From: press@fsfeurope.org

Media release 2 April 2008

FSFE concerned about quality of standardisation process

Today the International Standards Organisation (ISO) approved Microsoft's Office OpenXML format as ISO/IEC standard 29500 despite severe technical and legal concerns with the specification that have been raised by various parties.

"FSFE published its 'Six questions to national standardisation bodies' before the September 2nd vote last year. [1] Considering the statements about progress made on MS-OOXML, one would have hoped that at least one of these questions enjoyed a satisfactory response," states FSFE's German Deputy country coordinator Matthias Kirschner.

He continues: "Unfortunately that is not the case. Issues like the 'Converter Hoax' [2] and the 'Questions on Open Formats' [3] are still equally valid. As the 'Deprecated before use' [4] and 'Interoperability woes with OOXML' [5] documents demonstrate, MS-OOXML interoperability is severely limited in comparison to Open Standards. In addition to these issues, there are the legal concerns that were raised by various parties. [6]"

"Technologically speaking, the state of IS29500 is depressing," says Marko Milenovic of FSFE's Serbian Team and co-chair of the Serbian technical committee on DIS29500. "In large parts it is low quality technical prose that fails to use the normative terminology mandated by ISO/IEC's guidelines. We've been told to wait for the maintenance process for MS-OOXML to become usable. That ISO would knowingly approve a dysfunctional specification is disillusioning."

FSFE vice-president Jonas Öberg states: "Governments have to start asking themselves what the ISO seal of approval really means. As demonstrated by the MPEG standards, it never meant that something qualifies as a meaningful 'Open Standard.'"

Öberg continues: "Now it seems that ISO could be the wrong forum for standards development in information technology in general. It seems to work too slowly or too poorly to make the ISO brand meaningful in the IT world. We'll have to see whether ISO can repair its own processes enough to become a meaningful participant."

"Governments that seek to gain control over their own data and ensure long-term archival of public records independently from any specific vendor will need to establish other criteria in their public procurement," concludes Georg Greve, FSFE's president. "Programs like 'Certified Open' that seek to assess the actual interoperability and independence are likely to play a larger role in the future." [7]

[1] http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-questions [2] http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-converter-hoax [3] http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-questions-for-ms [4] http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-idiosyncrasies [5] http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-interoperability [6] http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/stdlib/offdoc/mision [7] http://www.certifiedopen.com

About the Free Software Foundation Europe:

The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and involved in many global activities. Access to software determines participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation in the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study, modify and copy. Founded in 2001, creating awareness for these issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving people Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are central issues of the FSFE.

Contact:

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