Moved by Freedom - Powered by Standards

Yesterday I was honored to receive the “Lutèce d’Or” trophy on behalf of the OpenOffice.org Project from the hands of Mr Besson, Minister of the Prospective and Digital Technologies of the French Republic. There was a standing ovation, but this one was not so much dedicated to my humble person than it was to the OpenOffice.org project and its members.

OpenOffice.org won this award because of the success of its international scope and action; it is a bit unusual for us to win this kind of awards, but I am extremely happy we got this award. It outlines the hard work of the native-language projects worldwide, their successes on a global scale and -need I mention it?- the more than growing interest for OpenOffice.org.

OpenOffice.org download numbers are growing. The numbers I have are astounding. Let me just pick this one, for instance: OpenOffice.org 2.4.1, in French, on the servers monitored by the Francophone Project, has been downloaded two million (1, 998 000 to be more accurate) times in just three months. This only takes into account a handful of servers, one specific micro-version in one specific language over the course of the last three months. This does not cover the central servers, nor the mass of servers spread worldwide. This also does not cover CD and USB keys distribution, nor does it cover our peer-to-peer distribution. In short, the numbers show a tremendous momentum for OpenOffice.org, and one that sometimes gets unnoticed by the press.

All this would not be possible without the work of thousands of volunteers working on the code, quality assurance, documentation, translation, localization, user support and marketing, worldwide, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. This trophy is dedicated to all of them.

In the same train of thought, we are about to release OpenOffice.org 3.0. We have released the RC 2, and there will be a third one. And in order to celebrate the release the greatest OpenOffice.org version so far, we’ll be having a great party on the 13 ^th of October 2008. The Region Ile de France and we hope you can join us. (More information very, very soon).

Yesterday was also the day against software patents. I hope you signed the petition as well.

Last but not least, I would like to mention a great victory for Democracy that took place in Brussels yesterday. A set of directives has been discussed and voted on yesterday on the future of networks and spectrum at the European Parliament. As usual, what could have initially been a great opportunity for growth, innovation, and leadership in IT driven by the European Union was attacked by special interests groups of all kinds, all of them gunning against Net Neutrality and pushing for the most reactionary policies such as network filtering and censorship.

When I was a child my family and th school told me that what set us (France) aside of dictatorial regimes was that we were a democracy. Democracy means individual and collective freedom, freedom of speech, conscience, vote, etc. Some people in 2008 seem to have decide those criteria should be revisited. It is a shame, and not later than yesterday some of these lobbies pushed again a few friendly MEPs to attack the directives again. I am curious to know if the people who elected these politicians are even aware of what they are doing. So once again, democracy in Europe is in danger, and I would like to congratulate and express my deepest respect to our freedom fighters, french and others.

To all of them, to OpenOffice.org, to my readers,

Thank you!

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Now this is becoming interesting, or perhaps just very unfortunate: The countries appealing against the ISO procedure on the OOXML standardization have signed and sent a letter of protest to the ISO.

“ CONSEGI 2008 DECLARATION

We, the undersigned representatives of state IT organisations from Brazil, South Africa, Venezuela,  Ecuador, Cuba and Paraguay, note with disappointment the press release from ISO/IEC/JTC-1 of 20 August regarding the appeals registered by the national bodies of Brazil, South Africa, India and Venezuela.  Our national bodies, together with India, had independently raised a number of serious concerns about the process surrounding the fast track approval of DIS29500.  That those concerns were not properly addressed in the form of a conciliation panel reflects poorly on the integrity of these international standards development institutions.

Whereas we do not intend to waste any more resources on lobbying our national bodies to pursue the appeals further,  we feel it is important to make the following points clear:

1.The bending of the rules to facilitate the fast track processing of DIS29500 remains a significant concern to us.  That the ISO TMB did not deem it necessary to properly explore the substance of the appeals must, of necessity, put confidence in those institutions ability to meet our national requirements into question.
2.The overlap of subject matter with the existing ISO/IEC26300 (Open Document Format) standard remains an area of concern.  Many of our countries have made substantial commitments to the use of ISO/IEC26300, not least because it was published as an ISO standard in 2006.   
3.The large scale adoption of a standard for office document formats is a long and expensive exercise, with multi-year projects being undertaken in each of our countries.  Many of us have dedicated significant time and resources to this effort.  For example, in Brazil, the process of translation of ISO/IEC26300 into Portuguese has taken over a year.

The issues which emerged over the past year have placed all of us at a difficult crossroads.  Given the organisation’s inability to follow its own rules we are no longer confident that ISO/IEC will be capable of  transforming itself into the open and vendor-neutral standards setting organisation which is such an urgent requirement.  What is now clear is that we will have to, albeit reluctantly, re-evaluate our assessment of ISO/IEC, particularly in its relevance to our various national government interoperability frameworks.  Whereas in the past it has been assumed that an ISO/IEC standard should automatically be considered for use within government, clearly this position no longer stands.

-Aslam Raffee (South Africa)
Chairman, Government IT Officer’s Council Working Group on Open Standards Open Source Software

- Marcos Vinicius Ferreira Mazoni (Brazil)
Presidente, Servico Federal de Processamento de Dados

- Carlos Eloy Figueira (Venezuela)
President, Centro Nacional de Tecnologías de Información

- Eduardo Alvear Simba (Ecuador)
Director de Software Libre, Presidencia de la República

- Tomas Ariel Duarte C. (Paraguay)
Director de Informática, Presidencia de la República

- Miriam Valdés Abreu (Cuba)
D irectora de Análisis, Oficina para la Informatización.”

The ISO of course, standing straight in the boots of stubbornness, will not pay any attention to that letter, will dismiss it as a something that has no importance, and Patrick Durusau will entertain us with one of his tirades on those lousy teenagers. Patrick will ignore that “only” South Africa, Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela have appealed, as in case of a doubt, Microsoft and the pseudo-scientific arguments we had to bear for more than a year now about how much care the ISO has been taking on the standardization of OOXML will prevail over entire countries.

But who are we to interfere with the Masters of Scholastics of Geneva?

The most interesting part of that letter is not the protest itself: Those countries are outraged. Actually, the most interesting part of that letter is that it clearly shows that they have run out of options -and will- to appeal the ISO decisions. Which does not mean OOXML is a folded case; in contrary, the letter implicitly shows these countries will evaluate other kind of options. After all, the ISO has failed in its mission with OOXML. It has showed to the world that it could only accommodate the will of the mightiest and not reach consensus. Thus conclusions will be reached, and decisions made, and actions will be taken. And I don’t think it will comply with the ISO directions.

It is now the time for standardization experts to realize our standardization framework and processes are no longer effective when applied to the ICT sector. Oh, I know about the will of reform expressed by the ISO; and I am afraid it will lead to nothing good: in essence, to more patents on software. Here and there, lobbyists are at work. What I am talking about is the realization we are shifting paradigm in standardization and on many other areas when it comes to the information society.

What is being experimented at Digistan is in this sense quite interesting and telling of the future trends both in standards development and standardization framework. Wether Digistan as a project will be successful is of course another question. But we’d love to see everybody join in; the conversation has just started, and even Patrick Durusau is invited. He might find out that teenagers are not that stupid…

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That had to happen, and it had to be announced. Novell and Microsoft have basically extended their collaboration, although the point of such a partnership seems unclear to both of them if you read the fine print. On the one hand, Microsoft bought yet another share of Novell, this time for 100 millions (ah, those services contractors always end up lowering their fees) while Novell gets another cash infusion and keeps its marketing differentiator.

Matt Asay wrote a few days ago that Microsoft is essentially playing a dangerous game, one that could very well end up cannibalizing its own market by trying to pin Novell as a different and compelling Linux vendor. It is a subtle and interesting opinion, but I don’t think it actually flies.

Rather, I think that while Matt analyses the nature of the deal between Microsoft and Novell in a very compelling way, his prediction about Novell eventually winning the game in the end because of its partnership with Microsoft misses the point. What Matt expresses, I believe, is the point of view that many share inside Novell’s middle management circles. Which does not mean it’s bogus or irrelevant: It merely ignores another, central factor: Novell has actually been bought for good, and it’s just a vassal of a private monopoly. What is thought inside these middle management circles may not be what is being discussed elsewhere, higher up the food chain inside Novell.

One of the very sad aspects to this deal, and one that is often overlooked, is that Novell does not, did not, and will not need Microsoft’s partnership to succeed and thrive business-wise. Novell had and still has one of the most compelling value proposition without Microsoft out there. The problem is that Novell was and is in dire need of cash, and Microsoft was the one who was the most eager to bring a solution in this regard. Novell had a declining business line with its Netware products, and their Linux offerings were good, probably compelling, but they came in way too early. Those were the times of Jack Messman. Those were the times where SCO was patent-trolling half of the world. Those were times that saw the birth of Groklaw… But I digress. Novell still has one of the best offerings out there for Linux:

• a great distribution for the enterprise and another, very popular one for the “community” (OpenSuse)

• a certified, enterprise class Linux server platform that is distributed on the IBM mainframe offerings. Aside Red Hat, no other Linux vendor enjoys that position, although Canonical could join the fray.

• management tools of all kinds, including security and authentification technologies

• a very profitable, multiplatform groupware solution.

And last but not least, a shrinking(?) but still very nice customers’ portfolio. All this is not due to Microsoft. Nothing in the products and solutions mentioned above loses anything of its value. But here’s the catch: Most of these offerings generate revenue in a market where Linux enjoys a solid or rapidly growing share on the desktops, which is presently not the case. Novell is thus left out there finding growth and business opportunities. And just like in the tale, here comes Microsoft…

I don’t think enterprise customers want to switch to Linux in order to better stay with Microsoft. Some actually refuse such a deal, and there Novell loses pretty often. But what I also see is the buying process of some customers. Your job as a CIO/CFO/CLO (Chief Legal Officer) is to minimize the risks. And sometimes, you’re ready to do very ridiculous things to have no risk happening. So what does the Novell/Microsoft partnership amount to? In some -unfortunate- cases, it can be seen as a helpful insurance contract. Now, if I were the CEO in such a company, I would be having a serious conversation with my team about signing up for an insurance covering this kind of oddities. But fear is a powerful motivator, and many fall in its trap… especially corporate management.

Yet it could be worse: You could fall subjugated by Redmond, such as Patrick Durusau, the ODF editor. It’s sad to see such an expert turning upside down and seeing the invisible hand of IBM (ah, we hadn’t seen it since the eighties!) everywhere. Worse: According to Mr Durusau, Brazil, India, Venezuela, South Africa along with the countries who supported the appeals are nothing less than teenager; and whining, badly brought up teenagers at that. We shall thus take the advice of Mr Durusau: Be reasonable ! Submit! Resistance is futile! You don’t know what’s good for you! But does Microsoft know, Mr Durusau?

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Who would have believed it a few months ago? Who could tell Microsoft would “clarify” the coverage of its OSP and extend it to cover the GPL and FOSS developers as well as users? Clearly, pigs might actually fly, and Groklaw does think the same way.

As it was not enough, Microsoft also became an arch-sponsor of the Apache Foundation and paying a decent sum of money as sponsorship fees. IIS anyone? And wait, good news never come along. According to the guidelines of the OASIS Consortium, a member of any Technical Committee that is registered for more than 60 days in this committee automatically neutralizes its own IPR and cannot litigate against any member of the said committee, nor against any implementor, nor user of the standard at hand. In that case, that would be ODF. OOXML anyone?

Of course, there are drawbacks; the OSP still has many flaws, one of them being that it only covers the present version of the spec, and that nobody knows exactly what it refers to (Ecma 376?MS Office 2007 OOXML? The grand paraphernalia otherwise known as ISO/DIS 29500?). Another one is that it “only” allows you to implement the spec, and does not cover you if you modify it. Also, the OSP does not and will not change the flawed standardization processes that have led to the creation of an ISO standard called OOXML. In fact, many things are left as they are, and yet, it feels like so many other things have changed in less than a week.

Perhaps what is changing the IT industry is also changing Microsoft? Perhaps the inroads of OpenOffice.org, crowned and adorned several times this year (heck, that’s the year of the 3.0!), the ineluctable long march of Mozilla Firefox, the long agony of the “.doc” that has started with ODF and is only beginning to show thanks to many governments worldwide and more recently, the NATO, perhaps all this, and all the shame and negativity are starting to come back to Microsoft. Am I naive? No. On the long run, Redmond has no other choice to open up or die.

This is where we stand, at the edge of the foam, as the tidal waves of change are soaking up the sands of idleness. Of course, it’s a tidal movement, so the sands fight it off and the waves do sometimes recede. When they do, they usually leave a clear and white track of foam behind them. This is where the industry finds itself, not knowing if it should go back to the illusory safety of the shore or if it should rather take on the ocean, blissfully feeling the call of the horizon and the sweet bites of the fresh water flowing all around it, then going away to better come back.

Oh, there is to be sure much left to do for Microsoft to embrace the competition and change. I have heard today that many out there are still locked into the proprietary platforms trap. An example of this is what’s happening right now at the Bank of China. This bank recently upgraded its systems to what appears to be an all Microsoft environment. As a result, its customers are only able to perform their banking operations through the good old Internet Explorer. Wake up, folks. We’re in 2008 and such things should have stopped a long time ago. But I don’t see the lock-in effect being lift up by Microsoft any time soon.

So I was thinking that perhaps the good way to end up this post was to point to the excellent Michael Tiemann’s blog. I think Michael has devised some excellent proposals to Microsoft, and I could only wish for the same goals Michael is prescribing. Until then, I feel I should as a gracious gesture apologizing for my latest post about the OSP and the RAND license terms. What I wrote was absolutely true at that time, but I shall now leave it to Microsoft the duty to correct the impressions Ben Henrion and anyone who asked for the license terms for OOXML got when they received the answer from Redmond’s legal department.

The road to Canossa has just started…

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I have frequently expressed myself about the patent and business agreement between Novell and Microsoft. One and a half year later, this agreement continues to concern me and many others; last week however, we learned about another patent agreement, or rather a legal settlement  on software patents involving Red Hat and two other companies that are sometimes referred as « patent trolls ».

As I commented on Novell’s patent agreement, I felt it would also be interesting, if not only fair,  to comment on Red Hat’s patent settlement. NB: IANAL.

What happened in short:
Some time ago, some small and unknown companies sued Red Hat on the basis of alleged patent infringements. The issue at hand was theoretically a group of patents filed by FireStar Software covering some technology found in relational databases and was claimed to directly affect Hibernate and Jboss, two Red Hat solutions.

At the time the lawsuit started there was wild -but by no way foolish- speculations going on about the possible involvement of Microsoft behind that lawsuit. To this day, such an involvement has not been proven. Yet, it is known that Microsoft has so far made several public   assertions on patents it would own on Linux and several other Free Software. The difference between these claims and the legal settlement at hand is of course that Microsoft has so far threatened, but never showed what it had in its satchel. Are they bluffing? Probably. But by threatening fear, uncertainty and doubt can be easily spread and disseminated, which is exactly the reason why some users would not adopt FOSS.

Back to the Red Hat’s patent settlement. The outcome of the settlement  can be (simply) explained through two points:
Red Hat successfully demonstrated that the patent claims and the patents filed were invalid, and it demonstrated it through prior art. That means, there was a thorough research and  subsequent evidences showed that technologies claimed to be patented had already been invented before the companies owning the patents had even filed the first application. In short, what the plaintiffs had claimed they had invented turn out to be bogus.
Red Hat negotiated not just the mere logical conclusion stemming from facts established in court, it went a big step further, and that’s what has made this settlement so special. Red Hat extended the immunity related to the litigious patents to both its customers, but also to the whole community (some might say the universe). Even better, this settlement not only covers Red Hat and Fedora platforms, it covers anybody using the problematic software (the software apps that were allegedly infringing on the patents) wether or not it is using Red Hat. The settlement also extends this protection to any version of the covered software apps past, present and future.

Now let’s take a step back and compare it to the patent agreement between  Novell and Microsoft:
Novell did precisely not sign a patent agreement with Microsoft debunking any claims or myths related to FOSS infringing Microsoft’s “intellectual property”. It implicitly did just the contrary: Microsoft and Novell were teaming up to “protect” Novell customers against patent claims made by…Microsoft.
The agreement was only covering Novell customers (not even OpenSuse users) and was at the same time contradicting the GPL (v2). Red Hat’s settlement does not seem to conflict with any version of the GPL as it places no burden or extra deeds on users and developers of GPLv3 software (More on that later).
There was no prior art, no litigation, and perhaps as important as the rest, the Novell-Microsoft agreement involved money. Lots of it . On the other hand, Red Hat received to my knowledge no payment for the settlement and as a future outcome, no strong incentive to do business with the plaintiffs and have its existing customers sign some dubious “software patent insurance”.

So what made this patent settlement really historical? In my opinion,  the extension of the effects of  the settlement to the universe has made that settlement historical, and also provides the community at large with a strategical framework to deny any allegation of software patent infringement.

However,  it should be noted that what this settlement was all about was not about denying the existence of software patents. Remember that software patents do exist in North America and other parts of the world, and that some large corporations out there are working hard at pushing them in the European legal framework as well (and they don’t care about what people think, because Die Partei had immer Recht. ) What this settlement did was to take the patent threat away from nontrivial Free and Open Source software applications by demonstrating prior art, essentially demonstrating how the whole filing proved ignorant of the state of the art or perhaps, as some will point out, how disingenuous the whole adventure was.

Last but not least, one might wonder how “compliant” or “compatible” the results of the  settlement are in respect to the terms of the GPL v3. Groklaw has a pretty good post on this issue. Once again IANAL but here are some thoughts about this.

Contrary to what can be read here and there, the GPL v3 does not deny the existence of software patents. That would be stupid, as the GPL has been designed to live in a legal environment where such patent claims would be made against Free Software. What it does however is denying software patents the possibility to infringe on the users and developers’ freedom and ability to run, use, modify and redistribute software. If the software cannot be redistributed without some form of immunity in regard of software patents, then a poison pill option exists. Red Hat’s settlement does not apply here. What Red Hat did was “clean” patent busting: they demonstrated prior art first, and then essentially killed the patents by extending the immunity to those patents to anyone using the problematic software apps. That’s how historical it gets.

I am, just like many others, left not wholly satisfied by this. I am very happy of course, of the outcome of this lawsuit, but I know that the real issue at stake is software patents and that  what will really put all these issues to rest, ultimately, shall be the end of software patents.

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