation. For example, some parts use twips while some parts are defined in points, half points, pixels, etc.
Many parts of the specification have undefined terms like the style "basicThinLine" (1 pt line?) and "plainText" (ASCII, UTF8?) . If software wanted to render a basicThinLine or use plainText, it would be up to interpretation to what that meant.
XML should be human readable but OOXML is littered with abbreviated, unclear element names like scrgbClr, algn, blurRad, dir, dist, rotWithShape.
Many parts of OOXML are written from a Western viewpoint of languages and customs with little consideration of other cultures. There are numerous examples where OOXML does not support Unicode which means only Latin based languages can fully implement OOXML. This affects all non-Latin based alphabets: Cyrillic (Russian, Belarussian, Ukranian), Middle Eastern (Arabic, Farsi), Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean),etc. For example, OOXML does not support RFC 3987 which means no Chinese characters in web addresses. Some functions are Western only: Networkdays() returns Saturday and Sunday as weekends which is true for the US but not Muslim countries.
autoSpaceLikeWord95, footnoteLayoutLikeWW8,mwSmallCaps, etc. Most of these are not documented. Even if they were, they require emulation of a MS product. That unfortunately brings MS patents. If another software emulated autoSpaceLikeWord95, MS could sue them for patent infringement, and MS has only promised that they will not to sue. Legally, their promises mean nothing, as they can go back on their word at any time.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.