I spent 22 years as the chairman of what is now ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34. SC34 is the committee that standardized SGML in the 1980s and now is responsible for both ODF, supported by many open-source products, and OOXML, the XML released by Microsoft in response to ODF. Neither ODF nor OOXML has anything to do with ODA/ODIF, which have been dormant since the turn of the current century but were still under development in the 1990s in a committee that was parallel to the one that became SC34.

Our past analysis: OOXML is a response. Thank you very much for the confirmation. Stronger language from Mason found in this article.

A Texas judge ruled Tuesday that Microsoft cannot sell one of its flagship products, Word, in the United States because of patent infringement. …Judge Leonard Davis.. ordered a permanent injunction that "prohibits Microsoft from selling or importing to the United States any Microsoft Word products that have the capability of opening .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files (XML files) containing custom XML," according to an announcement by the plaintiff, Toronto-based i4i Inc.

i4i? Ah, the world famous inventor of the "Method and system for manipulating the architecture and the content of a document separately from each other" which is so basic to our digital societies?

PERMANENT INJUNCTION
In accordance with the Court’s contemporaneously issued memorandum opinion and order
in this case, Microsoft Corporation is hereby permanently enjoined from performing the following
actions with Microsoft Word 2003, Microsoft Word 2007, and Microsoft Word products not more
than colorably different from Microsoft Word 2003 or Microsoft Word 2007 (collectively “Infringing
and Future Word Products”) during the term of U.S. Patent No. 5,787,449:
1. selling, offering to sell, and/or importing in or into the United States any
Infringing and Future Word Products that have the capability of opening a .XML,
.DOCX, or .DOCM file (“an XML file”) containing custom XML;
2. using any Infringing and Future Word Products to open an XML file
containing custom XML;
3. instructing or encouraging anyone to use any Infringing and Future Word
Products to open an XML file containing custom XML;
4. providing support or assistance to anyone that describes how to use any
infringing and Future Word Products to open an XML file containing custom XML;
and
5. testing, demonstrating, or marketing the ability of the Infringing and Future
Word Products to open an XML file containing custom XML.
This injunction does not apply to any of the above actions wherein the Infringing and Future
Word Products open an XML file as plain text.
This injunction also does not apply to any of the above actions wherein any of the Infringing
and Future Word Products, upon opening an XML file, applies a custom tranform that removes all
custom XML elements.
This injunction further does not apply to Microsoft providing support or assistance to anyone
that describes how to use any of the infringing products to open an XML file containing custom
XML if that product was licensed or sold before the date this injunction takes effect.
This injunction becomes effective 60 days from the date of this order.
__________
LEONARD DAVIS
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
So ORDERED and SIGNED this 11th day of August, 2009.

Patent problems

We may add that while Microsoft always pays lip service to patent reform and patent quality, it effectively obstructed even moderate steps of pragmatic reform in the field of software patenting with massive lobbying investment and an ideological agenda. An ideological motivation you don't find among all the other players which have a real business. The massive lobbying also applies to colonial attitudes towards patent regimes of third nations in which the American company operates, or the European Union, our main area of operations as the FFII e.V. Ironically Microsoft itself is a favourite target of troll challenges and no one knows how much profits Marshall Phelps actually generates by selling their Microsoft FAT patents. In the spectacular case of TomTom we were told it was a very small amount. Some American critics as Brian Kahin speak of a patent bubble of low value patents but how is it going to burst? When you have a licensing business a good patent is one that hurts. Maybe the Encyclopedia Brittannica is an example, it failed commercially and now became an (unsuccesful) patent enforcement agency against actual market players.

In the recent referral G03/08 about software patentability an European Patent Office case named T 424/03 (Microsoft) was center to the debate. Find the Amicus letters here. Currently you also have a pending referral on Bilski in the US Supreme Court which is more far reaching than software. In the US many examination tests were dismantled such as the machine or transformation box test which opened the flood gates and unbalanced the system. It was reintroduced under the Bilski ruling but appealed at the supreme court. The Bilski test does not rule out software or business method patents but provides means to reduce the pressure within the examination system in later stages.

First you wreck the law, then the trolls wreck you.

Software Patents are a pain for market players of all sizes. In Europe some people from the FFII Community run a new Petition and we also prepare an international effort. The FFII, a charity under German law financed by membership fees and donations, has a lot of expertise and proposals on how to overcome the current troll problems and improve the examination and litigation system. Unfortunately learning the hard way does not guarantee a quick learning process.

What does it mean to Open XML?

Right now ISO/IEC 29500 ("OOXML") is patent encumbered and cannot be called an "open standard" according to conventional definitions and looks unusable for the public sector. Microsoft's own patents and lack of licensing clarity were a real concern, but i4i's enforcement efforts are on another level. ISO Open XML is currently in a critical situation as you can expect more enforcement attempts of i4i to follow in order to sqeeze money out of the market, in particular once Microsoft is forced to pay. On the other hand Microsoft will be forced to use all legal means to get rid of the patent. We need to keep a close eye on the upcoming developments but i4i may not prevail.

Expect the FFII, Eurolinux and many others to fight for that.

• European Petition: Stopsoftwarepatents.eu
• FFII Website FFII e.V. and FFII website for "Groff" text processing tools

The recommendation from Microsoft is that users roll back to an earlier version. So here is the official workaround for Office users:

• Remove Office manually, reinstall Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac from the original installation media, and then upgrade to Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.9 Update. Do not upgrade to Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Service Pack 2 (12.2.0) from Microsoft AutoUpdate.
• Use Time Machine to roll back to Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.9 Update or an earlier version.
• Convert your document to .doc, .xls, or .ppt, by using Open XML Converter.

There is a more simple fix: Open file formats as ODF and more competition. Maybe you'd better try other word processors for instance Openoffice for Mac or Neooffice?

If you have time to read it, there are probably nice bits in there.

Microsoft will be the "social host" of the Seattle meetings, hosting the reception and dinner, etc. They will also be organizing a Document Interoperability Initiative (DII) event to occur the day after the SC34 Plenary, at Microsoft, to announce how they intent to support Office 2010 as extensions to OOXML.

The previous DII event organised by Microsoft in Brussels was basically a meeting of the Microsoft ecosystem.

Here is the announcement of the meeting on the SC34 website:

For general questions about Westin meeting logistics, or things to do around Seattle, please contact Dave Welsh, moc.tfosorcim|hslewmd#moc.tfosorcim|hslewmd, cell phone +1 206 313 0879.

[…]

More hotel options, at different rates, are also available. For more hotel options in the immediate Bellevue area and the Seattle vicinity, please try Live.com.

[…]

Located in downtown Bellevue, just twenty minutes outside Seattle, The Westin Bellevue is situated minutes from major corporate offices including Microsoft, Nintendo of America, T-Mobile, and Expedia.

You can expect a lot of people member of the Microsoft ecosystem at the next SC34 meeting in Redmond.

A word processor including a native XML file format is provided. The well formed XML file fully represents the word-processor document, and fully supports 100% of word-processor's rich formatting. There are no feature losses when saving the word-processor documents as XML. A published XSD file defines all the rules behind the word-processor's XML file format. Hints may be provided within the XML associated files providing applications that understand XML a shortcut to understanding some of the features provided by the word-processor. The word-processing document is stored in a single XML file. Additionally, manipulation of word-processing documents may be done on computing devices that do not include the word-processor itself.

Inventors: Jones; Brian M. (Redmond, WA), Bishop; Andrew K. (Redmond, WA), Snyder; Daniel R. (Bellevue, WA), Sawicki; Marcin (Kirkland, WA), Little; Robert A. (Redmond, WA), Krueger; Anthony D. (Woodinville, WA)
Assignee: Microsoft Corporation (Redmond, WA)
Appl. No.: 11/005,183
Filed: December 6, 2004

The supporters of ODF should react to this. I therefore propose the following actions:

- Ask the ODF Alliance to publish a press release recommending not using the "Save as ODF" facility included MS Office SP2, due to the bad quality of the produced ODF files.

The ODF Alliance issued a press release on 28-Apr-09 saying:

The ODF Alliance today welcomed the release of Microsoft’s Service Pack 2 for Office 2007, a software update that provides long-awaited support for the OpenDocument Format (ODF), while cautioning governments to evaluate the new software to ensure sufficient interoperability with other ODF-supporting applications.
[…]
"Microsoft has dragged its feet for over three years now. The key test will be whether Microsoft’s support for ODF plays well with other ODF-supporting software,” continued Marcich. “Governments will want to further evaluate the support for ODF provided by Microsoft and whether it sufficiently meets their needs for greater openness and interoperability.”

The initial tests made by Rob Weir shows the very bad interoperability delivered, and I think that a warning to the users is deserved.

- Start a petition asking Microsoft to make MS Office SP2 unavailable until the design flaws in the product have been corrected.

We must make it clear to Microsoft that their attitude is not acceptable, and force them to behave in a better way.

Would it work to promote OOXML and the next generation ooxml implementations (let us coin them code name "Greenhorn")? eWeek's Larry Seltzer:

Obviously, Microsoft would like to have us all move to the new formats, mostly by virtue of moving to Office 2007, but that's not happening soon and Microsoft's not making us do it. In fact, Office 2003 will be getting security updates for five more years, until April 8, 2014, the same date security fixes for Windows XP will end.

Needless to say that this is about the implementation. He is speaking here about earlier implementations to support the format. He talks about support for the format as such.

…the damage from targeted attacks can be immense, and many users may be exposed. If Microsoft is going to claim to support the old formats for five more years, it needs to make security updates for them a high priority for five more years.

You can be sure that the corpus of existing binary document formats will be continued to be supported. The only revelevant question is if the next generation will be OOXML or ODF.

Will we listen to the binary insecurity tune to force customers to upgrade?

Whether OOXML Wins Or Not, Older MS Docs Aren't Safe

Here is another one to sell the next Office generation: the old binary formats are not "open". Diabolic laughter included.

29500 Defects: Explanation of whether to resolve defects by Corrigendum or by Amendment

Defects in ISO/IEC 29500:2008
Explanation of whether to resolve defects
by Corrigendum or by Amendment
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34/WG4
2009-03-26
[…]

However, ISO/IEC 29500 is a very large and complex multi-part standard, and it is not surprising that the text contains many unintentional technical defects, which nevertheless don't make it impossible to implement the standard.

In the course of drafting, some existing office document features were unintentionally overlooked, which result in it being impossible to fully represent some of the corpus of existing documents in ISO/IEC 29500.

The corpus of existing documents probably means Office 2007 documents, which is an undocumented file format.

Here is the email I sent to the SC34 chairman:

From Benjamin Henrion <gro.iiff|noirnehb#gro.iiff|noirnehb>
to moc.liamg|12homas#moc.liamg|12homas
date Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 4:53 PM
subject Definition of an "existing document"

Dear Chairman of SC34,

I would like to submit a request and a comment by having read the
following text:

0036(pdf) 29500 Defects: Explanation of whether to resolve defects by
Corrigendum or by Amendment

http://www.itscj.ipsj.or.jp/sc34/wg4/archive/sc34-wg4-2009-0036.pdf

"In the course of drafting, some existing office document features
were unintentionally overlooked, which result in it
being impossible to fully represent some of the corpus of existing
documents in ISO/IEC 29500."

Can you provide a definition of what an "existing documents" means?

Best regards,

—
Benjamin Henrion <bhenrion at ffii.org>
FFII Brussels - +32-484-566109 - +32-2-4148403

Let's have a look what definition they provide.

The document N1101/N1168 contains for example, several items in which they recognize that there are decisions made in the BRM (BRM resolutions) which were not incorporated into the final published text of the standard. In other words, even taking almost a year after the aproval of the standard to publish the text (yes, approved without reading), there wasn’t time/attention or anything else necessary to assure that the changes were published in the text (most of those changes, “conditioned” the approval). What makes me much more angry about this is that during the BRM I asked about who would be responsible for verifying that all these changes would be part of the final text and the answer was ITTF (kind of joint ISO/IEC secretariat).

He may be wrong that this is the final proof of misconduct at the BRM under the lead of Alex Brown and its mission impossible to fix the standard. Following the shocking uncoverings Jesper Lund Stocholm, Alex Brown and Doug Mahugh are acting like little school girls with their gossip and giggles on Twitter. But there may be method to the madness. OOXML is already approved by ISO JTC1. Microsoft no longer needs to persuade the national bodies or influence the press or call out their business partners. It is enough for them to rely on social engineering in SC34, shmoozing, sponsorships, free dinners, free beer, etc.

The reporting of Groklaw about the Microsoft outbursts of unfiltered truth and sillyness made Alex Brown hit back to BRM allegations and he claims the British BSI did not do its job, didn't review ODF properly:

Fact is though, we (the team) did NOT read ODF - we merely made a rapid pass through parts of the text over half a day, looking for obvious problems. Even so, the UK generated by far the greatest number of NB comments. This fact tells you all you need to know about the degree of scrutiny ODF got in its JTC 1 ballot. If you believe it was studied in detail in the UK, you are very wrong. … We learned from our ODF mistake, and rectified our errors [with open xml].

Pamela Jones of Groklaw answers to his flamebait:

Now, as it happens, I have formed the impression that you and the the MS elves want to "interoperate" with ODF so Microsoft forces can take it over, since even you must now realize that OOXML will never work and will never be adopted.

«In order to be answered, you have to be a client of Microsoft, as by article 9 of law 54/2008, there is a "duty of cooperation" which means that the survey must be answered, says Rui Seabra, vice-president of the board of ANSOL, in the association's blog.

The survey aims to be a guide for evaluation of the risks in the area of public procurement and granting public benefits, so Rui wonders «why a Council for Corruption Prevention is benefiting Microsoft.»

A reply to a citizen's email who questioned this practice was found to be extremely revealing: it's all about vendor lock-in. An extensive analysis (in portuguese) details many technical misconsiderations made by the Account's Court, some of them quite unreasonable:

• that Microsoft's binary and XML formats are open standards
• considers Microsoft's OSP an acceptable software license
• that since they use Microsoft, others must use Microsoft
• OpenDocument Format is used by a small number of people (perhaps the state should not have wheelchair ramps since wheelchairs are used by a small number of people), and would require installing third party software

The reply actually tries to turn the third item into the worse problem, and avoids the matter of granting an exclusive benefit to Microsoft, which would go directly against the objectives of the survey.

We’re going to continue working closely with others in the IT industry - customers, partners, competitors and developers, including those in open source communities. They will help identify and solve interoperability challenges. As we mentioned earlier, this is a time of change. We’ve made some progress and we’re going to continue taking steps toward fostering greater interoperability.

Also the terms openness and interoperability are embraced in the article as if the company was going to apply for OFE membership and to stop obstruction of forceful Slovak proposals in the European Parliament for better interoperability (which were initially overlooked).

We also find a reference to a public affairs forum:

One forum where this takes place is in the Interoperability Executive Customer (IEC) Council, which consists of more than 35 CIOs and CTOs from governments and leading corporations around the world. The IEC Council helps Microsoft identify and solve the top challenges facing customers today. Working with them, we’re actively resolving issues in the areas of systems management, security and identity management, as well as office productivity and collaboration tools.

Not IEC as in ISO/IEC. That acronym overlap seems to be just a coincidence. It was established in 2006 and made no significant impact on the OOXML process. Details about the process can be found here.

Anyway, what is hot? You know these PRs make you suspicious. They are usually sent out when something is going on. Texas to go for open document formats? One year old news. And I am convinced no one is aware of the Dutch economist message which could be turned into an openness tsunami in the context of recent bailout spending madness:

Governments should seriously consider to act as leading customers to enhance competition on the market for PC operating systems, office applications and enterprise content management software, suggest micro economists at the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB). Governments should also require open source software in public procurement.

The CPB economists write these three markets are 'tentative examples' of inefficient markets. Such markets suffer from vendor lock-in and the lack of competition is stifling innovation. Normal economic processes are not strong enough to correct such failing markets. "This will not lead to optimal choices of licensing, price, quality and innovation."

Paoli's colleague Craig Shank has a different concept: vendors help governments to make the most of their IT.

This is a time of change. Increasing globalization, rising Internet use, and higher consumer and business expectations are driving increased demand for technology choice and flexibility. Governments and businesses alike have assembled a diverse mix of applications and technologies from a variety of vendors. In this environment, technology can present new opportunities and deliver new solutions. Key to that is helping organizations make the most of their mixed IT environments.

"Vendor capture" as economists call that. Don't expect any trade association to lobby against it. This has to be left to common sense and the ethos of public officials who want to keep their independence. A focus on market order improvements, even in times of bulk emergency keynesian spending on broadband, green-IT and ICT education remains important. In the current situation I am sure a "microbillion" for interoperability actions can be made available in many nations around the world. Crumps for common sense, free markets and more openness.

Mandatory ODF policies are only a small step in a long transformation process in the field of communications technologies but it is time to walk the talk. The financial markets have shown that we cannot afford to lean back on the regulatory side as society as a whole suffers the consequences.

Fraunhofer Fokus is also represented in the DIN document committee for document formats. There it was a proponent of the adoption of the questionable OpenXML format while German government representatives sent furious protest letters. Now Fraunhofer is in the news again:

February 23, 2009 Microsoft partners with Fraunhofer Fokus
Fraunhofer Fokus recently announced a new project to create an IS29500-Validator and Document-Library. The project will test the validity of documents regarding conformance to ISO/IEC 29500. As part of the project activities Fraunhofer Fokus will initiate the development of an Open Source document validator.

Fraunhofer FOKUS initiates its new Document-Interoperability-Lab. The lab will test the validity of documents regarding the document-standard ISO/IEC 29500 known as Office Open XML. As part of the lab activities Fraunhofer Fokus will initiate the Open Source development of a document validator. Additionally a library consisting of valid test and template documents will be offered. Word processing, presentation as well as spreadsheet documents will be taken into consideration. Microsoft Corporation will support these activities as development partner.

The question is who will trust the research results of Fraunhofer Fokus? And why does the German tax payer invest in a research institution that sells out to companies across the Atlantic regardless of our national public interest in interoperability? For instance Fraunhofer Fokus applauded(!) the ISO adoption of Open XML.

• 2008-04-09 Fraunhofer FOKUS begrüßt die ISO-Normierung DIS 29500 von Office Open XML

Fraunhofer DIN NIA person Gerd Schürmann sent also emails that seemed to be equivalent to those of Microsoft's Mario Wendt. Let's look if the document experts can validate that. Does it make you feel comfortable that Schuermann was named for the DIN NIA 43 subcommittee which deals with translation matters of ISO/IEC 26300 (ODF) and ISO 29500 (OOXML)?

Here is what Doug Mahugh is saying on the ODF mailing-list:

It's worth noting that the ODF metadata mechanisms don't allow for the use of a private/custom schema to tag content within a document. And that use case has value to many users. So if we decide that ODF won't be able to support those types of scenarios, for whatever reason, we should not be surprised to find that users who need such capabilities will look elsewhere.

Consider the trivial example of a pre-existing document, created years ago, which needs to be logged in to a content management system that requires an abstract to be identified for each document. If the format of the document is HTML, then a div with class="abstract" can be used to tag the appropriate paragraph(s) as the abstract. If the format of the document is DOCX, a customXml element with element="abstract" can be used for the same purposes. In both cases the document content remains valid HTML or WordprocessingML, while the user adds the custom semantics required for their purpose. The custom semantics can be (and should be) ignored by others. The user is free to innovate quickly, and does not have to think in terms of a tradeoff between strict compliance and flexibility/business value. They can, and do, have the best of both worlds in such scenarios: strict compliance to a standard, and freedom to innovate quickly for their own specialized purposes.

I think ODF would benefit from being as supportive of such scenarios as HTML, IS29500 and other formats already are. No committee can anticipate every possible class of extension that users might find useful, so I think the format itself should allow for clean, simple tagging of content according to schemas that may never be standardized, and may never be widely known or used. Done correctly, such tagging puts no burden on simple interoperability between word processors (which typically ignore it), but can enable other types of interoperability that many people find valuable.

- Doug

There is only one way to do interoperability at Microsoft: embrace and extend. "Freedom to innovate" here means "Freedom to embrace and extend", or "Freedom for Microsoft to add proprietary patented extensions that makes users dependent on Microsoft technologies".

Time to join the ODF TC!

An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the local user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less affected than users who operate with administrative user rights.
In a Web-based attack scenario, an attacker would have to host a Web site that contains an Office file that is used to attempt to exploit this vulnerability. In addition, compromised Web sites and Web sites that accept or host user-provided content could contain specially crafted content that could exploit this vulnerability. An attacker would have no way to force users to visit a malicious Web site. Instead, an attacker would have to persuade them to visit the Web site, typically by getting them to click a link that takes them to the attacker's site.
The vulnerability cannot be exploited automatically through e-mail. For an attack to be successful a user must open an attachment that is sent in an e-mail message. Users who have installed and are using the Office Document Open Confirmation Tool for Office 2000 will be prompted with Open, Save, or Cancel before opening a document.

So users probably should be very cautious with .xlsx files sent to them until the risks are contained through security updates.

Background:

• PCmag
• Security Focus

Keep in mind it is 'just' oil and gas. Petrol is elementary to keep you warm and your car running. You can buy it on a world market from multiple sources. Only oil companies and leftists believe that you need to go to war to secure access to petrol resources. But what about the real dependencies of regions like Europe on software and standards? The Russians are here about to lower these strategic dependencies in their national interest. The Open XML standardisation effort has shown to players in the IT business how ruthless it gets when strategic concerns come into play, and multinational corporations and governments are not much different here.

Most governments around the world already have a national operating system, it is called Windows and their tax payers have to pay large amounts of money for this national 'choice' to an American company. Fortunately it also contributes to the functioning of the political system through sponsoring of regulatory action, new career perspectives for politicians, sponsoring of an EU Presidency or reform of 'open standards' requirements. Ireland is a good place to base your software licensing business as the Irish government helps you with tax evasion.

A good reason why governments need Windows is an Office application and you can say it is their National Office Application. It only runs on Windows, has a cousin on the Mac and tinkerers sometimes manage to get it work under Linux occasionally, perhaps. Just ask, you find so many good excuses why it became their National Office Application and why they want it to remain their Office application. For instance because governments urgently need the Office software to process the files other people with the same software sent to them. Thus some governments backed the standardisation of the proprietary format through ISO. The OOXML saga.

Other governments want to be able to switch to other products or actually do that. Most of them migrate to Staroffice or [OpenOffice.org] which support the ODF format and the old binary doc format out of the box. Government agencies understand that a creation of an international standard as ODF was crucial to reduce their switching costs, they understood that only strong economic pressure would force Microsoft into full ODF compliance. Some governments also understand that you have to invest into alternative products and migration studies to further reduce the dependencies and built up the market pressure for interoperability.

I wonder if Russia will consider to develop its national word processor as well. A wise Russian will understand the danger to their national independence that a support for the Open XML format instead of ODF bears. If they have no opportunity but to chose Open XML it shows that their national independence is already compromised. When I went to the military part of the mission of military service was to shield our nation from foreign extortion. I wonder how these institutions can contribute to liberate our nations from these dependencies. Guns and nukes do not seem to help against the viral software sales model from Redmond. A clear software and interoperability strategy and effective action does help, as long as governments do not fraternise with the opponent of their national interest.

Andrew Tridgell, …, did not speak about this subject; rather he focused on the way Microsoft manouevred the OOXML standard through the International Standards Organisation last year, using means which are widely acknowledged as being non-kosher.

Tridgell said Microsoft had subverted the entire standards process by ramming the OOXML standard through and the company should make reparations, including an apology.

Last year there was a bunch of other outraged persons in Norway. I leave it to you for now to make up your mind how this relates to recent unexpected developments on the European level you find in the news. CTO Hakon Wium Lie explained what powers their entrepreneurial success in a Geneva conference: Genuine Open Standards and adherence of their competitors to them. As a coincidence the Open Forum Europe event happened to take place at the same time and in the same building as the Ballot Resolution Meeting for OOXML.

Poor Lawrence Crumpton.

We were particularly pleased to see the issue of software patents addressed in a manner that prevents them being used to hinder competition rather than the original purpose of patent law, to promote innovation. We are concerned about the current state of the standards process, as evidenced by the recent ISO process relating to a standard that no-one implements "Open XML" which appears to be achieving full recognition in spite of safeguards in the standards process rather than because of them.

Other contributions can be found here. Although Microsoft said it wants to offer Open XML patent licensing on a royalty-free base it strongly advocates against the existing European interoperability definition of open standards which currently provides for no patent restrictions. Of course it doesn't. The American company writes to the Commission:

The discussion of standards and technical specifications is necessary, and would serve the requirements of an interoperability framework better without the redefinition of the meaning of “open standards” carried over from EIF 1.0.

For IT professionals it might sound odd that a term as 'open standards' the EU Interoperability Framework explains correctly is suddenly described as a redefinition by the very company that redefines it and invested so much in lobbying. You are lying, yells the liar.

The European Interoperability Framework 1.0 is so popular because it adapts to business reality. This is why the contributions to the EIF update process which lead to an EIF2 have a specific political relevance for software professionals in Europe. If foreign companies succeed to subvert terminology and standards driven by their commercial interests, what role for Europeans whom their administrations and standard bodies are supposed to serve?

NORMAPME is an international non-profit association created in 1996 with the support of the European Commission, under the full name of the "European Office of Crafts, Trades and Small and Medium- Sized Enterprises for Standardisation".

NORMAPME is the unique European organisation focused on small enterprise interests in the European standardisation system. Its members represent over 11 million enterprises in all European countries, including all EU and EFTA member states.

In a letter to CEN members and National mirror committees of ISO JTC1 NormAPME asked these decision makers to disapprove the Open XML format. The document that was leaked to us is dated 26 of march 2008. The text fully endorses the common criticism of the format, but director Loucas Gourtsoyannis who signed the letter added another aspect to the communication:

The standard drafting process did not guarantee the involvement [of] all interested stakeholders, including SMEs. Instead it was monopolized by Microsoft.

You might argue that SMEs do not implement or develop Open XML. Small and medium sized companies exercise (pretty) weak procurement power. They have to take what is dictated by market consensus. A standard process is not only relevant to the different vendors, notably Microsoft, IBM, SUN, Adobe et al., but also to buyers as consumers and regular SME customers. Small and medium sized companies are the backbone of the European economy and unlike larger players they don't pay taxes in offshore-irelands or ask for state aid but contribute to domestic prosperity, job and wealth creation and fiscal income. Organisations as NORMAPME ensure that the SME's voice gets heard and their interests are better reflected in a standard process.

A real surprise to many observer of the Open XML debate was that most of the usual suspects of SME astroturf were not called to arms in the Open XML standard struggle. The new turf Voices for Innovation seriously lacked maturity and didn't take off. The attempt appeared rather foolish. Vendor capture was not restrained but frank, as if European standard setting was the natural domain of European sales departments and partners. Another indication of SME weakness in the process.

As now all relevant sides agree that the ISO fasttrack process needs reform, I am curious what proposals the standard technocrats in Europe will come up with to strengthen true SME representation in the standard setting process. New instruments of competition law are expected to be developed to overcome the misrepresentation problem for which OOXML became a paradigm. How to crack down on future standard voting cartells in Europe and foreign influence? I wonder what reform suggestions NORMAPME would make.

One aspect is evident, the interests of 11 million European SME need to be better reflected in standard setting, to get on an equal footing with multinational vendors.

Here is the letter for the ECMA376v1:

Here is the letter for the ECMA376v2:

If you have some time, you could transcript it for blind people and bloggers to quote it.

ECMA has also a good sense of humor (the right source is a PPT presentation about ECMA):

Patents: Solid and proven patent policy and practice:

The General Assembly of Ecma shall not approve
recommendations of Standards which are covered by
patents when such patents will not be licensed by their
owners on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis.”

However, Ecma does not:

• Assess the essentiality and validity of patents for implementation of a standard, nor
• Conduct patent searches for patents used in standards, nor
• Define the term “Reasonable And Non Discriminatory” (RAND)

We have requested a commercial patent license in July, but radio silence since then on the Microsoft side. Yet another proof that the patent system does not work.

The ECMA code of conduct in patent matters is here:

1. Policy
General Declaration:
The General Assembly of Ecma shall not approve recommendations of Standards which are covered by patents when such patents will not be licensed by their owners on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis.

1.1
In case the proposed Standard is covered by issued patents of Ecma members only: Members of the General Assembly are asked to state the Company licensing policy with respect to these patents.

I wonder what the latest requirement means. Nobody knows exactly which Microsoft patents covers the specification. Nobody has ever seen the list.