FFII opposes Fasttrack adoption of Microsoft OOXML format as ISO standard

Brussels, 29 January 2007 -- The FFII has sent an open letter to all delegations of the International Standardization Organization (ISO) to oppose with contradictions the "fast track" adoption of the Microsoft's 6000-page OOXML specification (ECMA-376) before the deadline of February, 5th. Microsoft's proposal damages the adoption of the existing ISO 26300 standard (OpenDocument) that covers almost the same functionality in just 600 pages.

The FFII has several concerns with the proposed standard. OpenXML relies on undisclosed patents, and undisclosed or incomplete licensing terms that make any independent reimplementation impossible or heavily risky. It obliges implementors to reverse-engineer the behavior of old closed Microsoft applications and formats. It uses non-standard formats for languages and dates, and specifies known bugs, such as treating 1900 as a leap year.

Benjamin Henrion, FFII analyst, explains: "Microsoft is pushing through a overcomplex proposal in a very short time frame. The fast-track procedure was never intended for specifications of this size and artificial complexity. It seems clear that the pressure is on ISO to not look too closely at the many traps in OOXML, which include patent minefields that will allow Microsoft to strictly control who implements this. Microsoft tried to introduce its patents into international standards before, resulting in the failure of an anti-spam standard."

Multiple associations, companies and bloggers who have looked at OOXML describe it as a "single vendor standard", since large parts of the standard simply refer to application behavior, not technical specifications. Examples include the option to enable "WordPerfect text alignment".

OOXML was produced in one year by Microsoft alone and ratified as ECMA-376 by ECMA, a private association that drafts standards on demand. It is via ECMA that Microsoft has been able to push for a fast-track procedure at ISO/IEC. By comparison, the Open Document Format ISO standard took 5 years of work through ISO/IEC and OASIS and counts with multiple implementation covering all the main platforms (Symbian, Windows, Linux, Mac OS, BSDs and Solaris). In contrast, Microsoft's format has no any implementation in market currently, and in medium terms it is expected to cover only the Microsoft platform.

Alberto Barrionuevo, FFII Vice-President, concludes: "We ask all ISO delegations to cancel the fast-track procedure. It is simply impossible to clarify all the issues and contradictions existing in ECMA-376 within such a short fast-track time frame. Indeed, this standards-stuffing attempt undermines the entire credibility of the ISO/IEC process. If Microsoft can buy a single-vendor 'standard' with impunity, what is ISO for?"

Document presentations from Interoperability - ITAPA2006

We finaly manage our english presentations to be accessible world-wide. Serge Novaretti, European Commission; Wouter Tebbens, SelfProject; Erwin Tenhumberg, Sun Microsystems.

Patents out, business conflicts still criminalised - IPRED2

Brussels, 28 November 2006 -- In today's vote on the "IPR Enforcement
Directive" (IPRED2, 2005/0127 (COD)), the European Parliament's Industry
Committee (ITRE) limited the directive's scope to copyright piracy and
trademark counterfeiting. The rapporteur, David Hammerstein MEP
(Greens/EFA), received backing from all groups for his amendments.

The FFII welcomes the reduced scope and other improvements, but notes
that business conflicts are still criminalised in some cases. These
issues would have been addressed by rejected amendments from MEPs
Dorette Corbey (PSE), Umberto Guidoni (GUE/NGL), Edith Mastenbroek (PSE)
and Patrizia Toia (ALDE).

Other significant amendments however mean that:

* The state cannot unilaterally start an infringement investigation. The
police cannot know about private licensing arrangements and even if
licenses are public, government bodies are sometimes confused by
unfamiliar concepts. In February 2006, a UK Trading Standards officer
wanted to prosecute a business for selling CDs of the free Firefox
browser. Further, rights holders may choose to not enforce their own
rights.

* Rights holders may not participate in criminal investigations. The Max
Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law
noted that this provision was fundamentally incompatible with a
democratic society.

The amended directive still allows some regular business conflicts to
fall under criminal law. The directive defines "counterfeiting" to
include regular trademark/tradename conflicts between companies.
Copyright piracy remains undefined. The current text therefore still
does not comply with established fundamental principles of criminal law,
which requires precise and explicit descriptions for all individual
criminal offenses.

FFII analysts also note that this is the first directive that gives the
European Community power to define criminal law which is unrelated to
trade barriers in the Internal Market. FFII president Pieter Hintjens
says "There has been very little support for this directive except from
the Commission, and we believe its real goal is to set a precedent
rather than catching pirates."

more at press.ffii.org

CPU patent threat

How some people doesn't seem to see the current patent system as a threat to a healthy society and business methods is really impossible for me to believe. Check american newspapers, almost everyday you can see a patent claim sueing over really ridiculous technologies which one will find normal to use. Another case which caim to my audience this week is Intel claiming patents around making CPUs. Isn't it a good example as patent can be abused to destroy competition and overthrow the market? It isn't only in information technologies (such as software patents), but also in medical and drug research, even diseases. Can we patent a disease and make somebody pay for getting it?
With IPRED intel can not only sue competition, they can freeze their bank accounts or even shutdown a whole branch. Isn't it obvious what is going on?


- source Inquirer-

Photo story from ITAPA - eGovernment

Short photo story from the ITAPA 2006 - eGovernment conference which has been held in Bratislava. Itapa is international conference focusing at eGovernment. These photos were taken in three corners of the ITAPA (Interoperability panel, FLOSS terminal corner and Open Technology stand supported by SKOSI, ngo and Sun Microsystems Slovakia).
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