Open Malaysia

Tim Bray,  XML guru has this to say about the BRM. At the end he says:-

" Con: Standards Process Abuse

Microsoft decided, rather than working to produce a harmonized standard by enhancing ODF to add MS-Office-specific features, to re-invent the world from scratch.  This seems wrong.

ECMA, which claims to be a serious standards organization, blessed the process of generating a XML dump of the internal data format and publishing it in six thousand poorly-edited pages, in well under a year.  This seems wrong.

ISO allowed ECMA to submit this on their fast-track process with breathtaking obliviousness to the existence of other standards and lack of concern for harmonization.  This seems wrong.

ISO allowed the draft to be substantially edited and enhanced after the initial ballot.   This seems wrong.

It tried to repair the damage by stuffing 120 people in a room in Geneva for five days to address a thousand changes to the spec.  This seems wrong.

Thus, there’s an argument that this kind of process abuse shouldn’t be allowed to go unpunished.  If Microsoft gets their standard, it’ll be a signal to other big players to try to do the same thing.  If ISO gets away with doing this, it’ll have two negative effects.  First, respect for International Standards in general will be diminished.  Second, other people will start trying the same thing.

Conclusion

Well, my mind is still open. Locking Microsoft into a set of XML-based document-structure rules they have to play by (even if they wrote the rules), well, there’s probably an upside to that. But on the other hand, I dislike OOXML at an engineering level and I really dislike the cynical, abusive standards process it came with.

At the moment, it looks like we get the benefits (covenant not to sue, stable spec), without the downsides (Microsoft marketing club, rewarding ISO malfeasance) even if the ISO process fails.

What am I missing?"

You can read the full blog at http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/03/02/On-OOXML

Mansur

PS: If you want to quote this post please note this little warning at the top of Tim's blog- "Excerpts from this essay may not be republished in any form unless they are accompanied by a link to the original essay and the following notice: “This is excerpted from Tim Bray’s On OOXML, which discusses both sides of the issue and which should be read in full for context.”  There is one exception: the material in the first paragraph, appearing before this notice, may be freely excerpted by anyone for any purpose. ¶

I’m serious. Anyone who cherry-picks content from this piece without playing by the rule above can count on hearing from an attorney PDQ."

Erwin Terhumberg just did this excellent post about dispelling myths around ODF. Check it out at http://blogs.sun.com/dancer/entry/dispelling_myths_around_odf

This is a cut and paste of Sun Microsystems Malte Timmermann's blog. This plug in is a must have for MS Office users who believe in Open Standards but are locked in for what ever reasons ;-)

Mansur

http://blogs.sun.com/malte/entry/sun_odf_plugin_1_1

Sun ODF Plugin 1.1 for Microsoft Office available now!

The newest version of our ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office is available, you can find it here.

We have fixed the installation problem that occurred on some systems, and have made many improvements to the filters.

The biggest difference compared to 1.0 is that we have support for different languages now!

It's still just one package to download and install, but the Plugin will detect the languages from your MS Office and your Windows installation. When support for that language is available, the Plugin UI within MS Office will use you current MS Office language, while the menus and dialogs in the system tray use the language from your operating system. If your language is not supported, the fall back is English.

The Dynamic Coalition On Open Standards (DCOS) is being formed. Several excerpts from this article at Computer Review On Line:-

"Sun Microsystems Inc and like-minded organizations will promote the use of open standards, including the OpenDocument Format much feared by Microsoft Corp, at the Internet Governance Forum summit this week in Athens, Greece."

"This DCOS, which is not believed to yet have any kind of formal IGF or intergovernmental endorsement, will present two papers for discussion at a workshop in Athens on Thursday.

The papers, available for viewing now at cptech.org, argue that adopting open standards is useful to spur adoption of the internet in developing countries, and that open standards are currently "in jeopardy" due to vendors plugging proprietary interfaces.

The social value of interfaces has increased; so has their business value," the paper says. Software patents and proprietary APIs "are now being used to manipulate the direction of the network effect and to thwart widespread interoperability of computer programs" and this, the paper says, "will be particularly harmful to developing countries."

Another paper to be discussed deals specifically with government procurement practices. It addresses government as tech buyer, tech policymaker and tech producer, and in each context urges governments to support open standards.

Governments should "ban procurement policies from requiring compatibility with proprietary technologies or proprietary ICT standards" and "ban procurement policies from specifying particular brands, manufacturers, or products", the paper says.

"'Openness' is best judged by the number of competing, fully substitutable implementations of the standard," the paper suggests."

"The DCOS coalition may have one influential ally in the form of Vint Cerf, the co-inventor of TCP/IP, Google vice president and chairman of ICANN. While he does not appear to be directly involved in Thursday's workshop, he advocated similar beliefs during prepared remarks at the IGF opening ceremony in Athens yesterday.

"Digital documents often need to be interpreted by special software packages to be rendered in understandable form," he said, according to an IGF transcript. "Steps are needed to assure that the information we accumulate today will be usable not merely decades but centuries and even millennia into the future."

Mansur

Everyone should read this. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/when-standards-are-politi_b_32192.html

One key comment in this article:-

"Next year Microsoft will try to sell the public on it's latest file format -- "Open XML", which they are marketing as a "competitor" to ODF as an "open" data format. Open XML was described by one expert as a standard that only Microsoft could implement - similar to a job description custom made for a single job applicant."

Malaysia does not it seems have a significant creative and innovative developer community like that say in San Francisco and elsewhere so I suppose we are not up in arms over this issue. However most of the governments of the world are beginning to be aware of the major issue of being beholden to a single vendor for critical data. Consider historically, this particular vendor's track record in the legal space and the way it treats its competitors. It is not our intention to resort to the same tactics but in the interest of fair play, priority should be given to truly open standards. And here we need the Malaysian government's help. One must consider not just the technical aspects alone (which with proper motivation and participation can be developed - technically nothing is really impossible - within reason) but to support fundamental principles of good governance, equality and fair play.

This has to be good for aspiring Malaysian Technopreneurs as well. For one the ODF format will be much more portable from the perspective of cross platform availability in terms of applications from the many distros of Linux to even Windows based systems and will work consistently. Any one can create their own application either open or proprietary (not just Office suites but workflow apps as well as numerous others) and write to this format for transmittal to other systems without fearing that some arbitrary changes in the future that will affect the functionality of their applications in a detrimental and non competitive way. This does not happen because there is the OASIS governance process and the specifications for ODF is part of an open process involving many parties.

Adopting ODF is part of a strategy. The definition of a strategy is: having a vision of where you want to be and a step by step implementation plan on how get there. Can you see how ODF fits in Malaysia's ICT agenda? If you can't, well, then we (Malaysians) are in deep trouble.....

Mansur

I think one of the most important item that needs to be in placed in any Government procurement process, tenders, etc. is that the tender specifications should clearly state that the proposed software applications must be able to work directly and save in the targeted, preferred format. In this case the ODF native format. For example, in saving the document file, the file save menu must be able to save directly as ODF as a default format, not even as file save as. Irregardless of whether the converter is a plug-in or built into the applications, saving to the native ODF format should be easy and transparent to everyone irregardless of their PC skills. I suppose this simplified process will also help the disabled as why inconvenience people with another step in the process?

The tender specifications should state that upon deployment of the software application by the successful vendor in the tender bid, the file save to native ODF format must be turned on by default in the menu. Otherwise, less savvy PC users may end up saving in alternative non-desirable formats and this will stifle ODF adoption in a subtle manner.

Abu Mansur
Chief Technology Officer
Sun Microsystems Malaysia Sdn Bhd

As we know, open standards are not a new thing. So why is it critical now as never before? In order to understand why open standards, especially within the context of documents and other data formats that need to traverse through the internet between heterogeneous systems is a major issue today and more so in the future, we need to understand the tremendous historical and social change that we are all participating in today.

Although the majority of the population of the world today have no access to the web and the numerous services that it delivers, this is anticipated to change with the increasing adoption of Open Source Software (OSS) and the lowering in the cost of computing. Add to this the firm commitment of many of the world's governments to bridge the digital divide, we can see that within the next decade a massive change is under way.

The potentials are enormous, estimates of some less developed countries show that on line access is available only to approximately 5% (or even less) of their population. The governments of these countries would like to bring the rest of the 95% on line as they too want to build the next Google, the next Ebay, the next Yahoo and the next big thing on the web in their countries. Projects like that of the  low cost One Laptop per Child (OLPC) should also help even out this divide between the digital haves and the have nots if it is successful. The ability to manipulate and adapt data formats for local requirements in an unrestricted manner without losing interoperability is very important in this new age to allow rapid and unfettered development.

It is estimated that 3 million people join the internet every week. Think about this. More people becoming dependant on on-line services, in good times and in bad. During disasters such as happened  in Thailand with the tsunami and hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, lives can be lost due to interoperability issues between government departments that need to collaborate in a fast and timely manner to save people, deploy valuable aid and help find loved ones.

This makes unprecedented demands on not just web infrastructure but also the demand for mission critical applications to serve new requirements often on-demand with an unfettered expansion of information and related information services, much of which is encompassed within the document. The document is essentially a tool for asynchronous communication, without the need for people to communicate face to face. A word processing file is a document, a web page is a document, a video file is a document, a sound file is a document and a document that is produced on the web may be the result of a highly dynamic and complex interwoven systems and solutions that need to interoperate seamlessly.

So what is the solution? The solution resides in utilizing data and document formats based on truly open and unencumbered standards that can be read across the board by heterogeneous systems irregardless of their applications and operating systems or the hardware used to host them. It should not matter that the host and client applications are proprietary or open. The information should be equally readable to some well heeled executive running the latest office suite on his Windows based system to the old Kelabit lady in East Malaysia using a low cost Linux based box in the village internet center. It  must also be accessible to her grandson using an OLPC at the center to access educational resources or submit an assignment on-line.

Does it make sense for the government to provide documents that the old Kelabit lady and her grandson does not have access to by virtue of being inaccessible to applications on their different operating system? As citizens of Malaysia, do they too not have the rights to equality of access to their government information and services? We must therefore be always be sensitive and vigilant as to the lowest common denominator within the accessibility equation in provisioning Government services.

As a final point, just focussing on interoperability alone is not enough as you can only guarantee that interoperability as long as the vendors cooperate. In the case of proprietary data and document formats, either you buy a license from these vendors or you have to reverse engineer the format which in turn may result in some show stopping legal issues. If the vendors decide to stop supporting whatever document version that have been standardized on, or go out of business, or decide to stop supporting the format needed to achieve interoperability, then we have a potentially terminal problem. So in effect, there is a lock in to the vendor which is highly undesirable especially for governments which must guarantee public access to certain classes of documents such as land titles, often in perpetuity.

With open standards, the situation is completely different. Interoperability is made possible forever. All the specifications necessary to ensure such interoperability are publicly available and that is one of the defining criteria of open standards, so even if the standardizing body doe not exist anymore, the documents specifying the standard have been published and are usable freely, forever.

The ideal proposition then, if we can realistically achieve this, is that any protocol including various data formats and their encoding that is designed to be carried over the Internet should be able to be freely reverse-engineered and it must not be restricted by patents. Think of the internet, could it grow as it did and manage to be as resilient to natural disasters such as the Kobe earthquake more than 10 years ago if it was not built on open and unencumbered standards? In fact the internet has proven itself to be highly resilient in virtually every disaster, it is consistently hard to kill because of its openness.

My humble 2.0 Malaysian sen (about 0.5 US Cents) worth.