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/

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."