Digital Sovereignty

In the past, I have mentioned how Digital Sovereignty happens to be the pet theme of my friend, Jaijit Bhattacharya of Sun Microsystems. He has finally written a small op-ed piece on this subject for Business Standard. Jaijit has done a huge amount of research on how standards are being colonized and why India must avoid the trap of standards with IPR issues if we are to preserve our digital sovereignity. He quotes the example of DVD manufacturers in China:

A very good example of the devastating effect of the current IPR regime is the case of the DVD manufacturers in China who have to pay royalty charges on each DVD player manufactured that is to the tune of 33 per cent of the retail price of the DVD player, for a video format standard that is used ($20 royalty on a player of $60). China was helpless in preventing such an unfair cess being put on its domestic industry, demonstrating its lack of digital sovereignty at that point in time.

During the OOXML debate, I had the pleasure of watching Jaijit at work inside the LITD15 committee of the Bureau of Indian Standards, which reviewed and finally voted against OOXML. Despite the massive amount of muscle power that Microsoft had invested to push OOXML down India's throat, Jaijit refused to be overawed. Using his computer science background to great advantage, he was constantly exposing the key flaws in Microsoft's proposed OOXML standard. One memory that lingers from the numerous BIS meetings is that of Jaijit, in full professorial flow, using marker pens and the whiteboard to demolish some of the key arguments in support of OOXML.

If Jaijit was all fire and brimstone, there was one person who was icy cool throughout the 18 long months and endless, argumentative meetings on OOXML. Ashish Gautam of IBM contributed immensely to the discussions with his thorough understanding of the arcane rules of ISO, that most of us were grappling with for the first time in our lives. His ability to stay focused and highlight the right point at the right time went a long way in ensuring that the loopholes in ISO's processes were not exploited by the proponents of OOXML.

Apart from Jaijit and Ashish, there were countless bureaucrats and policy makers who deserve enormous credit for ensuring that Microsoft did not ride roughshod over India's policy making bodies, but that will have to wait for another day when I have the time to write a lengthy post on how the OOXML battle was won. the time being, let me end by agreeing with Jaijit's statement that,

It is imperative for India to ensure that it is a serious player in formulating digital standards in order to ensure security of its IT industry and to maintain its digital sovereignty.

Jai ho!

India's Draft Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance released

India's Department of IT has released the Draft Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance. For the open source community, this is a significant
step forward because this policy can eliminate the barriers that we have faced due to proprietary standards like .doc, .mpg and others.

Once this policy is finalized, it will become a part of all future Requests for Proposals (RFPs). A committee has been constituted to review standards on the basis of the mandatory charecteristics required by this policy. The committee's report shows that according to this policy, ODF, OGG, W3C standards etc are some of the standards that meet all the mandatory criteria for open standards. OOXML, MPEG etc *do not* meet these mandatory criteria.

The most controversial aspect of this policy was whether multiple standards should be allowed for the same purpose. We have been vocal in arguing vendors should collaborate on standards and compete on their implementation because this is the best outcome for industry and consumers and the Draft Policy has accepted this point.

ISO/IEC and OOXML: The judge, the jury and the hangman

Those who have been following the OOXML issue would have noted that India was among the four countries that had appealed against the ISO/IEC approval of OOXML. The next step in this drama (charade?) is that the heads of ISO and IEC have replied to the four countries. The replies
essentially dismiss the claims made by the four countries with studied nonchalance. I am not surprised. After all, if I was asked to pass judgment on my own goofups, I am not likely to hang myself. Enough has been said on how Microsoft has compromised ISO on this blog and others and I will not add to this.

The ISO Secretary General, Mr Alan Bryden was in India in December 2007 and I had asked him what he thought of the controversy surrounding the OOXML process. His answer was that ISO is a democratic organization and it will emerge stronger from this controversy. Very glib answer but an absolute and shameful lie. Just two months after Mr. Bryden's false statement ISO held a Ballot Resoution Meeting held under such apalling circumstances that we (the LITD15 committee of Bureau of Indian Standards) were forced to send a set of suggestions to ISO on how the BRM should be conducted. As we Indians are wont to do, the letter was exceedingly polite, but in retrospect, this politeness is wasted on the mafia that runs ISO.

The larger question for for policy makers in emerging markets is : Who exactly is ISO/IEC answerable to? If they interpret the rules and game the system to accommodate a big, powerful corporate interest, then maybe it is time that emerging economies created a standards body of their own with transparent governance structures and a firm commitment to royalty-free open standards. The only way that emerging countries can protect themselves against naked greed and avarice of a corporate entity in quest of super-profits and the institutions they have captured is to collaborate with each other to ensure justice. We must also send out a strong message to these greedy corporations that we have zero tolerance for such attempts at digital colonization.

We Indians have had enough of the East India Companies looting our country, and leaving a trail of bloodshed, poverty and famine behind. We have had enough of India being a soft state. If these companies want to sell in India, they better follow Indian rules and obey Indian laws and stop acting against the interests of the people of India. If you think those are harsh words, I'd recommend reading Prof.DB Phatak's blog and his detailed commentary on Microsoft's activities around OOXML. As they say, there is no smoke without fire and if a respected professor like Prof.Phatak is so furious, imagine what caused it.

Creating an alternate standards organization will be an exceedingly tough task, but standards are not an area where compromises can be tolerated. Standards govern our lives in a million different ways and the common man and woman deserve to have their standards created in an open, transparent manner that benefits everyone.

Let me know what you think of the idea of creating an open standards organization for the benefit of the emerging economies.

An Open Letter to LITD15 committee of BIS

On 20th March 2008, the LITD15 committee of the Bureau of Indian Standards voted against Microsoft's proposed OOXML standard. 29th March 2008 was the last date for participating countries to vote on OOXML. In the interval between these two dates, Microsoft went to the Prime Minister of India and alleged that this committee acted against the national interest. Fortunately, the Indian bureaucrats who met the PM did a good job of defending the committee's vote against OOXML.

Prof. DB Phatak of IIT Bombay recently wrote a mail to the LITD15 committee saying that, "In my opinion, these actions go well beyond the behavioral boundaries for a commercial entity, some of these amounting to interfering with the governance process of a sovereign country." IIT Bombay was a member of the LITD15 committee and Prof. Phatak was part of a four-member team at IIT Bombay that did a very intense review of OOXML before the institute voted against OOXML. While Prof. Phatak is a great supporter of open source, he also has a great reputation for being fair and balanced.

An e-mail I sent in response to the mail from Prof. Phatak to the LITD15 committee is given below.

Venky

Dear Prof. Phatak and my fellow committee members in LITD15,

It is a sad day for all of us when standards are created not on technical merits but through political bulldozing. In this hour of darkness, we look up to a respected teacher like you to show us the way out.

Open Standards are the foundation upon which we can build a just and inclusive information society and therefore these issues are critical for India's digital future. Today, thanks to the growth of the open source movement, users in developing countries like India have the choice of software programs that they can freely modify and deploy. This can go a long way in bridging the digital divide in India. However, proprietary standards end up nullifying these advantages.

For example, I can download and implement a Linux desktop on my PC, but to legally acquire the rights to use proprietary multimedia codecs, I will have to pay a royalty of 28 Euros (Rs 1,680) [1]. This payment adds no value to the local economy, increases costs for the end users and widens the digital divide, especially in developing countries like India. Such proprietary standards also violate the principle that standards should belong to all of humanity and should not be the monopoly of an individual or a corporation or a group of organizations acting in concert.

What I have observed is that clever organizations are trapping people into using their proprietary standards by:

1) Driving global adoption of *their* "standards"
2) Filing a thicket of patents around these "standards"
3) Collecting royalties for usage of these "standards" or threatening lawsuits against those who do not comply

How this scenario plays out in real life can be seen from the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) patent case. JPEG, as most users of digital photographs know, is a popular format for photographic images that has been widely adopted by makers of digital cameras, camcorders, PDA, cellphones and other devices. In 2002, Forgent, a company that owned Patent No. 4,698,672 in the US, ambushed the industry by suing 31 major hardware and software vendors, including Dell and Apple Computers. The company alleged that these companies infringed on its claim to an algorithm used in the popular JPEG picture file format. It is reported that Forgent's legal assault earned it $150 million. Forgent was finally brought to its heels by the Public Patent Foundation that challenged and overturned Forgent's claims on the basis of prior-art.

Dan Ravicher of the Public Patent Foundation who fought the JPEG patent case points out that, in the US, where most of these battles are fought, it costs only 39 cents to send a postcard with a cease and desist notice to an alleged patent infringer, the defendant would have to spend $40,000 to get a lawyer's opinion and anywhere from $2-4 million to defend a case. I do not have comparative numbers for India, but I am sure that no one on this committee relishes seeing the insides of a courtroom.

Therefore, I hope my fellow committee members will agree with me that our first responsibility as professionals who represent India at ISO is to ensure that we do not support such proprietary standards. At this point, it is also important to point out that all ISO standards are not necessarily open standards that empower users with the freedom to encode and decode their data. India has one vote at ISO but it is an important vote and we must exercise it to ensure the creation of genuine open standards at this global forum.

I therefore propose to my fellow committee members that the first bar that any standard must pass before it gets India's approval is that standards should be completely free of any IPR issues, royalties, patent encumberances, trade secrets etc. The proposed standard should give unfettered freedom to users to encode and decode their data in that format. If, and only if, it clears this bar should it be allowed to reach the next stage where it is evaluated on technical merits.

On the OOXML Issue
==================

I am given to understand that on 27th March 2008, the honorable Prime Minister of India held a review of this committee's "Disapprove" vote on OOXML. I am given to understand that Microsoft's submission to the Prime Minister's Office was that the committee's vote is against the national interest.

As someone who has worked over the last ten years to localize Linux to Indian languages and take IT to the 95 percent of Indians who do not speak English, I find such a comment deeply disappointing. Due to my involvement in Indian language computing, I was introduced to the transformative power of open source software and open standards like HTML. To me, the vision of building an inclusive information society is paramount and open standards are the foundation of this dream.

As a committee member, I would like to place on record my deep disappointment at the fact that Microsoft chose to question the decision of this committee at the highest office of our country. For over a year, we have reviewed the proposed standard with a fine tooth comb. Every opportunity was given to Microsoft to put their points across. At every meeting they brought a disproportionate number of participants along; some of these participants were not even Indian nationals. I think the committee as a whole was very courteous in accommodating all this but drew the line when this began to detract from the functioning of the committee. The only words that came to my mind when I heard that Microsoft's complaint had prompted the Prime Minister of my country to review this committee's decision was "stabbed-in-the-back." This was a great disservice to this committee and the country and I hope this never happens again.

It is to the credit of our policy makers, the Department of IT, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Standards that the sanctity of this committee's decision was upheld. Therefore, I wish to second Point # 3 made by Prof. Phatak and would like to place on record Red Hat's appreciation for the exemplary transparency with which the proceedings of the committee were conducted. This is in sharp contrast to other countries where the decisions of the technical committees were overruled due to political considerations. In the context of what has happened globally, the conduct of Indian policy makers is all the more admirable and has done our country proud. We would therefore like to than our oft-criticized policy makers from the bottom of our hearts.

Standards cannot (and should not) be created in a technical vaccum. Without a moral and ethical framework, we cannot create standards that benefit humanity. Mahatma Gandhi summed it up best when he said that, “Real swaraj will come not by the acquisition of authority by a few but by the acquisition of capacity by all.” I believe that this committee should be focused solely on the user's swaraj (freedom) to encode and decode their data.

At times like these we look up to our teachers to provide us with a strong ethical and moral framework and be a guiding light. I therefore look forward to your mail and to your constructive suggestions on the way forward.

Regards,

Venky

PS: I have expressed some deeply held personal beliefs in this e-mail and it is entirely possible that I may be wrong in many places. However, I hope that we can start a dialogue around creating genuine open standards and India's role in creating standards that benefit the world.

[1] See http://tinyurl.com/2n4aox and https://shop.fluendo.com/

A sad day for open standards

Let me admit it--I am saddened to see that OOXML now has the ISO stamp. The open source and free software communities are motivated by the dream of building an inclusive information society. Open standards--which can be freely implemented by anyone on a royalty-free basis and are created through consensus--are the foundation of this dream.

Therefore the Open Source Foundation of India feels that OOXML is an April Fool's Day joke played on the whole world and is a very sad outcome for open standards. The manner in which Microsoft has pushed OOXML through the ISO has breached all norms of standards creation. The voting results show that emerging economies like China, India, South Africa have voted against OOXML. Due to the manner in which one organization has hijacked the standards institution, we need to ask ourselves, "Can we trust these organizations with the critical standards that India depends upon?"

China's reaction has been to create standards of its own and it is reported that they have plans of creating 10,000 of their own standards. To protect our country's interests, we will have to ask organizations like ISO to follow transparent and ethical standards creation processes. Alternately, emerging economies will have to come together to create standards institutions that cannot be hijacked by monopolistic organizations.

Those who want to know the value of open standards just have to look at the amount of innovation that has happened on the Internet and compare it to the desktop world where competition has been systematically killed off to protect monopolies. Vendor driven standards like OOXML are not open standards and the Software Freedom Law Center has cautioned open source and free software developers from implementing OOXML due to legal risks. Since open source is the most viable alternative to expensive proprietary software, the global open source community is extremely unhappy with this development.

Bill Gates is new Secretary-General of ISO

Phew, just managed to file it before 12AM!

Bill Gates is new Secretary-General of ISO

In a dramatic development, Bill Gates of Microsoft has taken over as the new Secretary-General of ISO. The outgoing Secretary-General, Illbeser Vile said that since most of the ISO members now belong to Microsoft, this is the most appropriate course of action.

Announcing his ascendancy at a press conference, Bill Gates justified the takeover of ISO. "Just as George Bush invaded Iraq due to WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction), we have invaded ISO for approving a WMD (Weapon of Monopoly Destruction) called ODF (Open Document Format).

"For 26 years, we have been one step ahead of the world, constantly changing the file formats to suit our whims and fancies. Then one day we woke up to find that governments are embracing ODF. This had to be stopped."

Flicking the dandruff off his suit, Gates said that he has been itching for action ever since he stepped down as CEO of Microsoft. "I built two great monopolies in Windows and Office but it got kinda boring. I went off on a retreat, called all the M$ top-shots to the table and asked, "What's the next great monopoly that we can build?"

After three days of intense discussion, the M$ guys finally said, "Why even care to build products, when we can monopolize standards itself?"

Speaking to the press, Microsoft's VP for Interoperability, Wescroo U said, "Now we are back to where we belong - bang in the center of the universe! There was a time when the desktop world used to revolve around Microsoft. Then these pesky Internet startups like Yahoo, Google and Facebook turned up, making us looks like fuddy-duddies. Once we control the standards, we'll see what happens to the sky-high stock valuation of some of these companies."

Speaking to investors, Gates said that controlling ISO was the ultimate business model. "Now we don't even need to build products ("we were not very good at that anyway, just look at Vista!") Our new strategy is:

1) Drive adoption of our standards
2) File a thicket of patents around it
3) Sit back and collect royalties or sue the buggers who don't pay up.

If the software business was a 80 percent margin business, this is a pure-cash play," Gates told salivating Wall-Street types. "Then why have so many employees?" asked a shiny, bald-headed guy in a pin-stripe suit. Promptly, 40,000 out of 50,000 Microsoft employees were fired, sending Microsoft stock into the stratosphere, where it finally overtook Google. The remaining 10,000 employees were reassigned to frantically create "standards" or file patents around them.

One Microsoft minion patented the English language. Everytime, the press asked a question in English, Microsoft was a few dollars richer. The Queen was reportedly furious about it but there she could do little about it since England is now the 51st state in the United States of America. Another Microsoft factotum patented the right-hand drive as well as the left-hand drive. Microsoft lawyers promptly scurried around halting traffic on the streets and collecting royalties from bewildered commuters, ably assisted by the traffic police, especially in the banana republics around the world. The only exceptions were the rebel outposts of China and India, which refused to toe the Microsoft line. To neutralise these pesky, non-Microsoft compliant countries, Gates and co, told investors that they will foment a war between the neighboring countries. "That will teach them how to comply," sniggered the man whose net worth was now half the GDP of the world.

"Is there no limit to your greed?" asked a reporter asked a journalist in an awed whisper. "No. Our aim is TOTAL WORLD DOMINATION(TM)," said Gates.

Watching this on his TV in the Oval Office, George Bush turned pale. Promptly, Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, whispered into the President's ears, "Don't worry sir. If nothing else stops them, we can try nuclear deterrence."

NOTE: The sequel to this is coming soon to a multiplex near you. Tickets will cost double since the movies will be encoded in Microsoft's proprietary WMA format.

ADDENDUM: Gates said that he is also going to unveil an April Fools Day joke on the world called called OOXML. However, since there are some well known date problems with the OOXML format, it will be unveiled only on April 2nd, 2008. Get ready for the Microsoft Tax!

A quote from Swami Vivekananda

I came across this great quote from Swami Vivekananda:

No great work can be achieved by humbug. It is through love, a passion for truth and tremendous energy that all undertakings are accomplished."

After a full year of reviewing a half-baked, 6,000 page proposal called OOXML, I cannot agree more :-)

Microsoft files complaint on OOXML vote to apex office and Ministry of Consumer Affairs

I love Microsoft for their sheer willingness to piss off every human being on this planet in their quest for approval of OOXML. At the meeting held on 20th March 2008, we were informed that Microsoft has complained to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs and to the apex office of the country about the constitution of the committee and also cast aspersions on the impartiality of the chairperson of LITD15, Mrs. Neeta Verma. The chairperson was furious and offered to step down from her post. She pointed out that the committee has met numerous times and Microsoft never brought this issue up in front of the committee nor did they check the facts with her or her organization before complaining to the apex office. I do not have a copy of their complaint but am assuming that their complaint is that the committee is packed with supporters of ODF.

Mrs. Verma was persuaded to stay back only after all the other members requested her to stay. After that, Dr. Arora of CSI displayed great statesmanship by asking the Microsoft representative if Microsoft would like to withdraw its complaint. Sadly, the Microsoft representative said that it cannot be withdrawn because it was sent by his senior or some similar reason. The Wipro representative then chimed in and tried to stall the vote by saying that he did not believe that the committee has not been able to apply its mind to the subject and should therefore abstain from voting on this issue! For those of us who have been engaged in this issue from the very beginning (as compared to the software exporters who put in cameo, guest appearances and contributed very little to discussing technical issues) this was obviously not acceptable.

I am just amazed and shocked by the depths to which Microsoft is willing to descend. I have had the privilege of representing Red Hat and the Indian open source community on the LITD 15 committee and have attended almost all the meetings convened on OOXML over the last one year. I would therefore like to place on record my appreciation for the Bureau of Indian Standards and Mrs. Neeta Verma for the transparency and openness with which they conducted an exceptionally difficult task. The manner in which they conducted the proceedings has done India proud and is in stark contrast to the controversies surrounding committees reviewing OOXML in other countries.

Some of the most respected academic institutions (IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IISc, ISI Kolkatta and IIM Ahmedabad) besides several government organizations were part of this committee and I have no doubt that they will wholeheartedly agree with my opinion. I would also like to point out that the academia and government bodies have comprehensively voted against OOXML after spending more than a year reviewing it. Doubters who are still not satisfied can verify the transparency of these meetings by requesting recordings of the meetings from the Bureau of Indian Standards and anyone under the Right to Information Act.

To cite just one example, a four-member committee at IIT Bombay spent countless hours reviewing OOXML before voting against the proposal due to its technical flaws. The only group to vote in favor of OOXML was the software exports group and that too on the basis of “support for multiple standards,” an argument which had no relevance because the committee was asked to review OOXML on technical merits and national interest.

Considering the fact that some of the finest technical minds in the country have spent more than a year reviewing OOXML before India finally voted No, I feel that Microsoft's complaint is a great disservice to the committee, its chairperson and the Bureau of Indian Standards. For those who are interested, this is how the committee voted on the question, "Should India change its NO vote on OOXML?"

1. National Informatics Center - NO
2. Center for Development of Advanced Computing - NO
3. Computer Society of India - NO
4. Department of IT - NO
5. IBM - NO
6. Institute for Electronic Governance - Absent
7. Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad - NO
8. Indian Institute of Science - NO
9. Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi - NO
10. Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay - NO
11. Infosys - YES
12. Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkatta - NO
13. Manufacturers Association of IT - Abstain
14. Microsoft - YES
15. National Association of Software and Services Companies - YES
16. National Institute of Smart Governance - Absent
17. Reserve Bank of India - Absent
18. Red Hat - No
19. Standardization Testing and Quality Certification Directorate - NO
20. Sun - NO
21. Tata Computer Services - YES
22. Wipro - YES (for changing India's vote from NO to Abstain)

India's comments on BRM to ISO

There were widespread reports of irregularities in the BRM held in Geneva. At the meeting held on 13th March 2008, the Indian delegation to the BRM gave a debriefing to members of LITD15, which is reviewing OOXML. The very diplomatic Deputy Director General of BIS said that he had not attended such a meeting in 28 years of his career. Based on the debriefing, the LITD15 committee sent a message to ISO with India's suggestions (we are too polite to call it a protest!) on how the BRM should be conducted. Before sending off these comments, everyone was asked if they have any objections and since no one (including Microsoft) had any objections, these comments were unanimously approved.

LITD15's comments to ISO are given below along with my comments.

1. All technical issues raised by different member bodies should be discussed adequately during BRM. If balloting on technical issues is envisaged, it should not be done during BRM. Balloting may be done after discussion within corresponding mirror committees of the national bodies providing sufficient time for discussions. In other words, duration of BRM should be in consonance with the requirement of time to sufficiently discuss all technical issues raised.

MY COMMENT: The biggest complaint about the BRM was that five days is too little time to review the changes. The five day BRM was sufficient only to discuss 54 issues and the rest of the issues were decided over a paper ballot. The Indian delegation pointed out that if a paper ballot is to be done, why should countries go to the expense of sending four people to Geneva for five days? It would be much simpler to do a ballot from the home country after discussion with committee members.

2. If the basic structure of the submitted document is proposed to be changed during BRM, provision for circulation of restructured integrated document for consideration of member bodies should be incorporated in the Fast Track Process as well. Enough time should be given to member bodies to examine/carry out the impact assessment of the modifications proposed.

MY COMMENT: The scope of the document has changed. The document is being split into five parts. If the scope and nature of the document changes substantially (as it has in this case) then adequate time needs to be given to review the changed proposal. As one of the esteemed academic members of LITD15 says, "What document is there for us to vote upon?"

3. Definitions of newly introduced terminologies should be clearly articulated before discussions are initiated on the related issues.

MY COMMENTS: The fact that we have to make such an elementary request highlights the hollowness of the "Fast-track" process and the BRM.

4. Voting process especially in terms of considering simple majority/two-third majority and counting of P member/O Member votes at BRM should strictly be adhered to as defined in JTC 1 Directives.

MY COMMENTS: This is a serious ethical and governance issue. If O member votes are not counted (as per JTC 1 directives) then the Microsoft claim of getting "more than 98 percent of the comments were accepted" falls flat. The voting was forced upon the BRM after overruling the objections of several countries, including India. The vote was to be decided by a simple majority by paper ballot for 847 issues which could not be discussed. Four P members (Czech Republic, Finland, Norway and Poland) voted for approving the 847 issues, Four P members (including India, Malaysia, South Africa and the US) voted against these issues. The votes of two O members (Chile and Ivory Coast) was improperly counted in contravention of JTC1 rules. The head of the Chile delegation landed in Geneva on the last day, just to vote Yes. The head of the Ivory Coast delegation is Wemba Opota, a Senegalese citizen, who is responsible for Microsoft West Africa!

Even by the "simple majority" rule imposed by the ISO conveners on the BRM, the result is a TIE and not a majority, as claimed by Microsoft.

5. It is suggested that the resolution to the issues raised during the process of development of standard shall be provided before the publication of the standard and shall be included in the published standard and shall not be deferred to the maintenance phase.

MY COMMENTS: As the delegation said, maintenance is for issues that are identified *after* the standard has been frozen. Known issues cannot be swept under the carpet under the guise of "maintenance."

OSFI comment on India's No vote on OOXML

The open source and free software communities are motivated by the
desire to build an inclusive information society. Open standards are
the foundation of this vision. With respect to Microsoft's OOXML
proposal submitted to International Organization for Standards (ISO)
through ECMA, the open source community has consistently pointed out
that ISO's "fast-track" processes were never meant for a complex,
6,000 page proposal like OOXML. Several serious ethical and governance
issues were also pointed out with respect to the Ballot Resolution
Meeting (BRM) on OOXML that was held in Geneva in February 2008 and
the European Union has initiated an investigation into OOXML. The
Indian committee consisting of government, academia, industry and
software exporters voted overwhelmingly against approving OOXML as an
industry standard with 13 votes against and only five votes in favor.
It is worth noting that the academia consisting of the most respected
Indian institutes; and the government voted against OOXML.

The Open Source Foundation of India believes that all stakeholders
should collaborate on the creation of standards and should compete on
creating the best implementation of these standards. As we have seen
in countless standards battles (VHS versus Betamax, Blu-Ray versus
HD-DVD, Microsoft's proprietary extensions to HTML versus Netscape's
proprietary extensions) battles over standards end up hurting
consumers and the industry. On the other hand, unified standards like
the HTML standard that governs the Internet, ends up benefiting
everyone. Standardization around HTML has converted the Internet into
a global platform that is now used by 1.2 billion users. The amount of
innovation we have seen in terms of social networking, search engines,
Web 2.0 etc would not have been possible if the Internet was a
fragmented platform. We therefore believe that vendors should stop
pushing their own standards, which leads to wasteful competition.
Instead, they should collaborate with all stakeholders to create
unified and open, royalty free standards as this delivers the best
outcome for all stakeholders.

India votes NO for OOXML

After a colossal amount of debate and discussion over the last one year, India has finally voted NO for OOXML. Today the committee was asked "Should India change its September 2007 No vote into Yes?"

13 members voted No
5 members (including Microsoft, of course) voted Yes.
1 member abstained
3 did not attend

The government bodies, academic institutions and industry voted against OOXML. The only people who voted for OOXML were the software exporters--TCS, Infosys, Wipro and NASSCOM (National Association of Software Services Companies).

Steve Ballmer was in India?

One of my friends informed me that he saw Steve Ballmer and Microsoft India Chairman, Ravi Venkatesan on the Jet Airways, 9W811 flight from Delhi to Bangalore on 13th March 2008. My friend was on the same flight which was scheduled to leave at 5.50PM but finally took off at 6.10PM. Apparently, he was the last person to get into the flight and the first to deplane. Interestingly, that was the day when BIS met to discuss OOXML. For those who have been following this issue, India's final vote on the subject will be on 20th May 2008. Talk about timing!

It was difficult to believe this at first because Ballmer is known to travel by private Jet. However, our sources at Jet Airways confirmed that it was Ballmer! Strange indeed. If you happen to know anything that confirms or invalidates this, let me know. If he was indeed in India, we would love to know who he met. Mail me or leave a comment on my blog.

Such a long journey (OOXML, pronounced O O Hex ML)

The Bureau of Indian Standards committee on OOXML will be meeting up on 13th March 2008 to get a debriefing on the Geneva BRM. The BRM attracted a fair share of criticism from participants for the manner in which it was conducted. Malaysia issued a press release expressing their dissatisfaction with the BRM. The press release quoted Puan Fadilah Baharin, Director General of STANDARDS MALAYSIA as saying:

"Malaysia had submitted 23 comments and more than 70% of them were not addressed satisfactorily by Ecma's proposed dispositions. We intended to resolve these technical issues at the BRM, but we could only raise 2 concerns due to the time constraints imposed."

Microsoft's Brian Jones meanwhile announced on his blog that 98% of Ecma responses have been approved and I hear that Microsoft has shot off letters to Indian policy makers spreading this misinformation. I don't know what reality distortion field Microsofties are living in but it looks like they dragged ISO into the morass they live in. Let us go back to the Malaysian press release:

Last year, many countries raised concerns against the appropriateness of the voluminous OOXML draft standard submitted by the Ecma International to ISO for a Fast Track process. To date, our observation to these concerns have yet to be addressed better after the BRM. Malaysia's concern is currently being shared greatly by many other National Bodies from Asia including India, China and Korea; as well as from the US and Canada.

Andy Updegrove has some of the sanest comments on the OOXML BRM. Whatever Microsoft may claim, the fact is that emerging economies like Brazil, China, India, South Africa, Malaysia and others have voted against OOXML. Even the US, which had voted "Approve with Comments" in September 2007 voted "No" at the BRM.

What I predict is that Microsoft will apply heavy pressure on countries like Cyprus, Ecuador, Jamaica, Lebanon, Pakistan, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey , Uruguay, Venezuela, which joined the JTC1 ISO committee reviewing OOXML just before the previous vote in September 2007 to make sure that they vote "Yes." I am sure that Indian policy makers are also under heavy pressure but many of them are smart enough to know a fraudulent standard when they see one. In the rest of the countries, Microsoft may have burnt another bridge and left themselves more isolated among policy makers.

Here is what others said about the BRM.

U.S. National Body Head Frank Farance

"Eighty percent of the changes were not discussed . . .It's a big problem .
. I've never seen anything like this, and I've been doing this for 25
years."

Canadian National Body Delegate Tim Bray

"The process was complete, utter, unadulterated bullshit. I'm not an ISO
expert, but whatever their 'Fast Track' process was designed for, it sure
wasn't this. You just can't revise six thousand pages of deeply complex
specification-ware in the time that was provided for the process."

Brazil National Body Delegate Jomar Silva

"Here are the facts: 1) If [Microsoft] finds that the process functioned,
is because [they] really did not see the process! 2) Anyone who says that
we made rigorous revisions, his nose will grow 10 cm, and anyone that says
the countries had resolved only some important points, his nose will only
grow half as much (chalk it up to a wood shortage). I am even more
irritated when I see that people who had not been there, had not
participated at all, saying whatever they want."

Greek National Body Delegate Antonis Christofides

". . . the BRM was essentially confined to making changes that only
scratched the surface of the problems. . . I and my reviewers found 13
additional errors in the original specification. However, national bodies
were not allowed to submit new comments . . . Therefore, there was no way
to submit and correct them. . . the Ecma responses make the text slightly
better, but though slightly better it is still abysmal . . we did not have
the time to study one thousand responses . . . In fact, even the 80
responses that Greece studied, we did not study at the level of scrutiny
that is required when you inspect a standard. There was no time for that.
What we did was glance through, and make fast decisions based on what seems
right at a quick glance."

The last one year has been such a huge learning experience for me in how standards are created and how some are hijacked!

Microsoft "persuades" NGOs to support OOXML

Our friends at Linux Delhi have put up a copy of the form letters that Microsoft has been sending NGOs on the OOXML issue. Apparently, these NGOs have been sending copies of these letters to the Ministry of IT and Bureau of Indian standards.

Raj Mathur of Linux Delhi asks makes some pertinent points which are quoted below:

There is a possibility that some, if not all of these NGOs are beneficiaries of cash inputs from their (MS') Corporate Social Railroading ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Responsibility arm. I'd really be interested in answers to these questions, anyone up to asking them?

* How many letters supporting OOXML has the Government of India received from NGOs in the recent past?
* How many of these NGOs have received cash inputs (directly or indirectly) from MS?
* How many of these NGOs can sit across a table and discuss OOXML?
* How many of these NGOs can enumerate the benefits of OOXML over, say, ODF for their own organisations?

The NGOs supporting OOXML are probably as clueless as ASSOCHAM (Associated Chamber of Manufacturing) which told a journalist from the Economic Times that they supported OOXML because "Microsoft is a member." If that's the case, ASSOCHAM should have been honest about the fact that they are supporting a member and not palmed it off "in the national interest."

I feel sorry for these NGOs who probably depend on Microsoft's donations. Do you know of any NGO that has received similar letters? Please bring this to my attention and I will give them a call to find out how much they know about OOXML and ODF :-) Meanwhile, everyone, give a big hand to Microsoft for redefining Corporate Social Responsibility. If their tribe increases, doomsday is not far away!

OOXML BRM in Geneva

By now, day 1 of the OOXML BRM in Geneva must have ended. The outcome is still not known, but whatever the outcome, ISO is going to be in for a lot of questions. How does a shoddy, half digested 6000 page long document (I am being *very* polite in my description) be eligible for a fast track review process. Does anyone believe that a complex standard like OOXML can be reviewed in six months? If that is the objective then why even review it in the first place? ISO's credibility has been permanently dented and, as my friends in the FSF points out, we need to make it clear that ISO standards are not open standards.

I have also been talking to a group of young technologists who are alarmed by what is happening in the standards world. We believe that it is time India took a more active (if not activist role) in creating international standards. This realization is spreading to neighboring countries also because policy makers I spoke to in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and other countries are also alarmed at the blatant manner in which OOXML is being pushed through. It may be time for emerging economies to come together and tame the beast of proprietary standards.

OSFI raises objections to ASSCOHAM's stance on OOXML

The Open Source Foundation of India would like to place on record its objections to ASSCOHAM's stance on OOXML. Neither us nor the Open Document Format Alliance (www.odfalliance.in) nor the Free Software Foundation (www.fsf.org.in), which have been leading the fight for open standards were consulted before ASSOCHAM issued its press release. An industry body is expected to listen to all sides of a debate before arriving at a conclusion and we are disappointed that a respected body like ASSOCHAM, which has temendous credibility among policy makers has not followed this process.

We would like to ask ASSOCHAM if it:

A) Has a clear definition of an "open standard" and if it has evaluated OOXML to see if it passed the test. For the record, OOXML has been submitted a few months ago to ISO, so it is not even an international standard nor does it meet the criteria for an open standard. See www.odfalliance.in for more information.

B) Is ASSOCHAM aware that the European Union is examining whether Microsoft Corp. violated antitrust laws during a struggle last year to ratify its Office software file format as an international standard.

C) Is ASSOCHAM aware of the serious allegations of abuse of the ISO processes by the proponents of OOXML. For example, in Pakistan, the 12 member committee reviewing OOXML was stacked with four Microsoft Gold Partners and even the IT Ministry and Pakistan's IT leaders were not aware of the committee's participation at ISO?

It is clear that only a single interested party's opinion is being reflected through this press release. We would like to point out that ASSOCHAM's credibility as an industry organization will be seriously affected if it does not give due consideration to alternate points of view.

Venkatesh Hariharan
Co-Founder,
Open Source Foundation of India
www.osindia.blogspot.com

Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala on OOXML

Yesterday, there was an interview of Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala in the Times of India where he supported OOXML. He also repeated Microsoft's statement that users want a choice of multiple formats. Prof. Jhunjhunwala is a very respected academician and prima-facie, the Microsoft line seems to make eminent sense. After all, who can argue about choice? (BTW, since when has Microsoft been about choice?) Let's scratch a little deeper by asking a few questions about choice:

1) When you wake up in the morning and choose which side of the road you drive on? I certainly don't?

2) Did you like the choice of Microsoft's HTML versus Netscape's HTML? Both companies created their own proprietary extensions to HTML that threatened to fragment the Internet. Even today, there are web sites that say "optimized to XYZ browser" and to me that is a sign of bad software design. Ironically, the Bureau of Indian Standards web site says, "Best viewed in MSIE 4.0 and above browsers." If you are developing or redesigning a web site, it would be much better to make your web site compliant to the World Wide Web (W3C) standards (called recommendations in W3C parlance). I am much happier having one single, unified web standard because it makes my life easier.

I therefore urge academics, policy makers and others to push for common, unified document standards, not a multiplicity of standards. The industry and vendors should collaborate on standards and compete on their implementation.

PS: There was one important question that the Times of India journalist missed asking Microsoft. I would have loved to know what the venerable professor thinks of Microsoft's attempts at Ballot Box Engineering on the OOXML issue.

Microsoft Certified Ballot Box Engineering in Pakistan?

After some digging around, I found out that there was indeed a committee that met and voted yes for OOXML in Pakistan. It looks like the committee met just once. There was a presentation on OOXML by a Microsoft person to the committee members. From what I hear, no views from the opponents of OOXML were presented. I had e-mailed the directors of Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) and to the Pakistani Minister of Science and Technology, Ch. Nouraiz Shakoor Khan saying that we would like the open source community's views to be presented before a final vote was taken but received no replies. After listening to the Microsoft person, the committee voted in favor of OOXML. Now here is the interesting bit: Out of the 12 committee members, four are Microsoft Gold Partners, one was a Microsoft representative and the rest were academics. After the invalidated vote in Sweden, I am not surprised that so many Microsoft Gold Partners were on this committee. I tried to check whether the open source community's views were taken into consideration before the voting but currently I do not have information on this.

PS: I hear that Microsoft is planning to now offer MCBBE (Microsoft Certified Ballot Box Engineer) course along with its other course. I hear that several Indian political worthies who have specialized in booth capturing are lining up to take this course and upgrade their professional skills!

BusinessWorld on ODF versus OOXML

BusinessWorld magazine has an article on the recent standards battle at the Bureau of Indian Standards over Microsoft OOXML proposal. As you know, the OOXML proposal was rejected unanimously by the LITD15 committee formed by BIS to review OOXML. The ODF Alliance which includes FSF, Red Hat, IBM and Sun worked hard to ensure that OOXML was not approved. The reasons for this can be read at www.noooxml.org

BusinessWorld is now running a vote on its web site asking readers:

"Which documentation standard do you want to vote for?" The link for this article and the vote (see right hand top corner of the page) is:

http://www.businessworld.in/content/view/2458/2536

I request all FOSS supporters to vote for ODF. Next Monday's issue of BW also has an article on this subject and I am looking forward to it.

Now, M$, please stop smoking it!

Despite all the ballot box stuffing, Microsoft's OOXML proposal was defeated at ISO. What does the company that calls darkness as light have to say? It has the arrogance to release a press release titled, "Strong Global Support for Open XML as it Enters Final Phase of ISO Standards Process." The press release quotes Robertson, general manager for Interoperability and Standards at Microsoft Corp as saying:

"Technical experts around the world have provided invaluable feedback and technical recommendations for evolving the format," Robertson said. "The high quality of the Open XML format will be improved as a result of this process, and we take seriously our role in working within the Ecma technical committee to address the comments received.

Excuse me Tom, but India voted unanimously against OOXML. In case that did not register, let me repeat: India voted unanimously against OOXML. Despite all the explanations given by Microsoft, the Bureau of Indian Standards committee formed to examine OOXML marked each of the 200 issues as unresolved. Now, do you still use the words high-quality and OOXML in the same breath?

What this company deperately needs is a moral compass!