SIRIM CEO goes public about TC4's suspension.

In a surprising twist of events, Datuk Dr Mohamad Ariffin Aton, the SIRIM CEO himself has gone public in his decision to suspend SIRIM's own Technical Committee for E-Commerce (TC4). As a member of TC4, I  am surprised that I would learn about this issue in the press before a clear explanation was given internally.

I have heard rumours that he had negative views when ODF went on Public Comment back in November 2006, and now it is finally confirmed. Fortunately, his fears, uncertainty and doubt against ODF is fully articulated, and his concerns relatively easy to dispel.

It is now clear what issues are bothering him, and it makes our job extremely easy in addressing these issues rationally and factually as we always have been doing with the concerns raised in the Public Comments. I have been doing this for over 6 months now, and I think I'm getting quite good at reviewing the concerns, collating the facts and using logic and rational arguments to convince any good technical person willing to understand the truth. Truth is always the best decider.

So I for one, look forward in clearing these issues up with the CEO in allaying all his fears and I am confident that SIRIM are willing to accept these explanations in a constructive manner.

For the readers of OpenMalaysiaBlog, I would love to hear from you if there are any issues which he raises which are relevant and would require extra attention.

Please read the InTech article which should be in the newsstands later this morning.

http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2007/4/4/technology/20070404125811&sec=technology

yk.

InTech, Wednesday April 4, 2007

Sirim pulls plug on format fight

SHAH ALAM: Standards body Sirim Bhd has stopped a feud between IBM Malaysia and Microsoft Malaysia over competing technologies in this country.

Datuk Dr Mohamad Ariffin Aton, Sirim chief executive, has suspended the process for approving the Open Document Format (ODF), which is backed by IBM Corp, as a Malaysian standard. A competing format is OpenXML, currently used only in Microsoft Corp's Office suite of desktop products.

In an exclusive interview with In.Tech, he said he suspended the process to allow all parties involved to cool off, adding that he is unhappy that the process has become politicised due to the feuding.

"No time frame has been set to resume the process. I am waiting for everyone to calm down before we do so," he said.

Once the dust has settled, he said, Sirim would appoint new members to the evaluating committee and begin the process again.

Sirim, which is responsible for assisting the Department of Standards (DSM) in the standards development process, manages the secretariats for standards development groups in the country.

The process for the document standard is currently stalled at the technical committee stage, which is intended to evaluate responses from the public to the proposed adoption of Open Document Format as a Malaysian standard.

Vendors that support the format chosen as the Malaysian standard, stand to gain over their rivals when it comes to winning government procurement contracts, which could collectively amount to millions of ringgit or more.

If there is no Malaysian standard, government departments and agencies would be free to choose whichever document format they prefer. "There has been unprofessional conduct and a lack of ethical standards among some members of the technical committee," Ariffin said. 

"This is the first time in my 11 years at Sirim where ethics have not been followed." He, however, declined to name the individual members involved, citing his own ethical reasons.

The committee concerned, which comes under the industry standards body responsible for information technology, telecommunications and multimedia (ISC/G), is designated TC/G/4 (the fourth technical committee, in charge of e-commerce and document standards).

Ariffin said some TC/G/4 members had taken to belittling other members who did not share their pro-ODF views, both during committee meetings and in personal blogs.

These pro-ODF members were also attempting to short-circuit the normal consensus process for adopting a document standard, he said.

He explained that the International Standards Organisation (ISO), which oversees the international technical standards development process, also sets the process by which national bodies like DSM develop their own standards.

This allows for uniformity, and enables national standards bodies to have confidence in adopting each other's standards where applicable.

Under this process, disagreements should be worked out in committee, with TC/G/4 members reaching a consensus on issues raised by dissenting stakeholders.

In exceptional circumstances, such as where public safety and health are at stake, ISO guidelines for setting national standards would permit the relevant industry standards committee, in this case ISC/G, to make the final decision.

But the ODF supporters chose to ignore the dissenting voices in committee, as well as objections raised in the public responses, to push through approval of ODF by a two-thirds majority, Ariffin said.

This is a process not provided for by ISO guidelines, he said.

He believes that these parties within TC/G/4 had become proxies of international bodies with a business interest in promoting ODF and shutting any competing document format out of the Malaysian market.

The OpenXML format would have been affected had the ODF supporters been successful in their bid.

Microsoft has promoted OpenXML as a document standard through the European standards body, ECMA, which approved it late last year.

Desktop productivity suites from rival IBM and other vendors, including Sun Microsystems and the open-source Open Office suite, use ODF.

But Microsoft Office is by far the most popular desktop productivity suite in use, and documents using OpenXML greatly outnumber documents in other formats.

There have been recent moves by companies and government agencies around the world to adopt ODF so as not to be tied to Microsoft products.

Microsoft reportedly plans to provide fileconversion support for ODF later this year.

Ariffin said there is no chance of ODF or OpenXML being made a mandatory standard in Malaysia, for two reasons.

First, a standard can only be mandatory when public health or safety is at stake, which is clearly not the case here, he said.

Second, a mandatory standard would constitute an illicit non-tariff barrier against software products using other document formats, according to him.

He said this would violate Malaysia's commitments to free trade under the World Trade Organisation.

The Malaysian document standard would only constitute an advisory endorsement of the document format's suitability for use, said Ariffin.

"Ultimately, it is up to the general public and users in both the public and private sectors to decide which format they want to use," he said.

Comments

[Yoon Kit]

Hi Intan Shafinah,

Can you elaborate on your comment?

yk.

[intan shafinah bt ilias]

i want to us about Datuk Dr. Mohamad Ariffin Aton's biodata

[Yoon Kit]

Hello Albert,

Perhaps you can identify yourself by registering your email properly so that we can correctly address you.

> We already see that in ODF rushed standardization
> proces and it's features now being added later.

Unlike MSOOXML, ODF is a standard which has the ability to evolve over time. MSOOXML however is predefined by one product line controlled by one vendor. So although MSOOXML may be perceived as a "complete" standard, there is a problem because it is based on an existing product. There will be little room for independant developers to enhance that standard. Additionally, despite its size, MSOOXML is not complete: (lineWidthLikeWord6 is not defined, nor are Macros)

> Standardazation being used as a competition tool
> to prevent competition.

Standards are used to promote competition. ODF is a Open Standard. Microsoft is free to implement it like they have for .txt, .csv or even .html. Microsoft should ask themselves why they are preventing themselves from competing by NOT implementing ODF support?

> IBM are now activly supporting
> anti-standardization just as a business tool

The way I see it, IBM is not being "anti-standardization" but in actuality "pro-standardisation".

Please tell us what is negative about promoting a vendor neutral, consensus based, openly developed, forward looking, freely available, restriction free open standard like ODF?

> OSS has a history of ignoring ISO standards
> in the past (like wiht W3C).

I believe you are mistaken here. OSS and open standards fromb both ISO and W3C go hand in hand. Companies who want to de-commoditize software prefer go against open standards. ref: IE and CSS. JavaScript / JScript. SMB. LDAP. the list goes on.

Please state your references where you find OSS has ignored Open Standards.

Back to the issue at hand, we know that Microsoft has approached the SIRIM CEO back in October-November 2006 and have fed him alot of misinformation.

Since then we have been trying to clarify with him the real facts.


yk.

[Albert]

It is rather strange that a lot of the Malaysian standards board is activly promoting formats whilst competing formats have been submitted and they suddenly forgo the regular ISO or standards organisations procedural ways to create a very bad example of how standards should be handled.

It would have an appearance that
A) Whomever is first win is more important in standardization then what is actually in the standard. We already see that in ODF rushed standardization proces and it's features now being added later.
B) Standardazation being used as a competition tool to prevent competition.

All I hear is that Micrsoft only want to standardize their format to have it eligable for govenrment contract. However I rarely hear people claiming that this is exactly the formost important reason a lot of other parties do not want Microsoft to standardize it's format.
This however should not be relevant in standardization.

It is a very bad thing that companies like IBM are now activly supporting anti-standardization just as a business tool and the ISO national bodies being influences by that campaign.

As being a part of such an organisation I am amazed that you are now scrutinising the OOXML proposal a lot different than appears to have been the case when ODF was in your standard body for consideration. It is easy enough to shoot a ton of wholes in that standard in the version presented to ISO. It seems like where during ODF standardization those issues were deemed not very important or relevant for standardisation this time arond those same organisations are looked at a lot differently.

OSS has a history of ignoring ISO standards in the past (like wiht W3C). It is rather ironic ISO now is used by some big companies and OSS as a kind of support for their business competition with Microsoft.

[Wen Lin]

> ... and documents using OpenXML greatly outnumber
> documents in other formats.

Can this be right? I thought at present OpenXML is only used in the latest MS Office 2007?

I would have thought that, right now, by far the most widely used document format
is the pre-OpenXML MS binary document format (*.doc, *.xls, *.ppt, etc).

Even the MS Office 2003, which I guess is the latest version that most people upgrade to, I don't think it is OOXML-compatible. Or is it?

Cheers,
Wen Lin

[Yoon Kit]

Thomas,

Doug Mahough [Microsoft] has an interesting take on this:

http://blogs.msdn.com/dmahugh/archive/2007/04/04/may-cooler-heads-prevail.aspx

>> "Ultimately, it is up to the general public and users in both the public
>> and private sectors to decide which format they want to use," he said.

> Freedom of choice, in other words.
> A simple concept, and one that often
> gets lost in the circular debates about
> all the technical details.

Microsoft's definition of "Freedom of choice" has come to mean "Standardising on Standards restrict choice. Dont use them"


yk.

[Thomas]

He apparently said;
> "Ultimately, it is up to the general public and users in both the public
> and private sectors to decide which format they want to use," he said.

Is this guy serious? I mean; is this really what he believes? What the
[censored] is he doing working for a standards body then?