It turns out that Microsoft isn’t following up the OOXML standard too hard. By “following up” I mean actually following their own superb standard.

Coverage on this is already everywhere: I prefer The Standards Blog myself.

Context

Team Apologista is very big on “context”, so allow me to accommodate:

Dr. Alex Brown was the convenor of the OOXML Ballot Resolution Meeting back in Feb of 2008.  Dr. Brown constantly poo-pooed concerns about Microsoft’s manipulation of the standardization process, often defending Microsoft directly and attacking ODF specifically along the way.

I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that without his efforts, OOXML would not have passed the standardization process.

So, when Dr. Brown says “Microsoft Fails the Standards Test“, and then goes on in detail to explain how Microsoft has either broken or failed to follow up on promises made – promises crucial at the time to getting OOXML through the standardization procees – it is truly a giant shock! No one could have seen this coming!

The Untold Story

I have it on good authority that the problem here lies solely with Microsoft 2001, and so people shouldn’t be hasseling Microsoft 2010. After all, Microsoft has new management, new employees that know open source, fresh new ideas, is becoming more open and is working actively on interoperability with third parties. They even launched the CodePlex Foundation OOXML Standardization Process.

So we see once again, it is Free Software zealots like Dr. Alex Brown, using FUD against Microsoft that are really to blame here.

Glad I could clear that up.

The Past

Two things about documents and computing never made a lot of sense to me: I had to pay some third-party to do business with someone, and that I may or may not be able to retrieve my own data based on the whims of that third-party!

The more I ran into problems on these two points, the more I thought on them and realized there had to be a better way.

At the time though, largely ignorant of the Free Software movement, I could only became frustrated at the ineffecient and stifling world of proprietary software and document formats, jumping through whatever hoops proprietary software houses introduced, throwing time and money at the problem that would have been better spent on just about anything.

The Present

Of course, if you are reading this blog, you already know how the story turns out – and I wouldn’t be surprised if most of you got there before I did!

As part of explaining the ludicrous nature of proprietary software formats to the less technically inclined, I often rely on something like this:

If you were to ask someone what pencil they used to write a memo, they would think “well why does that matter?” But people don’t think anything of asking “What version of Word is that?” It’s silly.

Imagine if you said “Oh, I can’t take Highway 1. I need Highway 1-F because I drive a Ford. And someone else was like and I have to take Highway 1-C because I drive a Chevrolet.” That would be insane.

It’s like a tax that I have to pay to some company to use public resources or something. That’s the sort of thing lack of Freedom causes, you see?

I’d love to get feedback on how to improve this explanation!

Open Standards

I like the idea behind Open Standards — even if they aren’t “superb standards” like OOXML – but much like the term “Open Source”,  I think in practice it is easily subverted by commercial interests that do little more than give lip service to the “Open” concept.

I’ve found that when a company insists “Technology X really is Open!” Then you can rest assured Technology X is not really open. Oh! Hi Adobe, didn’t see you standing there.

Fighting the inevitable

I”m always encouraged when I see goverments adopting Open Standards, because I am of the opinion it is inevitable – and I’m always a bit frustrated when I see groups fighting the inevitable.

I think something becomes inevitable when the positive aspects are overwhelming. Consider Marion Marchich’s points in favor of ODF:

• Avoiding lock-in
• Thinking beyond the desktop
• Ensuring long-term access
• Saving money
• Creating meaningful documents
• Enabling interoperability

Not only are these all things that users want, but they are things that are inherent in an open format, and which incur additional effort to achieve (if they are even posssible) in a closed proprietary format!

That’s why you will rarely hear a proprietary software company do anything but talk up how “open” they are – they know they are running on borrowed time using closed and crippled proprietary formats, but they need to recoup that investment of re-creating something that already existed (or preventing a truly Open Standard from replacing an existing stop-gap measure.)

One of the strongest arguments against proprietary formats is public use, such as goverment records. It seems ridiculous that one must pay a corporate 3rd party to do government business, but that’s how things are done in far too many cases.

I can’t say if OSFA will make a difference in this area or not, but they have recently called for comments on their Proposed Guidelines for Open Government Plans. I encourage you to read the draft.

Of course I have some thoughts

Here’s the thing about OSFA and similar organizations focusing on promoting “Open Source” to the US Government (and to a lesser degree other governments):

“Open Source” was supposed to be a synonym for “Free Software”, the whole trick was to make it more acceptable to commercial interests. It is easy to see how a company might be skeptical of anything “Free” being good business.

But, consider this situation now: Government is not a commercial interest and the concept of “Free as in Freedom” should be quite attractive to the government of a country that likes to pride itself on being “Land of the Free” and all that!

So the strange thing here is that proponents of the “Open Source” label have so lost sight of the the core aspect of “Free Software” – Freedom – that they can’t even bring it up when it is applicable! They talk about “open standards” and “royalty or patent encumbered formats” without talking about individual freedom.

That is what is important! Why so much focus on the how, and so little on the why?!

We see a similar failing of “Open Source” when someone brings up the argument that “users don’t care about seeing the source code”. This may be true, but it is a problem of focusing on the development model. It’s harder to argue that “users don’t care about freedom from vendor lock-in, 3rd party control, outrageous licensing agreements, unwillling upgrade cycles, the inability to access their own work as they see fit, etc.“.

It’s much harder to argue that “users don’t care about Freedom”, because they most certainly do!

From that blog entry:

Dailymotion has transcoded over 300,000 videos to the free Ogg Theora format, which will play without the need for plugins in the latest free software web browsers. Dailymotion is among the world’s largest video streaming sites, making this a major advance for Ogg Theora format.

The FSF also has a web page up as part of the Play Ogg! campaign. Ogg formats, Theora for video and Vorbis for audio, are important, because they have no patent restrictions and comparable, if not superior, quality as patented formats. There has been some controversy about the removal of Ogg Theora as the specified format for the HTML 5 <video> tag. 

As of June 29, 2009, the WHATWG summarizes the situation as such:

Apple refuses to implement Ogg Theora in Quicktime by default (as used by Safari), citing lack of hardware support and an uncertain patent landscape.

Google has implemented H.264 and Ogg Theora in Chrome, but cannot provide the H.264 codec license to third-party distributors of Chromium, and have indicated a belief that Ogg Theora’s quality-per-bit is not yet suitable for the volume handled by YouTube.

Opera refuses to implement H.264, citing the obscene cost of the relevant patent licenses.

Mozilla refuses to implement H.264, as they would not be able to obtain a license that covers their downstream distributors.

Microsoft has not commented on their intent to support <video> at all.

The future is uncertain for Ogg Theora – the thing that will determine its success is popular adoption, which some corporate interests seem intent on blocking.

ConsortiumInfo.com has a very informative blog focused on standards and the standardization process, with a strong understanding of Open Source. The author, Mr. Andy Updegrove also serves on the board of the recently formed Open Source for America.

If you are interested in hardcore standardization wonkery, I suggest you check out the blog!

In a recent Computerworld UK blog entry, Glyn Moody takes Microsoft’s Jason Matusox to task for conflating “balance” with “open”. I won’t re-hash the points Mr. Moody makes so read his article too!

Basically, Mr. Matusox laments how Open standards are “overbalanced” in favor of standard implementors, and someone is insisting that standards must have “no IP restrictions”.

Notwithstanding the laughable idea of Microsoft pretense to have any interest at all in a fair, open, or “balanced” standard process, there are some interesting points revealed in Mr. Matusox’s article. The Exacting Task of Extracting Signal from Noise is once again assumed by your Humble Host.

I’m going to need more hay for this here strawman!

Mr. Matusox sets up a nice little premise:

I think that things like defensive suspension are really important.

[... A long bit about using one patent in an un-related "aphrodisiac" field ...]

But the “no IP restrictions” concept of “open standards” does away with too much. Out of balance.

Now, I put this to you: who exactly is arguing that “defensive suspension” and “no IP restrictions” are necessary or required for standardization?

Most patent grants have language that the patent grant applies to the implementation of the standard, thus covering Mr. Matusox’s aphrodisiac. Most patent grants also have language that the grant is revoked for those parties that bring patent action against the granter, thus covering Mr. Matusox’s “defensive suspension”. Both together, of course, cover the “no IP restrictions”.

So who is arguing for “no IP restrictions”? Red Hat isn’t. Google isn’t. “No IP restrictions” would mean that all related copyrights, trademarks and patents would have to be released into the public domain. Is someone out there seriously proposing that?

Business as usual

Here’s the thing I really want to draw attention to; in a follow-up post - where he is careful to repeat the “no limitations on IP” canard – Mr. Matusox says he “was writing about “open” issues back in March of 2005.”

Further back then that, actually. Mr. Matusox, and Microsoft in general, have been testing this angle since at least 2001-02. Here is Mr. Matusox back in 2002 defending Craig Mundie from 2001 who was at that time trying desperately to directly equate “Shared Source” with “Open Source”:

As a result of Microsofts statement of position today, many people will attempt to say that Shared Source is Microsofts failed attempt at being an Open Source Company. This could not be a more incorrect statement. Shared Source is Open Source.

The number of people outside of Microsoft that think “Shared Source is Open Source” may be closest thing we have ever observed in nature to a perfect zero, but it shows how clearly did Microsoft tries to conflate “Open” with whatever other term or criteria they felt suited them, and that they continue to do so today.

Just wanted to show they’ve been beating the “this not-Open thing is really Open” for at least 8 years now, right up until today. Handy to keep that sort of thing in mind when the Redmond Astroturfers take the field at the bottom of the inning.

(This is why I need a artist partner. Someone please work up a “Redmond Astroturfers” SVG ala the ’95-99 Houston Astros logo!)

More business as usual

This is not a Microsoft-specific failing: you’ll continually see companies that want all the rewards of Free, of Open, of community, with none of the responsibilities. If they must take on any of the responsibilities, it will be the legal or absolute minimum requirements.

If there is a way to twist the word Open into the meaning Proprietary, you can be sure some company is out there bending away right now.