Ubuntu-Pakistan Counter the MS backed OOXML against the OpenOffice OpenDocument Format ISO Standard http://lists.alternatedevelopment.org/mailman/listinfo/noooxml

[Fouad Riaz Bajwa]

Call to all educated and knowledgeable technical FOSS Community Members
please read this and take action:

Subscribe to: http://lists.alternatedevelopment.org/mailman/listinfo/noooxml
and read http://www.noooxml.org. Once aware, join Academia, Civil Society
and the country's Open Source companies on the campaign by Pakistani FOSS
and Linux Community against the MS OOXML format that was hijacked by MS
through the "Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority" PSQCA
http://www.psqca.com.pk, read on........

I hope all of you are aware of the debate surrounding the OASIS OpenDocument
Format ODF by the open source community that was accepted as an ISO Standard
earlier last year in May 2006. The OpenDocument format (ODF, ISO/IEC 26300,
full name: OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications) is a file
format for electronic office documents, such as spreadsheets, charts,
presentations and word processing documents. ODF is officially used in Open
Office and Linux and endorsed by Governments and companies worldwide. Read
more about the ODF at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument or test the
documents at http://testsuite.opendocumentfellowship.com. 

Microsoft on the other hand must've felt the need to compete with this
format as its monopoly through the MS Office formats were on the fall
globally and went ahead to introduce a broken specification called the
Office Open OOXML. I hope you can sarcastically anticipate what that means!
As Wikipedia says on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ooxml that it is not to be
confused with OpenOffice.org (an unrelated office suite) or "Open Office
XML" (a colloquial synonym for OpenOffice.org XML). Office Open XML
(commonly referred to as OOXML or OpenXML) is an XML-based file format
specification for electronic documents such as spreadsheets, charts,
presentations and word processing documents. 

Microsoft originally developed the specification as a successor to its
binary Microsoft Office file formats and it was handed over to Ecma
International to be developed as the Ecma 376 standard, which was published
in December 2006. Controversially, the specification is currently undergoing
fast-track standardization within ISO/IEC as DIS 29500 (Draft International
Standard 29500), but the draft text has failed (as of the September 2007
ballot) to reach sufficient approval from ISO/IEC national body members to
be accepted as a standard. A ballot resolution process will allow for the
text to be amended and a final decision to be reached on its acceptability
for standardization. 

NOW WHAT?

OOXML scrapes through, final vote Feb 2008 on 2 September 2007, ISO national
bodies voted on Ecma 376, "OOXML". 

The ISO secretariat has decided to move forward with a Ballot Resolution
Meeting in February 2008 to make the final decision. Microsoft got to pass
with 19 "difficulties" round one (fasttrack OOXML) and lost round two (vote
on OOXML), and now the fight moves to round three, the definitive one. From
February 25 to 29, 2008, national boards will meet in Geneva to discuss and
vote finally on OOXML. If our country is not present, it won't have a say in
the final result. It needs to submit a delegation list by December 11. The
http://www.noooxml.org website explains how to help our national ISO board
do its job and reject OOXML. 

The Case in Pakistan: 

We caught on a bit late as usual in Pakistan when the national standards
committee "Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority" PSQCA
http://www.psqca.com.pk (working under the Ministry of Science and
Technology http://www.most.gov.pk) had taken a decision influenced by MS
bandits, 4 MS Gold Partners and just the misinformed officials of PSQCA and
kept the academia, civil society and FOSS companies out, yes, this was
before the emergency declaration! Guys, the documentation of OOXML is 6000
pages long, imagine, ours hardly can read the cover!

The next phase is to help the final decision that takes place in February
next year and we have made aware the Pakistan Software Export Board PSEB
http://www.pseb.org.pk and their department the Open Source Resource Center
OSRC http://www.osrc.org.pk to intervene through their parent Ministry of
IT&Telecom and deliberate Civil Society, Private Sector and then Academic
votes inclusion in to the Ministry of Science and Technology. These were the
comments by the Managing Director of PSEB Yusuf Hussain:

"Regarding OOXML, PSEB is working with PSQCA to make the IT committee more
representative and to ensure that it follows due process. If that does not
work within the next week or so, we will write to the Ministry asking for
this. At that point, our mandate is exhausted." -- Yusuf

Secondly, we have already failed to get people into the upcoming meeting on
28th Nov 2007 at the PQCSA office in Karachi. Regarding the OOXML issue and
the companies will be attending it! It has to be lingo that Pakistani's can
understand that are on the first step of this struggle!

In Pakistan, we are taking the understanding of Alternate Development
endorsing the FFII.org (the organization that runs the global NOOOXML
Campaign through www.noooxml.org) vision and we have got the website at
http://www.alternatedevelopment.org to take things forward with a mailing
list at http://lists.alternatedevelopment.org/mailman/listinfo/noooxml

Looking forward to support for FFII Pakistan!

Here is Pakistan's ISO membership page:
http://www.iso.org/iso/about/iso_members/iso_member_body.htm?member_id=2017 

Best
Fouad Bajwa