Readers with good memories may remember various key fights over the years that were largely about ODF and OOXML. The first round culminated in the extraordinarily shoddy fast-tracking of OOXML through the ISO standards process. Then we had a big battle over open standards in general, which also involved ODF and OOXML, where the UK government performed a dizzying series of U-turns.
Today is Document Freedom Day:
It is a day for celebrating and raising awareness of Open Standards and formats which takes place on the last Wednesday in March each year. On this day people who believe in fair access to communications technology teach, perform, and demonstrate.
A couple of weeks ago, I was reviewing Spain's move to open standards. The good news is that elsewhere on the Iberian peninsular, Portugal, too, is doing great work in this area.
As we know, lock-in is one of the biggest obstacles to moving from closed, proprietary formats, to open ones. But so far as I know, no one has tried to quantify the extent to which people cling to old formats. That makes the following piece of research useful, at least as a first stab at finding out what is really going on:
Yesterday I looked at the first part of a long document that Microsoft sent the Cabinet Office in October last year. Here I'd like to explore one of the other sections, which is headed as follows:
As you may have noticed, open standards are a hot topic currently. One person who deals with them all the time in a variety of ways is Charles-H. Schulz.
That's because he's one of the leaders of The Document Foundation, home to the LibreOffice fork of the ODF-based OpenOffice.org, and he's also on the board of the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). The following is an interview exploring his views about standards - open and not so open.
In may last column, I wrote about Microsoft's efforts last year to derail any possible adoption of ODF. That's very telling, because in a way it's quite separate from the issue of open standards, and it shows that one of Microsoft's chief fears is losing the extremely lucrative office suite business. But just how lucrative is it? An email from Microsoft that is apparently circulating around the Treasury department sheds some interesting light on this. Here's what it says:
In yesterday's post about Microsoft's lobbying of the Cabinet Office against truly open standards based on RF licensing, I spent some time examining the first part of a letter sent by the company on 20 May last year. The second part concentrates on the issue of open standards for document exchange. This touches on one of the most brutal episodes in recent computing history - the submission of Microsoft's OOXML file format to ISO for approval.
A couple of days ago I wrote about the deal between the regional government of Puglia and Microsoft, noting that it was frustrating that we couldn't even see the terms of that deal. Well, now we can, in all its glorious officialese, and it rather confirms my worst fears.
Not, I hasten to add, because of the overall framing, which speaks of many worthy aims such as fighting social exclusion and improving the quality of life, and emphasises the importance of "technology neutrality" and "technological pluralism". It is because of how this deal will play out in practice.
That is, we need to read between the lines to find out what the fairly general statements in the agreement will actually mean. For example, when we read:analisi congiunta delle discontinuità tecnologiche in atto e dello stato dell’arte in materia di ricerca e sviluppo informatico, sia in area desktop che nei data center (come ad es. il cloud computing e la mobilità);
[joint analysis of the technological discontinuities underway and of the state of the art in research materials and IT development, both on the desktop and in the data centre (for example, cloud computing and mobile)]
will Microsoft and representatives of the Puglia administration work together to discuss the latest developments in mobile, on the desktop, or data centres, and come to the conclusion: "you know, what would really be best for Puglia would be replacing all these expensive Microsoft Office systems by free LibreOffice; replacing handsets with low-cost Android smartphones; and adopting open stack solutions in the cloud"? Or might they just possibly decide: "let's just keep Microsoft Office on the desktop, buy a few thousands Windows Mobile 7 phones (they're so pretty!), and use Windows Azure, and Microsoft'll look after all the details"?
And when we read:
Favorire l’accesso e l’utilizzo del mondo scolastico e dei sistemi dell’istruzione alle tecnologie ed agli strumenti informatici più aggiornati
[To encourage the educational and teaching world to access and use the most up-to-date IT systems]
will this mean that teachers will explain how they need low-cost solutions that students can copy and take home so as not to disadvantage those unable to pay hundreds of Euros for desktop software, and also software that can be modified, ideally by the students themselves? And will they then realise that the only option that lets them do that is free software, which can be copied freely and examined and modified?
Or will Microsoft magnanimously "donate" hundreds of zero price-tag copies of its software to schools around the province, as it has in many other countries, to ensure that students are brought up to believe that word processing is the same as Word, and spreadsheets are always Excel. But no copying, of course, ("free as in beer" doesn't mean "free as in freedom", does it?) and no peeking inside the magic black box - but then nobody really needs to do that stuff, do they?
And when we see that:Microsoft si impegna a:
individuare e comunicare alla Regione le iniziative e risorse (a titolo esemplificativo: personale tecnico e specialistico, eventuali strumenti software necessari alle attività da svolgere congiuntamente) che intende mettere a disposizione per sostenere la creazione del centro di competenza congiunto Microsoft-Regione;
[Microsoft undertakes to:
specify and communicate to the Region the initiatives and resources (for example: technical personnel and specialists, software necessary for the joint activities) which it intends to make available for the creation of the joint Microsoft-Regional centre of competence centre]
are we to imagine that Microsoft will diligently provide a nicely balanced selection of PCs running Windows, some Apple Macintoshes, and PCs running GNU/Linux? Will it send along specialists in open source? Will it provide examples of all the leading free software packages to be used in the joint competency centre? Or will it simply fill the place to the gunwales with Windows-based, proprietary software, and staff it with Windows engineers?
The point is the "deal" with Microsoft is simply an invitation for Microsoft to colonise everywhere it can. And to be fair, there's not much else it can do: it has little deep knowledge of free software, so it would be unreasonable to expect it to explore or promote it. But it is precisely for that reason that this agreement is completely useless; it can produce one result, and one result only: recommendations to use Microsoft products at every level, either explicitly or implicitly.
And that is not an acceptable solution because it locks out competitors like free software - despite the following protestations of support for "interoperability": Microsoft condivide l’approccio delle politiche in materia adottato dalla Regione Puglia ed è parte attiva, a livello internazionale, per promuovere iniziative rivolte alla interoperabilità nei sistemi, indipendentemente dalle tecnologie usate.
[Microsoft shares the approach adopted by the Puglia Region, and is an active part of initiatives at an international level to promote the interoperability of systems, independently of the technology used.]
In fact, Microsoft is completely interoperable only when it is forced to be, as was the case with the European Commission:In 2004, Neelie Kroes was appointed the European Commissioner for Competition; one of her first tasks was to oversee the fining brought onto Microsoft by the European Commission, known as the European Union Microsoft competition case. This case resulted in the requirement to release documents to aid commercial interoperability and included a €497 million fine for Microsoft.
That's clearly not an approach that will be available in all cases. The best way to guarantee full interoperability is to mandate true open standards - ones made freely available with no restrictions, just as the World Wide Web Consortium insists on for Web standards. On the desktop, for example, the only way to create a level playing-field for all is to use products based entirely on true open standards like Open Document Format (ODF).
If the Puglia region wants to realise its worthy aims, it must set up a much broader collaboration with a range of companies and non-commercial groups that represent the full spectrum of computing approaches - including Microsoft, of course. And at the heart of this strategy it must place true open standards.
Update: some good news about supporting open source and open standards has now been announced.
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Although I don't use it much myself, I've heard that Facebook is quite popular in some quarters. This makes its technological moves important, especially when they impact free software. Yesterday, we had what most have seen as a pretty big announcement from the company that does precisely that:
On Open Enterprise blog.
Long-time readers of this blog will recall the bitter fight over the submission of Microsoft's OOXML formats to the ISO. To the dismay of most people in the world of open source, a compromise was reached that enabled Microsoft to claim that OOXML was being approved. Here is how Alex Brown, who played a crucial role in the standardisation process, describes it:
On Open Enterprise blog.
Remember the browser ballot screen that Microsoft agreed to add as part of its settlement with the EU over competition issues? It's happening now:
Over the next few weeks, Microsoft will begin offering a “Web browser choice screen” to Internet Explorer users in Europe, as required by the European Commission. Internal testing of the choice screen is underway now. We’ll begin a limited roll-out externally next week, and expect that a full scale roll-out will begin around March 1, a couple of weeks ahead of schedule.
On Open Enterprise blog.
It has been a sad spectacle to see the British Library – without doubt once the greatest library in the world, and hence a powerful force for disseminating knowledge as widely as possible - become more and more enmeshed in locking down research in proprietary formats.
On Open Enterprise blog.
It's hard to believe that there was such sound and fury when OOXML was being pushed through the ISO process. At the time, it seemed like the end of the world, since it looked like Microsoft had succeeded in obtaining a nominal parity with ODF, which had been approved earlier.
My, what a difference a year makes....
On Open Enterprise blog.
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.
Remember Open Office XML – a name chosen to be as confusingly close to OpenOffice XML as possible – better known as OOXML? Remember how just over a year ago this and many other blogs and news outlets were full of sound and fury, as OOXML slouched its way through the ISO standardisation process, finally staggering across the finishing line at the beginning of April 2008? I certainly do, but it's extraordinary how things can change in a year...
On Open Enterprise blog.
One of the great things about free software is that it transcends politics. Those on the left love it because it is a collaborative effort, born of altruism; those on the right love it because it is efficient and flexible. This has led to some interesting jockeying on the political scene, as politicians of all stripes have tried to prove that they were more open than their rivals.
There's no doubt that in the UK the winners so far have been the Conservatives, who have seized on open source as a stick with which to beat the current government's miserable record on large-scale IT projects, most of which have been way over budget at best, and utter failures at worst (with some managing both). This has understandably put pressure on Labour to come up with a riposte, and yesterday it was unveiled in the form of something called “Open Source, Open Standards and Re–Use: Government Action Plan” (there's a handy version from WriteToReply here, where you can add your comments.
On Open Enterprise blog.
One of the running themes on this blog is the importance of engaging with the powers that be, specifically through responding to government and European requests for comments on proposals.
You would think that those putting together such requests would do everything in their power to maximise the feedback they receive, but alas that's not always the case....
On Open Enterprise blog.
One of the biggest barriers to introducing new, open formats like ODF is the lock-in of platforms to Microsoft's dominant Office formats. This makes winning support for as many different environments as possible critically important, because it removes what might be an insuperable obstacle to rolling out ODF within a company.
Against that background, this apparently minor announcement could be quite significant for the uptake of ODF in enterprises....
On Open Enterprise blog.
Great news for ODF in Brazil: it's becoming the official format for storing government agency dox:Já no passado mês de Abril de 2008, o ODF (Open Document Format) tinha sido adoptado como Norma Nacional no Brasil, mas agora sabemos por um comunicado da SERPRO que foi publicada a versão 4.0 dos Padrões de Interoperabilidade de Governo Electrónico (e-PING) que torna obrigatória a utilização do ODF na administração pública federal.
A nova versão publicada pela Secretaria de Logística e Tecnologia da Informação (SLTI) do Ministério do Planejamento adota o Open Document Format (ODF), como formato padrão para guarda e troca de documentos eletrônicos no governo federal.
...
Até a última versão da e-Ping o formato ODF constava com o status de recomendado pelo documento, sendo facultativo aos órgãos o uso, na versão 4.0 o ODF assume característica de adotado, dessa forma, torna-se obrigatório para todos os órgãos da administração direta, autarquias e fundações.
[Via Google Translate: Already in April 2008, the ODF (Open Document Format) had been adopted as national standard in Brazil, but now we know for a release of SERPRO which was published version 4.0 of the Standards for Interoperability of Electronic Government (E-PING ) That mandate the use of ODF in the public service federation.
The new version published by the Department of Logistics and Information Technology (SLTI) of the Ministry of Planning adopts the Open Document Format (odf), as a standard for safekeeping and exchange of electronic documents in the federal government.
...
Until the latest version of the e-Ping the format ODF was recommended to the status of the document, and voluntary bodies to use, version 4.0 in the ODF takes characteristic of adopted thus becomes mandatory for all government agencies direct, municipalities and foundations.]
As ever, Brazil's decision is doubly significant: important in itself, given the size of the country, and important as an example to others.
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