Of Open Standards, Interoperability and Open Source

One of the key moments in the rise of open source was when Massachusetts announced that it was adopting an open standards policy for documents. Since this was a gauntlet flung down for the dominant supplier in this space, Microsoft, it was inevitable that a battle of epic proportions would result. In fact, it turned out to be a very dirty fight, degenerating into ad hominem attacks on the person behind this move to open standards. In some ways, it was a prelude to the equally ugly struggle that took place over Microsoft's attempts to ram its OOXML standard through the ISO process – another important moment in the rise of open standards....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Sun Enables Open Source for Accessibility

Free software has tended to serve the leading edge of the computing community - hackers, etc. - first. General users have tended to follow later, and those with access problems after that. That allowed Microsoft to use the relatively poor support for these communities as a stick with which to beat ODF during the early stages of the ODf vs. OOXML battle in Massachusetts. Things have moved on, but it remains true that free software's support for all users, including those with disabilities, has lagged somewhat behind proprietary offerings.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Dealing with Disabilities

One of the problems raised with the use of ODF in Massachusetts was its lack of support for people with disabilities. That has now been sorted out, but it's probably generally true that open source has not addressed this issue as well as it could, not least because hackers tend to be young and hale, and therefore less aware of the problems faced by those who are not, for example.

So it's good to hear that some work is being done on precisely this area:

IBM and the researchers at the University of Dundee School of Computing (UK) and the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine are collaborating to develop open source software technology tools to accommodate the needs of older workers to help them adapt to and remain productive in the changing workplace of the 21st century.

...

One way to support maturing workers who have age-related disabilities is to find new ways to increase their comfort level and ability to use technology.

(Via Daniweb.)

ODF 1.1 : True Accessibility

News that version 1.1 of the ODF standard has been approved by OASIS is hardly earth-shattering, but I thought this comment in the press release was significant:

OpenDocument 1.1 supports users who have low or no vision or who suffer from cognitive impairments. The standard not only provides short alternative descriptive text for document elements such as hyperlinks, drawing objects and image map hot spots, it also offers lengthy descriptions for the same objects should additional help be needed.

"We are thrilled with the progress to date," said Curtis Chong, president of the National Federation of the Blind in Computer Science. "Our views have changed over time. OpenDocument is no longer a thing to be feared, as we once thought. The OASIS process exemplifies what should be done if true accessibility to both a document format and the tools to manipulate it are to be achieved."

This address issues about ODF's accessibility for some users - something raised in certain quarters when trying to de-rail ODF's adoption by Massachusetts. Cross another "problem" off the list, please.

Microsoft: Do You Have to Be So Blatant?

Massachusetts, we know, has had a troubled time when it comes to implementing ODF. But here's some fresh blood on the technical advisory group that will oversee that project. Oh, but wait a minute, who's this newcomer? Andy Updegrove has the details:

That person is Brian Burke, the Microsoft Regional Director for Public Affairs, and if that surprises you, it surprises me as well, given the degree of acrimonious debate and disinformation witnessed in Massachusetts over the last 15 months involving the Information Technology Division's transition to ODF.

Er, Microsoft? As in "not-really-keen-on-ODF" Microsoft? Isn't this a little bit, well, you know - blatant?

MA ODF: Drawing a Balance

Following his rather downbeat piece about the musical chairs in Massachusetts over bringing in ODF, Andy Updegrove has now complemented this with a nicely upbeat one detailing the net effect of all these political games. The final verdict:

ODF has had, and continues to have, a vital impact on the marketplace that is highly beneficial to all stakeholders. It's important to remember that the greatest single event that has resulted in this state of affairs was the courage of a few public servants in Massachusetts that had a vision of what the future should be, and had the courage to commit to it and follow through.

We owe them a debt of gratitude, and I think that they will be remembered long after their more pedestrian peers in state government have been forgotten.

Amen to that.

MA Ma-Madness

Talking of lightning, I can't believe that the curse of Massachusetts has struck twice in the same place, but apparently it has:

In (another) sad day in Massachusetts, State CIO Louis Gutierrez submitted his resignation today to the Romney administration. Like his predecessor, Peter Quinn, Louis is a man of principle. And, like Peter, he is taking the high road by using his resignation to inform the citizens of Massachusetts of a regrettable lapse on the part of their elected representatives.

I suppose the only consolation is that if ODF succeeds here, with everything ranged against it, it will succeed anywhere.

MA ODF: The Soap Opera

You couldn't make this stuff up.

The man who succeeded Peter Quinn, the main engine behind the adoption of the ODF standard in Massachusetts, is also leaving, because of lack of IT funding. The ODF plans seem unaffected by this, but you can't help feeling there's more than meets the eye to all this.

ODF Heats Up in Chile

One of the ironies of the free software world is that it is global - development is carried out around the world, 24 hours a days - and yet there is a terrible cultural bias in terms of the news that is reported, which tends to be almost exclusively about anglophone developments.

Take Chile, for example: how much do we know about free software activities there? Speaking personally, I have to admit, nothing. But that will change, because I've come across this great site called Hombros de Gigantes (Shoulders of Giants), written by Jens Hardings, a full time researcher and professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

Here's a good example of the stuff it runs:

Many eyes are paying attention to what is happening in Massachusetts with the Open Format requirement.

...

One of the things I would like to spread a lot more than it is known is the fact that we have very similar requirements in Chile to the ones being put forward in Massachsetts’ Enterprise Technical Reference Model.

Hot news from Chile indeed.

ODF in MA: Open and Shut?

The roller-coaster ride of ODF in Massachusetts continues. After the extraordinary blasting the decision had received, which seemed to place its future in the balance, it now looks like things are still steaming ahead. This one will run and run.

Anti-ODF Stuff Turns Nasty

With his customary sharpness, Andy Updegrove skewers a particularly nasty piece of lobbyist punditry. The statement in question manages to twist the news that Massachusetts is calling for an ODF plug-in for Microsoft Office - an eminently sensible thing to do, which the open source world is keen to support - into some kind of act of desperation.

It then goes on:

the Massachusetts ODF policy ... is a biased, open source only preference policy. We believe such preference policies exclude choice, needlessly marginalize successful marketplace options, and curtail merit-based selections for state procurements. In short, they disserve citizens who demand cost-effective solutions for their hard-earned tax dollars.

This is rich. It is factually incorrect - there is no open source only preference policy; it is hyperbolic - the idea of Microsoft Office being "marginalised" is droll, to say the least, as is the idea that "successful marketplace options" deserve to have their near-monopolies preserved; and ultimately (wilfully) misses the point, which is that a truly open standard is the only way to guarantee future access to files, the only way to allow competition among software manufacturers, and so the only way to provide "choice" and the "merit-based", "cost-effective" solution the statement purports to espouse.

ODF Gets Interestinger

Who would have thought file formats could be such fun?

The great battle over whether the OpenDocument format should be adopted in Massachusetts has taken another dramatic turn with the appointment of a successor to Peter Quinn, the man who took most of the flak for introducing the policy in the first place.

What's most striking is that the press release announcing the new CIO goes out of its way to emphasise that he will be "responsible for overseeing the final stages of implementation of the state's new Open Document format proposal, to go into effect in January 2007" (via Andy Updegrove's Standards Blog). In other words, all the talk about how the ODF decision was being rolled back was premature, to say the least.

Microsoft is unlikely to take this lying down - too much is at stake. If it loses Massachusetts in this way, it will create a terrible precedent for the company. It will reveal that that there is, in fact, life after Microsoft Office. And once users start to experience the huge benefits of employing open formats - freedom from vendor lock-in, the ability to deploy a range of different applications on several platforms, easy archiving etc. - the trickle of defections will soon become positively Amazonian.

Expect things to get even more interestinger.

Wikipedia: not Right, but Might

If you ever wondered why, in the age of the global Internet, local newspapers still existed, read this. It begins as precisely the kind of small-scale story that someone like, well, me, for example, would have thought unworthy of much attention. It's about some small, local politician somewhere in Massachusetts (don't ask me, I'm British), doing something small and local, right?

Wrong.

The basic story is simple. A US politician (or probably someone on his staff) came across this wacky Wikipedia stuff, and noticed that anyone could edit it freely. So, being a politician (or the hired hand thereof), this person decided to do the obvious thing: edit out all the embarrassing bits in the biography of this politician.

Alas for this individual, in the wacky world of Wikipedia, nefariousness is not so easy. Certainly, you can edit away to your little heart's content - but do remember that you will leave behind a nice audit trail for everyone to see exactly who did what.

Following that trail, this particular enlightened journalist (step forward Evan Lehmann) discovered that more than 1,000 changes had been made by "congressional staffers at the U.S. House of Representatives in the past six month". So this little local story turns out to be something very big. In fact it turns out to be two very big things.

The first is that traditional politicians do not flourish in an open context: when everything they do can be traced and and tracked they are in trouble. The second is that Wikipedia is now so important even the politicians want to subvert it (or at least try). This makes recent discussions about whether Wikipedia's entries are right somewhat moot: forget right, Wikipedia is officially might.

Update: Wikipedia has now started taking corrective action.

Open Source's Big Blunder

It is easy to be fooled by the success of open source software. High-profile applications like Apache and Firefox are routinely cited for their absolute market dominance or relative technological superiority. GNU/Linux is going head-to-head with Microsoft Windows Server, while many are predicting that 2006 will be the year GNU/Linux on the desktop makes its breakthrough (just like 2005 and 2004). The bitter fight over the OpenDocument Format in Massachusetts is an indication that for the first time there is real rival to Microsoft's Office formats, and the Eclipse development platform continues to gain support among coders, corporate IT departments and software companies.

So what's missing from this rosy picture of free software's inexorable rise?

The one area that everyone seems to forget about is education. While it is true that GNU/Linux and open source applications are popular among the more tech-savvy users at university, younger students are exposed almost exclusively to Microsoft's products (except in a few enlightened regions of the world).

The failure of open source to devote significant energies and resources here is a serious problem. As Microsoft learned from Apple, whose initial rise was largely thanks to the widespread use of the Apple ][ in education, if you get them young, you get to keep them (most of them, at least). It is all very well trying to put open source solutions on the desktop, but if the people coming through the educational system have been conditioned to use only Microsoft's products, they will resist any moves to force them to touch anything else. The users become Microsoft's fiercest advocates.

The corollary is that broadening the use of free software in schools will automatically lead to increased use in the home and business markets. Indeed, there is a double benefit if schools routinely deploy programs like Firefox, OpenOffice and GNU/Linux. It ensures that tomorrow's consumers, workers and leaders will be completely comfortable using them, and encourages today's parents to find out more about the software that their children are using at school. One of the huge advantages that open source software enjoys over proprietary applications is that parents can make free copies of a school's software, rather than "borrowing" office copies, say, of Microsoft's products.

Against this background, it is heartening that the UK government body BECTA is carrying out a review of the licensing programme it signed with Microsoft in 2003. Significantly, the report will examine the risks of "lock-in" to Microsoft's products, and "focus on ways to improve access to alternatives to Microsoft products to ensure that there is a freedom of choice". This review therefore takes place in a very different context from the one in which BECTA negotiated its previous deal. In 2003 there was no question about changing supplier - it was taken for granted that Microsoft was the solution: the question was the price reductions that could be won from the company.

As I've noted elsewhere, Microsoft is very adept at bowing to "pressure"” and making "sacrifices" during negotiations. In this case, BECTA could proudly announce that its 2003 deal would save the UK taxpayer £46 million. But for this sum, Microsoft not only retained it grip on the British educational system, but had that stranglehold more or less enshrined in official policy.

It remains to be seen what BECTA comes up with, but its two previous reports in this area, on the use of open source software in schools, and on the possible cost savings of doing so, were notable for their intelligence and even-handedness. This gives some hope that open source may at last be given the opportunity to prove its worth in the British schools.

Helpfully, BECTA has said of its work that "“recognising the increasing relevance of this issue to educators in the EU and indeed globally, an international exchange of views will be facilitated."” This "exchange of views" might provide those living in other areas where there is no significant use of free software in schools with a good opportunity to push for similar reviews in their own countries.

One thing seems certain: if something is not done soon, an entire generation will grow up around the globe that equates the Web with Internet Explorer, email with Outlook, productivity software with Office and computers with Windows. In such a world, open source will at best be marginal, and at worst, irrelevant.