[plug] MS OOXML certification

[Bret Busby]

On Mon, 13 Aug 2007, Steve Baker wrote:

> Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 08:34:18 +0800
> From: Steve Baker <steve at iinet.net.au>
> Reply-To: plug at plug.org.au
> To: PLUG <plug at plug.org.au>
> Subject: [plug] MS OOXML certification
> 
>
> Hi PLUG,
>
> You might have seen the story on Slashdot over the weekend that MS's push to 
> fast-track the adoption of OOXML by ISO suffered a small setback.
>
> Australia has not voted on the proposal yet, although (apparently) whoever is 
> doing the voting is likely to vote YES.  There is a petition at 
> http://www.noooxml.org/petition if you would like to add your voice there. I 
> can't tell if they are going to forward all the sigs from Australia to the 
> Aus committees, or just send the whole list direct to the ISO.  Does anyone 
> else know who we should be contacting directly in Australia?
>
> Regards,
> Steve
>
>

There appears to be some  discussion about this, on the Linux Australia 
list.

See messages below.

--
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
  you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
   Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
   "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
   A Trilogy In Four Parts",
   written by Douglas Adams,
   published by Pan Books, 1992

....................................................
On Sun, 12 Aug 2007, Janet Hawtin wrote:
> 
> Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 11:34:25 +0930
> From: Janet Hawtin <lucychili at gmail.com>
> To: Glen Turner <gdt at gdt.id.au>, michael.langdon at standards.org.au
> Cc: Linux Australia List <linux-aus at linux.org.au>
> Subject: Re: [Linux-aus] Are LA making a formal submission on OOXML?
> 
> On 8/12/07, Glen Turner <gdt at gdt.id.au> wrote:
> >
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > Are Linux Australia making a formal submission to Standards
> > Australia regarding DIS 29500 (OOXML)?
> >
> > Are they also writing to the relevant Minister informing
> > them of the deficient process and misleading behaviour of
> > some parties?
> >
> > Cheers, Glen
> 
> Hello Glen
> 
> I am certainly working on a response myself, and am going to forward
> it through when better structured to the committee for the meeting
> tonight.
> Happy to send it through to the full list if that is a better idea.
> 
> Yes I think that any attention on this issues in the senate would be
> very useful as I understand some nations have had people bypass the
> standards organisations and negotiate direct with government for
> acceptance of ooxml as a government standard.
> 
> ODF is an open standard which fits this purpose.
> ooxml is non-compliant, unparsable, incomplete undefined, legally
> squirrelly and is written to support only MS formats and applications
> such as IE.
> It would be a useful 6000 page reference for use within the Microsoft
> extended community but is not a unifying or standards compliant
> document for any external developer or user.
> 
> Glen is correct to suggest that the process is the root of the problem.
> The ECMA fast track process bypasses the open participation in
> development of the standard, forces 6000 pages including things like
> 'wordwrap like windows97' and throws it into a fast track process to
> be digested and responded to in 6 months.
> (USFTA copyright process anyone?)
> 
> It would be great if people could respond to this issue to  "Alistair
> Tegart" <Alistair.Tegart at standards.org.au>.
> At the meeting last week Alister suggested that there were format requirements
> I have not found out what these are but the person to email to find out is
> <michael.langdon at standards.org.au>. I have emailed both asking for
> clarification.
> It is a bit dissapopinting to be into 'time-on' in this process and to
> have specific formats raised in an undefined way at this point.
> 
> The meeting was chaired in a way which enabled each persons individual
> responses to stand which was useful.
> 
> Alistair was looking for folks to participate in this process earlier
> in the year and it was hard to find people interested in 6000 pages of
> MS foo.
> I think we probably need to think about how we interface with
> standards processes and to consider how we can support truly open
> formats and processes.
> I don't know what kind of workload is involved but it would be
> interesting to have a conversation with Standards Australia about how
> we could support their work more.
> 
> Perspectives welcome.
> 
> Janet
> 
> _______________________________________________
> linux-aus mailing list
> linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au
> http://lists.linux.org.au/listinfo/linux-aus
>
>     [ Note: This message contains email list management information ]
> 
....................................................
On Mon, 13 Aug 2007, Janet Hawtin wrote:
> 
> Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 09:39:05 +0930
> From: Janet Hawtin <lucychili at gmail.com>
> To: Alistair Tegart <Alistair.Tegart at standards.org.au>, michael.langdon at standards.org.au, Linux Australia List <linux-aus at linux.org.au>
> Subject: [Linux-aus] Response from Janet Hawtin on OOXML proposal to Standards Australia
> 
> Vote no with comments
> 
> This is an open letter which I would like to be considered in the
> Standards Australia review of the ooxml proposal. I have not been sent
> information by Standards Australia about the required format and would
> be happy to adapt this material to a format when provided.
> 
> While I appreciate the original scope of the process around technical
> concerns I also am writing about the proposal process and feel that
> the primary problems with the proposal are process related. I am
> writing more broadly because I feel the broader concerns are important
> to our Standards organisation and would avoid similar proposals using
> the same process.
> 
> Overview: Double standards are counter productive
> 
> In this issue there are two kinds of double standards. The proposal
> and its counterpart existing ISO standards, and the open or closed
> processes which the different projects have followed.
> 
> Microsoft's OOXML replicates functions covered by the Open Document
> Format standard and other standard XML formats. Duplication of
> standards reduces the value of the original openly developed
> standards.
> 
> Microsoft supporters in the Australian meeting suggested that "OOXML
> was enough of a standard, that we should expect there would always be
> proprietary material in Microsoft formats, and that their clients
> understand this."
> 
> The MS OOXML proposal is not 'enough of a standard' to make it useful
> for all developers and users because it is undefined both legally and
> technically. This will devalue a standards based approach in
> information formats.
> 
> The process for the OOXML format has been closed in its development
> phase and structured to reduce meaningful review. The result is a
> vendor centric document which is inward looking in its implementation.
> 
> Standards usually are developed to enable consolidation of current
> best practices and they need to be written and legally framed so that
> they are reliable and safe to use. ODF provides this function. OOXML
> undoes that work by approximating a standard but being sufficiently
> noncompliant to provide data compatibility problems with material
> matching existing standards.
> 
> Competing standards
> 
> I feel that standards organisations need to take a stand to recognise
> the value in the work they have done on ODF XML SVG and to stand firm
> to support them.
> In each case where there is a multiple standard there is a cost to the
> wider community in accommodating multiple approaches to the same
> function space. Forking the market into two separate standards to
> cover the same material is not a step forward.
> 
> The market in documents has been vendor oriented for many years. Open
> Document Format was developed as a common format two years ago. The
> purpose was to agree on a way to make information accessible
> regardless of vendor.
> The effect of the OOXML proposal is undo that commonality.
> 
> Document specification is a core requirement in our information and
> computing based economies and therefore the cost of multiple standards
> in this fundamental space is an expensive outcome.
> 
> In any case where an information format is as fundamental as this
> there will be increased temptation for vendors to try to find ways to
> gain control of the space. ISO has approved a standard which has
> worked through this space and is continuing to develop and refine
> functions. Introducing a vendor based standard at this point would
> compromise all that work in negotiating common ground. While the
> market might include many products which match specific vendors, the
> role of the standard in that space is to share information regardless
> of vendor. A single vendor standard on the other hand operates as a
> kind of franchise over a sector of the market.
> 
> >From Andy Updegrove:
> "The best reason for not approving OOXML/Ecma 376 as a global standard
> is that it will encourage other vendors to push for multiple,
> unnecessary standards rather than achieving consensus on a single
> standard that will best serve the needs of all stakeholders, and not
> individual proprietary vendors."
> http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20070629070544217&mode=print
> 
> The Australian Commonwealth memorandum of understanding with Standards
> Australia is certainly written around these kinds of values related to
> public benefit and national interest. I understand that in negotiating
> a useful and meaningful standard there will be competing and
> challenging choices to make and that there has been a move toward
> accepting plural standards for different vendors, possibly to reduce
> contention in these processes. However I feel this move shifts the
> contention into the marketplace and reduces the value of standards to
> the wider community.
> 
> Existing standards which are contradicted by the material included in the OOXML
> proposal include
> - ODF (document xml)
> - OOXML doesn't use the stablished SVG (vector based xml) but on the
> contrary two private and exclusive formats, one of them legacy: VML and GraphML
> - OOXML doesn't use the stablished MathML (mathematical markup) but
> its proprietary format (already rejected by scientific editorials
> which make deep use of that feature for Nature and Science)
> - OOXML doesn't use the International date and time (ISO 8601), the
> basic of all economic, legal and political transactions in world. On
> the contrary uses two calendars, one limited to start recently, in
> 1904, and other the one used by the Roman Empire thousand of years
> ago, the Julian Calendar.
> Rather than passing a proposal which conflicts so fundamentally with
> standards practice Microsoft should be encouraged to participate in
> constructive collaboration on the development of those projects. This
> would better serve the standards process than initiation of a second
> set of materials which non-Microsoft people would have trouble
> interoperating with, and which would undo our ability to share
> information using conforming standards.
> 
> OOXML is not functionally open
> 
> The name of the proposal OOXML is Office Open XML, this is a
> misleading name as the proposal is not fully open, its development has
> not been open, process for new versions is suggested to be through
> ECMA's closed process, the legal access to "enough rights to implement
> the standard" are not clearly provided. Wording
> inside the proposal includes 'wordwrap like Microsoft97' which is
> subjective and unimplementable language and would be unlikely to pass
> in a proper ISO process. The format includes proprietary binary
> material which is not open.
> 
> This is perhaps a work which contributes to better documentation of
> existing Microsoft formats in terms which are useful for Microsoft
> related developers but it is not outward looking or well integrated
> with ISO standards which it is likely to interface with.
> 
> Clients who believe they are moving from a closed format to an open
> format will find it is only comparably more open but is not drafted in
> a way to make it transparent or easy to avoid vendor lock in.
> 
> Making this a standard in my opinion makes the standards bodies
> complicit in duping customers into adopting a format which is not
> truly representative of the criteria which are normally recognised as
> ISO.
> 
> The value of formal standards
> 
> Standards are increasingly important as our economies and information
> becomes more transnational. We cannot afford to be imprecise with data
> working at the scales which
> are now possible. Working with live transactional data would be a
> situation where
> explicit single outcome processes would be most important. Mapping
> those sensitive projects to a format which is built on a single vendor
> retrospective is not a recipe for safe eCommerce.
> 
> "[A] document, established by consensus and approved by a recognized
> body, that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or
> characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the
> achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context NOTE
> Standards should be based on the consolidated results of science,
> technology and experience, and aimed at the promotion of optimum
> community benefits." -- ISO/IEC Guide 2:2004, Definition 3.2
> 
> The value of formal standards is to find a best practice approach to
> common agreed functionality. To use that as a unifying reference point
> in order to ensure
> developers of systems have a way to map to an exact and accessible
> reference. And that customers of products are able to choose from
> solutions by a range of vendors and to move their information from one
> to another without prejudice. This makes it possible for multiple
> providers to participate in a market and for consumers to make
> flexible choices about the formats and applications which suit their
> needs on an ongoing basis.
> 
> I feel that Australian and other standards bodies need to take this
> opportunity to review their function in society and to consider that
> the point of difference they offer is to contribute a means for
> finding negotiated best practice. This is a craft in the truest sense.
> It involves people developing skills in understanding systems
> objectively and in working through issues to find a useful and
> reliable outcome.
> 
> Companies which have a large market share already enjoy a kind of
> default standard status through cost to change, skill base or in some
> cases through data lock-in. Formal standards processes need the
> ability to attract quality participation in collaboration of standards
> development by using processes which do not marginalise collaborative
> processes and goals in favour of competitive processes. ie. Without a
> focus on common interest and collaboration the formal process will
> only be able to mirror market share and will not be able to move
> Australia forward in a flexible and broadly useful manner.
> 
> ECMA fast track process
> 
> The ooxml proposal is a very large document(6000pages) and has been
> pushed through in 6 months. It has been suggested in the Australian
> meeting that this made it impossible to review. The volume/time
> compares poorly with usual standards which are 50 pages and take
> approximately 2 years to review thoroughly. ODF is 1000 pages itself
> and is considered large for a standards document but at least it was
> processed in an open way and there was room for all parties to
> contribute to its definition as well as a standard process of review.
> 
> The ECMA fast track process is structured in such a way that it does
> not honor aspirations of public benefit and national interest. The
> value that ECMA offers its vendor customers is to "offer a path which
> will minimise changes to input specs"
> http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/OOXML_Forum.pdf
> 
> The process is a product offered to vendors by a provider who benefits
> from being able to push through many projects. This means the original
> relationship between the vendor and the ECMA organisation is based
> around momentum and single source material with no benefit to either
> party in providing real and rigorous review or participation in
> development. This together with the idea that multiple vendors
> offering vendor specific 'standards' is a workable approach are the
> underlying
> assumptions which derail the rest of the process.
> 
> While it is expected that there may be different approaches to
> technologies and products, it is the role of a standards group to
> identify points of best practice around which an industry can
> integrate and offer flexible choices to consumers. This relies on
> access to a process where the craft of standards writing is core,
> where the considered and 'hands-on' input of many participants in the
> given standard is facilitated and where the proposal is thoroughly
> tested for its interoperability with existing standards.
> 
> Open review and participation in developing the standard is the means
> by which unifying and consolidating outcomes are made. This is the
> role which all groups interested in long term safe access to knowledge
> look to standards bodies for.
> 
> Australian process and responsibility
> 
> I sense a 'good faith' spirit in the efforts of the Standards Australia staff.
> However I feel that the fast track process applied to this proposal, both in
> Australia and internationally, is structurally not able to deliver
> outcomes in the Australian and public best interest. We need to
> address these procedural issues prior to processing this proposal so
> that it can be considered in a way which does address the goals of the
> Commonwealth in applying these standards processes to proposals.
> Difficulty in finding out information about the process has not
> helped, including meeting information and formats for responses.
> 
> Australia as a country with an important role in these proceedings
> should not take an uncritical role in these processes. There needs to
> be a method for identifying when a new approach to processing
> standards is disfunctional. It is in Australia's national interest to
> understand the core function that open standards play in enabling all
> businesses and organisations to safely participate in working to or
> adapting from a standard format.
> 
> Accessibility and accuracy are prominent requirements within the
> education sector.
> As James Dalziel pointed out in the Australian meeting, Australia
> leads on technologies for the education sector. Access to knowledge is
> an increasing piority and being able to share information developed
> with public funds is becoming an important issue. Organsiations which
> are able to develop once and distribute the value across the sector
> offer efficiencies which are valuable.
> 
> Australian companies and developers would find it expensive to
> accommodate two complex and incompatible approaches to documents
> requiring two approaches to each project they deliver. We need to be
> more sophisticated in our choices because we need to be able to make
> better value from smaller projects. Australia has many smaller players
> which means we need to be able to do things in a develop once use
> flexibly kind of way. Developers who produce technologies which help
> with accessibility also need to be nimble and flexible to cater
> effectively to small markets.
> 
> The University of Toronto recognises these issues "This paper
> undertakes a preliminary analysis of the OOXML format with respect to
> its accessibility, with emphasis on accessibility to persons with
> disabilities. We will demonstrate that the OOXML format fails to
> adequately support accessibility of documents."
> http://atrc.utoronto.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=371&Itemid=94
> 
> Backwards compatibility
> 
> Work on translating the legacy document formats into an xml based
> format is a worthwhile project. If Microsoft have a reliable tool for
> mapping material out of those formats into parsable XML that is a
> great step forward for their clients and for the ongoing relevance of
> their applications. Unfortunately it is my understanding that the
> technique for translating the documents involves embedding binary
> material in the XML.
> 
> OOXML is also a new-'old format', the time, date, vector, math models
> used in the new format are still reflective of historical choices and
> do not represent current best practice. In order to truly be facing
> forwards the material from the closed formats should be parsable XML
> and to match existing ISO standards. If the OOXML approach is not able
> to deliver on these outcomes then it is a great step forward from
> opacity to translucency but is not the full journey.
> 
> Security, transactions and XML with embedded binary material
> 
> Transactions are not a point of difference to existing standards for OOXML.
> Transactions are the normal function of XML and the specific focus of EBXML.
> The OOXML approach to formats includes binary material.
> Embedding binary material in transactional secure XML is likely to
> cause security issues. The transactional material has been developed
> only to work with MS
> Internet Explorer which is the browser of choice for internet based
> exploits. Designing a transaction solution around embedding unknown
> content in an eCommerce context, to match only a singler vendor's
> formats and applications would be unlikely to pass a regular standards
> process.
> 
> Vote
> 
> Australia's Standards organisation should vote no with comments.
> 
> The comments should reflect our concerns with the principles and
> process of Fast Track standards development using ECMA.
> 
> The proposal should be put on hold until a review of the goals,
> responsibilities and processes for formal standards are completed.
> 
> This to include establishing a standard independently known and safe
> scoping for legal safety of any material which is ISO accredited. We
> cannot rely on unseen information and vendor assurances. There should
> be a known legal scope for all ISO standards.
> 
> The proposal could then be reconsidered, including whether a second
> standard in this space is a useful project for good standards
> practice.
> 
> These factors to be considered first before any further work and
> consideration is given to working through the body of the proposal.
> 
> It is possible that after reconsidering the processes and overlap
> between existing standards and OOXML that it might be possible to use
> aspects of the translation from legacy formats to map to Open Document
> Format and to translate from other non standard models to match other
> ISO standards.
> 
> >From that point forward it could be also useful to look at the way
> Microsoft have worked with transactions, to compare those with
> existing standards and practices and to see if there is any scope for
> finding unity in those approaches.
> 
> 6000 pages is too large. Breaking the proposal into
> - retrospective work mapping to ODF or other standards.
> - new work starting from an ODF and ISO standard compliant base would
> help to make the size of the standard less of an obstacle for
> implementation.
> 
> Specifications for non standard implementations of vector, math, time
> and date, could be included in the retrospective work but should not
> need to be a part of the forward looking standard format.
> 
> Further to the action on this proposal and on the international Fast
> Track process I would suggest that Standards Australia, and if
> applicable other nations, review their own processes and advice around
> the role of participants in the review process.
> 
> The memorandum of understanding between Standards Australia and the
> Commonwealth is written in terms of public benefit and national
> interest. This contrast with the participant information on the
> Standards Australia website which talks about representing specific
> groups and their own interests. This generates a tension between the
> overall goal of developing unifying standards in the national
> interest, and a process which encourages people to view the process as
> a partisan practice.
> 
> The process for any standard being considered should be clearly
> available on the website. The phases and formats required for public
> or industry participation
> should be available throughout the process. Criteria for evaluation of
> a good standard for a given function should be identified and agreed
> in order to give a focus to the conversations. Existing standards
> which may overlap should be identified. If the criteria are listed and
> available this makes it far more likely
> that people will be able to anticipate missing concerns or concerns
> which are not core. It provides a purpose which enables collaboration
> as well as competition around meeting known objectives.
> 
> I feel it would be useful to provide some workshops or communication
> around what kind of skills resources and time are required to
> participate. ie Australia needs to consider how it resources the
> process of standards development in order to produce outcomes which
> have vision beyond vendor interests.
> 
> I value very much the role that standards bodies have to play for our
> innovative and social function and hope that Standards Australia feels
> that OOXML is NOT "enough of a standard" and that while it might be
> true that Microsoft formats will always have proprietary components,
> that kind of fancy footwork is not compatible with ISO and Standards
> Australia branding.
> 
> Thankyou for the opportunity to participate.
> 
> Janet Hawtin
> 
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> linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au
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