Open Malaysia

An Interview with MyMeeting Senior Developer

MyMeeting (download here) is a web application specifically designed to help better manage meetings in government agencies. Initially developed at the Open Source Competency Center (OSCC), it is the first Malaysian government software to be released publicly under the open source BSD license.

We conducted an email interview with Abdullah Zainul Abidin, the senior developer on this project. The answers are below verbatim (with some minor formatting changes).

0) Tell us the story of how MyMeeting came about being developed. Who's brainchild was this? Who were the key developers? How many developers were allocated to work on MyMeeting? Was there management buy-in before development started? Was the development of MyMeeting conducted in OSS manner (ie open mailing lists, bug tracking software, public access to SVN/CVS/git etc)?

MyMeeting actually started life as a custom system for the management of decisions made in the GITIC committee. GITIC (Government Information Technology And Internet Committee) is a committee chaired by the Chief Secretary Of Malaysia that discusses the implementation of government IT policies and so it has members from every government agency in Malaysia.

Once the GITIC system was complete, MAMPU saw that MyMeeting could actually be useful to other government agencies too thus most of the customized for GITIC portion was taken and turned into settings which could easily be changed by the various agencies for their use. Then it wasn't really open source yet. We were using all the open source technologies (PHP, MySQL, Apache, SVN) but the development wasn't really open for all to see.

It was when we wanted to redo MyMeeting for MyMeeting version 2 that we saw MyMeeting is a perfect candidate for a completely Malaysian Government Open Source Software project. Most probably the first of it's kind. So yes, development of MyMeeting is conducted in OSS manner. You can access the bugtracker at http://trac.oscc.org.my/mymeeting, download it through svn at https://svn.oscc.org.my/mymeeting, register to it's mailing list at http://lists.oscc.org.my/mailman/listinfo/mymeeting-users and also
edit it's wiki at the knowledge bank http://knowledge.oscc.org.my/solution-areas/application/mymeeting.

1) MyMeeting was developed on CakePHP. What was the reasoning to choose CakePHP over other PHP frameworks? Did using an ROR-style framework help speed up development? Were there any problems faced when using CakePHP and how did the developers go about solving the problems?

The reason we choose CakePHP was exactly because it was an ROR-style framework. At the time when we decided to redo MyMeeting, there was a suggestion that we should use ROR especially after we saw Kamal's presentation on ROR at MyGOSSCON.

But I was worried about the learning curve that we would have to face and also considering the limited amount of time we have it was just not realistic to expect all of the OSCC developers to grasp a completely new language (none of us have any kind of experience with Ruby) and a completely new approach to web application development. I mean doing programming with the MVC concept after so long of mixed PHP and HTML hackery it certainly is very different. But I knew that we would not be able to go far with "traditional" way of developing php software. We have to overcome MVC.

So we choose CakePHP because it was marketed as clone of ROR. The initial learning curve of a new approach was pretty steep but once that was all over we find that it did help speed up development as it keeps things clean. Everyone knew where things need to go and where to look if there are problems.

2) Is there any plans to officially support PostgreSQL (and other free databases) in future versions of MyMeeting? Also, why the support for MySQL only in this release?

There is no "official" plans to support PostgreSQL and actually cakephp does support other free and non-free databases. Only there are some queries which we had to hack in as they are too complex for CakePHP. And to be honest we haven't had much experience with other databases. So if someone really needs it, or even gave us the patch to support it (hint,hint ;) we'd be more than glad to implement it into the main tree of MyMeeting.

3) Has there been any patches fed back from the FOSS community? If members of the FOSS community are interested in contributing to this project, where should they go to information on getting involved?

We had one patch submitted by SuMarDi that actually changed the theme of MyMeeting. It was really good. But as of date (11/09/2008) we have not yet put it in because he also changed some tags in the views so we need to make sure we don't break anything if we put it in. Apart from that we've got some good feedback from angch and he even updated the wiki in Trac.

We welcome any contribution and involvement from the community regarding MyMeeting. If anyone is interested they should first register themselves at the OSCC Knowledgebank (http://knowledge.oscc.org.my) and from there they can read up on the latest MyMeeting documentation (http://knowledge.oscc.org.my/solution-areas/application/mymeeting). They should download the source code and try out MyMeeting (the Knowledgebank would have information on how to do that). If they find some bugs or would like to suggest some feature they can do so at the mymeeting trac site (http://trac.oscc.org.my/mymeeting) by logging in with their Knowledgebank account.

They should also register with the mymeeting-users mailing list to keep up with the latest happenings with mymeeting at http://lists.oscc.org.my/mailman/listinfo/mymeeting-users. Apart from that, sometimes the mymeeting developers can be found in the #oscc irc channel on freenode. We'd be glad to help in any way we can so that the community can contribute.

4) Are there plans to integrate into existing legacy calendaring systems? Are there plans to integrate into FOSS calendaring software? How about integrating into existing proprietary calendaring software?

We have a vague plan of exporting the meeting calendars with iCal or something. But that is still a long way to go in the pipeline.

5) What is the roadmap for future releases of MyMeeting?

We haven't got a lot of feedback from the community yet as of where we should be heading. So most of it is only in the developers head of what next we should do. Yeah.. we're still very new at managing an open source project. It should be in trac.. :P

6) Why was the decision to keep MyMeeting development within OSCC before version 1.0 ?

That was actually the default way of doing things here at OSCC. We're actually trying to introduce something new with MyMeeting version 2 with it being completely open source and all.

7) Will future projects appear to the public prior to v1.0?

That would have to depend on the management.. :)

8) How is the team adapting to releasing the code?

We were pretty nervous at first. Not knowing whether our codes were any good and all. But we're okay now. Still got a long way to go to be fully disciplined in the open source way thought (release control and all) but insyaAllah we'll get there.

9) Management must be well educated to have the source code released. Was this an issue, and did you need advocacy sessions?

We are supposed to be the Open Source COMPETENCY Centre. :) So management should already know about the advantages of doing it in open source. We didn't need advocacy sessions.

10) How does your team / Management / OSCC / MAMPU rationalise the sharing of Intellectual Right of copyright and software patents?

We want Malaysia to be seen as a contributor of knowledge and technology to the global community.

11) How many seats has this been rolled out to (#Agencies / #Seats) and how much would this have cost for an equivalent commercial product?

There is at least around 6 agencies that is actively engaged with us to use MyMeeting. And since MyMeeting is freely downloadable there could be more out there that we don't even know of that's using it. Our current estimate is that it would cost at least RM 100K per agency to get something like MyMeeting commercially. So that's RM 600K at least already. :)

12) How much would your team foresee saving the Govt over the next 5 to 10 years from MyMeeting, and other OSCC products?

For MyMeeting? In 5 years maybe more than RM 15 million. If we can get all (and we mean ALL) of the government agencies and bodies to use MyMeeting. Not sure about the other products though.

13) Govt is cutting back on spending generally. Do you foresee that it will cut back on OSS investments?

Actually I think the right way to go is to put in more on OSS investments if they want to cut back. So I don't think they will.

14) Any new projects from OSCC labs we should look out for?

MySurveillance is rolling out soon. It is a HIDS system based on Prelude.

15) Can the private sector make use of the applications from OSCC?

Yes of course. But we won't be able to officially provide support though. We're more focused on government bodies.

16) Will OSCC provide support, or do they have recommended partners?

We would recommend partners wherever possible.

17) There have been cases where proprietary software vendors have opposed OSS initiatives by the government. Has there been any negative feedback from these vendors on the release of MyMeeting code, and if so, what has happened thus far?

No problems so far.

We would like to thank Abdullah Zainul Abidin for his time in answering the many questions. We are encouraged by the fact that the Malaysian goverment is moving so far as to open source its software projects. Indeed, the incredible interest from other government agencies clearly proves that the open sourcing of MyMeeting was a far-reaching wise investment. It has clearly allowed for efficient use of ICT resources by all, not to mention many millions of tax ringgits that are being saved through the choice of liberal OSS licensing. With their efforts leading to the promotion of OSS innovation and creativity, this initiative will surely lead to increased and sustained growth of the local ICT ecosystem.

Let's complain about Microsoft restricting choice in the market (part deux)

Yoon Kit wrote about being forced to pay the Microsoft tax when buying computers from computer manufacturers (eg Dell). I submitted a complaint to the Ministry of Internal Trade and Consumer Affairs and received an official acknowledgment from the ministry that the Penang branch office will investigate the complaint.

I strongly urge everybody who uses non-Microsoft operating systems on their computers bought from Dell or any other manufacturers to write in through the web interface and make an official complaint. Make your voices heard so that we can stop being forced to pay for software we don't use!

State Chief Enforcement Officer,
Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs,
Tuanku Syed Putra Building,
Downing Lane,
10300 Penang.

(Dated: 15th August 2008)

Sir,

COMPLAINT ABOUT PURCHASING DELL COMPUTERS
DITESH KUMAR A/L SHASHIKANT

I am instructed to respectfully inform you that this administration has received a complaint where the complainant was asked to use Microsoft Windows from Dell Computers, which add an additional cost to the purchase.

2. For your information, the complainant does not use Microsoft Windows software and as such, does not ask for Microsoft warranty and hopes that the company in question does not add any extra charges.

3. In line with that, we would be pleased if your party could conduct the necessary investigations and inform us of any developments to this administration.

Your cooperation in this matter is much appreciated and we thank you in advance.

"SERVING THE COUNTRY"

Following orders,

Mazlan bin Haniff
for: Director

Sep 9, 2008:

• @Wu MingShi: Thanks for the better translation.

The State of Kedah moves to OpenOffice.org

A case study submitted to the Open Source Competency Center by the Center of Information Technology, Office of the Chief Minister and State Secretary of Kedah, has indicated that OpenOffice.org has been installed in 70% of the computers in the Kedah state government agencies. There are currently 2,202 installed seats and by the looks of it, the numbers will just keep rising!

For the convenience of international readers, here is a translation in English of the case study (original was in the Malay language):

Project Objective

OpenOffice.org as office productivity software (1 PC - 1 copy of OpenOffice.org)

OSS Technology Used

OpenOffice.org

Desktop software is the main software for all computers of the officers and office staff. It is not specific to groups of officers or specific staff. The need and requests for desktop software has increased in line with the additional computers provided.

From cost analysis performed, 25% of the purchase cost of a computer is allocated for the purchase of desktop software which is Microsoft Office, where it should should be licensed according to the number of units purchased.

Taking into account the state government's financial allocation restrictions, cost saving measures have been implemented through the use of desktop software applications which is OpenOffice.org. It was first introduced in the year 2003 in several stages through the annual supply of computers for several departments. Purchase control was performed at the State Secretary Office (Kedah Information Technology Center).

Training courses under the State Public Sector ICT Cultivation Program was conducted along with the purchase controls noted above. Other  then email and Internet courses, OpenOffice.org was among the main modules for which training courses were given.

Project Specification

Each new computer provided by the State Government is only supplied with desktop software which is OpenOffice.org for the purposes of administration work by officers and departmental staff.

OpenOffice.org courses are open to all interested public sector personnel. At the early stages, attendance was mandatory. It was conducted by the State Information Technology Center.

System Usage

OpenOffice.org was used as the main desktop software for daily state administration work.

Software

OpenOffice.org 2.4

Why Use OSS/Linux?

1. Cost savings for the government
2. Avoiding non-compliance of the Copyright Act by government agencies
3. Technology choices that are fit for purpose

Why and How OSS Solves Needs/Problems

1. Percentage of departments owning computers and ICT equipment is still low
2. Cost savings allows for more ICT equipment to be purchased
3. Choice of technology on par with departmental users' need
4. Non-compliance to Copyright Act can be reduced in stages

Effect of OSS Conversion on Agencies and the Public

1. Number of computers supplied can be increased
2. Increase in skills and knowledge of officers and staff in multiple desktop applications
3. The spread of virii which is common through the use of MSWord file formats is reduced/stopped

Experience

1. Officers and staff found it hard to adapt to equivalent features between Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org.
2. OpenOffice.org is more open compared to Microsoft Office. It supports multiple file formats and is not tied to Windows based files only.

Project Status

a) OpenOffice.org installation in government departments

Until today, computers supplied and installed with OpenOffice.org are:

Year	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	Total
Computers	450	122	550	350	380	350	2,202

In total, it is estimated that 70% of all computers are installed with OpenOffice.org software. This policy is continued in line with the efforts of the State Secretary so that government departments take cost savings measures.

b) ICT Cultivation Program (OpenOffice.org)

Till 2008, 1913 people were exposed and given training to OpenOffice.org.

Testimony

Name: Ahmad Bawadir Bin Haji Abdul Ghani
Post : Director of Information Technology for the state of Kedah
Telephone: [omitted]

What is surprising is that the migration to OpenOffice.org occurred way back in 2003, and this looks like a pretty extensive long term project. It also is good to know that they are consistently covering 10-15% of their users per year. This would mean they would need another two more years to fully migrate over to OpenOffice.org.

Kudos to Ahmad Bawadir and team in Kedah.

The original case study in Malay is as follows:

[Update 3:35am 16 August 2008: Thanks to MingShi for the better translations!]

A Memo to Patrick Durusau (Part Deux)

When Patrick Durusau wrote that Microsoft had no opposition to ODF, he was indefensibly and gloriously wrong. Those of us involved in national standards bodies and on government policy panels have had the dubious honor of having to defend against Microsoft's desperate attempts to kill any possible introduction of ODF as a voluntary standard. Perhaps even worse was having to witness first hand Microsoft making loud complaints against any internal government policies of the usage of ODF and any software which uses ODF (OpenOffice.org being the most prominent). And, of course, many of us have faced the intense lobbying campaign carried out by Microsoft against open source governmental policies.

So when Yasmin Mahmood, Microsoft Malaysia Managing Director, made the famous statement that "It's not about choosing, but about having a choice" with reference to ODF and OOXML, we assumed this was a new chapter in Microsoft history.

Then came along a recent blogpost by Harisfazillah Jamel, "Apabila Membuat Pilihan Dipersoalkan / When Choices are Questioned", on the right of government agencies to make choices. It's written in Malay, but it has been translated by Yoon Kit for the benefit of our international readers. It makes for extremely interesting reading on the pressure Microsoft Malaysia is placing on a government agency because of their choice to use OpenOffice.org/ODF over Microsoft Office:

Apabila Membuat Pilihan Dipersoalkan (When Our Choices Are Questioned)

Ada yang sebuah syarikat ICT yang kononnya mempunyai satu lagi standard bagi satu perkara adalah satu pilihan kepada pengguna. Sedangkan pengguna, mana-mana pengguna juga faham, standard, mempunyai standard bermaksud kita telah membuat pilihan, membuat satu pilihan daripada pelbagai pilihan yang terbaik untuk pengguna.

There is an ICT company which has one more standard for one more application for one more choice for consumers. While consumers, many users understand standards, having standards means we have made a choice, a choice which  is the best for users from many options.

Wakil mereka di Malaysia dalam satu muka surat sebuah akhbar menyatakan, kejayaan mereka mendapatkan iktiraf standard bagi satu format adalah satu pilihan kepada pengguna. Teruskan membaca, apabila membuat pilihan bukan kehendak mereka, adalah bukan pilihan mereka.

Their Malaysian representative, in a page of a newspaper stated that their success of having the standard as a format is yet another choice for users. Read it, if we make a choice not to their liking, it is not their choice.

Lalu sebuah agensi dalam kerajaan Malaysia telah membuat pilihan. Membuat pilihan bukan dalam kehendak syarikat ICT tersebut. Pilihan setelah panjang membuat penilaian. Pilihan atas dasar untuk memberi sokongan dan pilihan kepada agensi-agensi lain. Pilihan yang dibuat atas kehendak sendiri tanpa  tekanan mana-mana pihak. Pilihan yang dipesetujui diperingkat pengurusan tertinggi hinggalah keperingkat bawahan.

An agency in the government of Malaysia had already made a choice. The choice was not the choice of the said ICT company. The choice was made after a long study. The choice was based on principles to bring support and choice to other agencies The choice was made on its own needs without any pressures from any party. The choice was agreed by the highest level of management to the lowest level.

Sekarang timbul isu, syarikat ICT itu tidak senang dengan pilihan yang dibuat oleh agensi itu. Mereka merasakan agensi ini mahu menentukan dasar yang keras terhadap pilihan yang telah dibuat. Oh ya betul, mereka tidak senang dengan pilihan yang dibuat oleh sebuah agensi kerajaan Malaysia dan mula menjalankan kerja-kerja melobi untuk memaksa agensi ini, menurunkan maksud polisi penggunaan standard yang telah dibuat oleh agensi ini.

Now this issue has surfaced. The ICT company is not happy with the choice that was made by the agency. They felt that the agency wants to set a policy which is incompatible with the choice that they prefer. Oh that is true, they are not happy with the choice that was made by an agency of the Malaysian Government and have started work lobbying to force this agency to dampen the meaning of the policy of using standards that was announced by this agency.

Polisi yang telah disusun, dibincang dengan panjang lebar dan diluluskan dalam pengurusan tertinggi agensi ini mahu diubah oleh syarikat ICT tersebut kerana ia tidak menepati pilihan yang kehendak mereka. Bahawa diingatkan polisi ini adalah khusus hanya untuk agensi ini supaya memudahkan pelaksanaan atas satu standard. Itu maksud tujuan standard, memudahkan pelaksanaan kepada satu pilihan.

The policy that was prepared, was discussed widely and in detail, was approved by the highest level management of this agency, is to be modified by the said ICT company because it is not inline with their needs. Whereas it is reminded that this policy is specifically for this agency such that it  can easily implement one standard. That is the meaning and purpose of a standard, the ease of implementing one choice.

Yang buat saya marah, adalah teknik yang saya panggil, kilas tangan dengan kasar memaksa agensi ini tukarkan polisi agensi ini. Ya memaksa, walau apa pun cara yang digunakan, bagi saya ia masih panggil ia memaksa, agensi ini tukarkan polisi dari segi pelaksanaan.

What makes me angry is  what I call their heavy handed technique of forcing the said agency to change its policies. Yes force, by any means possible. I still call it force, to get the agency to change its policies on implementation.

Bagi saya, campur tangan dalam urusan sebuah agensi kerajaan Malaysia terutama melibatkan polisi, dan nyata sekali polisi ini adalah untuk penggunaan agensi tersebut oleh sebuah syarikat luar negara merupa satu campur tangan asing... Sebuah bentuk penjajahan ...

For me, their intervention in the business of an agency of the Government of Malaysia especially when it involves policies, and especially when this policy is stated for the use of this agency, by a foreign company represents ... a form of colonisation ...

Siapa mereka untuk tentukan dasar dan pentadbiran sebuah negara.  Saya sebagai rakyat Malaysia cukup marah dengan campur tangan sebegini. Perkara ini telah lama diperhatikan sejak daripada melobi penerimaan standard yang kononnya adalah satu pilihan.

Who are they to define the policies and the running of a sovereign country. I, as a Malaysian citizen, have enough with their interference of this nature. This behaviour has long been witnessed ever since the lobbying efforts of the standards which is claimed to be yet another "choice".

Saya tidak akan duduk diam dengan bentuk penjajahan cara baru ini. Saya tidak akan berhenti menulis dan berkempen untuk mendedahkan apa jua yang dilakukan oleh syarikat ICT ini untuk terus memaksa penggunaan produk mereka.

I am not going to sit quiet with this new form of colonisation tactic. I am not going to stop writing and campaigning and resist any action by this ICT company which forces the use of their products.

Banyak sudah duit rakyat, duit rakyat mengalir keluar daripada Malaysia, hanya untuk pembayaran lesen. Pembayaran hanya atas kertas, tiada hasil kepada kita rakyat Malaysia, hanya menjadikan syarikat luar negara atau individu luar negara lagi kaya.

Too much of our citizens money, money of the people has flowed out from Malaysia, only to purchase licenses. The payment is only for paper, without any value to us Malaysian citizens, only to make a foreign company or individual foreigners rich.

Sedangkan duit yang berjuta-juta itu boleh dialirkan kepada industri ICT negara kita dalam bentuk pelaksanaan sistem sokongan, penyelidikan dan pelaksanaan kepada aplikasi sumber terbuka atau Open Source Software.

If only the multi-millions of riggit could flow to our ICT industry in the form of system support, research and implementations in Open Source Software.

Mengapa perlu kayakan orang lain sedangkan rakyat ini yang membayar cukai tersebut perlu lihat sahaja duit itu keluarkan. Sedang sudah ada pilihan, pilihan yang setelah dikaji, boleh mendatangkan faedah yang banyak kepada rakyat Malaysia.

Why must we make other people wealthy while citizens have to pay the tax. Just see the expenditure. While there is already a choice, a choice that has been evaluated which can bring much benefits to the citizens of Malaysia.

Polisi dan dasar sudah ada. Mengapa tidak sokong? Soalan yang hendak tanya kepada ahli-ahli politik negara kita ...

The Policies are already defined. Why is there no support? These are the questions which need only be asked to the politicians of our country ...

Apa yang saya tulis ini adalah pendapat peribadi, akan tetapi saya mahu ia dipandang  serius oleh banyak pihak. Lama mana kita mahu dijajah ... ???

What I have written is just my personal opinion, but I want this viewed seriously by many. How long do we ever want to be colonised ... ???

A Memo to Patrick Durusau

I really must commend Patrick Durusau's innate capability of writing the most inflammatory and outrageous publications, publications that are so divorced from reality that one cannot help but think that the dude must be hoarding some seriously good weed to be able to live so completely within his own defined existence. His latest publication, "Not With a Bang, but With a Whimper", has been receiving flak from the collective open standards community for exactly that reason and rightly so.

Patrick writes that:

Signs the document standards war was entirely fictitious have been around for quite some time. Where was the Microsoft opposition to OpenDocument in standards bodies such as OASIS and ISO? Perhaps they forgot? Didn't get the memo?

Given that we at OpenMalaysiaBlog, as open standards supporters, have been at the forefront of receiving the brunt of their vicious (and often personal) attacks on ODF, I find Patrick's assertions as ridiculous and cockeyed at best, and deliberately offensive at worst.

Microsoft has been running an anti-ODF campaign in favour of OOXML for a long long time now. In Malaysia, their campaign started with opposition to Malaysia's proposed adoption of ODF ISO26300:2006 as a voluntary standard by invoking Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt on the ODF standard. The campaign continued on by personally attacking members of the technical committee who were in favour of ODF, by casting undue aspersions on their characters, in particular, insinuating that we were subversive agents of IBM intent on the destruction of Microsoft (apparently, anybody who supports truly open standards is a biased IBM agent).

In fact, during a technical standards meeting on ODF, senior management of Microsoft Malaysia printed out an unrelated and personal blog post from Yoon Kit (in which he was slightly critical of a Malaysian government agency whose representative was also present during the meeting), passed it around to all members present in the meeting and demanded for proper ethical conduct from members. That's right, folks - he printed out a non-technical blog post and attempted to cast a false and misleading charge on the character of a member of the technical meeting.

To the credit of the representative of the government agency in question and the chairman of the meeting, the meeting was quickly brought to order. The representative of the government agency did not have a problem with Yoon Kit's blog post but Microsoft Malaysia did. Note that this is not hearsay, I witnessed this first hand and was thoroughly shocked at the extent Microsoft would go to destroy any perceived threat to their Microsoft Office cash cow. The Microsoft Malaysia representative in question also distributed printed blog posts from OpenMalaysia and circled the name of a member of this blog who also happens to be an IBM employee, insinuating to all that members of OpenMalaysia are influenced by IBM in pushing for a pro-ODF stand. This happened during a meeting to discuss the technical aspects on ODF!

That particular meeting was followed by an anonymous smear campaign against one of the TC members. A letter was faxed to the organization of the TC member in question, accusing the TC member in question of helping politicize the issue (which is, of course, untrue). I too had the dubious pleasure of hearing first hand how Microsoft attempted to remove me from the TC (they did not succeed, thanks to integrity and cojones of the organization I am affiliated with).

If this unethical behaviour by Microsoft was not sufficiently despicable, they did the unthinkable by involving politics in what should have been a technical evaluation of the standard by writing to the head of the Malaysian standards organization and getting its business partners to engage in a negative letter writing campaign to indicate lack of support of ODF in the Malaysian market. Every single negative letter on ODF received by the Malaysian standards organization was written either by Microsoft, or a Microsoft business partner or a Microsoft affiliated organization (Initiative for Software Choice and IASA).

That's right, Patrick, every single negative letter on ODF can be traced back to Microsoft. And you ask where was Microsoft's opposition to ODF? Here is a letter by Yasmin Mahmood, Microsoft Malaysia Managing Director to the head of the Malaysian standards organization, opposing ODF as a voluntary standard (note that I have digital copies of all the letters in questions, if you wish to read them):

Patrick, you write that:

Need more? Watch the reaction to this announcement by Microsoft. Remember the cry has been that Microsoft should adopt OpenDocument. Microsoft has now adopted OpenDocument and it will be devoting resources to its development. For those unfamiliar with the concept, that means Microsoft will be making a positive contribution to the ODF development effort.

My recommendation is that everyone put up their noise makers and welcome Microsoft to the OpenDocument community and prepare to work with them to advance its development

Patrick, you make the assumption that those who are opposing OOXML are doing it solely because we oppose Microsoft. You couldn't be more wrong and I think it's high time you recognize the most excellent effort by many parties in helping improve the OOXML specification.

Yoon Kit and myself have spent countless weekends and many, many, many man hours finding ways of improving the proposed standard. My report to the TC, based on the reading made of the proposed standard, have always been on a solely technical basis, and Patrick, you of all people, should accede to the fact that there are/were severe technical deficiencies in the proposed standard and that input from members of National Bodies helped improve the specification.

The campaign against Open XML was at its start, in the middle and at the end an anti-Microsoft campaign. The merits or demerits of Open XML were simply a convenient launching point for criticisms of Microsoft.

Making the dangerous argument that "the merits or demerits of OOXML were simply a convenient launching point for criticisms of Microsoft" works to undermine the important constructive value of  criticism, which is to improve the proposed standard in question. The logic you have employed, that any attempt to criticize the technical deficiencies in OOXML is equated to criticism of Microsoft, is superfluous. By any measure, our criticism and feedback has helped improve the proposed standard immeasurably and you simply must recognize that, if intellectual honesty carries still carries weight with you.

Patrick, to further claim that we are solely "noise makers" does irreparable damage to value of the work we have put into improving the proposed standard. In fact, some of the decent folk at Microsoft (yes, they actually exist) helped arrange a conference call to Brian Jones, whose input helped clarify some the issues I was attempting to understand. I subsequently revised my technical contribution to the TC based on the clarification by Brian Jones. Your assertion that we are doing this so as to criticize Microsoft is an unfair charge and only serves to undermine your already dwindling reputation among the open standards community.

Now, when I was first told about Microsoft Office support for ODF by a Microsoft employee, my reaction was: "Awesome!". Then I puzzled for a minute over why they didn't do this two years ago and avoid opposing the passage of ODF as a Malaysian standard. In any case, the following day, I relayed this message to Yasmin Mahmood, the Microsoft Malaysia Managing Director, with an invitation for OpenMalaysia Blog to interview her on this positive and constructive development. I've not heard back from Yasmin on my invitation, but let me publicly assure the lady that the invitation is still open and we are committed to publishing the interview verbatim (word for word). Yoon Kit and I also offered to publicize the good work Microsoft is doing on ODF by running an interview with them. Brian and Doug, that invitation is still open if you choose to accept it by answering the questions we sent to you 11 days ago.

So all in all, Patrick, you owe us an apology for your thoughtless remarks, your unfair insinuations and biased connotations on our character.

Episode 69: Rebel Employees Strike Back

Note: We have been featured in the news. w00t!

Taking a break from the entire OOXML saga, some of us decided to execute an elaborate April Fool's plan on Dinesh Arnold Nair, our collective QubeConnect boss and a (self proclaimed) Sith Lord. The plan ("Operation Coverup") involved wrapping up all items in the Sith Lord's office with aluminum foil. It's one those things that is actually a lot harder then it sounds (who knew wrapping cables in aluminum foil would be such a bitching effort, eh?).

I brought up the idea initially several months to some of the Sith Lord minions. It was initially a simple effort to wrap up all belongings of the Sith Lord. Over teh tarik (Malay sugared tea) and many beers, the idea expanded to wrapping his furniture in aluminum foil, plastering his walls with brown wrapping paper, covering his car with even more brown paper, adapting the Star Wars intro crawl text video for the finishing touch and dressing up in Ku-Klux-Klan style robes. At one point, we discussed involving his wife into a more elaborate scam involving wrapping up stuff in his apartment, but decided against it when we realized his wife is truly Sith and we may end up getting skewered in the process.

Anyway, as  the plan grew and grew, before I realized, there were more volunteers then there was room in his office. No problem, we could always parallelize the wrapping tasks, right? I thought we could have been done in a couple hours with seven of us. Hah, that turned out to be woefully over-optimistic.

31st March 2008 arrived and three minions marched over to the nearest hypermart to buy the supplies. We ran into our first hurdle - who knew that there were so many grades of aluminum foil? We decided on the smartest engineering decision that made sense to us then and bought six rolls of the cheapest foil available. It later turned out to be not such a bright idea as the cheapest foil also was the thinnest which made wrapping a tad bit difficult. Oh well. We also bought a roll of brown wrapping paper which came with 10 pieces of 1x1 meter sized paper.

So, evening came and SMS's were flying wildly, planning this and organizing that, but mostly we were jumping with excitement. We waited for everybody to leave, and waited a bit more, and waited some more and everybody left except for the Sith Lord. Oh all days, he decided to spend this day running load tests on the QubeTalk (our IP-PBX). Grrrr. No matter, we left for an early dinner hoping that he would have left by the time we got back.

At 8pm approximat-ish, we get back (all seven of us!) and apparently he had left for the day, so we start in all earnestness. Fuck, it was tiring work. We wrapped, and wrapped, and wrapped, and wrapped. We wrapped his ashray, his loose change, his lighter, his papers, his laptop, his picture frame (hey Sith Lord, there's a surprise waiting for you underneath that foil), his wastepaper basket, his awards and god knows what else. And while we were wrapping, one of us was working on creating the Star Wars intro crawl text video (I had adapted the original Star Wars text earlier in the day).

.

Microsoft Lobbying In Singapore

Side Note: The Last Lap post containing OOXML results can be viewed here.

The ISO standards development process insist on the principle of consensus, industry satisfaction and voluntary adoption. Consensus is defined as:

"The views of all interests are taken into account: manufacturers, vendors and users, consumer groups, testing laboratories, governments, engineering professions and research organizations."

Microsoft has been strongly lobbying members of National Bodies to vote "Approve" on OOXML (DIS 29500) without due recognition and consideration of the technical issues that needed to be discussed and fixed in OOXML. Never mind that there is a substantial oppostion to the introduction of this draft standard (as it stands today), Microsoft has been spending countless millions of dollars and the time of many of its employees to lobby and get OOXML through the venerable gates of ISO by hook or crook.

Microsoft Singapore (led by Mr. Barney Lau) has been running an intensive lobbying campaign to the members of the Information Technology Standards Committee (ITSC) to vote "Approve" on OOXML and disregard the "Disapprove" recommendation of Singapore's Information Exchange Technical Committee. Sure enough, in September 2007, ITSC voted "Approve" despite its technical committee voting a strong "Disapprove". The members of ITSC include members of the academia and industry as follows:

1. Chairman, Mr Robert Chew representing the Standards Council
2. Mr V S Kumar representing the Association of the Small and Medium Enterprises
3. Mr Raymond Lee representing the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore
4. Mr Alvin Ong representing the Information Technology Management Association
5. Dr Susanto Rahardja representing the Institute for Infocomm Research
6. Dr Derek Kiong representing the Institute of Systems Science
7. Mr Tam Kok Yan representing the Ministry of Defence
8. Mr Daniel Wee representing Nanyang Polytechnic
9. Assoc Prof Chia Liang-Tien, Clement representing Nanyang Technological University
10. Assoc Prof Pung Hung Keng representing National University of Singapore
11. Mr Lim Sah Soon representing the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry
12. Mr Alphonsus Pang, Singapore Computer Society
13. Mr Foo Jong Tong representing Singapore infocomm Technology Federation
14. Ms Susan Chong representing SPRING Singapore
15. Mr Harish Pillay individual capacity
16. Mr Wilson Tan, individual capacity

Apparently, Microsoft Singapore allegedly promised funding and discounts to the academia. There is no documentation to back this up, so I cannot substantiate this rumour (and neither should you consider it to be true). However, it is true that Microsoft Singapore got all its business partners to write in standard template letters of support to ITSC to get ITSC vote "Approve".

In particular, the Information Technology Management Association (ITMA) and the Singapore Infocomm Technology Federation (SITF) (highlighted in red above), specifically wrote in to ITSC supporting OOXML as an ISO standard. Amazingly, both letters were CC-ed to Mr. Barney Lau (Microsoft Singapore Managing Director). I honestly did not know that ITMA and SITF were answerable to Mr. Barney Lau of Microsoft Singapore. Oh wait, he is a member of the SITF council.

That may be the most cogent explanation yet of Singapore's "Approve" vote I've seen to date.

Here are the letters sent by ITMA and SITF (as provided by a source in Microsoft who was not happy with the approach the regional Microsoft office took to railroad OOXML through Singapore's standards body).

The Last Lap

Updated: 1st April 2008, 06:13 PM Malaysian Time (GMT +8)

 The Final Results are IN! Here are the final results of the countries voting for DIS 29500 (more popularly known as Microsoft OOXML). Countries without links are verified from the ISO results.

Participating Countries:

Approve	Disapprove	Abstain
Azerbaijan Cote-d'Ivore Cyprus Czech Republic (link) Denmark (link) Finland (link) Germany (link) Ireland (link) Japan Jamaica Kazakhstan Lebanon Malta Norway (link, another link) Pakistan Saudi Arabia Singapore Slovenia South Korea (link, another link) Switzerland Trinidad and Tobago United Kingdom (link) USA (link) Uruguay Changes: Czech Republic (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Finland (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Kenya (change from "Approve" to "Abstain") South Korea (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Denmark (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Venezuela (change from "Approve" to "Disapprove") Norway (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") United Kingdom (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Ireland (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Slovenia (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Trinidad and Tobago (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Japan (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Turkey (change from "Approve" to "Abstain") Note: Final Approval is NOT by simple majority. See Voting Criteria below.	Canada (link) China Ecuador India (link) Iran New Zealand (link) South Africa (link) Venezuela (link, another link) Changes: Czech Republic (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") South Korea (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Denmark (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Venezuela (change from "Approve" to "Disapprove") Norway (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") United Kingdom (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Ireland (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") France (change from "Disapprove" to "Abstain") Japan (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve")	Australia (link) Belgium (link) France (link) Italy Kenya (link, another link) Malaysia (link) Netherlands (link) Spain Turkey Changes: Finland (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Kenya (change from "Approve" to "Abstain") France (change from "Disapprove" to "Abstain") Slovenia (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Trinidad and Tobago (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Turkey (change from "Approve" to "Abstain")
Count: 24, Changes: 13, Net Change: +7	Count: 8, Changes: 9, Net Change: -7	Count: 9, Changes: 6, Net Change: 0

Observing and Other Countries:

Approve	Disapprove	Abstain
Armenia Austria Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Congo Colombia Costa Rica Croatia Egypt Fiji Ghana Greece Israel Jordan Kuwait Mauritius Mexico Morocco Nigeria Panama Peru Phillipines Poland Portugal Qatar Romania (link, another link) Serbia Syrian Arab Republic Tanzania Thailand Tunisia United Arab Emirates Ukraine Uzbekistan Changes: Cuba (change from "Approve" to "Disapprove") Russian Federation (change from "Approve" to "Abstain") Sri Lanka (change from "Approve" to "Abstain") Thailand (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Israel (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Mauritius (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Mexico (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Peru (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Phillipines (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Note: Final Approval is NOT by simple majority. See Voting Criteria below.	Brazil (link, another link) Cuba (link) Changes: Cuba (change from "Approve" to "Disapprove") Thailand (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve") Phillipines (change from "Disapprove" to "Approve")	Argentina Chile (link, English translation) Luxembourg Russian Federation Sri Lanka Vietnam Zimbabwe Changes: Russian Federation (change from "Approve" to "Abstain") Sri Lanka (change from "Approve" to "Abstain") Israel (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Mauritius (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Mexico (change from "Abstain" to "Approve") Peru (change from "Abstain" to "Approve")
Count: 37, Changes: 9, Net Change: +6	Count: 2, Changes: 3, Net Change: -1	Count: 7, Changes: 6, Net Change: -2

Final Vote:

• Criteria 1: 24/32 = 75.00% (PASS)
• Criteria 2: 10/71 = 14.08% (PASS)
• Overall Result: PASS 

Legend:

• Countries in BLACK are listed as per their September 2007 vote.
• Countries in BLUE have decided their final vote and their final vote does not represent a change in voting from September 2007 (click the links, where available, for the press release).
• Countries in RED have decided their final vote and their final vote represents a change in voting from September 2007 (click the links, where available, for the press release).
• Countries in BROWN are close to deciding their final votes but thanks to intense lobbying, things may change. Note that countries listed in BROWN are SPECULATIVE!
• Countries in stricken-out BROWN have changed their vote from their original September 2007 vote (as noted for each country) and are listed for reference purposes only. Note that this change may not be their final vote.
• Countries in stricken-out GREY have changed their final vote from their original September 2007 vote (as noted for each country) and are listed for reference purposes only.
• Changes list only enumerates countries which change their vote.
• Count is the number of countries in the list.
• Changes = "Number of countries added to a column" + "Number of countries subtracted from a column"
• Net Change = "Number of countries added to a column" - "Number of countries subtracted from a column"

Voting Criteria (JTC1 Directives, page 49):

• At least two-thirds of the P-members voting shall have approved;
• Not more than one-quarter of the total number of votes cast are negative.
• A P-member which has given appropriate notification that it will abstain from participation in specific work items (see 3.1.2) shall not be counted as a P-member when counting votes for drafts relating to such items.

ChangeLog:

Ditesh, 1st April 2008:

• Updated the final results (from ISO)
• Updated France's status (thanks Luc Bollen, Jean-Marie Gouarné)

Ditesh, 31st March 2008:

• Updated Australia's status (thanks Rob Brown)
• Updated Malaysia's status (thanks Yoon Kit)

Ditesh, 30th March 2008:

• Updated United Kingdom's status (thanks Andy Updegrove)
• Updated Ireland's status (thanks Andy Updegrove)
• Updated New Zealand's status (thanks Dio Gratio, orlando)
• Updated South Africa's status (thanks anon, Bob Joliffe)

Ditesh, 29th March 2008:

• Added another link for Kenya (thanks Luc Bollen)
• Updated Norway's status (thanks Chris Auld, Andreas Wagner, Mikael Nillson)
• Updated Venezuela's status (thanks Avi Alkalay, orlando, Dio Gratia, Matt)
• Updated France's status (thanks orlando)
• Updated Chile's status (thanks Carlos)
• Updated Denmark's status (thanks Jeffrey)
• Updated South Korea's status (thanks Frank, The Open Sourcerer)
• Updated Argentina's status (thanks Carlos)

Ditesh, 28th March 2008:

• Changes list made more comprehensible
• Updated Kenya's status (thanks Luc Bollen)
• Updated Finland's status (thanks Luc Bollen)

Ditesh, 27th March 2008:

• Updated Romania's status (thanks Apolodor for the vote link and the translation, much appreciated)
• Updated Cuba's status (thanks Dio Gratia)
• Removed Australia from "Approve" column and revert it back to "Abstain" column; resetted China's, South Africa's, New Zealand's colors.
• Added SPECULATIVE warnings. Countries listed in BROWN are NOT FINAL!

Ditesh, 26th March 2008:

• Changed definition of "Changes" statistic, added "Net Change" statistic
• Added link for Canada (thanks Anonymous)
• Added another link for Brazil (thanks Yoon Kit)
• Updated Brazil's status (thanks Anonymous)
• Updated Belgium's status (thanks Luc Bollen for the vote link and the translation, much appreciated)
• Updated Germany's status (thanks Luc Bollen)
• Updated Czech Republic's status (thanks Luc Bollen, orlando)
• Updated Criteria 1&2 after Czech Republic's flip from "Disapprove" to "Approve"
• Fixed Slovenia typo (thanks John Drinkwater)

Ditesh, 25th March 2008:

• Updated Criteria 2 calculations (removal of abstention votes from the denominator, thanks to commentators on this post)
• Updated Netherlands status (thanks Peter)
• Have not updated the status of Cuba due to possible confusion on whether the email sent by the NB is valid (thanks Anonymous)

Can I Have A Light, Doug?

I'm tired. Really, I'm honestly physically exhausted. Working a full time job, moonlighting on improving the DIS 29500 (Microsoft OOXML) specification, buying a house, selling a car, seeing the apartment building go up in flames[1], hosting two Couch Surfers, dealing with an engagement (don't get excited, it's not mine), taking this really hawt and intelligent woman[2] out and wanting to spend time with her but simply not having time to spend, takes its toll, you see.

So I'm going to keep my response to Doug's recent provocative spin-doctoring and fact-fudging [3] to a numeric series of objective observations and subjective argumentation. Make what you will of it, I personally think Doug needs to spend more time in constructive efforts (perhaps improving the specification?), and less time building elaborate conspiracy theories and flaming his "buddies" (his words, not mine).

Here goes:

1. Doug, you are claiming that you wanted a technical debate with YK and yours truly. You never contacted us prior to the PIKOM meeting and never told me that you would be present at TC4. How can you claim that you wanted a technical debate when you never bothered to get in touch with the people you wanted to debate with? Your logic simply does not compute[4].
2. Your blog post says "they threw me out before the meeting started". Well, no shit sherlock. If you turn up at a meeting without giving due notice of your nomination as an alternate representative of IASA, you really can't be surprised if they weren't too happy, eh? There are proper processes to follow in Malaysia's standards body and IASA flagrantly violated them.
3. Microsoft and IBM were specifically not invited. Doug, you are a high profile Microsoft employee and you circumvented this ruling by turning up as a Malaysian Vice President of IASA. It just doesn't sound to me that you attempted to participate in good faith basis, but rather tried to twist the rules to your favor. If you got in, why shouldn't Google, Oracle, RedHat, IBM, Sun etc all get in as well? The rules are there for a reason, you know. You have to accept that this is a Malaysian technical body, and we want the Malaysian agenda to be discussed, not the agenda of multinationals.
4. I arrived 10 minutes late, not 30 minutes late. Wrong turning on the Federal Highway, you see. Nothing to get worked up over. I have no idea when YK arrived.
5. Hitting out at Madam Tan is a new low, certainly not something I would have expected out of you[5]. I'm going to echo YK's comment and suggest that you stop burning your bridges.
6. Kamarul was invited specifically as an observer by SIRIM in the past. He did not turn up uninvited. Kamarul actually got his facts wrong on this point and was corrected by the secretariat immediately during the meeting. Kamarul acceded to his mistake during the meeting. You may wish to update your blog post accordingly
7. DSM wasn't making up the rules as they went along. Just so you know, I had to get MNCC to formally submit my status as an alternate before they would allow my participation. I'm not sure how you do it in the US but in Malaysia, there are proper processes to follow and IASA shouldn't be an exception.
8. You seem keen in arguing that there was no technical material discussed and presented. Au contra ire[6], I presented Malaysia's dispositions, output from the BRM and gave my technical opinion on the issues. You see, I actually write code for a living, I know what I'm talking about and am willing to defend it too[7]. Mr. Cheong (from the infamous IASA) did not raise a single issue with my interpretation of the technical deficiencies at hand and instead started discussing non-issues ("if Malaysia votes NO, Microsoft will never open anything up ever again"[8]). In fact, Mr. Cheong specifically declined to discuss the technical issues. I see hypocrisy in you blogging that there was no technical discussion when there was indeed such an opportunity present and your organization (or more correctly, Microsoft's front) chose not to engage in it.
9. I think Hasan was in SIRIM to hit on a secretary. Female, and from what I hear, quite the MILF-ish. Really, you should have stayed, if not for seconds, then for the entertainment.

There you go. I'm not going to pursue this any further (but Doug, do feel free to write another scathing post, I've got /dev/null all prepped up and ready here). I just felt folk reading Doug's blog and OpenMalaysiaBlog should be able to see this from another perspective. Specifically mine. Either that or this is just another excuse for more sandiwara (translation: drama).

You know, we Malaysians just love our sandiwara, especially since the election-fever recently ended and no new gossip seems to be making its rounds. Oh well, lets hope Doug keeps us entertained for another week or so (planning to infiltrate other National Bodies? I hear the Singaporeans are bored).

[1] Well not really, but it sure did feel that way.
[2] Mmmmph!
[3] If this a job requirement at Microsoft? That may explain why I never got called in for an interview.
[4] Which is really not a bad thing. It busts the myth that Vulcans inhabit Redmond. I, for one, am f*&#ing glad. I must admit you guys scare me at times with the paranoia but as long as it's not backed up by sheer cold and calculating logic, I guess we're cool.
[5] Well, maybe I expected the stalker to do the dirty hatchet job, but definitely not you Doug.
[6] Slpelnig may be fubared, I couldn't give a shit. Read the first line of this blog post again.
[7] This is really why chicks dig me. That and the 200 dollars I'm willing to part with.
[8] I must admit that this is my favouritest bad argument, ever. Partly because it was quite unexpected (Mr. Cheong does strike me as a fairly intelligent chap) but mostly because the argument is so mindbogglingly stupid.

Iceland's Strong Stand on Open Source and Open Standards

The Prime Minister's Office of the Government of Iceland has released their policy on Free and Open Source Software. Reading it shows that the policy is well thought through. In the introduction itself, the policy states that:

"Free and open-source software is expanding rapidly all over the world, having already earned recognition as a realistic option when selecting information technology solutions. Such software has brought competition to a market previously dominated by a relatively small number of suppliers. Rather than hindering this trend, it is important for governmental authorities to support it and allow for its continued development, since the use of free and open-source software can reduce the ties of businesses, the authorities and the public to individual suppliers or service providers, thereby cultivating greater choice.

There are numerous factors, particularly the expense of proprietary software, which call for noting the possibilities involved in using free and open-source software. These possibilities add weight to recommendations stemming from cooperative projects and international organisations, such as the European Union and Nordic Council, that free competition be promoted in these matters. Public bodies are at the same time encouraged to utilise the power of their size to push for the use of free and open-source software. In fact, most of Iceland's neighbouring countries have already formed policies on such software."

The policy itself consists of five simple yet effective action items:

Point 1: When purchasing new software, free and open-source software and proprietary software are to be considered on an equal footing, with the object of always selecting the most favourable purchase.

Observation: The Malaysian MAMPU open source policy was similar in nature except that it was sensible in the sense  that it required preference to be given to open source software when all other considerations were of equal merit. This policy was under intense lobbying to be overturned from Microsoft Malaysia and its various fronts (such as CompTIA and IASA) in the interest of technology neutrality, which was a silly argument considering that technology neutrality benefited the proprietary Microsoft stack status quo and did not benefit the entire industry as a whole.

Point 2: Every endeavour shall be made to choose software based on open standards, regardless of whether the software in question is standard or bespoke (custom-designed). Generally, software which is free for anyone to use is also typified by open standards.

Observation: The focus on open standards is timely and wise. Open standards increase choice for users and vendors alike so it works to the benefit of all. However, a reference to a definition of open standards would prove useful as certain vendors have been known to fudge the definition of open standards and confuse the debate.

Point 3: Public bodies shall endeavour to avoid any undue dependence on particular software manufacturers or service providers. The utilisation of free and open-source software is one means of this.

Point 4: One goal for bespoke (custom-designed) software financed by public bodies, including software for research and development projects, should be its reusability. Keeping the software free and open-source is one way to achieve reusability. Strategies shall be devised at the outset of such projects for ensuring reuse of the software.

Point 5: Students in Icelandic educational institutions shall be given the opportunity of learning about and using free and open-source software on a par with proprietary software.

Observation: I love point no 5. Day in and day out, I encounter fresh university graduates who have been trained on proprietary software platforms and know very little about the fundamentals of computer science. They are really point-and-click developers (think Visual Basic) who are just denied from learning about the fundamentals thanks to the opaque interface provided by the proprietary platforms. By comparison, every single graduate with an open source background shines primarily because he/she has been able to grok and plumb the software stack to their hearts content. Being able to learn through open source software is a big big win and will reap benefits for the Iceland ICT industry for years to come.

All in all, good stuff from the Icelandic government. Let's hope more European governments follow suit!

MAMPU migrates to OpenOffice.org and ODF to increase freedom of choice and interoperability

The Malaysian Administrative Modernization and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) has announced that the agency will be migrating to OpenOffice.org office suite as well as adopt the OpenDocument Format (ODF). In addition, Microsoft Office is to be phased out by end of 2008. The press release follows:

Putrajaya, 19th March 2008 - The Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU), today officially adopts a policy to migrate to the OpenOffice.org open source productivity suite. This is in line with the Malaysian Public Sector Open Source Master Plan, which calls for government agencies to reduce costs, increase freedom of choice and interoperability.

From April 1st, MAMPU will start adopting the OpenDocument Format (ODF), standard for all new documents created. ODF the ISO open standard for electronic documents is also the default format for OpenOffice.org. The agency will also uninstall all copies of Microsoft Office by the end of 2008.

To ensure a smooth migration, presently over 80 agency staff have been trained by the Open Source Competency Centre (OSCC). Additional staff will then be trained internally by the IT department, which will also provide support for OpenOffice.org.

[Update by Hasan, 1:32 PM, 19 March 2008: Below are my translations of the MAMPU 2-page policy statements on the move to OpenOffice.org and ODF]

--- Page 1, originally Polisi Penggunaan OpenOffice.org MAMPU (in Malay) ---

The case for open source software has been made with general acceptance of its promise of better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility and lower cost. Now is the time to hasten execution.

Y.Bhg. Tan Sri Sidek Hassan
Chief Secretary to the Government of Malaysia
December 2007

OPENOFFICE.ORG USAGE POLICY

1. Document distribution

a) Internal within MAMPU, in the basic OpenOffice.org format

b) Going outside of MAMPU, in PDF format if not necessary to be edited and in OpenOffice.org or MS Office if to be edited

2. All preparation of documents need to use standard fonts that have been stipulated.

3. Mandatory for every PC or Notebook to have OpenOffice.org that has been stipulated.

4. Every MAMPU citizen need to own OpenOffice.org to support prevalent usage of OpenOffice.org.

5. Before 1 April 2008, every user need to complete back-up of MS Office documents.

6. From 1 April 2008, new documents need to be produced using OpenOffice.org and templates that have been stipulated.

7. From 1 July 2008, MS Office software will be uninstalled from every PC and notebook.

Released on 19 March 2008

--- End of Page 1 ---

--- Page 2, originally Mengapa Bertukar Kepada OpenOffice.org (in Malay) ---

Increased Interoperability, reduced costs and vendor lock-in, and increased growth of knowledge-based society are among the compelling reasons for moving in this direction.

Dato' Normah Binti Md yusuof
Director General MAMPU
Prime Minister's Department
December 2007

WHY CHANGE TO
OPEN OFFICE.ORG?

1. Saves software licensing cost

2. Prevents supplier lock-in situations

2. Increases compatibility and interoperability

4. Stimulates growth of local ICT industry

5. Aligned with Malaysian Public Sector OSS Master Plan

--- End of Page 2 ---

The Dutch Plan for Open Standards

There was a press release about Netherlands adopting ODF. Here is the English translation of the press release:

Obligatory use of open standards by the government

17/09/2007 Press release subject: ICT policy

The government has to use open standards software from April 2008. This will increase the openness and accessibility of the government for the public, decrease the dependency from ICT-suppliers and it will give innovation more chance to take place.

This is a plan posed by the Deputy Minister of Economics, Heemskerk, which he sent to the parliament on Monday 17^th of September 2007. The Deputy Minister of Domestic Affairs, Bijleveld, also supports this plan. On the very same day he gave a speech on the conference ‘Grenzeloos samenwerken’ (cooperation without borders) to further outline his plans.

Through open standards and the use of open source software, the dependency from ICT-suppliers will be decreased. Furthermore, more opportunities will be created for designers of this type of software. In addition, the exchange of information between citizens and the governments will become easier.

From April 2008 on, government entities have to consider software with open standards if they purchase or modernise their software. Only in exceptional cases, for example when operations are endangered, proprietary software can be considered.

From the 1^st of January 2009, all government departments need to have a strategy for the use and purchasing of open source software. According to the deputy minister it is good that politicians are looking into the ICT policy since it is not only a technological tool but also an important part of modern Dutch society.

Open source software is software of which the source code is freely accessible. A well-known example is the operating system Linux. The main features of open standards is that everybody can use it without paying for a license.

My only comment on this would be for those in Netherlands championing this initiative to look out for Comptia and other allegedly neutral vendor organizations who would probably have already started lobbying against such initiatives in the dubious interest of maintaining technology neutrality (in layman's terms, "technology neutrality" would basically mean to  "maintain the status quo of using proprietary software from a software vendor found guilty in the US and the EU of abusing its market monopoly").

Doug Mahugh's Talk at TechEd SEA 2007

This is a long delayed post on Doug Mahugh's (Technical Evangelist, Microsoft US)  talk on OOXML at TechEd SEA 2007. Yoon Kit has already written a post on it, this post covers my perspectives on Doug's talk.

Well, to start off, we were almost late for his talk. Not because of tardiness of our part, but rather because I insisted we go collect Yoon Kit's bag from the Handout counter. But no matter, it seemed that we didn't miss anything because as we sat down, Doug had just started.

Doug spoke about XML being a 10 year evolution and observed that with 6,000 pages, everybody agrees that OOXML is a big topic. He then gave a 20,000 feet birds-eye visual overview of the entire spec and explained the individual sections in the specification. The meat, according to Doug, is in Part 4 (Language Reference) which in itself is 5,000 pages according to Doug. He quipped that "Nobody would sit down and read it, a statement that raised a number of eyebrows in the room. The remark did seem to be a non-sequitur. After all, how does one implement a specification without reading exactly how the specification is to be implemented?

Doug went on to describe the WordML and SpreadsheetML architectures. He is a most excellent presentator and I truly enjoyed his description of the OOXML specification. The examples he gave were fairly instructive but I must say that a few people did get lost (I saw one guy give his colleague a bewildered look) because Doug's talk required some basic understanding of the structure of document formats.

On one point, he mentioned that independent implementations of OOXML would differ from Microsoft Office 2007's implementation of OOXML because of "arbitrary details of (Microsoft) Word's implementation". He showed an example document from Microsoft Word which had a "Word" folder and he indicated that the folder contains data that Word always writes. Given there is no independent reference implementation of OOXML to date and that Microsoft Office 2007 would be used by most people as a reference implementation, one wonders if this would lead to a splurge of OOXML documents requiring the use of the "Word" folder as an unfortunate necessary dependency.

Doug went to speak about SpreadsheetML and outlined four optimization goals of OOXML's spreadsheet approach:

• small tag size
• shared strings
• shared formulas
• sparse markup

He mentioned that each of these bullet points represents a specific method of speeding up loading spreadsheet documents. While the focus in speed is clearly necessary, I would only be convinced if Doug would provide publically available code that actually demonstrates speedups in non-trivial spreadsheets.

Doug also spoke on PresentationML and gave some examples. He noted that VML and DrawingML were two methods of representating shapes but gave no good reason for the reason VML was in the specification when DrawingML would clearly get the job done. Well, he did say it's "very simple to use VML" in passing, but given the feedback technical observers have made on this apparently unnecessary duality, one would have imagined he would have spoken on it.

Doug then showed an interoperability demo (running on Tomcat/Linux in the backend) where some OOXML documents were manipulated by a backend engine. This wasn't particularly impressive, at least to me, given that I had actually written an extensive document manipulation engine for the document standard which would eventually become ODF 3 years back. As one can imagine, trivial document manipulation is easy - real interoperability, however, requires extensive tests running on nontrivial real world documents and use cases.

Doug also presented the MindManager Map interoperatibility demo, which actually did not work the first time around. I was particularly concerned when Doug showed DOCM and indicated that macros are not necessary for interoperability. Sorry Doug but given the extensive use of macros in today's documents, I really beg to differ on this point.

Doug outlined some developer tools for OOXML on various platforms:

• Available .NET libraries
• Microsoft OOXML SDK is provided. The SDK, unfortunately, is .NET based which means that developers are forced to use C#. I wrote previously on this blog that Microsoft's focus on building interoperable tools seems to only focus on the Microsoft stack. Guess I wasn't wrong on that one.
• Package Explorer (only on Microsoft Windows)
• Altova XMLSPy (only on Microsoft Windows)
• File convertors (only on Microsoft Windows) to convert OOXML backwards to binary formats
• and several other generic XML processing tools for Linux and the Mac

In response to a query by an audience member, he mentioned that OOXML allows for document software to use custom defined encryption algorithm as OOXML "does not specify encryption algorithms". Does that mean document readers need to implement all known encyrption algorithms, no matter how flawed the algorithms may be, to be able to correctly read OOXML documents? Does that mean document creation software can use patented encryption algorithms? How does that pass for an open standard? In this day and age where encryption algorithms are vetted and standardized by expert bodies, it seems a backwards move to not explicitly specify acceptable encryption algorithms. Not to mention that this design choice would raise implementation costs and efforts by third party vendors.

Well, time was running short and the session had to be wrapped up. We later had t