[odf-discuss] Alex Brown on OOo ODF validity

[marbux]

On Sat, May 3, 2008 at 2:42 AM, Ian Lynch <ian.lynch at zmsl.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 2008-05-02 at 16:37 -0700, marbux wrote:
> > <http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39409700,00.htm>
> >
> > Alex Brown, a document-format expert who is convenor of the process to
> > standardise Office Open XML (OOXML), posted a blog this week
>
> This entire debate shows why there should be only one ISO standard.


How so? There are no full-featured editors that can write  conformant
ISO/IEC:26300. It looks to me as though with the blunders committed by the
major ODF vendors that the only ISO/IEC standard that will have conformant
support by  full-featured editors will be ISO/IEC:29500, assuming Microsoft
carries through on its commitment to provide conformant support of
ISO/IEC:29500 in MS Office. See comments by Rob Weir and me here, <
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39409700,00.htm>.
StarOffice, Lotus Symphony, OpenOffice.org and the various clones of the
latter's code base are one World Trade Organization legal challenge away
from being declared ineligible as government procurement candidates for all
governments that have identified ISO/IEC:26300 as a procurement
specification and national standard. A similar challenge in the European
Union judicial processes could also produce the same result throughout
Europe. Likewise individual lawsuits could produce a similar result in any
nation that is a member of the Agreement on Government Procurement where any
branch of government has adopted ISO/IEC:26300 as a procurement
specification.

What good is an international standard if no one supports it with conforming
implementations? See e.g., <
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Document_Architecture>.

Those who regard the law as mere pedantry have never looked up the barrel of
a court's injunction.

"The law, Roper, the law. I know what's legal, not what's right. And I'll
stick to what's legal. . . . I'm not God. The currents and eddies of right
and wrong, which you find such plain-sailing, I can't navigate, I'm no
voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh there I'm a forester. . . . What
would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? . . .
And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you - where
would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? . . . This country's planted
thick with laws from coast to coast - Man's laws, not God's - and if you cut
them down . . . d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that
would blow them? . . . Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own
safety's sake."

 R. Bolt, A Man for All Seasons, Act I, p. 147 (Three Plays, Heinemann ed.
1967), as quoted in Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153,
195-196 (1978),  <
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=437&invol=153>
(completion of "virtually complete" major dam halted).

What happens to your business, Ian, if the courts rule that all major ODF
implementations are ineligible for government procurement tenders because
they can't write conformant ISO/IEC:26300? Are you willing to bet that
portion of your business on Microsoft not asking a judge to pull that
trigger? That is what you are doing.

In my experience, judges are far less likely to enforce my notion of what is
fair and just than they are to enforce the law. The government procurement
tender and national technical regulation both say ISO/IEC:26300 but OOo
writes to ODF 1.1. On what grounds would you argue that OOo remains eligible
as a procurement candidate?

Best regards,

Paul
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