[Sigifp-l] Fwd.: Microsoft Wins "Best Campaigner against OOXML Standardization" Award

[M.J. Menou]

> Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2007 16:36:35 +0200
> From: Soenke Zehle <s.zehle at kein.org>
> Subject: <incom> Microsoft Wins "Best Campaigner against OOXML Standardization" Award
> To: incom <incom-l at incommunicado.info>
>

> http://www.noooxml.org/irregularities
> http://press.ffii.org/Press_releases/FFII_awards_Microsoft_%22Best_Campaigner_against_OOXML_Standardization%22_prize
> 
> FFII awards Microsoft "Best Campaigner against OOXML Standardization" prize
> 
> Brussels, 1st October 2007 -- Microsoft itself is the surprise winner of 
> the FFII's "Kayak Prize 2007", offered by the FFII in its <NO>OOXML call 
> for rejection of Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) standards proposal. 
> The software monopolist is honored as "Best Campaigner against OOXML 
> Standardization".
> 
> On September 3rd, ISO announced that the Microsoft proposal had not 
> gathered enough support to be accepted as it is. ISO will now review the 
> comments made on the proposal, and make a final decision in February 
> 2008. FFII president Pieter Hintjens explains, "we could never have done 
> this by ourselves. By pushing so hard to get OOXML endorsed, even to the 
> point of loading the standards boards in Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, 
> Portugal, Italy, and beyond, Microsoft showed to the world how poor 
> their format is. Good standards just don't need that kind of pressure. 
> All together, countries made over ten thousands technical comments, a 
> new world record for an ISO vote. Microsoft made a heroic ? and costly ? 
> effort to discredit their own proposal, and we're sincerely grateful to 
> them."
> 
> The FFII Board says the monopolist can collect its prize of 2,500 Euros, 
> minus the cost of registering the noooxml.org domain, 12 euros. FFII 
> vice-president Alberto Barrionuevo explains, "we ran a cheap campaign, 
> mostly through that single website. So we're happy with a token 
> reimbursement of our costs. Several of the Kayak prize nominees told us 
> they did not want any financial reward for their work. So if Microsoft 
> does not send someone to the award ceremony, we'll give the money to the 
> Peruvian earthquake fund."
> 
> 50,000 people from almost a hundred countries have signed the FFII's 
> petition against OOXML to date. Hintjens concludes, "OOXML is not yet 
> dead, even though it's been seriously discredited. Microsoft has one 
> last chance to fix the design flaws and patent problems, and present a 
> clean proposal next February. We think they will make cosmetic fixes and 
> then push all the harder. It's exactly the worst approach and will 
> alienate many governments, possibly spelling the end of their global 
> office monopoly."
> 
> Background Information
> 
> ISO member organizations started on a fast-track process for the 
> 6000-page Microsoft OOXML format, despite problems highlighted by the 
> FFII in an open letter in January 2007. Among other shortcomings, 
> Microsoft's proposal damages the adoption of the existing ISO 26300 
> standard (OpenDocument) that covers similar functionality in just 700 
> pages. ISO 26300 is being adopted by most of the industry except Microsoft.
> 
> The FFII has highlighted serious problems with the proposed standard. It 
> relies on undisclosed patents, and undisclosed or incomplete licensing 
> terms that make any independent reimplementation impossible or heavily 
> risky. It obliges implementors to reverse-engineer the behavior of old 
> closed Microsoft applications and formats. It uses non-standard formats 
> for languages and dates, and specifies known bugs, such as treating 1900 
> as a leap year.
> 
> Contact
> 
> Benjamin Henrion
> FFII Brussels
> +32-2-414 84 03
> +32-484-566109
> bhenrion at ffii.org
> (French/English)
> 
> About the FFII
> 
> The FFII is a not-for-profit association active in over thirty 
> countries, dedicated to the development of information goods for the 
> public benefit, based on copyright, free competition, and open 
> standards. More than 850 members, 3,500 companies and 100,000 supporters 
> have entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in publicy policy 
> questions concerning exclusion rights (intellectual property) in data 
> processing. FFII has lead the campaigns against software patents in 
> Europe and the <NO>OOXML campaign for a good office documents standard.

-- 
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Dr. Michel J. Menou
Visiting Professor, SLAIS, University College London, U.K.
Consultant in ICT policies and Knowledge & Information Management
Chair ASIS&T International Relations Committee http://www.asis.org/irc.html
Adviser of Somos at Telecentros board http://www.tele-centros.org
Member of the founding steering committee of
Telecenters of the Americas Partnership http://www.tele-centers.net/
B.P. 15
F-49350 Les Rosiers sur Loire, France
Email: micheljmenou[at]gmail[dot]com
michel[dot]menou[at]orange[dot]fr
Phone: +33 (0)2 41511043
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ciber/peoplemenou.php
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