[odf-discuss] GNOME Foundation Statement on ECMA TC45-M Participation

[Alberto Barrionuevo]

Thank you for the clear positioning, Jeff and team. So valuable the effort.

Looks very good -surelly the point 5 is the only possible point of 
disagreement but does not seems a big issue anyway-.

Are we authorized to translate it? (Spanish/Portuguese at least). We can share 
the result with you if you are interested.

Best,
  Alberto.


El Friday 23 November 2007 00:45:38 Jeff Waugh escribió:
>   Given the amount of discussion on this list about the open letter and our
>   participation in ECMA TC45-M, I figured it would be helpful to post this
>   directly to the list. - Jeff
>
> GNOME Foundation Statement on ECMA TC45-M Participation
> =======================================================
>
> In recent weeks, a number of articles 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 maneouvres around the standards process
>     demonstrates 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.
>
>     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 at gnome.org
>   Phone: +61 2 9318 0284
>   Mobile: +61 423 989 818
>
> This statement is also available on the GNOME website:
>
>   http://www.gnome.org/press/releases/ecma-tc45-statement.html
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-- 
Alberto Barrionuevo
Vice President FFII
www.ffii.org