[dundee] Fwd: [UKUUG] Please help prevent Microsoft creating a bad ISO standard

[Martin Habets]

Hi all,

Please have a look at the mail below and contribute if possible.

I have accepted a job in Bristol with ST Microelectronics as a Software Micro
Architect, and will move down there tomorrow. It will be primarilly
writing/managing Linux kernel drivers for digital set-top boxes.

It's been fun while it lasted! Best of luck kick-starting the LUG :)

Cheers,
-- 
Martin
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30 years from now GNU/Linux will be as redundant a term as MERT/UNIX is 
today. - Martin Habets
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--- Alain Williams <addw at phcomp.co.uk> wrote:

> Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 19:26:46 +0000
> From: Alain Williams <addw at phcomp.co.uk>
> To: members at lists.ukuug.org
> Subject: [UKUUG] Please help prevent Microsoft creating a bad ISO standard
> 
> 
> Summary
> The document format used by OpenOffice.org and other applications is an ISO standard.
> An open standard has been needed in this area for many years to allow competition
> and for a range of tools to be developed that all use a common data format. Until the
> ISO standard all we had (in the main) was de-facto proprietary binary standards.
> 
> The ISO standard is now seen as being under threat from a competing standard proposed by ECMA
> based on Microsoft Office Open XML. We think that you may want to object and if you read below,
> you can find out why and how.
> 
> You must act by Friday 26 January.
> 
> Detail
> 
> An open standard (ISO/IEC 26300:2006) for document formats is currently 
> implemented by a number of office software suites, probably the most 
> notable of which is OpenOffice.org
> 
> Microsoft played little or no part in the ISO/IEC 26300:2006 process and 
> subsequently made its own proposal to ECMA (European Computer 
> Manufacturers' Association) for 'Office Open XML'. That was approved by 
> ECMA and then submitted  to ISO/IEC for ratification as an independent 
> standard on a fast-track process.  A 30-day contradiction period is now 
> running which terminates on 5th February.
> 
> The fast-track proposal severely overlaps the existing ISO standard and 
> apparently contains numerous technical issues which deserve serious 
> consideration. There does not appear to have been any effort at providing 
> a gap analysis to see where the existing standard does not provide support 
> for proposals in the ECMA document and hence no corresponding effort to 
> produce a single combined standard to meet the needs of both parties. The 
> presence of more than one standard covering the same areas will inevitably 
> lead to confusion amongst users of standards.
> 
> Any voting national body (of which the British Standards Institute, BSI, 
> is one) can register a contradiction with ISO/IEC to cause the fast-track 
> proposal to be blocked and for a resolution phase to begin.
> 
> We have written to the BSI on behalf of UKUUG requesting that they 
> register a contradiction. It is our belief that the more people who write 
> to them, the more the effect will be.
> 
> We urge any UKUUG member with an interest in this area to read 
> http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections and then to register 
> their view with the Chairman of the BSI panel looking into this area: 
> Francis Cave <francis at franciscave.com>, objections MUST be received
> by 26th January to have effect.
> 
> To object to the fast-track procedure is not necessarily to object to the 
> proposal itself but it will at least cause a pause for thought and may 
> give time for more detailed scrutiny of the 6,000 page document.
> 
> If you do wish to object, please read the objections document and then 
> write to Francis Cave (copy-and-paste from this letter would be a bad 
> plan) requesting that the BSI formally object to the fast-track proposal.
> 
> -- 
> Alain Williams
> UKUUG Chairman
> #include <std_disclaimer.h>