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UK Agency Files OOXML Complaint, EU Demurs
Christopher Blanc writes to let us know that although BECTA, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, has filed a complaint with EU regulators about Microsoft's business practices, the European Commission won't be doing anything particular about it. BECTA claimed that the OOXML format discourages competition. BECTA lodged a similar complaint with the UK Office of Fair Trading last October. A Commission press officer said, "We are already looking into the issues raised in that complaint already and we are not treating it as a formal complaint to us."
For those that don't know Becta is a UK organisation that acts to advice the nations schools on their IT strategies.
It doesn't have any formal powers from what I understand in forcing schools to or not to use certain technologies however it does produce a list of Becta authorised providers which some schools will choose only to work with.
That said it has a lot of power in the UK educational arena and has always been quite pro-open source on many occasions, it's still recommending against Office 2007 in schools and as such has been quite successful in warding many schools off switching to Office 2007.
It's not the most powerful organisation there is and it doesn't really have any power over standards, but it's very influental in UK education and if Microsoft pisses them off enough I could very well imagine them making an ever stronger drive towards open source to the point they will likely put together resources that make it easy for schools to make the switch.
Some areas of local goverment, schools and in some cases, university policy is largely based around what Becta recommends in the UK.
That is incorrect. Those parameters are fully documented in the appendix. They're also deprecated, only to be used when converting an old doc.
Get some new FUD.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Really?
You mean to say that YOU have seen the final version of the OOXML format, when nobody else has and ISO is late in publishing it?
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2008/05/release-ooxml-final-dis-text-now.html#links
Wow, you must be magic. Or Alex.
BECTA may not have any formal power but they are an authority. They are independent and know what they are talking about. It's not about Microsoft pissing them off, it's about Microsoft offering a bad deal.
There is near unanimity in the technical world that OOXML is not a worthwhile or well written standard. It is not complete or consistent. There is not even a working reference and it is also patent encumbered. That it passed is a textbook example of how position and power can be abused. The ISO is taking steps to fix this.
OOXML isn't open due to the poor quality of the specification. Where the specification is vague or completely undefined it means that defacto standards will step in and that's how Microsoft Office maintains its monopoly. Here's my list of example remaining problems in OOXML that will result in the ISO promoting a defacto commercial application, Microsoft Office.
-Docvert converts MSWord to OpenDocument, clean HTML
Hi,
They've either documented or removed those 'behaveLikeWW8' style flags. As engineering criteria however the documentation hasn't been reviewed to see whether it accurately describes Microsoft Office, and it was added late in the process (early 2008, I think).
What remains however are Microsoft OLE references without documentation or patent coverage, accessibility problems, and huge areas of OOXML entirely without documentation that mean that ISO OOXML promotes defacto standards.
Read my blog for a few posts on how no one voting on OOXML saw a final specification.
-Docvert converts MSWord to OpenDocument, clean HTML
Thanks but I'm not really maintaining a list, those are only examples and I made that document as part of New Zealands ISO process. New Zealand and Canada voted No.
-Docvert converts MSWord to OpenDocument, clean HTML
Ok, I found something about that issue:
the year 1900 bug has been "resolved" by declaring it non-mandatory...
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/101224
(german)
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
Slightly off-topic but I couldn't let it pass unchallenged....
a "bash America" strategy.The complaint regarding free shipping was levelled at Amazon.fr. This company is trading in France and France has the right to make sure that all companies that operate within its borders comply with the relevant laws to ensure a level playing field for all businesses. Now, how do you make that US bashing?
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
Well, with democratic, if you mean not directly elected, then you are right.
The commission is appointed my the state governments of the EU and scrutinised by the European parliament (and since the last time it is clear that they can kick out single members that they don't like).
Now, compare this with how the state cabinets are elected in a parliamentarian system (as is the case in all of EU), the parliament is elected and they appoint a government. The exact contents of this government is typically arranged by who will be the prime-minister.
My point is that there is not anything more undemocratic with the commission than with the national cabinets.
The commission do not have legislative power, they did try to push through software patents, yes, but the attempt was stopped by the elected european parliament.
There is however democratic issues with the EU, but these are mostly laid out at the council. They are an unelected body (well indirectly elected) that have legislative power. The council severe issues with its legitimacy. They were for example attempting to approve the software patents directive in the wrong forum (agricultural and fishery council IIRC).
The council is made out of the state governments and cannot be discharged if they behave badly, as this would mean discharging all the state governments. It would be more prudent to have a senate appointed by the states (or elections in the states), that could be kicked out in its whole, but this is another discussion.
The commission did lay down proposals for patents, but it was their right to make proposals for new laws. The parliament discharged the patent directive with something like 600 votes against 50.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
The 900 million euros was for manipulating the server operating system market to disenfranchise competitors. Microsoft refused to change and got fined for the refusal. The matter is over (bar the appeal of the amount).
Microsoft is currently being investigated:
* There a huge list.. but my personal favourite was sending regional MS employees as delegates for war-torn African nations, all in order to pass the vote.
It's because Microsoft has always been unable to provide upwards compatible specifications. Let's look at the Microsoft-related standards that have been issued by the ECMA (European Computer Manufacturer's Association), they're all free downloads:
.NET standards might also be a result of the first ruling of the EU court in the antitrust case (2004).
OOXML, 1st ed., Dec. 2006
CLI, 4th ed., Jun. 2006; see also TR/84, TR/89
Managed C++, 1st ed., Dec. 2005
C#, 4th ed., Jun. 2006
Windows API, Dec. 1995 (Windows 3.1 API)
Let's note that in those areas, in which Microsoft wished for stronger support by the industry, there are standards. The
Note that the Windows API standard was never updated.
The first edition of OOXML is already one and a half years old, and typical development by Microsoft probably introduced new elements that deviate from the standard. What they need to do now, is to update the OOXML standard to a second edition that is compatible with Office 2007.
Every standard is behind current developments if standards are not being followed.
If you look at the C and C++ standards, you'll see how long it took until they were adopted by the software industry (some compilers still aren't fully compliant, like Microsoft Visual C++: in VC++ 2008, "stdint.h" and "stdbool.h" are missing, for example).
Actually, the article is FUD. Becta never asked that it's complaint be
treated as a new complaint. It asked that it be added to the already
existing complaint regarding OOXML. It has been.
Here is what Becta said in its statement announcing it had sent its
complaint already filed with the UK antitrust regulator to the EU
Commission:
"Following discussions with the OFT, Becta has now referred its interoperability complaint and related evidence to the European Commission in support of the Commission's wider investigation."
Someone decided to write an article as if Becta had been denied its
complaint as being redundant. That isn't accurate. It was added to
the other complaint about OOXML, which is *exactly what Becta asked for*.
Somehow it gets turned around and described as some kind of Microsoft
victory.
Disgusted you say? Ditto.