2008-04 OOXML irregularities in Norway

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[This is a draft written by Tobias Brox and may not reflect EFNs official point of view. Also edited by Geir Isene, same disclaimer]

List of "irregularities", possible irregularities and "dishonesty" in the Norwegian OOXML "war". Disclaimer: We're not implying that anyone has broken any laws - but a technical standard should be evolved and approved on it's technical merits, not by political or commercial pressure, nor from personal opinions from administrative staff in SN.

  • 2007: committee stuffing: the NS/K 185 committee grew from 6-7 persons to 30 persons due to the OOXML case. In Norway, the committee was stuffed from both parts, many of the new members were against OOXML. There exists a list of committee members being openly against OOXML (also including at least 5 old members of NS/K 185) available at http://people.opera.com/howcome/2008/ooxml/brev.html. It's worth noting that all the old-timers in the committee were against OOXML becoming an ISO-standard. At the other side of the table, there is at least Shahzad Rana, who is openly paid by Microsoft to lobby for the OOXML standard. There is also a representative from the Norwegian company Statoil working for OOXML. (What commercial interest does an oil company have in document formats anyway?)
  • 2007: petition campaign: SN had an open hearing, where anyone was invited to write comments on OOXML. Microsoft initiated sort of a petition - ref http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=200708301301334 and http://www.digi.no/php/art.php?id=394678 (Norwegian). Of course, it is not illegal to seek support for one's view, but such a campaign is at least controversial – and there is reason to suspect that not all letters received were genuinely representing the official view of the organization sending the letter. Some of the letters were received without a valid signature. Some enquiries have been made towards Sámediggi [Sámi Parliament]. They wrote back that "this is not to be considered as our official point of view", "this is not our normal procedure for participation in hearings", "we don't find it needed to correct this mistake since Norway anyway voted NO". They also write that they have decided to upgrade to Office 2007, that Sámi character support and support for old Office documents are important for them, and that it would be nice for them if OOXML became ISO-format. Other organizations have also been contacted, and they all have the same story; the person signing was not authorized to make such a statement, etc.
  • 2007: meeting haywire: Ivar Jachwitz led the meeting in SN/K 185 which gave Norway's vote to OOXML. The meeting is described by Geir Isene at http://blogs.freecode.no/isene/?p=3 – and it's pretty obvious that Jachwitz has a strong wish for OOXML to pass: "The meeting started with [Jachwitz] trying to lay down the rules of the game: We are here to go through the documents with comments to the standard and only those comments that we agree on will be passed on to ISO. He took up the first point (mine) and asked: “Are there any disagreement to this point?“. Unsurprisingly, a lady from Microsoft replied “We disagree“. He went on “OK, so we have a disagreement on this point” and was ready to move on to the next."
  • 2007: Despite the attempts to quench the criticism against OOXML, the meeting ended up with quite some substantial comments against the OOXML standard. However, after the meeting, SN published a press statement describing our vote as a "conditional yes" (which technically is correct) and downplaying the comments sent to ISO – http://www.standard.no/imaker.exe?id=17235 (Norwegian)
  • 2007: ECON, on assignment from Microsoft, delivers a report estimating the cost of the governments decision to publish user-editable documents in ODF format to be 778 MNOK. This report is based on false premises, i.e. that all publications as well as internal administration documents have to be converted to ODF, it is also based on the assumption that MS Office never will support ODF and that all administration and bureaucracy in Norway will forever use only MS Office. The conversion cost is not explicitly explained in the report, but set quite high – above 5 EUR pr document. The document is obviously worthless for anything except as ammunition for Microsoft Norway. The report is found (in Norwegian) at http://www.econ.no/stream_file.asp?iEntityId=3332 and criticism (also in Norwegian) can be found at http://folk.uio.no/gisle/essay/ms12.html and http://audun.norblogg.net/2008/03/06/ooxml-odf-og-kostnader/
  • 2008: Norway's delegation to the BRM: Bjørnhild Sæterøy (hired as administrative staff in Standard Norge, apparently quite positive to OOXML), Shahzad Rana (OOXML-Lobbyist hired by Microsoft), Knut Tungland (working for Statoil – which for some reason or another is backing OOXML) plus Erlend Øverby – neutral accessibility expert. SN issued a press release declaring the BRM as a big success – http://www.standard.no/imaker.exe?id=18477 – all other reports I've seen from the meeting says that there was only time to go through some few of all the comments, for instance this report from the Greek delegation:

http://elot.ece.ntua.gr/te48/ooxml/brm-clarifications

  • Jachwitz took over the role to moderate SN/K 185 because the previous leader was openly negative to OOXML and therefore not suitable to lead the committee. However, there are quite strong indications that Jachwitz from the very beginning wanted OOXML to pass.
  • Jachwitz has been handling the case quite inconsistently. In the first SN/K 185 meeting, he demanded full agreement on any comments to be sent to ISO, meaning that the default vote in case one person wouldn't agree on any of the comments would be YES. He also told that the letter campaign would be disregarded, and that no voting would occur. The importance of a consensus in the committee was not so important at the second meeting – the meeting in the committee was without relevance at all, Jachwitz had already decided long time in advance that Norway was to change its vote from NO to YES – one of his reasonings being that "all the votes counted together, from the inquiry and meeting, there is a majority for YES"? It just doesn't make sense.
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