ODF – news?

The latest issue of the ODF Alliance Newsletter has been published (PDF) and predictably enough the lead story is on … OOXML (their favourite topic).

The (I thought) exciting news that Microsoft has announced upcoming support for ODF in its Office products is relegated to second place and gets the rather grudging headline “ODF Alliance calls on Microsoft to act on its commitment to implement support for ODF”. Ah – I didn’t realise the real story here was the statement the ODF Alliance had issued. Being an ODF supporter gets a bit confusing sometimes.

Anyway, the newsletter’s lead story mentions that four countries have appealed to ISO and IEC (as confirmed by the official press release) and adds for good measure that Denmark has “protested” and that there is legal action in the UK.

The appeals of South Africa, Brazil, India and Venezuela are for real, and the texts of two of these appeals are spread widely over the web (I believe Brazil’s text reached the blogs even before it reached Geneva).

Denmark has not appealed. What appears to have happened in Denmark is that an open source lobby group has written a letter to the Danish Standards body. That is not “Denmark protesting”.

And in the UK there have been developments in the so-called “legal challenge” to BSI’s decision on DIS 29500 …

Singeing the King of Spin’s Beard

What has happened in the UK is fairly well documented. In September 2007 the UK, as a JTC 1 P-member, voted on DIS 29500 and submitted a record-breaking 635 comments outlining technical faults. The (officially confidential) details of that September ballot’s votes have been widely leaked on the web showing the UK’s vote of disapproval at that time.

After the BRM, and following the vote modification process earlier this year, BSI published a FAQ explaining what had just happened. In this it stated:


A few days prior to this a report of IST/41’s meeting had appeared on The Register, leaked by persons unknown, apparently in an effort to “smoke out” (read intimidate) the committee members. Angry and/or veiledly threatening emails to committee members duly flowed, but overall the leak had no effect in changing any positions. (But who knows how the suggestion that the UK was changing its vote might have been received in other countries – the leaker may have unwittingly given DIS 29500 a boost!)

Following the end of the voting process, the UK Unix Users Group (UKUUG) issued a press release attacking BSI. The press release began:


and the UKUUG chairman, Alain Williams, provided the following quotation:


– pretty much a direct accusation that the BSI’s own published statements on DIS 29500 were untrue.

Now the UKUUG clearly looks upon itself as a pretty serious organisation. Its press release – not short on pomp – states that it “values intelligence, thoughtfulness and long-term thinking rather than immediacy and froth.”

In that light there are a number of things that are very puzzling about the UKUUG’s recent behaviour. Most of this stems from the fact that UKUUG was a member of IST/41, the very technical committee which recommended the final UK position on DIS 29500.

So, one might ask:

• Why is a Unix (Unix!) user group (user group!) so interested in DIS 29500 anyway?
• Why are its members’ funds being used to finance a preposterous legal action (their site rather desperately asks: “If you're looking to support UKUUG in it's [sic] efforts to examine the BSI's OOXML decision, you can join UKUUG or make a donation via paypal to paypal@ukuug.org.”)
• Even allowing UKUUG is legitimately interested, why did it not send (as it should have) a representative to the crucial meeting on DIS 29500 that decided the committee’s position? That was how it could have lodged its members’ views.
• Having disenfranchised its members and failed to influence the process legitimately in the meeting (UKUUG attendance would have made a decisive difference, I have no doubt), why then attempt to influence the process externally?
• Why question the veracity of BSI’s statements, when as a group UKUUG is entitled access to all and any documents and records which would clearly show it the truth of the matter?

Predictably, when the UKUUG’s “legal challenge” eventually found its way in front of a judge, it got short shrift. The Inquirer reports:


This brings a decisive an end to some decidedly rum behaviour from the purportedly “intelligent and thoughtful” organization that is UKUUG, leaving its members to ask some interesting questions of its leadership.

International Appeals

The fate of the internal UK appeal foreshadows (I suspect) what will happen with the International ones. I believe they will be considered properly; but they will achieve nothing. In fact worse, they will be harmful: Patrick Durusau has written how their net effect will be to distract from needed reform of the JTC 1 standardisation process. The delay in publishing ISO/IEC 29500 will also delay its much needed maintenance and frustrate the very large number of countries who voted to approve DIS 29500 on the basis that it would come under an SC 34 maintenance regime.

Ultimately the balance needs to be got right. I believe the legitimate concerns of the protesting NBs should be heard and acknowledged, but that unless substantial new evidence emerges in this exercise, we should all move forward without further undue delay. It will benefit nobody to go through a lengthy exercise of paying lip service to insubstantial complaints. In that case, okay, these four countries may be mollified – but the overwhelming majority of other countries who expended so much effort in approving ISO/IEC 29500 will look on with increasing exasperation if it becomes apparent the appeals process is nothing more than a drawn-out diplomatic fudge. The multi-month appeals time frames being talked of are completely out of touch with modern ICT standardisation realities, let alone any conception of a “Fast Track” that still remains.

In any case, the appeals have certainly not distracted NBs from continuing to notice that the text of the (pending) ISO/IEC 29500 Standard has not been circulated to them, as the JTC 1 Directives clearly require. They have also noticed that the existence of appeals is no excuse for the non-appearance of this text.

It is to be hoped the JTC 1 NBs will take steps at the next JTC 1 plenary to curtail the power of the standards mandarins and issue instructions to circulate the revised text.

- Alex.