[A2k] International Herald Tribune: Standards divide European archives

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

Standards divide European archives
By Kevin J. O'Brien
Sunday, April 8, 2007


BERLIN: When governments in Belgium, France, Germany, Norway, Denmark,
Brazil and Croatia moved last year to convert some of their official
documents to a new format called ODF, they thought they would be
sidestepping an old rivalry among software vendors that have their own
proprietary formats.

The underlying code of ODF, which stands for OpenDocument Format, is
free and without license restrictions, allowing software developers to
create their own customized products on top of it. In May 2006, the
world's top standards body, the International Organization for
Standardization, based in Geneva, made ODF a global standard.

But in September, the same organization is poised to give a rival
standard from Microsoft the same global imprimatur, in effect creating
two supposedly universal open standards - which happen to be
incompatible.

ODF advocates and some national standards officials say that dual
standards would make a mockery of the standards-making process. And
while parallel, competing standards are not unheard of, a dual standard
for supposedly "open" interchangeable documents would be a
contradiction in terms.

If the Microsoft standard, called Office Open XML, is approved, Belgium
and the other European governments will find themselves back in the
thick of the Microsoft vs. IBM debate again, having to make a
calculated bet on which standard will ultimately win out.

It would also be a victory for Microsoft, the world's largest software
maker, whose Word document program has been rejected for use by some
public agencies on grounds that it is not an open standard. With ISO
endorsement, Microsoft reduces that threat in the future.

"It's a definite possibility we could end up with two standards that
somewhat represent the same sort of document," said Michael Silver, a
software analyst at the Gartner research firm. "That would of course be
ironic, but in any event I think that it will be a couple of years
before we see who prevails in this new standards war."

While "double" or dueling standards are not uncommon in the technology
industry - see Blu-ray vs. HD DVD in the DVD arena - they usually pose
issues for the consumer. In this case, it is the national governments
that will pay by being beholden to a software maker - Microsoft - whom
they are already at odds with over the openness of its codes and which
will hold the key to adapting the software to individual national needs
in the future.

To ODF advocates like Andrew Updegrove, a technology lawyer in Boston,
Microsoft is trying to preserve what Gartner estimates is a 90 percent
share of the $9 billion global desktop office application market. Open
Office XML appears to be open, Updegrove said, but with 6,000 pages of
technical specifications, the blueprint is so unwieldy that the net
effect would be to preserve the status quo - and Microsoft's near
monopoly.

"We have a situation right now where one company controls the
formatting of most of the digital documents in the world," Updegrove
said. "We are essentially locked into products from one vendor. If they
decide to change things, we are helpless."

Microsoft calls the criticism unfair, saying that ODF was designed by
International Business Machines, Sun and other companies and groups in
the Oasis forum, and that their opposition to Open Office XML is
commercially motivated. Tom Robertson, a manager for interoperability
and standards at Microsoft, said IBM was conducting a "very large and
well-funded global campaign" to block Microsoft's application at the
ISO.

Ari Fishkind, an IBM spokesman in New York, declined to comment on
Robertson's complaint.

The blueprint of Open Office XML's standards is lengthy, Robertson
said, because the contributors involved in the process, including the
U.S. Library of Congress, the British Library and Barclay's, the
British bank, demanded the specificity so they could have enough data
to design their own add-ons.

"We are doing exactly what our competitors have been asking us to do
for a long time, that is, to create an open document format that will
allow their products to work with ours," Robertson said. "Now that we
are doing that, IBM is trying to block it because they basically don't
want anyone to use another format but theirs."

Microsoft got a wake-up call over document formats in 2003, when
Massachusetts became the first large government to say it would convert
its digital archives to ODF because it wanted to move away from
reliance on a single software vendor, namely Microsoft.

Since then, eight national governments, including Germany and France,
and 50 government agencies around the world have started converting
part of their electronic document archives to ODF or using applications
that support ODF, like KOffice, which was developed by KDE, a nonprofit
software developers' group based in Darmstadt, Germany.

Whether Microsoft can obtain a competing global standard remains to be
seen. The roughly 100 country members of ISO and a related standards
organization, the International Electrotechnical Commission, will vote
on Microsoft's Open XML over a period ending Sept. 2. Not all countries
will decide to take part. But organizers say they expect the United
States, Canada and most large European and Asian countries to vote.

But ISO, which aims for near-unanimous agreement, is likely to extend
voting on the open document format through a so-called ballot
resolution meeting, Microsoft's Robertson said, to try to settle any
differences.

Microsoft's national technology officer in Germany, Michael Gr=F6zinger,
who is advising the government on standards issues, said he was
confident that Open XML would receive approval from Germany, which has
also endorsed ODF.

"I have seen nothing that leads me to believe Open XML won't be
approved" by Germany, Gr=F6zinger said last month at the Cebit technology
convention in Hannover, Germany.

The organization's members deliberated on the ODF standard for nearly
three years. Ecma, which was originally called the European Computer
Manufacturer's Association, referred Office Open XML to ISO on Dec. 20.

In the ISO's preparations to schedule a vote on Open Office XML, 18
countries, including Denmark, India and Malaysia, submitted questions
or objections about the proposed standard. Most said they were not
being given enough time to adequately review the documentation.

To win approval, Microsoft must obtain 75 percent of all votes cast.

IBM and its partners are also objecting to what they say is Microsoft's
attempt to have its format rubber-stamped by a global standards body
that usually favors slow, deliberate consensus decision-making.

"We find it troubling that the development of the standard was
controlled by a single vendor," said Ditesh Kumar, a representative of
the Malaysian National Computer Federation, which is part of the
country's voting body.

He said he would prefer the standards to be merged, "so we end up with
a single standard rather than end up with a fragmented marketplace of
multiple standards that do not interoperate with each other."

If Open XML is approved, the standards battle will shift to the
marketplace where, Silver, the Gartner analyst said there is a
possibility that most large organizations reject both open document
formats altogether because of cost. Governments and businesses that
face millions of dollars in costs to convert their digital archives may
choose to avoid the expense altogether, which would make the current
fight over standards pointless.

"Even though these are open formats, consultants will likely have to be
hired to oversee the process, especially if critical information is
involved," Silver said about companies that want their documents to
conform to international standards.

Price is already a sensitive issue in Massachusetts, which in January
began to roll out ODF in a few small state agencies. Some lawmakers
have attacked the move, questioning the costs and noting the state has
yet to produce a cost-benefit analysis. The move has also been
criticized by advocates for the blind, who say Microsoft's Office
products have better features for them than ODF.

So should Microsoft win ISO backing for Office Open XML, Massachusetts
lawmakers may have a second open-standards option - one that could,
ironically, lead them right back to Microsoft.


---------------------------------
Thiru Balasubramaniam
Geneva Representative
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
voice +41.22.791.6727
fax +41.22.723.2988
mobile +41 76 508 0997
thiru@keionline.org