From anthony itia.ntua.gr Wed Sep 5 10:50:17 2007 From: anthony itia.ntua.gr (Antonis Christofides) Date: Wed Sep 5 12:08:29 2007 Subject: [ANSOL] OOXML fails to get approval, but ISO process continues Message-ID: <200709051123.23911.news-bounces@ffii.org> FFII PRESS RELEASE -- [ Europe / Economy / Innovation ] ====================================================== OOXML fails to get approval, but ISO process continues ====================================================== Brussels, 5 September 2007. The draft standard OOXML submitted by Microsoft and ECMA has been rejected in a vote at ISO, reaching neither the required 2/3 majority among "participating countries" nor the required 3/4 majority among all countries. However, ISO decided not to finish the procedure yet, but instead to go for a ballot resolution meeting in February, where Microsoft will attempt to present solutions to the numerous problems that have been pointed out. If enough countries change their vote, the proposal still has a chance to pass. Several irregularities have been reported in the ISO process. These include purchasing of votes in Sweden, admitted by Microsoft; rejection of Microsoft's competitors in Portugal because of lack of chairs; hijacking of standardisation committees in many countries, including USA, Italy, Colombia and Mexico; manipulations of the vote process by presidencies in Switzerland and Uruguay; replacement of an insufficiently Microsoft-friendly technical committee by a "more agreeable" one in Poland; non-acceptance of competition in Venezuela and Ukrania; and more. In general the process has been driven, except in a minority of the countries, by attempts to put as many gold partners as possible in the committee responsible. Benjamin Henrion, leader of the FFII NoOOXML.org campaign, comments: "The OOXML proposal is so poor that if anyone else had submitted it they would have been laughed at. I don't understand why the ISO secretariat has not already put it in the waste basket. The continuation of the process means more scandals hurting the public image of ISO." Alberto Barrionuevo, FFII vice president, agrees: "What is at stake is not so much the fate of the inappropriately named 'Open XML' format, but ISO's reputation. The fact that many ISO member bodies have approved of OOXML due to severe manipulations suggests that the process needs to be overhauled. We strongly recommend that ISO reconsiders its system and regulations." ====================== Background Information ====================== Microsoft has been pushing for adoption of its Microsoft Office file format as an ISO standard. The format was adopted as ECMA 376, and ECMA subsequently submitted it to ISO for fast-track (six-month) approval. An unprecedented number of comments by ISO member bodies had been submitted in the first stage of the process in February 2007. More information is available in http://www.NoOOXML.org/, FFII's web site campaign. The ballot results are at http://www.NoOOXML.org/ballotresults. An HTML version of this press release, as well as previous press releases, can be found at http://press.ffii.org/Press_releases/. =================== Contact information =================== Benjamin Henrion, FFII Brussels, +32 484 566109 (French, English) Alberto Barrionuevo, Vice President, +34 639708494 (Spanish, English) ============== About the FFII ============== The FFII is a not-for-profit association active in over thirty countries, dedicated to the development of information goods for the public benefit, based on copyright, free competition, open standards. More than 850 members, 3,500 companies and 100,000 supporters have entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy questions concerning exclusion rights (intellectual property) in data processing. _______________________________________________ bxl mailing list (un)subscribe via http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/bxl and http://aktiv.ffii.org/. If you subscribed via the latter, you can unsubscribe only by going to both. From rms ansol.org Wed Sep 19 00:18:44 2007 From: rms ansol.org (Rui Miguel Silva Seabra) Date: Wed Sep 19 09:37:44 2007 Subject: [ANSOL] Much ado about nothing Message-ID: <20070918231844.GD2885@roque.1407.org> Much ado about nothing? 19 de Setembro de 2007 Tribunal reafirma sentença, Microsoft continua sem cumprir É fácil verificar no histórico deste processo[1], movido pela Comissão Europeia contra o abuso de poder do monopólio da Microsoft, que esta empresa não está minimamente interessada em cumprir com as suas obrigações, apesar das ocas palavras de Brad Smith[2], transcrevidas por um agente de propaganda da Microsoft, Stephen McGibbon[3]: É-nos claramente muito importante, como uma companhia, cumprir com as nossas obrigações na lei Europeia. Vamos estudar esta decisão cuidadosamente, e se existirem passos adicionais que necessitamos tomar para cumprir com ela, tomá-los-emos. Afinal? se estivessem interessados não teriam andado 3 anos a tentar anular a pena. E o que é a pena? * Ao contrário do que dizem alguns pasquins, a Microsoft não tem de publicar código do qual detém os direitos de autor * Tem que pagar uma miséria (por grande que nos pareça é uma muito reduzida parcela (estimava-se na altura representar 1% ou 2% das reservas líquidas da Microsoft) * Bem mais importante que esta miséria? cumprir com um conjunto de remedeios dos quais se destacam a publicação das especificações de formatos e protocolos que permitam à concorrência interoperar com o seu software Apelou, e o resultado do seu apelo[4] valeu à Microsoft o seguinte: THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Grand Chamber) hereby: 1. Annuls Article 7 of Commission Decision 2007/53/EC of 24 March 2004 relating to a proceeding pursuant to Article 82 [EC] and Article 54 of the EEA Agreement against Microsoft Corp. (Case COMP/C-3/37.792 ? Microsoft), in so far as: * it orders Microsoft to submit a proposal for the establishment of a mechanism which is to include a monitoring trustee with the power to have access, independently of the Commission, to Microsoft?s assistance, information, documents, premises and employees and to the source code of the relevant Microsoft products; * it requires that the proposal for the establishment of that mechanism provide that all the costs associated with the appointment of the monitoring trustee, including his remuneration, be borne by Microsoft; and * it reserves to the Commission the right to impose by way of decision a mechanism such as that referred to in the first and second indents above; 2. Dismisses the remainder of the application; 3. Orders Microsoft to bear 80% of its own costs and to pay 80% of the Commission?s costs, with the exception of the costs incurred by the Commission in connection with the intervention of The Computing Technology Industry Association, Inc., Association for Competitive Technology, Inc., TeamSystem SpA, Mamut ASA, DMDsecure.com BV, MPS Broadband AB, Pace Micro Technology plc, Quantel Ltd, Tandberg Television Ltd and Exor AB; 4. Orders Microsoft to bear its own costs and to pay the Commission?s costs relating to the interim measures proceedings in Case T?201/04 R, with the exception of the costs incurred by the Commission in connection with the intervention of The Computing Technology Industry Association, Association for Competitive Technology, TeamSystem, Mamut, DMDsecure.com, MPS Broadband, Pace Micro Technology, Quantel, Tandberg Television and Exor; 5. Orders Microsoft to pay the costs of Software & Information Industry Association, Free Software Foundation Europe, Audiobanner.com and European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS), including those relating to the interim measures proceedings; 6. Orders the Commission to bear 20% of its own costs and to pay 20% of Microsoft?s costs, with the exception of the costs incurred by Microsoft in connection with the intervention of Software & Information Industry Association, Free Software Foundation Europe, Audiobanner.com and ECIS; 7. Orders The Computing Technology Industry Association, Association for Competitive Technology, TeamSystem, Mamut, DMDsecure.com, MPS Broadband, Pace Micro Technology, Quantel, Tandberg Television and Exor to bear their own costs, including those relating to the interim measures proceedings. Ou seja: 1. anula a obrigação de ter um vigia, a pagar pela Microsoft, e a possibilidade da CE forçar a existência de um vigia 2. Obriga a Microsoft a pagar 80% dos seus custos e dos custos da CE (com excepção das testemunhas de defesa) 3. Obriga a Microsoft a pagar a totalidade dos custos seus e da CE relacionados com as medidas interinas (com excepção das testemunhas de defesa) 4. Obriga a Microsoft a pagar a totalidade dos custos das testemunhas da acusação 5. Obriga a CE a pagar 20% dos seus próprios custos, bem como 20% dos custos da Microsoft não relacionados com as testemunhas da acusação 6. Obriga as testemunhas de defesa a pagarem os seus próprios custos NADA foi assegurado em relação à única concorrência com potencial de viabilidade, o Software Livre, mais especificamente projectos como, e só para listar dois, o Samba e o OpenOffice.org. Da Nota para a Impresa da FSF Europe[5], Volker Lendecke do projecto Samba, avisa que o projecto vai estar muito atento aos termos exactos do licenciamento da informação de interoperabilidade: Será muito importante assegurar que a informação é utilizável por Software Livre, de outra forma o grande sucesso que a Comissão obteve será estragado severamente. Com efeito, e já o diz a Nota para a Imprensa da FFII[6], como a Comissão Europeia não tem feito um bom trabalho na área das patentes de software? A decisão parece positiva, mas chega com cinco anos de atraso. Durante esse tempo, a Microsoft fez lobby a favor das patentes de software na Europa, e comprou patentes em muitos conceitos triviais. Alegou violações de patentes da parte do [GNU/]Linux, colocou bombas-relógio no formato de patentes nos seus formatos e interfaces, e tornou o medo das patentes numa parte nuclear da sua estratégia de negócio. Vai agora abrir os seus formatos, porque isso lhe permite extender o seu franchise de patentes ainda mais além. ? explicou Pieter Hintjens, presidente da FFII. Sobre a forma como a Microsoft pretende licenciar esta informação[7], Jeremy Allison, também do projecto Samba, diz: Lemos a licença, é impossível publicar implementações livre do produto. Tem de ser mantido o segredo. Isto derrota por completo a ideia do Software Livre. As notícias só falam dos trocos (muito incompletos) dos 500 milhões de Euros, enquanto o importante passou completamente ao lado. Business as usual? Sobre a ANSOL A Associação Nacional para o Software Livre é uma associação portuguesa sem fins lucrativos que tem como fim a divulgação, promoção, desenvolvimento, investigação e estudo da Informática Livre e das suas repercussões sociais, políticas, filosóficas, culturais, técnicas e científicas. http://www.ansol.org/ Contactos Rui Miguel Seabra Vice-Presidente da Direcção rms@ansol.org 931 100 769 Links: [1] http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/form.pl?lang=EN&Submit=Rechercher$docrequire=alldocs&numaff=T-201/04&datefs=&datefe=&nomusuel=&domaine=&mots=&resmax=100 [2] http://notes2self.net/archive/2007/09/17/brad-smith-on-today-s-cfi-decision.aspx [3] http://notes2self.net/ [4] http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/form.pl?lang=EN&Submit=Rechercher$docrequire=alldocs&numaff=T-201/04&datefs=&datefe=&nomusuel=&domaine=&mots=&resmax=100 [5] http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2007q3/000186.html [6] http://press.ffii.org/Press_releases/Microsoft_will_trump_EU_competition_ruling_with_patents [7] http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/intellectualproperty/protocols/PricingOverview.mspx