GNOME Foundation Publishes Statement On OOXML Involvement

[23meg]

The GNOME Foundation has published its awaited statement in response to allegations that it has been supporting the endorsement of Microsoft's OOXML as an ECMA standard.

http://www.gnome.org/press/releases/...statement.html

Recently, a number of articles have raised concern in various communities about the GNOME Foundation's membership of ECMA and participation in TC45-M — the technical committee reviewing Microsoft Office Open XML, or "OOXML".

In this statement we describe our participation in ECMA TC45-M, and provide a summary of our position on ODF, OOXML and related issues.

Background

Jody Goldberg is the lead maintainer of Gnumeric, a GNOME-based spreadsheet application, a position he has held for seven years.

Before June 2007, he worked for Novell, representing them on TC45-M in order to obtain further documentation of OOXML during its review process. In June, Jody left Novell and proposed that the GNOME Foundation facilitate his work with TC45-M by joining ECMA as a non-profit.

We accepted Jody's proposal to make sure that OOXML was documented enough such that FLOSS implementations were possible without a huge amount of pain (as experienced by those working on DOC and XLS binary format support). The decision to participate in TC45-M was made by the Board as a direct result of Jody's request. It did not involve any third party influence or financial considerations at any point.

Jody's last interaction with TC45-M was in July, to deal with the latest set of issues he submitted regarding charting and pivot tables. While he is not participating in the current activities of TC45-M (which is focused on issue resolution for the ISO standardisation process), our membership continues so he can participate in the next review period.

During his participation in TC45-M (via Novell and the GNOME Foundation), Jody has raised hundreds of issues with the documentation of the format, which will demonstrate a significant, material, on-going benefit to FLOSS implementations of OOXML and as a result, to users of FLOSS products that require such interoperability.

In 2000, the GNOME community de-emphasised its own office software products, choosing to support the nascent OpenOffice.org project. As a result, there are no office products released on our six-month time-based release schedule today, although we encourage and support projects such as AbiWord, Glom and Gnumeric.

Position

1. GNOME's principal mission is to deliver Software Freedom to users around the world. The GNOME Foundation aims to support the world-wide developer and contributor base of the GNOME project towards this goal.
2. The GNOME Foundation is a member of the ODF Alliance, and along with our contributors in the GNOME community, we are passionate supporters of open standards in general. We believe that ODF delivers the best opportunity for industry and government to collaborate on an open document standard, to drive unprecedented innovation, productivity and public transparency.
3. The GNOME Foundation's support for Jody's participation in TC45-M does not indicate endorsement for, or contribution to, ISO standardisation of the Microsoft Office Open XML formats.
4. While Microsoft should be applauded for releasing information about the Office document formats, their manoeuvres around the standards process demonstrate that they are not pursuing standardisation as a platform for innovation for the entire industry. Indeed, Microsoft continues to behave in the abusive manner of an unreformed, convicted monopolist with no passion for true industry collaboration in the interests of users.
5. We are deeply concerned that abuse of the standards process is eroding public trust in the value and independence of international standards. Both ODF and OOXML are very heavily influenced by their implementation heritage, neither are likely to deliver the "one true office format", and both communities have — in their own way — played a role in this erosion of trust.
6. We in the Open Source and Free Software community should be cautious about taking a black and white approach to a process that is rapidly turning standards into industrial weapons to the detriment of our users, software and communities. We face the very real danger that standards will suffer the same fate as patents: created to spur innovation and sharing, but manipulated to control and restrain.

Get Involved

The GNOME Foundation is supporting the pursuit of Software Freedom through the innovative, accessible, and beautiful user experience created by GNOME contributors around the world. It's a fun and inviting community, so if you're reading this and wondering what you can do to help promote Software Freedom, contributing to GNOME is a great way to start!

Media Enquiries

GNOME Foundation Press Officer
Jeff Waugh (Sydney, Australia)
Email: gnome-press-contact@gnome.org
Phone: +61 2 9318 0284
Mobile: +61 423 989 818

[Stephen Howard]

From the article:

Both ODF and OOXML are very heavily influenced by their implementation heritage, neither are likely to deliver the "one true office format", and both communities have — in their own way — played a role in this erosion of trust.

How can it be said that ODF has 'played a role in this erosion of trust [in the standards process]'?? Unlike OOXML, ODF is 100% transparent, it doesn't have any dark little undefined rooms to which only one company (MS) has the keys.

[Dimitriid]

Its just getting worst, they should have kept their mouths closed about it.

[samjh]

Let's see if I have this right:

1. Jody Goldberg represents Gnome Foundation in TC45-M.

2. Because of point 1, the FLOSS community accuses Gnome of helping OOXML become an ISO and ECMA standard.

3. The FLOSS community prefers that Gnome Foundation shun OOXML altogether and support ODF absolutely.

Assuming that I've correctly identified those three issues, here are some observations:

1. ODF is already an ISO standard.

2. ODF is not widely used.

3. OOXML is not an ISO or ECMA standard.

4. OOXML is developed by Microsoft and will be used in its MS Office suite.

5. MS Office suite is the de facto industry standard for office application software.

6. Due to points 4 and 5, it is likely that OOXML will become an informal but de facto industry standard format for office documents.

7. Goldberg's representation of the Gnome Foundation appears to encourage TC45-M to uncover as much information about OOXML's technical details as possible.

8. By doing point 7, it should become much easier for FLOSS developers to write file format converters for the OOXML format, therefore enhancing the interoperability of FLOSS office applications with MS Office.

What's the big deal? It looks like the Gnome Foundation is doing the smart thing by standardising a document format that will probably become an informal, de facto, industry standard anyway. Yes, support ODF, but if FLOSS office applications are going to be effective in taking a significant portion of MS Office's market share, then interoperability will be a key issue. How better to assure best chances of interoperability than to expose OOXML using ISO and/or ECMA standards?

As I've posted before, an ISO/ECMA standard is just something on a bit of paper. It has no real value until the industry and consumers support and use it. With MS Office's market share, ODF is unlikely to make a big dint in the world of office document formats even though it is an ISO/ECMA standard. OOXML will make a huge dint, whether or not it attains ISO/ECMA standardisation.

[Dimitriid]

8. By doing point 7, it should become much easier for FLOSS developers to write file format converters for the OOXML format, therefore enhancing the interoperability of FLOSS office applications with MS Office.

No. By doing that, the only thing that it does its perpetuate Microsoft as the "defacto industry standard" by playing catch up instead of supporting alternative standards and denouncing Microsoft.

Battles against Microsoft's monopoly practices are being fought but by conceding it only sets back other victories like Microsoft getting banned from preinstalling the OS on all machines on Europe.Active resistance whenever possible is the ONLY way to fight Microsoft, otherwise it compromises which is exactly what Microsoft wants to cut deals, enrapture and trap people then sue.

[popch]

Battles against Microsoft's monopoly practices are being fought but by conceding it only sets back other victories like Microsoft getting banned from preinstalling the OS on all machines on Europe.Active resistance whenever possible is the ONLY way to fight Microsoft, otherwise it compromises which is exactly what Microsoft wants to cut deals, enrapture and trap people then sue.

That depends a bit on the kind of damage you want to minimize. The lock-in of documents into Microsoft's proprietary formats is by far the most disturbing effect of their de facto monopoly. A set of reasonably documented (and reasonably useful) formats for office documents would greatly reduce that damage. It would also - as others have pointed out - break one of the most relevant instruments used for acquiring that monopoly.

[sloggerkhan]

http://www.itwire.com/content/view/15738/1090/1/0/

has another article on this. Apparently KDE has rejected OOXML, while GNOME is being wish-washy even as MS renegs on their original promises regarding the format.

[Vadi]

... what do GNOME and KDE have to do with OOXML? They're just getting themselves in sticky ground.

[sloggerkhan]

Because their desktop environments include word processors, it's a huge deal whether they feel compelled to spend development manpower implementing the format. And if a really poorly documented and overly complex format with proprietary pieces gets accepted as a standard, there may be an expectation that an implementation is included in the DE.

[toupeiro]

... what do GNOME and KDE have to do with OOXML? They're just getting themselves in sticky ground.

Considering they both has significant investments in other office suites, quite a bit.