Reaction from Parliament ...

Members of the parliament are angry that they didn't know about the total split in the Technical Committee under Danish Standards.

Several Danish IT policy rapporteurs are surprised that the OOXML Committee with Danish Standard has been totally divided. It will have consequences, "said Morten Helveg Pedersen (R).

http://www.computerworld.dk/art/45845

English: http://translate.google.dk/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.computerworld.dk%2Fart%2F45845&hl=da&ie=UTF8&sl=da&tl=en

Don't vote - you can only agree

The order was clear: Don't make a vote in the committee. The order came probably directly from the government that didn't want the committee to make a democratic decision.

So if no vote is made, how can the committee find a solution ? In theory only one way: To agree. But that was only a theoretically possibility. The committee couldn't agree. Of cause not.

This was a very elegant way to hands over the decision directly to Danish Standards (DS) that could do what they wanted. The voted yes as you might be aware.

The rumor says that the committee was 4 (pro) against 8 (con). But because there where never a vote, this was never taken into consideration. The committee couldn't agree and DS took over and made a decision without taking any notice of the committee.

The committee actually said no but DS said yes.

Update on the Danish YES-vote

Danish Standards admits that not all Danish complaints and comments has been fulfilled in the process. But the remaining outstanding comments are not important enough to continue the NO-vote.

The basic problem is, that the committee didn't recommend anything at all to DS.

http://www.version2.dk/artikel/6742

Denmark will vote NO! [UPDATED]

The committee S-142/U-34 under Danish Standards could not agree to change their vote from No to Yes, so the committee has asked Danish Standards to vote
NO !

This is still unconfirmed !
Danish Standards has told the chairman (professor at Copenhagen Business School Mogens Kühn Pedersen) to keep his mouth shut: http://www.version2.dk/artikel/6718


[Added 22:00]Clarification
The meeting in the committee was yesterday afternoon. The chairman has been ordered to keep his mouth shot and Danish Standards will say nothing until tomorrow friday.

The committee did not reach a consensus decision yesterday and has asked Danish Standards (DS) to make a conclusion. So much is clear. The question is, what exactly didn't they agree on ?

Was the question: "Should we approve the standard ?" or was it "Should we change the Danish vote ?"

A press release from Danish Standards from just after the BRM said: "All the Danish complaints has been fulfilled". This is exactly what the members couldn't agree on yesterday. A complaint has been posted to DS that a conclusion was published long before the meeting. See my earlier
blogpost http://lodahl.blogspot.com/2008/03/here-are-minutes-of-tomorrows-meeting.html

Today in the press and on discussions:
Jesper Lund Stockholm said: "Read the press release from Danish Standards: All Danish complaints has been fulfilled. Thats the prove."
Morten Kjærsgaard from The Danish Open Source Business Association (OSL) said: "Rubbish. Several items from the Danish complaints hasn't been solved. Some has just been answered to and other items has been rejected".

So it's all up to Danish Standards to decide. Just as it was on the first vote. I can guarantee you, that at least one minister has been involved in the decision.

We will just have to wait until tomorrow. I don't think DS will vote YES. This would be too dangerous for the government. If the question was: "should we change the vote", then DS will vote NO. There couldn't be consensus to change the vote. But if that wasn't the question, DS might ABSTAIN from voting.

Here are the minutes of the tomorrows meeting

Yes thats how it works in my country. I wonder when we will see the agenda ? After the meeting, perhaps !

The meeting is at Danish Standards (S-142/U-34 Document standards) on Marts 26th. and the information is in this press release: http://www.ds.dk/4196 . The press release was published by Pia Elleby Lange, lead of the Danish delegation in Geneva.

All Danish comments has been approved.

Thats what she says. Even that not all Danish comments was even discussed at the meeting.

The committee will meet on Marts 26th. where the result of the delegation will be presented to the committee.

Didn't she just do that when she claimed that all comments was approved ?

The scope of the meeting is to discuss the next step...

and then:

The next step is to ...

Is this putting words into the mouths of the members or what ?
What is the purpose of having a meeting when the chairman has already made all the decisions ?

I call it another scandal in the ISO process.

Groklaw: Denmark Pretends MSOOXML is an "Open Standard"

According to Grocklaw the Danish government is pretending that EOOXML is an open standard approved by ISO. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071211153924324

It's true that the public authorities is about to implement open standards in the public sector and that EOOXML is one of the accepted standards.

It must be emphasized that the ISO approval (or rejection) has never been a part of the discussion in the Danish Parliament. The ISO approval is not the final and true prove weather a document format is an open standard. ISO doesn't have the final word, but the the decision will of cause have effects in Denmark as well.

The Danish decision is this:

• ODF is an open standard (accepted)
• EOOXML is for now accepted as an open standard, but Microsoft must prove true openness in the process before end of 2008. The Danish Competition Authority has been asked to look after this.

I have talked to a few MP's about this both last summer when the discussion was open in the Parliament but also this late autumn where there was an election for Parliament. The politicians is very much aware of this problem and Microsoft will not get a final accept if the process isn't getting more open.

IBM joins OpenOfficeorg community

I'm very pleased to find IBM taking part of the community behind OpenOffice.org.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/openoffice.org/IBM/prweb552157.htm

More scandals revealed

Some time ago (just a few days later than the Swedish scandal was revealed), one of the members of the Danish TC said, that the process in Denmark had been very serious and fair. Quote from my blog:

A representative from The municipal of Århus, Jens Kjellerup, says that the meetings in Denmark was alright and fair (http://www.computerworld.dk/art/41082).

And the result was: Consensus NO !

I am proud to be Danish on such good day.

But now, after the result has been published, more and more details is coming out of the dark. It seems as if Microsoft in Denmark has playing dirty tricks during the process too. Of cause Microsoft in Denmark denies that they have tried to put any pressure on their business partners. But they have send this letter (Letter to business partners) and this e-mail (e-mail to some business partners). From an anonymous source (Microsoft business partner), we hear that he felt a huge pressure (http://www.version2.dk/artikel/3759).

How come ?

You must know about how it works, that Microsoft business partner thing - If Microsoft likes you, you will get leads. And leads is cash. Microsoft never sell software directly. Everything goes through the partner channel, and if Microsoft recieves an order from a customer directly, they will post this as a lead to one of their partners. The partner will then post an order with Microsoft and get commission like 30% of the turnover. Leads is cash.

In one of the letters, Microsoft asked if the partner would be willing to answer questions from a journalist called Thomas Breinstrup from the newspaper Berlingske Tidende.

Translation of the words:

Would you take a position and contact the National IT- and Tele agency ?
Can Berlingske Tidende, Thomas Breinstrup call you and ask some questions about your opinion ?
Finally, could you contact Danish Standards about the subject ?

The problem was, that Thomas Breinstrup didn't know anything about this letter before yesterday.

Ask if it's clever to misuse one of the most respected and well spoken Danish journalists ? No. It's wise to stay friends with the press. One of the headlines today was: "Microsoft lobbying must have consequenses" and another "Corrupt countires love Microsoft standards".

Denmark will vote NO !

It's official now. Denmark will vote no with (64 pages of) comments. Here is the press release in Danish.

We have won this battle, but the war is not over yet.

I just got an email from Dansk Standard that Denmark will vote no with comments. The 64 pages of comments was obviously too heavy and too important.

Dansk Standard has been under heavy pressure over the last week, because of the Swedish case.

Translater here.

The Microsoft coup

The Microsoft coup in Sweden has had some consequences in Denmark. Sweden and Denmark are very close, and we speak almost the same language, so we read each others papers and so on.

• A representative from Microsoft in Sweden admits that they have send a mail to 'some' business partners telling them to join the TC and vote yes. 'But that wasn't what we mend to do', Microsoft says (http://www.computerworld.dk/art/41083?cid=1&a=cid&i=1&pos=11).

• A representative from The municipal of Århus, Jens Kjellerup, says that the meetings in Denmark was alright and fair (http://www.computerworld.dk/art/41082?a=rss&i=0).

• Microsoft in Denmark claims that they didn't put any similar pressure on Danish business partners (http://www.version2.dk/artikel/3744).

• One (anonymous) Danish business partner says that he was under pressure. Repeating questions about if he had submitted his yes-comments. The comments was actually given to him by Microsoft (http://www.version2.dk/artikel/3759).

• The Danish Parliament is now asking the Danish Minister of IT- and Telecom, Helge Sander about his role (http://www.version2.dk/artikel/3757). The Parliament is asking for an investigation (http://comon.dk/index.php/news/show/id=32455).

There has been a lot of focus on this in the Danish media. I don't know if there is any connection, but there has been more interest in open source in general ? These 3 newsmedias are delivering IT-news to almost all newspapers in Denmark.

The Members of parliament is also interested in the matter, because the discussion about implementing two parallel standards, was very much connected to the expectation, that OOXML would get approved by ISO. This case might end up, that Microsoft will get kicked out because of bad behavior.

I'll keep you up to date later.

Article about OOXML ...

This is a very quick translation of an article in the Danish computer magazine Version2

Microsoft defeated in Danish document technical committee

Despite lots of lobbying among customers and partners, Microsoft didn't succeed in taking a Danish yes-vote to make OOXML an international ISO standard

By Torben R. Simonsen, 27. august 2007 kl. 08:50
http://www.version2.dk/artikel/3697
Translation by Leif Lodahl

The technical subcommittee under Danish Standard couldn't agree on a consensus vote on the matter OOXML. OOXML is Microsofts proposal for an open document standard, that was supposed to become an international ISO standard.

The sub committee has been working all summer on clerify, if the certification from ECMA was good enough to get an ISO certificate too.

But the technical questioning has been too many, that the Danish committee couldn't accept the ECMA certificate as is.

On the meeting in the committee last friday it was up to the members to find consensus about the Danish vote, but the distance between the two camps was too large to reach a proposal to Danish Standards, who is the actually representative in ISO.

Danish Standards must find out how to vote on September 2th. How Danish Standards will vote will not be published before the meeting, so it will be on September 3rd.

But the committee could set up a delegation that will participate in the future work at ISO.

Half a victory
Oracle in Dnemark says that this is good. Oracle has the oppinion, that the overall important issue is, wether OOXML is interoperabel with the compeeting document format ODF, that is already an ISO standard. This has not yet been clarified to the committee, Oracle says. Oracle also concluedes that Dansish Standards can't post a yes-vote.

This is half a victory for open standards. The most important things forus has been, that there is not a yes-vote from Denmark, because the process has given us knowledge about several issues that hinders interoperability. The amount of issues and their character gives us no alternative to pass them on. This is an oppinion we share with the users", says the managing director from Oracle, Thomas Gergers Honorè.

The committee meets again in Danish Standards on September 28th.

News from Denmark UPDATE !

UPDATE:
It seems that the committee didn't come up with a concrete decision about what to vote. They have asked DS (Danish Standards) to send a delegation to ISO to hand over a long categorized list of comments. The list must be long and serious because it is inconsistent with a recommendation.

So, it will not be a yes !
The question is, if the delegates has the guts to put a no vote or if they will abstain from voting.

I'll try to find further information soon.
---

Thanks to John Gøtze for this information...

According to Danish Standards website http://www.ds.dk/3537 the result will be published on September 3th.

The committee has agreed that there is some issues that should be improved in ISO/IEC DIS 29500 OOXML. The committee has asked DS to post these issues to ISO.

The issues will be published together with the Danish ballot as well.

My own conclusion is, that it can't be a yes vote from Denmark, because the decision includes so called issues. The question is, how strong these issues are. But I think it will be abstain. There are too many M$ partners in the committee that wouldn't accept a no.

The Netherlands proposes revised procedures at ISO

Finally.

The Netherlands will abstain from voting. Not because they are happy about it, but because the procedures demands an abstention. It has appeared that it is actually impossible to vote no because Microsoft continuously obstructs the work.

On this site: ISOC.nl regrets absence of Netherlands decision on OOXML
Michiel Leenaars writes:

ISOC.nl recommends that the ISO procedures - and more specific the Fast Track procedure - be adapted significantly to better deal with controversial standards like DIS 29500/Office Open XML in order for ISO to maintain relevant. This includes demanding two interoperable and independent full implementations prior to accepting a submission for a Fast Track procedure.

Michiel is member of the Dutch committee.

Let's hear from other countries about this issue.

Is Microsoft taking over ISO ?

The Danish technical standard committee (DS) that is to vote on EOOXML is to become an international ISO standard is taken over by Microsoft partners. 17 out of 31 members are Microsoft partners or in other way associated with Microsoft.

Is the ISO organization totally gone to sleep ?

This is undermining the authority of the organization and we can no longer trust, that an ISO standard is a good quality standard. ISO is becoming a a blue rubber stamp where rich companies can get 'approval' of anything, as long as you pay the puppets.

Read the Danish article here: http://epn.dk/erhverv_samfund/article1022249.ece