Anders Brenna

ISO approved OOXML as a new open standard, but Håkon Wium Lie, CTO of Opera Software, and the majority of the Norwegian committee won’t stop fighting again the decision.

After a turbulent meeting, Standard Norge, the Norwegian standards organisation decided to vote in favor of accepting OOXML as a new open ISO-standard.

This has caused outrage among the majority of the comitte, as they opposed the decision, citing the fact that Norwa voted “no with comments” in the first round, and that only a few of those were addressed.

Last week, comittee chairman Steve Pepper sent ISO a formal letter where he protested against the decision, and asked that Norway’s vote be suspended.

This has been dismissed by Standard Norge, and they claim that the majority voted in favor.

Today, Håkon Wium Lie and the rest of the opposition has sent a new letter to the ISO, where they state that “Norway voted no on OOXML”.

They accept the fact that ISO has accepted OOXML as a new standard, but demands that Norway’s vote is on the record counted as a no.

Here is the full content of the letter sent to ISO:

Reference is made to a letter from Steve Pepper of March 31st 2008.

Steve Pepper is the chairman of the Norwegian mirror committee to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34. Steve has served ISO as a volunteer for 13 years at his own expense. In addition to chairing the Norwegian committee, he has acted as Head of Delegation at every SC34 plenary since 1995 and as Convenor of the SC34 working group responsible for ISO 13250 Topic Maps since its formation in 1998.

In his letter, he reported how most members of the Norwegian committee are against changing Norway’s vote on OOXML from No with comments to Yes, and that in spite of this, employees of Standard Norway have decided to unilaterally change Norway’s vote.

We, the undersigned, are members of the Norwegian Committee SN/K185. We write to confirm Steve Pepper’s description of this matter. The technical arguments made against standardizing OOXML based on the BRM results were compelling to a solid majority of the committee, representing a wide range of IT competence; we find that according to ISO’s processes and the processes of Standard Norway, these technical arguments should have carried greater weight than the arguments brought by OOXML’s proponents.

We recognize that ISO already has approved OOXML. Still, we request that ISO records the Norwegian vote in accordance with the vast majority and the technical arguments of the Norwegian committee:

Norway voted No on OOXML!

Kind regards,

counted

Bjørn Venn, Per-Arne Aas, Petter Reinholdtsen, Per Inge Østmoen, Harald T. Alvestrand, Keld J. Simonsen, Knut Yrvin, Axel Bojer, Martin Bekkelund, Knut Olav Bøhmer, Geir Isene, Tom Wahlgren, Anthony Lærdahl, Trond Heier, Thomas Gramstad, Thomas Malt, Arne S. Nielsen, Erlend Øverby, Håkon Wium Lie

The letter can also be read in PDF at Håkon Wium Lie’s homepage.

Now that OOXML is an ISO-standard, the next phase of the Norwegian OOXML-fight turns towards the Norwegian Minister of Government Administration and Renewal, Heidi Grande Røys.

She has decided that all public information from governmental agencies must publish in one of three open formats: HTML, PDF or ODF. Which one, depends on the type of information.

Røys must now decide whether she will accept OOXML on the same turns as ODF, and the letters from the opposition to ISO must be seen in this aspect.

Håkon Wium Lie and the rest of the Norwegian committee members who opposed OOXML, has also written an open letter to the Minister, urging her to not accept OOXML.

We feel that OOXML has weaknesses that makes it unfit for use as a dataexchange-format in the public sector, whether it is an ISO-standard or not. The specification is immature, as well as unneccessary complex.

The letter can be read in Norwegian here.

I first published this story in Norwegian at digi.no.

See also:

• - The OOXML-problems will be fixed
  (Interview with Patrick Durusau, the ODF 1.2 Project Editor)
• Norwegian OOXML-fight is not over
• Formal protest against Norway’s es to OOXML
• Despite massive protests, Norway voted yes to OOXML

Patrick Durusau is the project editor for ODF 1.2. Considering the escalated conflict between OOXML-backers and opposers, one might think that he sided with the opposition.

He doesn’t. Before the decicion, he was quoted on saying that everyone would loose if ISO didn’t accept OOXML as a new standard.

Durusau spent this week in Norway, preparing for the next ISO-meeting to be held in Oslo Sunday to Tuesday, and to participate on the Second International Topic Maps Conference.

I got the opportunity to interview him, and I asked if he still stood by his statement that yes to OOXML is a good thing.

- Oh yeah! No standards, including ODF, stands alone. Standards are created in a social context that involves a multitude of players. If we create a situation where someone is excluded and no longer can participate, that diminishes the values of standadrds, says Patrick Durusau.

He is not happy about the conflict between OOXML backers and opposers.

- Standards don’t have sides. Standards are for everybody, says Durusau.

Durusau spent his days in Norway while the OOXML conflict and debate raged. He says he’s not been following the massive media attention, neither here in Norway or at the international level, despite the fact that his statement has been quoted all over.

- I don’t read the press coverage. It either makes you paranoid or mad, says Durusau.

Durusau flew in from the United States on Monday, and arrived in Oslo on Tuesday. He has spent most of the time at the hotel room, preparing for the upcoming ISO-meeting.

- Standards are not the ten commandments. They are not finished products that never changes. One of the inputs that make them evolve are other standards, says Durusau.

Even though he is the Project Editor for ODF 1.2, he is not pushing “his” standard forward at the sacrifice of OOXML.

- You choose depending on your requirements, says Durusau.

He does however, point out that if you want a free Office system, then OOXML probably isn’t for you. On the other half, if preservation of legacy is a consideration, then you may want to look more closely at OOXML.

The OOXML-fight for ISO-acceptance is over, and the next fight in Norway will be focused on the Norwegian Minister of Government Administration and Reform, Heidi Grande Røys. She must decide whether OOXML will be added to the list of accepted formats for government agencies to use when they publish information.

- I hestitate to advice the government on that, says Durusay.

The Norwegian Minister has ordered every government agency to publish all public information in either HTML, PDF or ODF, starting on the 1.st of January 2009. What format to use, depends on the kind of information to be published.

Generally readable information will be published in HTML, documents where the preservation of information needs to look the same shall be published in PDF, and documents meant for editing must be published in the ODF-format.

The Minister is not obliged to accept OOXML, and if she does, it will overlap with ODF. She must therefore decide between three alternatives on behalf of the government.

1. Don’t accept OOXML for public publication of information
2. Accept OOXML side-by-side with ODF
3. Accept OOXML, but demand that all public editable dokuments is published in both ODF and OOXML

If she goes for alternative 1, Microsoft and all the users of Microsoft Office will protest. They are the majority of Norwegian users today.

Alternative 2 will let the agencies decide themselves. That leaves the users with the problem of having to handle both formats. It’s hard to say which will be preferred, but in the short term this gives Microsoft a big advantage.

The third alternative will put an additional burden on the governmental agencies, because they will have to provide two formats for every editable document they publish. It will add costs, but the bill will be footed by the agencies and not the individual Norwegian citizen.

This will be a tough decision for the Minister, and when I put the problem forward to Durusau and asks for a comment, he stops and starts thinking for while. A long while. Finally, he speaks:

- I’m thinking. I’m trying to think of something useful to say, says Durusau.

He is truly a diplomat by nature. He sees the dilemma, and that this decision might have a big impact on the circulation of the format he works on. Still, he declines to give the Norwegian Minister an advice on which alternative she should choose. He confines himself to say that she must do a thorough assesment before she makes the decision.

The critique against Microsoft and their OOXML-format have been formulated on many levels, and it is particularly harsh from people with a lot of technical knowledge and experience from working with standards. On my direct question on what he thinks of the quality of the OOXML-standard, Durusau is surprisingly blunt:

- I think OOXML has a lot of room for improvement, says Durusau.

Still, he is very diplomatic, and offers a polite remark.

- Having said that, there are still issues in ODF, sas Durusau.

Durusau clearly states that he is glad that OOXML became an accepted ISO-standard, and argues that it is better to have the problems solved in an open forum. He also believes that OOXML eventually will become a good standard.

- The problems will be fixed, although some will take longer than others. You have to remember that we are not lackin XML-expertise in the comittee. I really am optimistic, says Durusau.

ODF Project Editor Patrick Durusau spent this week in Norway, and he got to see Steve Pepper’s ending keynote at the Second International Topic Maps User Conference in Oslo.

Notes:

I first published this article in Norwegian at digi.no.

Updated: I had problems uploading pictures. They were added afterwards.

PS! The pictures in this article is offered freely for anyone who wants to use them under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please link back to this article if you use them. Thanks!

It now seems that ISO will vote in favor of accepting OOXML as a new open ISO-standard, and that the Norwegian vote did not tip the ballot.

But Norwegian OOXML-opponents still wants the Norwegian department of Ministry of Trade and Industry to look into the Norwegian process. The ministry has confirmed to newspaper Dagens Næringsliv that they have asked Standard Norge for information on how the OOXML-proccess was handled.

The Norwegian online debate on the OOXML-process has raged at an unprecedented level, after a controversial decicion by Standard Norge last friday when Standard Norge said yes to OOXML.

Since then, every article about the OOXML-process have been flooded by bitter, angry and frustrated Norwegian IT-professionals. Most of them seem to oppose the yes-vote, but there are several arguing in favor of OOXML as well.

Particular interesting, from a journalist’s point of view, is that many of the Norwegian committee members have actively engaged in the forum debate. Both the chairman Steve Pepper and Microsoft’s hired representative, Shahzad Rana, have actively engaged in the discussion. Rana has also written extensively on the subject on his own blog, and so has several other members of the committee.

Steve Pepper, the committe chairman, faxed a formal protest to ISO. He asked for the Norwegian vote to be suspended because of what he claims were irregularities in the process committed by Standard Norge.

Standard Norge defended their position in a statement published on their homepage. Microsoft’s Stephen McGibbon has posted an English translation that seems to be correctly translated. Standard Norge points out that Steve Pepper has opposed OOXML, and that he therefore cannot be considered a neutral chairman.

The leader of the committee has an important role succeed in creating agreement, but the leader of the committee had already in 2007 flagged his position which meant that he could no longer meet the criteria for neutrality. He had therefore renounced his task to lead the committees consideration of OOXML and Standad Norges deputy managing director therefore led meetings for consideration of this matter in the committee.

Pepper denies that he was unwilling to change his view on OOXML, and claims the problem to be Microsoft’s unwillingness to make the necessary adjustments.

Microsoft also got support from their Norwegian partner Acos. In an open letter, signed by Ivar Wessel Thomassen, Acos director and member of the SN/K 185 committee, they state that the decicion made by Standard Norge was both “wise and correct”.

Acos is a software company that creates portal and document management systems. They have more than 250 Norwegian Public companies on their customers list, and this makes them one of the largest players in this Norwegian niche. The software company claims that all these customers use Microsoft Office, and that the OOXML-format is better suited for most of these customers because it handles all the legacy formats.

The Norwegian Minister of Government Administration and Reform, Heidi Grande Røys, have previously decided that all Norwegan government offices must publish all external information in open formats such as HTML, PDF or ODF:

• HTML is the primary format for public information on the Internet
• PDF is mandatory for all documents required to maintain original display and layout
• ODF must be used for all documents ment to be edited after download, such as forms to be filled in by users

This requirement kicks in from 1.st of january 2009 for governmental bodies, and the minister works to impose these requirement on the municipalities as well.

Public agencies are free to publish in any additional formats, as long as the information is also published in the appropriate above stated formats. They may also use any format they want for internal collaboration.

The question now that OOXML seems to be accepted as a new ISO-standard, is whether it will be added to the list. That remains to be seen.

- The minister is free to choose what formats the government should use, and it’s clear that she can choose to not accept OOXML, says Helge Kvamdal, press advisor at the Norwegian Ministry of Government Administrationd and Reform, to digi.no on monday.

Representatives from the Norwegian OOXML-opposition, such as Geir Isene of Freecode and Trond Heier of Linpro, confirms that the next fight will be on convincing the minister not to accept OOXML as one of the officially supported public formats.

There was a massive protest when Standard Norge decided that Norway will say yes to OOXML, despite the fact that most of the comitee-representatives were against.

The ISO-vote is currently undecided, and Norway’s vote can tip the decicion in favor of accepting OOXML as an ISO-standard.

Things took another turn just a couple of minutes ago, as Steve Pepper, the chairman of the SN/K185 (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34 mirror committee, has sent a formal protest to ISO. He asks that Norway’s vote be suspended, because it does not represent the opinion of the comitee members.

He has also asked the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry to look into the Norwegian process.

Here is the content of the fax sent by Steve Pepper:

Formal protest regarding the Norwegian vote on ISO/IEC DIS 29500

I am writing to you in my capacity as Chairman (of 13 years standing) of the Norwegian mirror committee to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34. I wish to inform you of serious irregularities in connection with the Norwegian vote on ISO/IEC DIS 29500 (Office Open XML) and to lodge a formal protest.

You will have been notified that Norway voted to approve OOXML in this ballot. This decision does not reflect the view of the vast majority of the Norwegian committee, 80% of which was against changing Norway’s vote from No with comments to Yes.

Because of this irregularity, a call has been made for an investigation by the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry with a view to changing the vote.

I hereby request that the Norwegian decision be suspended pending the results of this investigation.

Yours sincerely,
Steve Pepper
Chairman, SN/K185 (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34 mirror committee)

Read more about the Norwegian OOXML-process here.

This story was first published in Norwegian at digi.no.

Opera Software’s CTO, Håkon Wium Lie, is shocked, and the OOXML-debate rages in Norway.

Standard Norge, the Norwegian standardisation organisation representing Norway could not finish the meeting on time. They were supposed to have reached a decision by 01:00pm  friday, Norwegian time. That was not possible, as the parties could not agree.

Because of that, Standard Norge decided that three representatives from Standard Norge would make the final decision.  The press release came at 05:53pm. Norway says yes to OOXML.

- This is a scandal! I’m shocked. 21 members of the committee says no, but Microsoft still trumps the decition through, says Håkon Wium Lie, CTO in Opera Software, to Computerworld Norway.

Håkon Wium Lie and the 20 other committee members who opposed, had written an open letter to Standard Norge the day before, where they strongly encouraged Norway to vote no to Microsofts document format, partly because there supposedly were 4 Norwegian comments that OOXML had not addressed.

Microsoft Norway got a lot of criticism because they got partners and customers to sign and send in 37 standard letters to Standard Norge. I have talked to several of the people who signed these documents during my reporting, and most of them did not know much about neither OOXML or ODF. They signed because they were asked to sign.

This has led the opponents of OOXML to accuse Microsoft of foul play, and they are angry that Standard Norge did not report this incident to the EU-committee when they asked  for information on any irregularities in the process.

Microsoft Norway responded that they felt that this was a fully legit way to argument for their point of view, and they made public the cover letters that came with the standardized letters.

Norway said “No, with comments” in the first round, but will now say yes. It seems that Microsoft will get enough Yes-votes this time, but that remains to be seen on the 31.st of March.

The Norwegian debate rages on the article I wrote at digi.no friday afternoon. There are a lot of anger, and many have declared their loss of faith in both the system and in Standard Norge.

Earlier this year, Norway decided that all public information must be presented in open formats such as HTML, PDF and ODF. If ISO accepts OOXML as an open standard, then this will put a pressure on the government to also allow for public information to be published in OOXML.

The significance of this is important. Any Norwegian governmental body can publish in any format they want, as long as the same information is published in at least one of those formats. If OOXML is accepted, then they will not need to also publish in ODF.

It remains to see however, whether OOXML is accepted, and whether it is enough to get the Norwegian government to allow publication in the OOXML-format as well.

I apologize for all the links to Norwegian articles. I feel it is important to link to the sources, but as I work as a Norwegian journalist, I only write in Norwegian.