[A2k] EDRI-gram news on open standards in egovernment and OOXML on hold

Wed Jun 18 18:24:02 2008

EDRI-gram  biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe
Number 6.12, 18 June 2008
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Contents
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1. EU Competition Commissioner backs open standards in eGovernment
2. France obtained ISPs support in blocking pedopornographic sites
3. UK MPs report: A Surveillance Society?
4. Italian blog closed by Police
5. OOXML standard on hold by ISO
6. British ISPs warn Internet downloaders on the risk of being
prosecuted
7. Recommended Action
8. Agenda
9. About

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1. EU Competition Commissioner backs open standards in eGovernment
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The EU Competition Commissioner, Neelie Kroes, publicly supported the
use of
open source software in eGovernment, in a public speech at a seminar
hosted
by OpenForum Europe in Brussels on 10 June 2008.

Kroes encouraged the public institutions to use open standards,
underlining
the positive example of Munich that have implemented open standards in
their
local eGovernment projects. She suggested a much more active role of the
European Commission in promoting open standards in eGovernment
applications,
by adopting an internal policy not to buy proprietary software: "The
Commission must do its part. It must not rely on one vendor, it must not
accept closed standards and it must refuse to become locked into a
particular technology."

The EU Commissioner's speech shows an indirect support to the Open
Parliament petition initiated in March 2008 by OpenForum Europe, The
European Software Market Association and the Free Software Foundation
Europe
asking the European Parliament to change its ICT system in order to
allow
the adoption of open standards.

Also Kroes praised the benefits of open standards: "No citizen
or company should be forced or encouraged to choose a closed
technology over
an open one, through a government having made that choice first." She
also
encouraged the business customers to make a difference by promoting open
standards: "I know a smart business decision when I see one. Choosing
open
standards is a very smart business decision indeed."

Kroes mentioned a number of competition cases in ICT that are
investigated
by the Commission in relation with ICT standards, giving as examples
Apple,
the mobile phone company Qualcomm and chip maker Rambus. Also she
clearly
referred to Microsoft when she mentioned the problems with the well-
known
fines against the US software producer: "The Commission has never
before had
to issue two periodic penalty payments in a competition case."

Some MEPs wanted to go further and asked the European Commission if
Microsoft could not be banned from the European public procurements,
since
it has been fined by the Commission. Heide R=FChle, internal market policy
spokeswoman for the Greens in the European Parliament, explained that
there
were provisions of the public procurement EU Directive that allow the
exclusion of applicants from public procurement procedures if "they have
been convicted of an offence concerning their professional conduct by a
judgement which has the force of res judicata or they have been guilty
of
grave professional misconduct proven by any means which the contracting
authority can justify".

But the European Commission rejected these arguments in its answer
explaining that, according to the directiv, the exclusion was not
obligatory. EC claimed that the fine did not count as an "criminal
conviction of a criminal offence by a final judgement from a Court".
Also
the second provision should "require a case-by-case assessment which can
only be done in the framework of an on-going procurement procedure."

Kroes calls for open standards in eGovernment (10.06.2008)
http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/kroes-calls-open-standards-egovernme=
nt/article-173209

EU's Kroes: open standards are smart business move (10.06.2008)
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSL0935274720080610

European Commission won't exclude Microsoft from procurement procedures
(13.06.2008)
http://www.heise-online.co.uk/news/European-Commission-won-t-exclude-Micros=
oft-from-procurement-procedures--/110920

Written Question: Microsoft - Implementation of Article 93 of the
Financial
Regulation (21.04.2008)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=3D-//EP//TEXT+WQ+E-200=
8-2295+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN

EDRi-gram: European Parliament criticized for not using open standards
(12.03.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.5/ep-open-standards

SNIP

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5. OOXML standard on hold by ISO
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International Standards Organisation (ISO) and the International
Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in Geneva have postponed the
publication
of the revised specification of Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML)
document
format, following complaints filed by their member organizations
representing these four countries: Brazil, India, South Africa and
Venezuela.

The planned standard ISO/IEC DIS 29500 cannot be published until the
complaints are examined by ISO and IEC who will have to give responses
and
comments by the end of June 2008

The four national standardization organizations have shown concerns
that no
consensus has been reached on changes that must be made to the 6000-page
specification, during the consultation period on the numerous comments
submitted at the end of February. The complaints mainly address the fact
that the concrete technical objections were not individually discussed.

The concerns are summarized in an open letter of a member of the
technical
standardisation committee in India who stated that the standard had
not been
properly thought out and it was not even clear what standard would
result
from the proceedings. The adoption of the standard in the present state
would not be an open process as it would be implemented only by
Microsoft.

Other protests have been filed to ISO by the Danish Open Source Business
Association. They claim that "the procedures and the decision conflict
with
ISO's rules, and the process has caused considerable damage to the
reputations of Danish Standards and ISO." The letter also explains why
the
case should be picked up by ISO: "The process has thus been formally
annulled now for two months - since March 29, at which time the
specifications should have been sent to the national standardization
organizations. The prerequisites for the fast-track procedure no longer
exist, and, therefore, I expect that ISO recommence the case."

The European Commission is also investigating the case. Competition
Commissioner Kroes explained in a recent conference why the European
Commission is interested in this topic: "If voting in the standard-
setting
context is influenced less by the technical merits of the technology but
rather by side agreements, inducements, package deals, reciprocal
agreements
or commercial pressure, then these risk falling foul of the competition
rules."

In the meantime, The Organization for the Advancement of Structured
Information Standards (OASIS), has invited interested parties to
create a
new technical committee for the "implementation, interoperability, and
conformity" of the next version of the Open Document Format (ODF)
which has
already been certified by the ISO.

Open source supporters draw the attention on a possible new alliance
with
Microsoft which announced its intention to support ODF and to join the
technical OASIS committee in its works on the open standard.

The management boards of ISO and IEC will decide, after having
examined the
complaints against Microsoft standard, whether the appeals should be
further
processed and if they decide so, the chairmen of the two boards will
establish a conciliation panel that will try to resolve the appeals.

ISO puts standard for Microsoft's OOXML document formats on hold
(10.06.2008)
http://www.heise-online.co.uk/news/ISO-puts-standard-for-Microsoft-s-OOXML-=
document-formats-on-hold--/110892

Four national standards bodies appeal against approval of ISO/IEC DIS
29500
(6.06.2008)
http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=3DRef1136

Now an OOXML Protest from Denmark's OSL - Updated 3Xs: Official English
Translation (31.05.2008)
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=3D20080531134006167

OASIS opens discussion list for ODF Implementation, Interoperability and
Conformance (3.06.2008)
http://opendocument.xml.org/news/oasis-opens-discussion-list-for-odf-implem=
entation-interoperability-and-conformance

Microsoft will support Open Document Format (ODF) (22.05.2008)
http://www.heise-online.co.uk/news/Microsoft-will-support-Open-Document-For=
mat-ODF--/110794

EDRi-gram: OOXML adopted as a new standard by ISO (9.04.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.7/ooxml-adopted-iso
SNIP

EDRI-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe.
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