Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect, while speaking today at the annual conference of the company Most Valuable Professional, has given some perspective about the relationship between Microsoft and open source, as reported by Todd Bishop. What I see as a dangerous problem, especially when you look at interoperability between applications and file formats (especially ODF and OOXML), is the fact that Microsoft ignores the open source community.
If we look at OpenOffice.org, the three markets where the open source office suite is competing most successfully with Microsoft Office are probably Germany, France and Italy, followed by other European markets like Spain and the Netherlands. In Italy, where I have the updated numbers, we are hitting today - maybe while I’m writing this post - one million downloads since January 1st, 2008 (over 350.000 since the announcement of OOo 2.4 in late March). Although we don’t have Microsoft figures for Office 2007, we estimate a maximum of 1.8 million licenses sold in 2008.
I already know the reply: “You can’t compare licenses with downloads…”. Of course, gentlemen, but do you really think that one million downloads in slightly over one hundred days (at an average of over 9,200 downloads per day) still equals to a few thousands users? Do you really think that a small bunch of people, just the same small bunch of people, can get all these downloads? Come on, we’ve other stuff to do. Please, be realistic. We’re eating your pie, quickly. We’re hungry.
I don’t know the figures for Germany and France, but I’m quite sure that they are even better than those for Italy. The results in these markets are mainly due to the daily activity of the local community, while Microsoft - with the exception of Italy, where Associazione PLIO is recognized and respected - apparently ignores the reality. I am sure, for instance, that Microsoft’s Document Interoperability Initiative would greatly benefit from the involvement of the open source community.
Technorati Tags:
ooxml, open source, openoffice, microsoft, odf
I have tried to follow the discussion about the standardization of the Microsoft Office Open XML document format, or ECMA-376:2006 or ISO/IEC DIS 29500. The fast track process is in the final stage, with the national bodies voting on the approval of the modified specs which came out of the Ballot Resolution Meeting in Geneva.
I have been reading many blogs, which seem to be the preferred communication tool for both parties: those for the approval and those against the approval. Using a handy feature of Google Reader, I have tried to collect all the posts which have been written on the subject since the start of the BRM.
If I were a “normal” user trying to understand if there was something positive for me in the standardization process, I would have probably given up after a few days. I think that it is almost impossible to get a clear picture of what has happened, what is happening and what will happen. Communications, unfortunately, does not seem to be the primary concern of all the people that have been writing on this subject.
Technorati Tags:
ooxml
The change has been announced last week, but I think it’s important to read Simon Phipp’s comments on its relevance.
This quote sums it up:
OpenOffice.org’s license will change to LGPLv3 as part of a broader set of changes intended to improve the OpenOffice.org community for everyone. Those changes also include a switch to the latest version of the standard Sun contributor agreement, with an addendum specifically tailored to the needs of the OpenOffice.org community. There’s increased latitude for documentation writers to publish their work on OpenOffice.org. And in future, plugins for OpenOffice.org may host their source code directly on the community site without copyright being shared, helping collaboration within the community.
In order to understand the complete picture about software patents and all the related issues I think it’s important to read what Simon has written in may 2007 about patent covenants.
Tags: openoffice, softwareReprinted from the Open Source Initiative web site:
Tags: Open Source, softwareThe Requirement
An “open standard” must not prohibit conforming implementations in open source software.
The Criteria
To comply with the Open Standards Requirement, an “open standard” must satisfy the following criteria. If an “open standard” does not meet these criteria, it will be discriminating against open source developers.
- No Intentional Secrets: The standard MUST NOT withhold any detail necessary for interoperable implementation. As flaws are inevitable, the standard MUST define a process for fixing flaws identified during implementation and interoperability testing and to incorporate said changes into a revised version or superseding version of the standard to be released under terms that do not violate the OSR.
- Availability: The standard MUST be freely and publicly available (e.g., from a stable web site) under royalty-free terms at reasonable and non-discriminatory cost.
- Patents: All patents essential to implementation of the standard MUST be licensed under royalty-free terms for unrestricted use, or be covered by a promise of non-assertion when practiced by open source software.
- No Agreements: There MUST NOT be any requirement for execution of a license agreement, NDA, grant, click-through, or any other form of paperwork to deploy conforming implementations of the standard.
- No OSR-Incompatible Dependencies: Implementation of the standard MUST NOT require any other technology that fails to meet the criteria of this Requirement.
Technorati Tags: open standard
Matthew Aslett of The 451 Group comments about the Geneva BRM. He is probably confused as much as I am, but he reports a number of opinions (including those that I’ve mentioned in my previous post).
I point out Matthew’s last two paragraphs:
Admittedly I am quoting selectively, but you have to wonder whether a “standard” that has been through a process that divides opinion so much is worthy of the title, whatever the result. The most damning indictment, in my personal view, comes from Yoon Kit of the Malaysian delegation:
We eventually found out that if any changes affected current implementations it would certainly be rejected. This seriously compromised any elegant solutions, and it forced us to be mindful of the “existing corpus of documents” in the wild. I don’t believe that that should be our problem, but there was a large and vocal voting bloc which would oppose any changes to the spec which would “break” Ecma 376. […]
From my informal talks with Sam Ramji of Microsoft I’ve understood that the company has already started working at the code of Office 2007, in order to make the product more interoperable. This is confirmed by the following statement, which is included in the press release distributed on February 21 to support the conference call with Steve Ballmer, Ray Ozzie, Bob Muglia and Brad Smith (you know, they use Excel to sort the list alphabetically ;-), and the software includes a non standard “hierarchy filter”):
Enhancing Office 2007 to provide greater flexibility of document formats. To promote user choice among document formats, Microsoft will design new APIs for the Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications in Office 2007 to enable developers to plug in additional document formats and to enable users to set these formats as their default for saving documents.
As a logical consequence, once ECMA has started the standardization process for Microsoft OOXML it should have been clear that the process itself could have asked for substancial amendments to the document format, and that refusing or opposing such changes would have been simply not coherent with the process.
Therefore, I’m quite surprised for Yoon Kit statement, because - if completely true (the only problem I see is the language one, as writing in English when it’s not your mother tongue is a daily challenge) - it goes not only against the principles of the standardization process but also against any reason.
The fact that during the BRM there were substantial changes to the specifications seems to be confirmed by this short sentence from Microsoft James Matusow (which I find otherwise biased, and this is the reason why I decided to ignore his post before):
After 5 months of ongoing communications about the dispositions with NSBs around the world, the constructive, positive adoption of changes to the specification was the outcome of the BRM.
This sounds logical to me. And it sounds logical that Microsoft is going to implement the changes once they have been approved, although this doesn’t mean that OOXML - once all the changes have been implemented - it’s going to be an interoperable standard, as the changes - many of them - are just one of the necessary steps in the right direction.
I’m puzzled and confused… Any help?
UPDATE: ECMA has issued a press release about the Ballot Resolution Meeting, with a couple of paragraphs which clarify the outcome of the BRM:
The final DIS 29500 text includes updated dispositions to a number of key comments, such as multi-part standard; transitional vs. strict conformance classes; more strict date system in spreadsheets based on the ISO standard; flexible units of measurement and very significant advances in accessibility, internationalization (BiDi) and multi-platform support.
Several of the issues which will not be reflected into the final DIS text have been deferred to consideration during the maintenance phase, which, if the standard is approved would be managed by ISO/IEC JTC 1 with the active collaboration of Ecma International.
Although I understand that a huge effort has been put by all the participants in order to get to this stage, I think that this is a result that doesn’t allow the standardization of OOXML, as there are still several issues unresolved.
Tags: communication, softwareI’ve tried to understand what has happened in Geneva during the Ballot Resolution Meeting, a very important step during the Fast Track process for the standardization of the Office Open XML document format.
I’ve gone through dozens of posts with the clear feeling that the report was biased, either in a sense or the other. Unfortunately, the voting process doesn’t help at all in 
understanding, as the effects of abstention - for instance - can be different from the norm, as they may express a vote.
At the end, I’ve found only two posts which are worth reading, as they try to be balanced in their opinion, although they’ve been written by people against OOXML: Tim Bray (Canada) and Yoon Kit (Malaysia). They try to give a feeling of the work done by delegates during the BRM, and of the short time available to achieve the huge task of going through over 1.000 comments.
They both underline their negative opinion on the Fast Track process in relation to a document format with a description of the size of OOXML, which is a whopping 6.000 pages (you can even find pictures of the printout).
I’ve decided to avoid linking the biased posts, which can be easily found Googling “BRM Geneva” or “BRM OOXML”. You can find the entire spectrum of marketing hype, from “it was an unbelievable success” to “it was a complete disaster”, and you can get a sense of the commercial interests behind document standards.
Tags: marketing, Open Document FormatYesterday’s post was definitely a mistake, and therefore the text has been replaced with a fake one (lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, et caetera) to avoid the cache trap.
Today I’ve had a long conversation with Pierpaolo Boccadamo, Microsoft Italy Platform Strategy Director. He is a real gentleman and has been very kind to me, although he was involved in a very important server announcement and my words have been quite a problem for him, Sam Ramji and Andrea Valboni (the people I’m in touch with at Microsoft). I apologize, guys, seriously.
I’ve been told that this blog is now seen by Microsoft as an authoritative voice of the open source community. I’m happy and surprised at the same time: I’ve never been a corporate person, and I’m not the best one for the role but I will try to stick to it at least until we will get to know each other in a better way.
Please do understand, though, that the open source community isn’t and can’t be similar to a large enterprise. Therefore, the language will always be different in tone from what you could expect if we were a “regular” company.
But there are advantages, too. You have my mobile phone number, and you are not just asked by warmly invited to call me whenever you feel that I’ve made something wrong. I don’t have any problem today and I won’t have any problem in the future to acknowledge my mistakes (if any, of course).
I’m a volunteer, and I use my free time for the the community. I don’t have a status to defend, and if I lose my “job” I will have more time for myself, my family and my hobbies. It’s a different perspective from yours, as you are in a corporate position.
Of course, this doesn’t translate into a lousy attitude. I try to do my best, as I have been doing for all my professional life: you know the results, and therefore you may understand how seriously I handle the task.
Let’s start working at the interoperability project and forget - for the time being - the other issues (although I know that we will be carefully watching each other on a daily basis). You have my commitment, and the commitment of Associazione PLIO.
