This tool allows users to organize personal selections of pages in a book. Books can be
edited & structured using chapters
persisted & loaded, shared
rendered as PDF (example)
exported as ODF Text Document
ordered as a printed book with PediaPress (example)

i4i’s statement on the Microsoft injunction:
http://www.i4i.com/collateral/i4i_on_Microsoft_Ruling.pdf

Financila Post: Court upholds i4i victory against Microsoft http://www.financialpost.com/related/topics/story.html?id=2371197

Microsoft Loses Yet Another Word Patent Appeal:
http://erictric.com/tag/i4i-inc/

“Nimetus e-luger võib esialgu küll võõras tunduda, kuid sellisena on keeleinimesed selle heaks kiitnud. Seda see pisike seade teeb – aitab lugeda ja kaasas kanda e-raamatuid, mis olemuselt on lihtsalt arvutifailid,” lausub raamatupoeketi Rahva Raamat turundusjuht Anu Vagenstein.

Eestis müüb e-raamatulugemiseks tarvilikku e-lugerit alates veebruari lõpust Rahva Raamatu esinduskauplus. Kümmekond lugerit on kuu ajaga ära müüdud hoolimata tõsiasjast, et eestikeelset kirjandust neisse esialgu veel pakkuda ei ole.

Anu Vagensteini sõnul pole praegu veel müügiks tarvilikku internetikeskkonda, mille kaudu lugejale maakeelseid e-raamatuid pakkuda, kuid see olukord lahenevat peagi. “Mitmel meie kirjastajal on e-raamatud või valmisolek nende pakkumiseks olemas. See on tõesti vaid paari kuu küsimus, kui saab hakata alla laadima ka eestikeelseid raamatuid,” ütleb ta.

Turundusjuhi sõnul valisid nad oma ketis müümiseks kaubamärgi Cool-er lugeri, kuna see ei ole seotud ühegi konkreetse müügikeskkonnaga. “Cool-eril on vaba tarkvara, see ei ole seotud Rahva Raamatuga, nagu Amazoni Kindle oma keskkonnaga ja sinna saab laadida ka teistest keskkondadest ostetud faile. Meie huvi on müüa ikkagi e-raamatuid ja pakume lugejale hea hinnaga (Cool-er maksab poes 3900 krooni) e-lugerit,” räägib ta.

Raamatud, mida saab Eestis pakutavasse Cool-eri nime kandvasse USA päritolu lugerisse laadida üsna varsti, pannakse turundusjuhi sõnul vastavalt kas e-booki või tavalise pdf-faili formaati. Peale raamatute talletamise ja lugemise on selles konkreetses e-lugeris ka MP3-mängija, mis võimaldab kuulata sinna salvestatud muusikafaile. Raamatulehitsejale on lisatud elektronjärjehoidja, samuti saab salvestatud tekstidest otsida kindlaid sõnu või sõnakombinatsioone.

Imiteerib pärispaberit ja -tinti

Arvutist ja e-lugerist teksti lugemine päris sama ei ole: viimasel on pikaajaliseks lugemiseks spetsiaalne silmasõbralik e-tinditehnoloogia, mis imiteerib pärispaberit ja võimaldab seadet kasutada ka päikesevalguses. “Kui raamat on väga kriiskavvalgele põhjale trükitud või hästi väikeses kirjas, on e-lugerist sellega võrreldes teksti ehk mõnusamgi lugeda,” tähendab Anu Vagenstein. E-lugeris saab teksti suurust, fonti, paigutust ekraanil ja muid sätteid mõne nupuvajutusega muuta. Tähelepanuväärne on ka tema aku vastupidavus – enne uut laadimist võimaldab pisike seade pöörata üle 8000 lehekülje ja akut kasutabki seade vaid lehe pööramisel. Passiivse lugemise ajal seade toidet turundusjuhi kinnitusel ei kuluta.

Üks oluline puudus e-lugeril tavalise raamatuga võrreldes siiski on – vinge kujundusega pildiraamatuid või koomikseid sellesse pisikesse vidinasse esialgu mõtet osta ei ole. “See näitab küll pilti, aga mitte värvilist. Pilt antakse ekraanil edasi kaheksa eri halli tooni abil,” lausub Vagenstein.

Palju reisivale inimesele on e-luger kahtlemata kasulik riist. Selle asemel, et vedada kaasas küllaltki raskeid ja ruumivõtvaid raamatuid, saab kerges elektrontahvlis kaasas kanda tervet raamatukogu. Kui muidu mahutab e-luger korraga mõnisada raamatut, siis 4 GB mälukaardi lisamisel lausa tuhandeid.

“Õppejõule, kes peab loenguid maailma eri paigus asuvates ülikoolides, on e-luger kahtlemata asendamatu. Samuti ärimeestele, poliitikutele või teistele, kel vaja teha tööd suure hulga tekstidega, ehkki tekstitöötlemine on seadmes aeglasem kui arvutis,” märgib Rahva Raamatu turundusjuht.

Lugeri teine tulevane suur sihtrühm võiks Vagensteini hinnangul olla kooliõpilased ja tudengid: “Mõelge, kui palju kaalub praegu õpikute tõttu ka esimestes klassides käiva õpilase koolikott! E-lugerite kasutuselevõtt leevendaks probleemi oluliselt. Sel teemal on arutelud käimas ka Eestis. Loomulikult peaks aga enne alanema toote hind.”

Eesti e-raamatu põlvkonnani läheb aega

Ühendriikides olevat e-raamatu põlvkond juba tekkinud. Millal lähevad e-raamatud moodi Eestis? Anu Vagensteini sõnul võtab see veel aega päris kaua. “Lähiaastal ei juhtu midagi, mõningast elavnemist sellel turul ennustatakse mõne aasta pärast. Eestis kirjutatud raamatuid saab selles formaadis osta kindlasti rutem kui tõlkeraamatuid. Läheme vaikselt teele ja vaatame, kes kaasa tuleb. Me ei kavatse ju asendada pärisraamatuid e-raamatutega, vaid pigem lihtsalt proovida uusi võimalusi, mida raamatumaailm pakub,” kinnitab ta.

E-raamatute ost internetis on lihtne: tuleb teos välja valida, märkida, mis tüüpi arvutisse soovid selle alla laadida (PC või Mac), vajutada vastavat ikooni ja tõmmata fail alla. Sealt omakorda on see USB-liidese kaudu hõlpsasti laaditav e-lugerisse.

E-raamatu hind ei ole seejuures väga odav: Anu Vagensteini sõnul saab elektronraamatu trüki-, materjali- ja logistikakulude ärajäämisel kätte vaid maksimaalselt 30% paberraamatust odavamalt, kuna autoritasud ja muu ju ikkagi säilivad. “USA näide on selles suhtes kehv, et nad saavad juba ilmunud raamatute e-versioonidelt meeletuid allahindlusi teha. Turu massiivsus mängib siin suurt rolli,” nendib turundusspets.

Üsna suur osa inimesi armastab sülearvuti endale voodisse tassida, et mugavalt lesides uudiseid lugeda või filmi vaadata. Põhimõtteliselt pole välistatud, et osa inimkonnast harjub ka e-raamatutega ning trükilõhnalist virna öökapil või voodi all hakkab neil asendama just see seade, mis on natuke suurem kui laste hulgas mõni hea aasta tagasi populaarne Nintendo-mängukonsool. Juba on maailmas müügil ka õhukesed e-raamatud, mida saab käte vahel painutada ja millel tekst vastavalt ekraanile kohandub.

“E-raamat on mõnus ja kerge küll, ehkki minu jaoks isiklikult tundub ta ideaalseim reisivahendina,” tõdeb Anu Vagenstein, kelle esimene valik raamatusõbrana on ikkagi pärisraamat.
Samal teemal

Software giant Microsoft has lost out to ODF in the battle to serve as the state’s open source document provider

After years of deliberation, parliament has voted to stop using Microsoft’s Open Suite file format and switch to ‘Open Document Format’, reports financial daily Børsen.

Already in 2006, parliament had voted to abandon common Microsoft document programmes such as Word in favour of open source documents. But the choice at that point came down to using Microsoft’s own OOXML open source format or ODF, whose specifications were originally developed by Sun Microsystems. The ODF standard was created by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards.

MPs voting for the change said the new format will be cheaper than Microsoft’s and of a higher quality. They have allowed, however, for the future use of OOXML documents within the system.

The new format will take effect on 1 April 2011.

“My ambition is that in the future we will only communicate using open standards,” Science Minister Helge Sander of moderate right wing party Venstre told Denmark’s Parliament.
The decision to axe Microsoft’s Office document formats won cross-party support.
“We believe that open source is the way forward and should replace the patent attitudes that we currently have,” said the Unity List’s Per Clausen.
For the time being, only national institutions will make the switch to ODF. Regional bodies will make the shift at a later, yet to be announced, date.
In February 2008 a Danish Unix user group – DKUUG – lashed out at Microsoft’s Office 2007 file format, by filing a formal complaint to the European Union. It claimed MS was in breach of the EC Treaty article 81 on unfair competition over the Danish state mandatory regulation of ECMA-approved OOXML.
“DKUUG asks the commission to make a decision to make void the part on OOXML of the Danish regulation on mandatory standards [ECMA-376 or ISO/IEC DIS 29500] OOXML, so that other products can participate in the competition on office software for the Danish state," it demanded at the time.
“This is in line with regulations in other countries, for example in the federal Belgium, or Norway, where only the ISO standard ODF is specified for the subject.”
DKUUG vice chair Keld Simonsen claimed that the Danish state was allowing Redmond to maintain a private monopoly in Denmark, even though OOXML didn’t fulfill the “requirements on openness” that Parliament agreed upon in its decision B103 in 2006.
“A document standards decision may not matter to you today, but as someone who relies on constant access to editable documents, spreadsheets and presentations, it may matter immensely in the near future,” said Bhorat.
Of course, those comments came at a time when Microsoft was still battling to gain ISO approval of the OOXML format.
By April that year, MS finally sealed a deal to get OOXML recognised as an international standard alongside ODF.
Nearly two years on, and Denmark’s parliamentary members have blown a big fat raspberry in Microsoft’s "we’re interoperable" face.

The bad news about ePub is that it’s really cumbersome to deal with and it’s easier to just strip out all extra formatting, as you do for Smashwords books, because ePub is really just a fancy text file. It is possible to do more with it, but it’s not easy. Given that the iPad is built around the app store ($9.99 per app), a Create a Book app could be in the pipeline. There was a thought that Apple might be creating its own user-friendly format, but instead chose the universal ePub format.

This is a surprisingly rare but welcome move for Apple in embracing a non-proprietary media format.

ePub doesn’t mean no DRM, but it does mean you’ll be able, if only through third party Apps, to transfer your own books from other devices.

Jeff Bezos has got to be nursing a migraine right now.

Reports start to appear in the press about the ODF support quality enabled by the Service Pack 2 inside Microsoft Office 2007. I could say that I’m not surprised,
but I somewhat had also expected the contrary. Unfortunately it seems we have here a poor implementation of ODF. If further reports confirm it (and I have no serious doubt they will),
we will have the case of a monopolistic vendor messing up its own implementation of an open standard and have no viable excuse for doing so…..

Loe edasi…

Amsterdam, April 29 2009

OpenDoc Society congratulates Microsoft Corporation Inc. with the
release yesterday of Microsoft’s Service Pack 2 for Office 2007,
Microsoft Office is the latest of the major Office suites to offer
native support for the OpenDocument Format (ODF). OpenDoc Society is
happy to see Microsoft finally join vendors and open source communities
like IBM, Google, Sun Microsystems, Novell, KOffice, Corel and Adobe -
which already made the switch to ODF in recent years.

“In a way it is the end of an era,” says Bert Bakker, chair of OpenDoc
Society. “Vendor based formats have dominated the last twenty five
years of IT to the extreme point where billions of investments in
software – even in entirely unrelated areas – were steered not by
technical and security considerations but by what was used on the
desktop productivity suites.”

The new released SP2 finally brings native ODF 1.1 support to Microsoft
Office 2007 (meaning it can fully replace the deprecated .doc, .docx,
xls, .xslx, ppt and pptx formats) after two years of ‘unofficial’
support through an add-in which was initiated and paid for (but not
formally supported) by Microsoft. It is especially important for any
Microsoft customers which adopted the deprecated Office 2007-specific
formats docx, xlsx and pptx – which were introduced as default formats
when Office 2007 appeared. Since these have meanwhile been superceded,
use of those formats is not to be recommended.

Many governments have actively been adopting an open standards policy,
with ODF being one of the prime drivers. Governments and customers have
grown increasingly vocal in making it clear to vendors that they would
take their business elsewhere if they did not move to support open
standards. ‘Moving to ODF even if you stay with the same vendor an even
the same product is plainly good IT governance, as it provides better
security, compliance mechanisms and usability while at the same time
diminishing the depencies on any single vendor”, says Michiel Leenaars,
vice-chair of OpenDoc Society. “We recommend companies, governments,
and users at large to just make the switch and set the new format as
their default as soon as possible – let’s put a halt to the creation of
‘new’ legacy documents as soon as possible. We’ll thank ourselves for
doing it later”.

With the last of the major vendors moving to ODF, OpenDoc Society notes
that this clears the way for a lot of innovation in both offline and
online office tools that were made possible by the Open Document
Format. Most notably the Society expects to see the rise of smart
documents that merge online ‘web of data’-like features with more
traditional desktop use. OpenDoc Society intends to actively help
these new products and services to converge and interoperate better on
behalf of users and consumers.

With all major office solutions now being able to use ODF, the focus of
software producers and customers should be on getting products that
generate or process documents – like electronic mail filters, content
management systems, document repositories and BI tools – to take
advantage of the many opportunities ODF brings.

OpenDoc Society strongly urges large document users like governments
and companies, as well as individuals, to look at the currently
proposed ODF 1.2 specification as well as the call for input for the
next major version of ODF that will follow the pending release of 1.2.
The OASIS Technical Committee currently welcomes any comments on its
committee draft [2].

[1] http://www.officeshots.org
[2] http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/documents.php?wg_abbrev=office

Hooldus = anti viirused, tulemüürid jms

eriti jabur tundub lasuse, et kokku on hoitud ka hoolduskulude pealt. et vaba tarkvara ei pea hooldama? peab vähem hooldama? või on hooldus täiesti tasuta?

Kokku saab hoida tarku otsuseid tehes. Kui tark see otsus kokkuvõttes oli?

Vietnam will ring in the Tet New Year on January 26 this year, and 2009 will be the Year of the Buffalo. For government servers, it appears that it will be the year of a few other animals as well, including the GNU and the Firefox.

This, according to Vietnam.net Bridge, which reports that yesterday the Ministry of Information and Communication issued an instruction to the State Agencies of Vietnam to move rapidly to open source software. More specifically, “by June 30, 2009, 100% of servers of IT divisions of government agencies must be installed with open source software; 100% of staffs at these IT divisions must be trained in the use of these software products and at least 50% use them proficiently.” According to the article, the instruction is also applicable to provincial and municipal Departments of Information and Communications. By December 31, 70% of these offices must be in compliance.

Specific products mentioned for implementation include the following: OpenOffice, Mozilla ThunderBird and Mozilla FireFox email software, and Vietnam’s own Unikey typing software. This would represent the 17th government to throw it’s support behind ODF, based upon the count being kept by the ODF Alliance.

The article also alludes to requirements for conversion of work habits and documents as well as installation and training, requiring that agencies increase the percentage of documents and information exchanged using the new software. By December 31, 2010, “all staff at these agencies must be able to use open source software in their jobs.” IT associations have been asked to assist state agencies in meeting the requests contained in the plan.

Intriguingly, the new policy requests that “computer traders not sell PCs installed with cracked software, but open source ones.” This is presumably directed at resellers that would have to reconfigure inventory to deinstall purchased (and pirated) proprietary software, or order new hardware with that software lacking. But it may also be aimed at business partners of proprietary software vendors that may be asked to bundle traditional proprietary products in order to tempt government workers to continue to use the products with which they are familiar, rather than making use of the new open products for which they will be trained.

It’s hardly a surprise that Vietnam should make such an announcement. It has an increasingly sophisticated and growing IT industry, and like the governments of many other emerging nations, is interested in keeping IT budgets down while expanding IT services, as well as nurturing its own IT industry rather than shipping all of its IT budget dollars abroad. For nations throughout Asia and South America in particular, open source (and open standards compatible with open source) are becoming increasingly incorporated into enterprise infrastructure guidelines and procurement requirements.

Moreover, Vietnam (and other asian adopters of open source software) need not limit their procurement to occidental free software. The Asianux consortium includes numerous companies in its membership, including one Vietnamese company as well as China’s Red Hat, Japan’s Miracle Linux and Korea’s Haansoft. Presumably Vietnam will look to Asianux 3.0, Linux server offering that is not only optimized for Asian use, but for government use as well. Asianux also offers Linux based mobile, and mobile Internet products as well.

Those not familiar with Unikey can find a rather out of date English language version of the Unikey.org site here (both the Vietnamese language and English language home pages appear to have last been updated in 2006). On a quick Web search, the version referred to there (4.0) appears to be the most recent – and that release is designed to run only on various Windows platforms.

The full text of the original Ministry order (courtesy of Google Translate) is pasted in below.

Implementation Decision 235/2004/QD-TTg
dated 02 3 2004

The Prime Minister approved the project on the overall application and development of open source software in Vietnam period 2004-2008, the Ministry of Information Information and Communications has issued the list of products open source software to meet the requirements for the organization to the state (including software: OpenOffice office, e-mail on Mozilla stations Thunderbird, the Mozilla Firefox web browser and type in English Unikey); Ministry of Science and Technology has developed documentation and use training software for many agencies, organizations across the state country.

To promote the use of free software open source (also known as open source software write-off is PMNM), contributing to limit the violation of software copyright, Minister of Information and Media indicator :

1. The unit responsible for information technology (IT) by the Ministry, Ministry of agencies, Governmental agencies (hereinafter called the ministries, departments) and the Department of Information and Communication (Department TT & TT) of provinces and cities directly under the Central Government (hereinafter referred to as provinces, cities):

a) Implement the installation and training, instructions to use the software above the staff in the units:
Latest to 30/6/2009, ensure 100% workstation unit responsible for IT Department and TT & TT installed, 100% staff is trained, using the instructions in the minimum 50% of staff can use the expertise in the job and can help guide the units under other ministries, departments, provinces and cities.

Latest date to 31/12/2009, ensure 70% workstation in the units under ministries, departments, provinces, cities are installed, 70% of staff are trained, guided to use, in which at least 40% of staff use the software in the above work.

There are plans to gradually increase the population of documents, materials, information exchange within the agencies, units of the ministries, departments, provincial, city editor, handled by the software mentioned above, ensure 31/12/2010 to most staff in the agencies, units of the ministries, departments, provinces, cities using the software in the above work.

b) Advising, proposed to the heads of agencies, departments, Chairman of provinces and cities: the solution, measures to ensure implementation of the tasks mentioned above, incorporating, including contents of this directive to plan the application of IT units, advocacy, mobilization, encourage emulation movement between units and individuals in the ministries, departments, provinces and cities City on the use of PMNM; bringing the IT applications and general use PMNM in particular to review the content to emulate, rewarded annually by the individual units.

c) The (at least 6 times a month) organization assessment and preliminary results, draw experience implementing the tasks, the report Ministries, departments, committees of provinces, cities and the Ministry of Information and Media.

2. The association and enterprise IT:

a) The IT associations organize practical work, enabling members to exchange information and experience to continuously improve energy exploitation, providing products, services PMNM; coordination, support unit responsible for IT, the Department of TT & TT perform tasks above; support the development of community PMNM Vietnamese; promote international cooperation on PMNM activities and links between community PMNM Vietnamese organizations, community PMNM world.

b) The business provides computer: Install the software above the computer when provided to agencies, state organizations, not to provide the market for computer software with no copyright legal.

c) facilities, business services and training IT: positive, active construction programs, curriculum and organization of training courses on PMNM; take the training to use the product PMNM the training of basic information, information office, information technology advanced.

d) The business software, business services IT: Capacity building services software in general and in particular for PMNM state agencies consider the software as a service (SaaS ); encourage the development of ideas, products and services based on PMNM.

3. The units of the Ministry of Information and Media:

a) The Information Technology:

- Host, in collaboration with IT Office under the Ministry of Science and Technology and other relevant units to update the list of PMNM meet requirements for the organization to the state; complete documents usage instructions; organization, community support the implementation of Vietnamese products PMNM;

- Investigation, survey, aggregate and provide up: the list, address and business services PMNM, facilities, business services training PMNM; versions installed, technical materials, guidelines using PMNM common;

- Guide, check and monitor the implementation of the Directive; received, general coordination with the units involved to resolve the authorities, or report the Minister to resolve the petitions, the Vietnam’s ministries, sectors and localities on the application and development PMNM, as well as difficulties arising in implementing Directive; report of the Minister of the results of the implementation.

b) Department of Applied Information Technology: The owner of incorporating, including the content of this directive, as well as content and tasks to promote the application PMNM in general, in the written regulations, instructions of IT applications, documents guiding plan, program, project applications in the IT operations of state agencies.

c) Information Center:

- Implementation of the tasks assigned to the unit responsible for IT in this Directive. To ensure the units of the Ministry in the use of software mentioned above;

- Host, in collaboration with the press, media propaganda, broadcast, raise awareness about the benefits of PMNM; mobilizing applications PMNM the activities of agencies, organizations, enterprises and people.

d) Institute of Software and Digital Content Vietnam Center rescue emergency computer Vietnam (VNCERT): Preparation of ready to support ministries, sectors and localities implemented using PMNM if on; coordinate with the IT review and update the list PMNM meet the requirements for the organization to the state.

4. Implementation:

a) The heads of agencies, units of the Ministry, heads the unit responsible for the Ministry of IT, industry, Director of TT & TT provinces, cities, the association, business IT has the responsibility of thoroughly spirit Directive, customized implementation of the tasks mentioned above, organizations quickly deploy and periodic reports results of the implementation.

b) The unit responsible for IT, the TT & TTT: The responsibility for the unit leaders directly responsible for promoting applications PMNM, is responsible for organizing implementation, management is over, check and evaluate the applications in PMNM units and units in other ministries, departments, provinces, cities themselves.

c) Chairman of the provinces, cities directly under the central government: The Department of TT & TT and other departments, agencies related to the adjustment of this Directive; active layout and taking part in total charge of the application and development of IT for its implementation using PMNM above, the mechanisms, policies, layout resources, create favorable conditions for the implementation. /.

Who pays for interoperability in public IT procurement?

A public letter to the IT industry about document format standards
Delft, 16 November 2008

It is not uncommon for governments to voluntarily head for vendor
lock-in[1]. As a citizen, however, I have a direct stake in my
government basing its public procurement of IT on open standards. This
stake may be most evident for ‘civil ICT standards’ (Andy Updegrove),
i.e., for standards that support access to government information and
exchanges with government such as document formats[2] (e.g.,
sustainable digital data). However, I also have a standards-related
stake in IT procured for government-internal processes because, first,
in practice government-internal and –external IT processes cannot be
separated[3]. Second, because of the increasing costs that accompany
vendor-lock-in. Third, because government procurement is good for 16%
of the European IT market and is therefore a means towards a more
competitive and sustainable IT market.

A main reason for voluntary vendor lock-in is the fear of lack of
interoperability of IT products in a multi-vendor environment.
Experience shows that standard-compliant products from different
vendors need not necessarily interoperate. As is known, a dominant
vendor may design in incompatibility to break the integrity of a
standard (e.g. Java platform). But usually incompatible standard
implementations are the unhappy outcome of good intentions.

Problem of document format standards

In the field of document formats there is an additional complexity.
For the external reader: ISO[4] has ratified two competing
XML-oriented standards for document formats. The first one, the Open
Document Format (ODF, ISO/IEC 26300) was ratified in 2006 and stems
from OASIS, a standards consortium. The second one, Office Open XML
(OOXML, ISO/IEC 29500) originally stems from Ecma International,
another standards consortium. Although ISO’s OOXML process has been
widely contested, which caused a delay in its final approval,
according to the ISO website the standards is to be published shortly.

ISO’s approval of a second, overlapping standard will not have
lessened government fears about interoperability in a multi-vendor
environment. The market has become less rather than more transparent
by means of this standards effort. To re-create some transparency
about the interoperability of applications and reduce the fear of post
hoc expenses in public procurement, conformance and interoperability
testing is needed. Plug-test events are needed to test the factual
interoperability of standards-based products from different vendors.
To be credible to all concerned, a neutral, independent testing centre
such as ETSI may need to be involved to e.g. develop test-suites and
coordinate plug test events.

Interoperability between multi-vendor OOXML applications

Current discussions on open standards highlight that multiple
implementations are an important sign that standards are really open
(see presentations by Rishab Gosh and by Thiru Balasubramaniam[5]).
Regarding ISO’s OOXML, the contention is that no company has yet
implemented the full standard, not even its primary sponsor Microsoft;
and that the six thousand page specification is too complex and too
inconsistent to implement. Are these contentions true? If not,
governments will want more than verbal claims to the contrary.
Moreover, they can easily be countered with third party conformance
and interoperability tests, including a plug-test event with multiple
OOXML-compliant IT vendors.

Interoperability between ODF applications

All major vendors, Microsoft included, have agreed to support ODF
ISO/IEC 26300, or are already doing so. That is, the availability of
multiple implementations is not a problem here. Moreover,
interestingly, two weeks ago OASIS initiated a technical committee to
organize conformance and interoperability tests. Given its scope[6],
this committee will provide transparency to governments about the
degree of conformance of applications to ODF and the interoperability
of ODF-documents. Less clear is whether the committee also intends to
address interoperability between standards versions, or more general:
what policy it has on standards change[7]. To my knowledge, such
policies have not yet been defined by any standards consortium or
standards body. They would befit the area of civil ICT standards.

The OASIS committee explicitly does not address “identifying or
commenting on particular implementations” or any certification
activities. Government procurement officers will ultimately need
testing at this level and want to involve an independent third party
testing centre for this purpose. Moreover, OASIS, too, might at a
later stage want to involve an independent third party in order to
avoid credibility problems.

Having two overlapping standards brings about its own problems, as
testifies a review of current ad hoc solutions – converters,
translators, plug-ins – to re-create compatibility between
ODF-products and Microsoft’s partial implementation of the OOXML
standard[8]. Those who develop a low quality and overlapping standard,
qualifications which also OOXML supporters use, are not the ones who
pay for the consequences. Regrettably, citizens will be paying the
price for lack of interoperability.

Although there is no formal accountability to fall back upon in
standardization[9], those who initiated the duplicating effort may
feel a – corporate social – responsibility for what happened. Their
help is needed to shift interoperability costs from governments and
citizens (post hoc) back to IT vendors (ex ante), the source of the
interoperability problem. As a start, will they fully cooperate and
support OASIS’ initiative of conformance and interoperability testing?
Are they prepared to shoulder the costs of independent, third party
conformance and interoperability tests, tests that are needed to
assure governments that no unexpected problems will arise ex post?

Kind regards,

Tineke Egyedi

Delft University of Technology

It was a good year for Open Document Format (ODF), which gained support from governments across the world in 2008 as its backers continued to promote it as an international standard for XML-based document exchange, according to the ODF Alliance.

Despite the fact that ODF’s rival, OOXML — a format created by Microsoft for its Office 2007 suite — was also approved by the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) earlier this year as an international standard, ODF Alliance Managing Director Marino Marcich believes that ODF will eventually win out as the dominant standard for document formats.

“I think that we’re dealing with two formats to accomplish the exact same task,” he said Tuesday. “At the end of the day, two formats for the same task just generates confusion and cost.”

Marcich cited progress ODF made in the year and outlined in the ODF Alliance’s annual report as proof that ODF will eventually beat OOXML. Governments around the world are currently setting interoperability guidelines for the technology used in their agencies, and are standardizing file formats a part of that decision.

ODF has now been approved as a technology standard for document exchange in 16 countries, including Brazil, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Russia, and Germany, according to the report. In the Netherlands, government agencies must select ODF-supported products in technology purchases of €50,000 (US$69,920) or more, and in Brazil ODF also has been mandated for use in government agencies.

OOXML, on the other hand, is only being piloted alongside ODF in Denmark, and only the U.S. state of Massachusetts has approved OOXML as a standard, he said.

ODF also gained more support among word-processing applications from major technology vendors, Marcich said. Google Docs, Adobe Buzzword and OpenOffice.org’s desktop and portable applications all now support ODF as a file format.

On the contrary, “I can count on my left hand how many .docx’s I’ve received,” he said, referring to the file extension for default Office 2007 files. However, to be fair, the OOXML/.docx implementation in Office 2007 differs from current OOXML specification, which has been altered through the standards process and is now known as ECMA 376.

Still, it’s true that the default file format for exchanging most Office documents now is .doc, the default binary document file extension for Office before Office 2007. Even Marcich acknowledged that “the old binaries dominate the landscape” right now.

Unlike Marcich, Microsoft still believes there is room for more than one XML-based file format, said Dough Mahugh, a Microsoft senior program manager for Office interoperability, in an e-mail Tuesday.

“Microsoft is committed to interoperability, transparency and user choice,” he said. “That is why we are supporting additional formats going forward; after all, users have always wanted access to multiple formats, and now they have even more options.”

Microsoft has agreed to support ODF in Office as part of Office 2007 Service Pack 2, which is due out between February and April 2009, and eventually it will implement the current OOXML specification in Office 2007 as well.

Last week, Microsoft publicly outlined how it would implement ODF in that service pack release and expects to in the next several weeks to release implementation notes for ECMA 376 as well.

However, Marcich expressed concern over the implementation of ODF revealed by Microsoft last week, saying it has raised some eyebrows among ODF proponents for not being in line with how the ODF specification is currently implemented.

“It suggests that Microsoft will deviate substantially from the course taken by other vendors,” he said. “This could break interoperability.”

ODF proponents have reason to worry, as the process to ISO approval for OOXML was riddled with complaints that Microsoft acted unscrupulously, the standards process was not implemented properly and the specification approved was too unwieldy to implement.

Mahugh, however, defended Microsoft’s planned implementation of ODF, saying the company is “confident” in it, which is why Microsoft “took the step of publicly disclosing the principles and priorities that guided our development, released our implementation notes, and are supporting DII events around the world,” he said. DII, or the Document Interoperability Initiative, is a group Microsoft created to foster interoperability between different document formats .

Mahugh added that Microsoft encourages other ODF implementers to “provide a similar level of transparency and participate positively” in the company’s DII events.

If you were able to speed-read through the 50 pre-loaded classics, you would undoubtedly have wanted more e-books. So where did you go next for your downloads? Well, it certainly was not to Borders.co.uk—the much-hyped, much-anticipated new site was still not up and running by the time The Bookseller went to press. You might have then thought of the world’s biggest e-tailer Amazon, only to discover its UK site has no e-books on offer and that its US site sells them in a format that can only be played on the Kindle, its own e-reader.

If you moved on to other download sites, the choices would have become more complex and bewildering. EBooks.com, one of iRex’s recommended retailers, sells most books in Mobipocket and Adobe .pdf formats, both of which can be read by the iLiad. But it also offers titles in Microsoft Reader, which iLiad does not support and a non-techie customer might easily download by mistake. Looking further afield, the choices, and potential stumbling blocks for the consumer, increase; fictionwise.com, for example, sells some of its titles in up to 12 different formats.

Given the number of e-readers that may soon be on the market and the confusing multiplicity of formats, it is no wonder the market has been dubbed the “Tower of eBabel” by e-book campaigners.

Tipping point

With the launch of the iLiad and the widely tipped release of the Sony Reader and Kindle in the UK within the next year, resolving the format issue is becoming crucial for trade publishers. In April, the Publishers Association c.e.o. Simon Juden used his speech at the group’s a.g.m. to call on the industry to reach a standard for e-books, saying that the Kindle and the Sony Reader not being able to talk to each other was not beneficial to “the customer, the content provider or the publisher.”

His views were echoed at this month’s BA conference by Ian Hudson, Random House UK deputy c.e.o. and PA president, who said publishers and retailers need to achieve “interoperability”—the ability to switch back and forth between devices—and find one common e-book format.

Some in the industry have responded, with Penguin, Random House Group, HarperCollins and Pan Macmillan adopting the .epub format, a standard that is being pushed by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), the industry’s digital trade standards organisation. Epub is an XML-based file, which allows publishers to relatively easily convert a number of differing formats and wrap with anti-piracy Digital Rights Management (DRM) programming. The number of UK publishers coming on board is perhaps not unrelated to the imminent UK launch of Sony’s next- generation device, which is believed to be able to read .epub using Adobe’s Digital Edition software. Sony, however, will not confirm which formats the new reader will support.

A battle of the formats could begin when Amazon’s Kindle hits Britain. Its bespoke .azw format cannot be read on the Sony Reader and Sony’s cannot be read on Kindle. Epub can be converted to Amazon’s format and vice-versa, but not “natively”, within devices. Publishers will have a multiplicity of formats available. Conversion costs are not astronomical, at least for big publishers—currently about £300 for the first switch from an initial file to .epub, then on a book by book basis after that.

However, the number of formats clouds the route of content to customer, putting the onus on the user. Customers who mistakenly download the wrong format may have to convert those e-books on their own computers. For the tech-savvy early adopters who largely make up the e-book audience thus far, this perhaps is not a problem. As the e-book becomes more prevalent, however, customer confusion, and frustration, is sure to increase.

This has caused publisher concern. “What we need to avoid for the customer,” says Jeremy Ettinghausen, Penguin’s digital publishing director. “is a whole Betamax/VHS scenario. One of the failures thus far with e-books is the publishers have been presenting a multiplicity of formats. We feel that if publishers and retailers get behind one single standard we can present the offer to customers much more clearly.”

Some believe the relative ease of format conversion has the chance to smooth over any kind of format war. Fionnuala Duggan, digital director at Random House Group, says: “It’s a different scenario than Betamax v VHS or differing music formats. Even if you do download these files into different devices they can be reformatted; it’s not like you are downloading into a dead-end piece of hardware.”

It’s the DRM, stupid

Yet while .epub offers solutions, it is not perfect. Some publishers have complained that it lacks a web element, is not browser-friendly, search-engine-friendly, or at all ready for the next wave of web-based social utilities.

Achieving pure interoperablity is also not just strictly about format. Even within format, different publishers’ DRM can vary, affecting device readability. Files wrapped with DRM also contain a variety of restrictions, such as whether a customer can print or not, if the file can download to other devices, or whether it can be emailed.

Even within formats, DRM continues to evolve. As Martyn Daniels, vice-president of sales and marketing at digital content management specialist Value Chain International, explains: “Mobipocket, for example, has gone though several incarnations. If you are using, say, a Mobi 3.0 file and the device you are using reads Mobi 6.0, it will still be able to read it, but there will be subtle differences that affect performance.”

David Rothman, an American writer who runs the e-book blog Teleread.org, believes that DRM is anti-consumer and is relatively in-effective against piracy. He says: “DRM penalises legitimate owners with various restrictions, such as limits on the number of devices. If a book is truly popular and big money is at stake, then both amateur and professional pirates can scan paper copies, or even type them out, as happened with Harry Potter.”

Rothman has called for publishers to agree to “social DRM”—an idea mooted by Bill McCoy, the general manager of Adobe’s ePublishing business—no technical restrictions other than stamping a file with “This e-book is the property of . . .” Social DRM, Rothman believes, would open up the e-book market, and prohibit one dominant player such as Amazon from elbowing others out. He says: “The real irony with Amazon is that they have been doing wonderful things with music MP3s and anti-DRM on music downloads. The damaging thing is that Amazon is using DRM to herd customers into the Kindle away from other devices. This is not good news for publishers.”

Most publishers have thus far been leery about committing to non-DRM. However, at this year’s London Book Fair, Pan Mac digital director Sara Lloyd, while stressing she was expressing a personal view, argued that e-books without DRM would boost the e-book market.

The 8-track moment?

The recent rush of trade publishers to jump on the e-book reader bandwagon should not disguise the fact that it is but a fraction of the market. The bulk of the digital business these days is being done in the academic and STM arena. RHG’s Duggan says: “If you look at the STM sector, sometimes up to 50% of their sales are in digital. On the trade side, we are nowhere near that yet.”

In the academic market, most content is hosted on publisher online platforms and in university libraries, accessed by students on PCs and Macs. DRM and formatting issues are largely not a concern, either dealt with by the content provider online or read natively on the computers.

This raises issues of whether there will ever be an iPod moment for e-book readers, particularly since laptops are getting smaller, lighter and more affordable. Why buy an iLiad, Sony Reader or Kindle, with their restrictions, when you can buy a laptop for nearly the same price free of the formatting hassles? Similarly, with the increased use of PDAs and Blackberrys and quick technological improvements in mobile phone technology, which again largely bypass format issues, will the iPod moment for e-readers actually be the iPod?

“Customers might want to ask themselves, ‘do I want to spend that kind of money on a device that might be obsolete in a year’s time?’” says Daniels. “If you got your fingers burnt on 8-tracks or CD-ROMs, you might not be so sure.”

A glossary of formats

.epub Pushed by the International Digital Publishing Forum, the digital publishing trade body, the XML-based .epub’s main strengths are its easy conversion for use on a variety of devices and its ability to “reflow” —to resize according to a device’s screen size. Penguin, HarperCollins and Random House are among the trade publishers who have recently signed on. The Sony Reader is widely tipped to be .epub-compatible when it launches in the UK later this year.

Mobipocket (.mobi) Founded in 2000, Mobipocket has become the leading format for mobile devices such as PDAs and Blackberry. The company was snapped up by Amazon in 2005.

Kindle (.azw) The Kindle format is essentially a slightly modified Mobipocket wrapped with proprietary DRM and is the only format that can be downloaded from Amazon. Mobi DRM-free files can be read on the device.

BBeB Sony’s DRM-encrypted proprietary format for its Sony Reader.

Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) Common on the web because of its ability to be read by a number of different computer types. Pdfs are less effective for e-book readers because they are designed to show standard paper sizes and thus cannot reflow to different screen sizes. Two .pdf formats —one for Acrobat Reader
and one for Adobe eReader, have led to confusion.

Microsoft Reader (.lit) Only readable on the proprietary Microsoft Reader programme (Windows only), installed on most Pocket PC handheld devices. An add-on, Convert LIT, allows you to change files to an .epub format.

eReader (.pbd) Designed mainly for handheld devices such as the Palm and Pocket PC, can also be used on any Windows or Macintosh operating systems. Does not support Blackberry or iPhones.

The Devices

Launched

iRex iLiad Holland-based firm launched the first e-reader in the UK this month, sold exclusively in Borders. Uses Linux operating systems which allows third-party development. Supports wi-fi.
Formats: XHTML, .pdfs, Mobipocket.
Retail price: £399

On launchpad

Sony Reader Launched in the US in 2006 and a 2.0 version is widely tipped to be released in the UK later this year. Titles can be purchased from Sony’s Connect website which has about 40,000 titles. Can play MP3 files.
Formats: BBeB Book, Adobe pdf, Jpegs, can support Microsoft Word with conversion.
Retail price: $299

Amazon Kindle Released last November in the US to much fanfare. Features include wireless connectivity which enables downloads direct to the Kindle without a computer. Currently about 125,000 Kindle titles available from Amazon.com. UK launch TBA.
Formats: Kindle (.azw), can also read non-DRM Mobipocket files.
Retail price: $399

Two to watch

Cybook Gen 3 French firm Bokeen’s device launched in the US and France in October 2007. Stores up to 1,000 books and the company promises a 100-day battery life for the casual reader.
Formats: Mobipocket, PalmDoc, HTML, .txt, .pdf.
Retail price: $350

Redius Polymer Vision Spin-off of Dutch electronics giant Philips says it will launch its mobile phone/e-book reader in the UK later this year. The device, the size of a normal mobile phone, has a five-inch “rollable screen”.
Formats: TBA. Retail: TBA

St kas kommertskontoritarkvara versus avatud lähtekoodil tarkvara või kommertsplatvormil infosüsteem versus vabal platvormil infosüsteem. Mõlemal juhul pole täna selle kasutuselevõtuks reaalset takistust olnud ja seda on ka tehtud. Kontoritarkvara poolelt seesama Keskkonnaministeerium ja ka Andmekaitse Inspektsioon. Infosüsteemide poolelt enamik veebilehti (mis on juba selline kergemat sorti infosüsteem) ongi ju klassikalisel LAMP platvormil. Siiski ei saa 100% nõus olla, et kõik infosüsteemid peavad olema ainult avatud lähtekoodil põhinevad. Süsteeme, kuhu on vaja juurutada kõrged turvanõuded, on äärmiselt kulukas nullist üles ehitada. Oluliselt soodsam on seda kulu jagada ehk kasutada (kommerts)valmiskomponente. Ja loomulikult ei hakka keegi olemasolevaid süsteeme sellepärast ümber ehitama, et täita mingit reeglit.
Kui rääkida veel avatud lähtekoodist, siis siinsed vaba tarkvara arendajad on ehitanud süsteeme oma koostatud platvormile. Tõsilugu on see, et see platvorm on puhtalt arendaja enda tegemine-teadmine (dokumenteerimise tasemega on nagu on, see isegi ei määra – tihti küsimus põhimõtteline). Keegi teine arendaja ei ole tõenäoliselt huvitatud selle arenduse jätkamisest, mis viib lõpuks kliendi ikkagi hullemini arendaja pantvangiks. Kommertsplatvormide (J2EE, .NET jms) puhul leitakse teine arendaja, kes on võimeline jätkama enam-vähem sealt, kus üks pooleli jäi (vähemalt ei tule alusplatvormi ringi ehitada). Eestis on selles osas mitu näidet olemas kommertsi poolelt, vaba tarkvara poolelt tean pigem negatiivseid näited (oma nahalt). Teine pool on selles, et avatud lähtekoodil olevad komponendid on ka tihtipeale kontrollimatu päritoluga ja “avalike vigadega”, mis küll võivad saada parandatud mingi aja jooksul. Seni püsivad vead üleval (ka turvariskid) ja tähendades samas ka hiljem (kohati kapitaalselt) muu koodi kaasaaitamist (nt klassikalised PHP turvaaugud jms). Ehk siis Astoki TCO on tegelikult õige vaade – nii IT-juhti kui tippjuhte huvitab see, mitte asjade “odavalt käimaajamine”.

Päikest

Teet

Küsijat ei pidavat kohe maha lööma (järgnevad on tsitaadid protokollist MK protokollist 102, millele ülalpool viidati..)

Juhtivkomisjoni ettekandja Hannes Astok selgitas…..

…MKM-lt on saadetud kiri, milles teatatakse, et Vabariigi Valitsus ei toeta nimetatud otsuse eelnõu…. – äkki oleks võimalik selle kirjaga tutvuda, põhjendused huvitaksid väga

….ITL toetab otsuse eelnõus toodud vabavara kasutamise ideed, kuid keerulisemate süsteemide puhul peaks valikukriteeriumides lähtuma toote hinnast kogu tema eluea jooksul (kogukulu). Samuti on eelnõu vastuolus riigihangete seaduses sätestatud pakkujate võrdse kohtlemise printsiibiga, kahjustades seeläbi vaba konkurents…. – TCO on minu arusaamise järgi alati parim hindamise valik ehk siis komisjoni järgi; (natuke utreeritult) vajan doc faili töötlemiseks lisaks MS office hinnale ka MS windowst, viirusetõrjet, lisaks nende ostuhinnale ka siis aastamaksu ning survet “parterite poolt osta ühe firma uus tarkvara ca 4 aasta tagant, et kogu “lõbu” kestaks edasi docx formaati kasutades… versus avatud ISO standart kus saaksin ise omale kontoripaketi ja op süsteemi valida, mida kasutada. Kui mingi asutus tahab just viimase office peale pappi kulutada (maksumaksja raha muide), siis kasutage vähemalt Sun (vabavaralist) pluginat, et väljund ja imporditava formaadiga teistele kasutajatele survet ei avaldaks.

vaba konkurentsi kahjustamine(pakkujate võrdse kohtlemise printsiibi rikkumine) – ???? misjamasee? – paluks argumenteeritud põhjendusi.

Paljudes ministeeriumides kehtivad kommertstarkvara kasutamisel ca 3-aastased lepingud, millede kiiremas korras lõpetamine ei saa olla majanduslikult kasulik- väide? või küsimus? Esiteks vastav eelnõu ei sunni neid katkestama, teiseks makse papp ära ja minge üle vabavarale…(või tegelikult arvutage TCO ja siis otsustage, mida teha.

äkki ikka peaks kuidagi lärmi lööma (positiivses mõttes). Et koolitaks komisjoni, riigikogu ja keda mida iganes et need ühe firma silmaklapid maha saaks……

Mis edasi siis, kas palume MSilt kogu eesti riigile tervikuna MS litsentside ostu soodustusi ja vastutasuks keelame alternatiivid või…

Googeldage siis vähemalt teemat ja vaadake mida EU ja muud riigid arvad vaba tarkvara kasutusest

Riigiamentikele kordan korraks üle. Ei propageeri ja ei nõua Teie käest ei linuxi, ei maci (vastandina windowsile) ega ka konkreetse “kontoriroti paketi” kasutamist, tehke kuidas Teile rohkem meeldib aga palun ärge survestage teisi inimesi mingi ühe tootja formaadiga ja jätke meile valikuvõimalus

Ehk siis” long life to PDF ja ODT”

Päikest

2. Komisjoni esimees juhatas sisse Erakond Eestimaa Rohelised fraktsiooni esitatud Riigikogu otsuse „Abinõud riigi infotehnoloogia kulutuste vähendamiseks ja infotehnoloogilise innovatsiooni soodustamiseks” eelnõu (374 OE) arutelu lugemisele saatmiseks. Eelnõu algataja esindaja Riigikogu liige Aleksei Lotman esitas ülevaate eelnõu eesmärkidest ja sisust. Otsuse eelnõuga esitatakse Vabariigi Valitsusele ettepanek asuda 2009. aastast valitusasutustes ja valitsusasutuste hallatavates riigiasutustes laialdaselt juurutama avatud lähtekoodiga tarkvara ning alustada avalikult dokumenteeritud failiformaatide kasutuselevõttu. Valdav enamik Eesti riigiasutustest kasutab oma töös Microsoft Office kontoritarkvara, mille litsentside soetamisele kulutavad riigiasutused kokku ca 30-40 miljonit krooni aastas. Microsoft Office tarkvarale on olemas avatud koodidel põhinevad alternatiivid, mis on tasuta kättesaadavad (OpenOffice). Otsuse eelnõu eesmärgiks on MS Windowsi versioonide uuendamisest loobumine koos järk-järgulise üleminekuga vaba lähtekoodiga süsteemidele ning asjakohastel juhtudel vaba lähtekoodiga süsteemide kasutamine serverirakenduste ja serveripõhiste andmebaaside ülesehitamisel.

Juhtivkomisjoni ettekandja Hannes Astok selgitas, et eelnõu menetlusse võtmisel määras Riigikogu juhatus eelnõule muudatusettepanekute tähtaja (6.11.2008 kell 18.00) vastavalt Riigikogu kodu- ja töökorra seaduse §–le 154. Ettenähtud tähtajaks ei esitatud juhtivkomisjonile ühtegi ettepanekut. MKM-lt on saadetud kiri, milles teatatakse, et Vabariigi Valitsus ei toeta nimetatud otsuse eelnõu. 374 OE kohta on omaalgatuslikult esitanud seisukohad ka Eesti Infotehnoloogia- ja Telekommunikatsiooni Liit (ITL). ITL toetab otsuse eelnõus toodud vabavara kasutamise ideed, kuid keerulisemate süsteemide puhul peaks valikukriteeriumides lähtuma toote hinnast kogu tema eluea jooksul (kogukulu). Samuti on eelnõu vastuolus riigihangete seaduses sätestatud pakkujate võrdse kohtlemise printsiibiga, kahjustades seeläbi vaba konkurentsi.

Komisjoni istungile kutsutud Majandus- ja Kommunikatsiooniministeeriumi riigi infosüsteemide osakonna juhataja Margus Püüa selgitas Vabariigi Valitsuse seisukohti. Otsuse eelnõu vastab üldjoontes Eesti ja Euroopa koosvõime raamistiku põhimõtetele, kuid koosvõime raamistik jätab igale asutusele suurema otsustamisvabaduse. Avatud dokumendiformaadi kasutamist nõutakse omavahelisel suhtlemisel, samuti suhtlemisel avalikuusega ja veebilehtedes publitseeritud dokumentides. Asutusesisesele dokumendivahetusele ei seata piiranguid. Samu põhimõtteid soovitakse rakendada kogu avalikus sektoris. Võrreldes koosvõime raamistikuga on käesolev eelnõu resoluutsem. Paljudes ministeeriumides kehtivad kommertstarkvara kasutamisel ca 3-aastased lepingud, millede kiiremas korras lõpetamine ei saa olla majanduslikult kasulik. Eelnõus toodud punktide rakendamine eeldab ka järelevalvet, koordineerimistegevust, õiguslikku regulatsiooni, jne ning nende rakendamiseks vajalikke riigieelarvelisi vahendeid.

Täiendavaid küsimusi esitati avatud lähtekoodi ja tasuta tarkvara mõistetega seonduvalt.

Laekus kaks ettepanekut:

1) Juhtivkomisjoni ettekandja Hannes Astok tegi ettepaneku saata Erakond Eestimaa Rohelised fraktsiooni esitatud Riigikogu otsuse „Abinõud riigi infotehnoloogia kulutuste vähendamiseks ja infotehnoloogilise innovatsiooni soodustamiseks” eelnõu (374 OE) Riigikogu täiskogule lugemiseks k.a 16. detsembril ettepanekuga panna eelnõu lõpphääletusele ning eelnõu tagasi lükata.

2) Komisjoni liige Marek Strandberg esitas ettepaneku saata Erakond Eestimaa Rohelised fraktsiooni esitatud Riigikogu otsuse „Abinõud riigi infotehnoloogia kulutuste vähendamiseks ja infotehnoloogilise innovatsiooni soodustamiseks” eelnõu (374 OE) Riigikogu täiskogule lugemiseks k.a 16. detsembril ettepanekuga panna eelnõu lõpphääletusele ning eelnõu vastu võtta.

Hääletus viidi läbi vastavalt ettepanekute laekumise järjekorrale ning komisjon toetas Hannes Astoki esitatud ettepanekut (P4, V1, E2).

OTSUSTATI:
1. Võtta informatsioon teadmiseks.

2.1
Saata Erakond Eestimaa Rohelised fraktsiooni esitatud Riigikogu otsuse „Abinõud riigi infotehnoloogia kulutuste vähendamiseks ja infotehnoloogilise innovatsiooni soodustamiseks” eelnõu (374 OE) Riigikogu täiskogule lugemiseks k.a 16. detsembril ettepanekuga panna eelnõu lõpphääletusele (P7, V0, E1).

2.2
Teha täiskogule ettepanek 374 OE tagasi lükata (P4, V1, E2).

kuhu kuuluvad järgmised subjektid: Komisjoni esimees: Urmas Klaas, Komisjoni aseesimees: Kalev Kallo, Komisjoni liikmed: Hannes Astok, Margus Lepik, Aivar Riisalu, Marek Strandberg, Olga Sõtnik, Jüri Tamm, Ester Tuiksoo, Toomas Tõniste, Taavi Veskimägi

Istungi protokoll, kus seda arutati

viide: http://www.riigikogu.ee/?page=en_etapid&op=ems&eid=430742&u=20081213174530

Äkki peaks vähe lärmi tegema??

Samas võiks sellist “levimist” soodustada ka riiklikul tasemel, tehes näiteks juurde veel ühe riigiüksuse (või MTÜ, SA jmt) kelle ülesandeks oleks eesti riigi ja eurorahade toel üles ehitada portaal, kus saaks kontsentreeritult infot kogu temaatika kohta.

Ühtlasi oleks see ka võimalus tunnustada õnneks piisavalt suurt arvu inimesi, kes on eestis vaba tarkvara ja selle eestindamise- ning levitamisega tegelenud ideelistest kaalutlustest juba aastaid, tellides nende käest veebipõhiseid koolitusmaterjale, juhendeid, koolitusi, jmt ja miks ka mitte tasudes tagantjärgi “kohutava “mahu töö eest, mis on tehtud programmide eestindamisel (tõlkimisel)

Sama asutus võiks otseselt toetada (eurorahade abil) ka meie arvukaid KOV-e (kui vastav reform (loe: KOV arvu vähendamine X korda )peaks mingi f…ng põhjusel jälle ära jääma) ja ka( uusi alustavaid) ettevõtteid. a la registreerivad konto serveril, pääsevad tasuta ligi dokuhaldusele, raamatupidamisele ning ka serveriruumile vabas formaadis loodud dokumentide hoidmiseks ja ka suurele mahule vastavale koolitusmaterjalile. Läheb ruumivajadus suuremaks, tuleb ka teenuste eest tasuma hakata . Seotus ID kaardi, riigi infosüsteemide ja näiteks Skypeiga(?) Või oleks äkki mõttekam koos @eesti.ee aadressiga anda välja ka vastav IP tel number mida saaks analoogiliselt suunata ja miks mitte äkki ka veebipõhiselt kasutada??

Ja kuigi sõna integratsioon on siinmail (Narvas) kulunud tõsiseks sõimusõnaks, peaks kogu ülevalpool toodud info olema kättesaadav kindlasti ka vähemalt vene (kui mitte ka nii mõneski muus) keeles. Ilma selleta suurendame (pronks) lõhet veelgi ja täiesti tarbetult.

Loodan siiralt, et käesolev majandussurutis annab täiendava tõuke nende valikute üle mõtisklemiseks

Päikest

“2008 will end on a high note, with Germany joining the growing ranks of governments that have adopted ODF,” said ODF Alliance managing director Marino Marcich. To date, 16 national and 8 provincial governments have now formally recommended or required the use of ODF by government agencies and with the public.(1)

According to the plan, German federal agencies will be able to receive, read, send and edit ODF documents beginning no later than 2010. State Secretary Dr. Hans Bernhard Beus, federal government IT officer and chairman of the IT Council, described the decision regarding ODF as “a major step to increase competition among software vendors, promote IT security, and improve interoperability.”(2) Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML), which is the default-format for its Office 2007 productivity suite, remains under review. The action comes on the heels of the 5 July 2007 request by the German Bundestag “to strengthen competitiveness, the use of open document standards and open document exchange formats should be promoted.”

“By supporting open IT standards such as ODF at the government level, and with several dozen powerful word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software products now supporting ODF, many of them available free of charge, the German federal government has demonstrated that it has a clear vision for promoting software choice, reducing costs, and ensuring access to public information,” said Marcich. “Longer term, this action, together with those of other governments, will promote interoperability and help put an end to the era of single-vendor lock-in.”

The ODF Alliance welcomed the decision by the Federal Government of Germany to implement use of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) by federal agencies beginning in 2010.
“2008 will end on a high note, with Germany joining the growing ranks of governments that have adopted ODF,” said ODF Alliance managing director Marino Marcich. To date, 16 national and 8 provincial governments have now formally recommended or required the use of ODF by government agencies and with the public.(1)
According to the plan, German federal agencies will be able to receive, read, send and edit ODF documents beginning no later than 2010. State Secretary Dr. Hans Bernhard Beus, federal government IT officer and chairman of the IT Council, described the decision regarding ODF as “a major step to increase competition among software vendors, promote IT security, and improve interoperability.”(2) Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML), which is the default-format for its Office 2007 productivity suite, remains under review. The action comes on the heels of the 5 July 2007 request by the German Bundestag “to strengthen competitiveness, the use of open document standards and open document exchange formats should be promoted.”
“By supporting open IT standards such as ODF at the government level, and with several dozen powerful word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software products now supporting ODF, many of them available free of charge, the German federal government has demonstrated that it has a clear vision for promoting software choice, reducing costs, and ensuring access to public information,” said Marcich. “Longer term, this action, together with those of other governments, will promote interoperability and help put an end to the era of single-vendor lock-in.”

About the ODF Alliance:
The OpenDocument Format Alliance is an organization of governments, academic institutions, non-government organizations and industry leaders dedicated to educating policymakers, IT administrators and the public on the benefits and opportunities of ODF initiatives.

Jon Bosak, who founded the XML and ODF efforts among many other achievements, recently wrote an article concerning the position of ODF, Open XML and PDF Jon’s public writings are rare, well-considered and always of interest. As with other Sun-affiliated people in recent times, Jon has been exemplary in that even though he has a side, he does not take sides. I think I can agree with much of what he says, though I would note Don’t forget about HTML.

Jon’s awareness of the different capabilities of different formats, and the centrality of having a clear understanding of these, stimulated me to try to articulate something I have been thinking about for while: is ODF better considered a replacement for .DOC or .RTF, and can it be a substitute for both? And are there any bigger issues than this looming, that we should take stock of?

First, a potted history of the document format landscape over last 25 years…..

http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2008/10/the-document-file-format-lands.html

Q:
What’s the difference between the Sun Plugin and the “OpenXML/ODF Translator” on SourceForge.net?
A:
There are many differences. Some of the major differences are as follows:

Only the Sun ODF Plugin has neat integration into Microsoft Office Word. It’s just another filter, and when you open an ODF file, you really work with the ODF file. This means that you can save your modifications by pressing Ctrl+S. You can even configure Microsoft Office Word to make ODF your default file format.

Conversion is done with StarOffice code, using its proven and high quality filters. The other Plugin is developed from scratch, using XSLT, and there are things that can’t be transformed with XSLT, because you need information about the computed layout.

The Sun ODF Plugin does not have other pre-requirements. Just download and install, no need to install additional things like the “Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack”, “.NET Framework” and hot fixes.

Hon NN Mapisa-Nqakula, RSA Minister of Home Affairs, 2nd International ODF Conference, 9 October 2008, Pretoria

It is my privilege to welcome you, IT practitioners and policy makers from Europe, Africa, South America, the Malay Archipelago and the Indian Sub-Continent. My Department has been tasked to lead the work of our government electronic documentation committee which is in line with our Information Society and Development (ISAD) Plan. The ISAD plan is targeted “to establish South Africa as an advanced Information Society in which Information and Information and Communication Technology tools are key drivers of economic and societal development.” It is the task of my department to provide people with enabling documentation. For us to to do that, information needs to be organised in a way that people can be identified, their status ascertained and thereby their access to public services improved. The ability to implement interoperable information systems that enable us to organise and structure information is key to the department’s success.

The danger of poor interoperability between systems was highlighted following the tragic tsunami on the 26th of December 2004 when efforts in Thailand to rescue the injured and identify the dead were further frustrated by the lack of integration between the systems of different government agencies. It is in response to examples like this that the DHA is forging ahead to make open standards a priority. The emergence of open standards for document formats has further resulted in the ability to process and share documents using formats which have significant impact on the efficiency, interoperability and accessibility of public services. This has important implications for how we understand our democracy. Inclusivity in the context of the emerging South African Information Society requires us to address issues of multilingualism, accessibility, and access to services by under-served communities.

The choice of format used for the representation of documents in government is absolutely critical.

It is critical that we standardise on a single document format for exchange of information within government;
It is critical that the choice is aligned with our free software/open source policy;
It is critical that the document format guarantees our unfettered access to citizen information that we hold in trust;
It is critical that the control of the document format is not dominated by any single vendor, or group of vendors.

On the basis of the above we made the best rational and pragmatic choice available and specified that ODF – the Open Document Format – be used as the format for interoperability of government documents. This was specified in an amendment to our Minimum Interoperability Standard (MIOS).

I have said that the South African government is committed to making use of open standards. This is both a pragmatic imperative to avoid vendor lock in as well a democratic imperative to ensure ongoing access to information we hold in trust. But a standard is not a naturally occurring resource like a tree or a stone, which needs only to be located and controlled in order to be used. A standard is a socially constructed artefact – an agreement, a product of human consensus. How that consensus is reached is important. Who gets to say what and when. Who gets to listen. When developing standards for the formatting of documents in the information society, these questions take on a particular urgency. The storage and processing of South African citizen and visitor information in documents is central to the function of the Department of Home Affairs. We are aware of the civic importance of standards for documents.

One of the many characteristics of a standard being open is that it allows participation in a transparent and non-discriminatory way. We participate actively in the development of the ODF through the direct participation of the Department of Science and Technology in the OASIS Office Technical Committee which maintains the standard (note: OASIS is the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards). This participation forms part of the activities of our e-Documentation committee.

The South African government has also participated directly in the International Standards Organisation sub committee, SC34, which is responsible for maintaining the ISO edition of ODF. It participates in ISO through its involvement and membership of technical committees of the South African Bureau of Standards. Membership and participation in these various technical committees has proven to be costly in terms of time and resources and demonstrates the concrete reality of our commitment to open standards. It has also given us something of an insight into the workings of the standardisation process in different national and international standards development organisations. South Africa was particularly frustrated by the acceptance by ISO of an overlapping document specification earlier this year. The ability and willingness of corporate private interests to dominate the multi-lateral, democratic process of consensus building within ISO has raised significant concerns, both here and abroad. South Africa appealed the process which was followed, and its outcome, together with India, Brazil and Venezuela. It is clear that, whilst we continue to engage with ISO through our national standards body, there is much which needs to be done to modernise and reform such international institutions to prevent such problems repeating.

But far from being deterred, our enthusiasm and commitment to open standards in general and ODF in particular, is stronger than ever. A benefit of gatherings such as this one, is that it provides the opportunity for organisations and state entities with a shared agenda to explore and create new opportunities for international collaboration in the increasingly important space of information standards. Many of the countries represented here, particularly our brothers and sisters from latin America and Asia, have, like South Africa, made strong commitments to the use of ODF in their various jurisdictions to facilitate interoperability and exchange of information. Many others are actively considering similar policies. It would be a great step forward, and a concrete indication of solidarity, if we were to use the occasion of our gathering to develop a protocol of agreement to use ODF as the preferred format for document exchange between our various state and other entities represented here.

I wish you success in your deliberations and trust that our visitors will have the opportunity to enjoy South African hospitality.

Loss of professional credibility

By Egan Orion: Friday, 03 October 2008, 1:42 PM

NORWEGIAN MEMBERS of the Technical Committee of that country’s International Standards Organisation (ISO) body Standard Norge have resigned their posts to protest the approval of Microsoft’s OOXML document formats proposal in defiance of the majority recommendation.

In all, 13 of the committee’s 23 members have resigned, a majority of the membership.

In Standard Norge deliberations regarding OOXML earlier this year, only two members – Microsoft and Statoil – voted for approval, while the remaining 21 voted against it. Defying the overwhelming vote, the officials of Standard Norge went ahead and approved OOXML anyway, and transmitted that “decision” to ISO.

As a public service, we reproduce the rough Google translation of the 13 former Norway Standard Technical Committee members’ letter of resignation below:

Oslo, Monday 29 September 2008

We, the undersigned, are ending our work within Standard Norway.

It is sad when organisations that work for our common interest fail the task. Through the OOXML work, Standard Norway has shown, with a clear margin, that they are not fit to represent Norway in the ISO.

“Standardization of formats for content on the Web is more important than ever. A large part of mankind’s communication is done digitally, and all – ALL – must have the ability to read and write these formats,” said Håkon Wium Lie.

Standard Norway chose to defy their own technical committee and vote yes to a specification that is immature, useless, and unworthy of being called an ISO standard.

Standard Norway has lost its credibility in the IT area from the way it has administered the process. Standard Norway has set its own commercial interests ahead of what is best for society, most feasible technologically, and what is professionally advisable.

“By participating in a further work in Standard Norway will we lose our professional credibility,” said Arne S. Nielsen.

Therefore, we have chosen to leave the committee.

We end our work with Standard Norway because:

* The administration of Standard Norway trust 37 identical letters from Microsoft partners more than their own technical committee.

* The process within Standard Norway has been unpredictable and the administration has changed the rules along the way.

* Standard Norway and ISO have committed a series of violations of their own rules and other irregularities in the OOXML process.

“Standard Norway has overruled hundreds of thousands of users in the public and private sectors”, says Martin Bekkelund.

The mass-copied Microsoft-letter did not contain a single professional argument. Standard Norway first said that these kinds of statements would not be given any weight. However, at the end of the process they changed their mind and emphasized the Microsoft letters. Thereby, Standard Norway misled the committee members.

The process in Standard Norway is unpredictable, subjective and is continuously changed behind the scenes. “There is no way to appeal a decision, neither inside nor outside Standard Norway — the administrative staff who makes the decisions is the same who ‘reviews’ (i.e., lingers, ignores and shelves) appeals and complaints”, says Trond Heier.

Each and every one of us will continue our [work] for better standards within organizations other than Standard Norway.

The undersigned:

1. Haakon Wium Lie
2. Martin Bekkelund (NUUG)
3. Petter Reinholdtsen (NUUG)
4. Linpro AS v/ Trond Heier Linpro AS v / Trond Heier
5. Bjørn Venn
6. Steve Pepper
7. Arne Sigurd Rognan Nielsen
8. Henning Kulander
9. Axel Bojer
10. Geir Isene
11. Thomas Malt
12. Anthony Lardahl (NUUG)
13. Knut Olav Bøhmer Knut

Maybe they’ll want to work on IT standards with IBM, if and when it tells ISO to sod off. µ

The PRS-700 won’t go on sale until next month, but when it does it will sport a 6in E Ink display and enough memory for 350 e-books – up from the PRS-505′s 160-book capacity.

But the PRS-700′s key new feature is an integrated LED reading light – handy for all those folk who like to read in bed without disturbing their partner….
Loe edasi http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/10/03/sony_revamp_prs_700_reader/

That’s probably not what makes the 700 heavier than its predecessor – 280g to 260g – that’ll be the expanded battery, which offers a life of “7500 page turns”, up from the 505′s 6800.

PRS-700 -mallin suurin uudistus on Register-verkkolehden mielestä led-lukuvalo, jonka ansiosta laitteella voi lukea myös sängyssä vaikka ei siiinä yksin olisikaan.

Kuuden tuuman E Ink -näytöllä varustettu laite tulee myyntiin ensi kuussa noin 400 dollarin hintaan. Siihen mahtuu 350 e-kirjaa eli yli kaksinkertaisesti vasta hiljan julkistettuun edeltäjäänsä PRS-505:een verrattuna.

Lisämuisteiksi käyvät MemoryStick Duo- ja SD-muistikortit. Tuettavia e-kirjaformaatteja ovat pdf, MS Word, BBeB, Epub ja tekstitiedostot. Sonyn mukaan se on yhteensopiva myös Adobe Digital Editions -ohjelmiston kanssa.

http://www.itviikko.fi/talous/2008/07/04/pdf-hyvaksyttiin-iso-standardiksi/200817741/7

Venezuela has joined the list of countries that have lodged appeals against the adoption of an international standard based on Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) file format.

Inspired by the five-year-old SoftwareFreedomDay, the DFD initiative is being driven by supporters of the OpenDocumentFormat Alliance and other organizations such as the Free Software Foundation Europe, which is currently hosting the DFD’s Web site.

Google Australia, which joined the ODF Alliance in 2006, hosted Sydney’s DFD effort, where ACT Senator Kate Lundy discussed the issue of document formats for long-term archiving in institutions such as the National Archives of Australia.

Despite the high-profile controversy surrounding Microsoft’s attempts gain ISO certification for its Office Open XML standard, Andrew McRae, a Google Australia senior software engineer and also President of the Australian chapter of the Internet Society, told ZDNet Asia sister site ZDNet Australia DFD is only intended to raise awareness for the ODF (Open Document Format).

“We’re not trying to focus on any standard,” McRae said. McRae, also a member of the Internet Engineering Task Force (ITEF), reckons the goal of open document standards is similar to open Web standards.

“From that perspective we felt that the value of open standards is that it allowed the Internet to really explode with innovation,” he said. “In a similar way we felt that open standards for documents is important as well.”

“We didn’t want it to be about any particular standard or issue and we tried hard to avoid that.”

McRae said there is nothing in principle wrong with two standards existing side by side. “In terms of having a second standard–similar to Internet protocol having a second protocol–as long as they work together and are fully supported, then in the Internet we find that does work… There are multiple [document] standards existing today so we need to ensure there is interoperability, a way of being able to move and share documents now and in the future and that software exists to interpret these standards.”

But for now, as far as the organizers of DFD are concerned, the Open Document Format is the only truly open format that meets general office needs, while Microsoft’s OOXML only comes close.

“But [OOXML] fails the test for an Open Standard in various ways, including an unclear legal status as well as inclusion of and reference to proprietary technologies. It has all signs of a vendor-specific format that only Microsoft will be able to implement completely,the group writes on its site.

http://www.itviikko.fi/page.php?page_id=46&news_id=20088597&rss=8

Electronic Frontier Finland ry (Effi) ilmoittaa äänestävänsä huomenna pidettävässä Suomen Standardisoimisliitto SFS ry:n kokouksessa Microsoftin OOXML-tiedostomuodon standardointia vastaan.

Microsoftin uuden tiedostomuodon olisi mm. tarkoitus korvata jatkossa nyt yleisesti käytössä olevat Word-, Excel- ja PowerPoint-tiedostot.

International Organization for Standardization (ISO) on jo hyväksynyt ODF-tiedostomuodon samaa tarkoitusta varten. EFFIn mielestä rinnakkainen standardi on tarpeeton eikä OOXML-tiedostomuoto ei tarjoa erityisiä etuja aikaisemmin standardoituun tiedostomuotoon verrattuna.

EFFIn mielestä suurin ongelma standardissa on sen tavoite toisintaa mahdollisimman uskollisesti olemassa olevat Microsoftin Office-dokumentit. Tämän seurauksena standardiehdotukseen piti ottaa mukaan runsaasti virheellisiä määrityksiä esimerkiksi päivämäärien ja tiettyjen taulukkolaskentafunktioiden osalta. Vaikka nämä määritykset ovatkin käytössä vain siirtymävaiheen toiminnallisuuksina, ehdotuksessa ei missään määritellä välivaiheen kestoa.

- Ei ole mitään järkeä hyväksyä standardiksi tilapäisiksi aiottuja, virheellisiä ratkaisuja. Tällä hetkellä ei ole olemassa yhtään ohjelmistoa, joka tuottaisi ISO:n standardiehdotuksen mukaisia tiedostoja. Nyt olisikin ollut oikea aika päästä eroon menneisyyden painolastista, mutta tähän Microsoft ei ollut valmis pelätessään markkinaosuutensa putoamista. Jo pelkästään tästä syystä EFFI tulee huomenna äänestämään “ei”, EFFIn puheenjohtaja Tapani Tarvainen kiteyttää tiedotteessa.

Microsoft haluaa EFFI:n mukaan ISO-standardin omalle tiedostomuodolleen, koska maailmalla monet valtiot kieltäytyvät jatkossa ostamasta ohjelmistoja, jotka eivät ole avointen standardien mukaisia.

- Yhtiö voisi toki myös ottaa käyttöön ISO:n jo hyväksymän ODF-tiedostomuodon, mutta tämä heikentäisi liikaa sen asiakkaiden lukittautumista yrityksen erityisen tuottoisaan tuotekategoriaan, EFFIn Ville Oksanen sanoo.

Oksasen mukaan Microsoft koetti myös oikoa ISO:ssa ajamalla OOXML-standardiehdotuksen ns. pikaraidemenettelyssä. Kyseistä menettelyä käytetään yleensä vakiintuneiden de facto standardien hyväksymiseen.

- Menettely osoittautui kuitenkin täysin vääräksi yli 6000 sivun mittaiselle määritykselle, jossa oli runsaasti ristiriitoja herättäviä kohtia. Korjausehdotuksia ehdittiin puimaan ISO:ssa ainoastaan yhden viikon ajan ja jo nyt tiedetään, että monta ilmeistä ongelmaa jäi korjaamatta.

Jarmo Lahti

By Nikki Tait in Brussels and Maija Palmer in London, Published: March 5 2008 02:00

The European Commission is investigating the process under which a key Microsoft document format could be adopted as an industry standard – a move that would carry significant commercial benefits for the software company.

Officials at the European Commission’s competition directorate have written to members of the International Organisation for Standardisation, asking how they prepared for votes in September and later this month on acceptance of Microsoft’s OOXML document format as a worldwide standard. Without ISO acceptance, Microsoft could stand to lose business, particularly with government clients, some of which are becoming increasingly keen to use only ISO-certified software.

The ISO process has been widely criticised, however, with some members of national standards’ bodies accusing Microsoft and its rivals of attempting to influence the vote.

Tim Bray, a member of the Canadian national standards body, called the procedure “complete, utter, unadulterated bullshit” in a recent blog posting.

A vote in Sweden was declared invalid after one member was discovered to have voted twice.

In addition, in several countries, a large number of Microsoft partners joined the national standards organisations just ahead of a vote on the issue in September.

Microsoft lost an initial first round of voting on the standard in September, and faces a final vote this month.

In its letter, sent out before the Geneva meeting, the Commission noted press reports had alleged irregularities in several countries over the OOXML standardisation proposal, and accusations of attempts to influence voting.

It asked standards organisations for views on these charges and any supporting details. It was unclear yesterday how many standards organisations worldwide had been contacted by the Commission. However, several national organisations in Europe confirmed they had received the Commission letter. Some national bodies have admitted they are reviewing their own membership rules.

“We have to consider whether you might have to participate in the standards committee for a little more than an hour before a vote,” said Lars Flink, chief executive of the Swedish Standards Institute.

The European Commission said only that it was conducting antitrust inquiries over several aspects of Microsoft’s behaviour.

Microsoft said it openly encouraged its partners to participate in the ISO process, but was not funding any third parties doing so. The company said it would cooperate with the European Commission’s inquiry.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/88e570a2-ea56-11dc-b3c9-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

Before the BRM, I had prepared an alternative proposal on dates, which is much cleaner. There are three issues that demonstrate how the whole process was affected by the time constraints.

The first issue is that my proposal for dates, despite the fact that I had written it with care in the course of a few weeks, and that it had been reviewed by several people, did have shortcomings. By comparing my work to the work by Ecma and Germany I found out that I had failed to notice that data types were described in two places, 3.17.2.6 and 3.18.12, and I had only noticed 3.17.2.6. And while thinking about the whole issue I saw that the way I had proposed for handling durations probably did not work (although now I’m having second thoughts – but I’ll need very careful studying of ISO 8601 to arrive at a good conclusion). Both problems were easy to fix, and I submitted an updated proposal on Friday morning. However, this shows that it was very hard to write error-free proposals when the magnitude of changes were so large.

The second issue is related, but more important. When I discussed my proposal with Brian Jones on Thursday morning, he pointed out that it would be difficult for Ecma to accept it, because they did not have the time to verify that it actually works in all cases. Now this was a very valid concern. My proposal was more than 30 pages. Even if it were well thought and error free, Ecma had no way of knowing that. Therefore, the BRM was essentially confined to making changes that only scratched the surface of the problems.

The third issue is that, while writing my proposal, I and my reviewers found 13 additional errors in the original specification. However, national bodies were not allowed to submit new comments (and rightly so, otherwise there would have been total chaos). Therefore, there was no way to submit and correct them.

The changes that actually passed in Friday morning did add the possibility to store dates in ISO 8601 format, but they also keep the old ways, and in addition they add all ways proposed in the Disposition of Comments. Therefore we now have five different ways of representing the same thing.

One of the issues brought up by the Greek delegation was that of Office Open Math ML (OOMML). Given that the purpose of OOXML is to faithfully represent the existing corpus of legacy documents, and OOMML is an entirely new language that has nothing to do with such backwards compatibility, we were at a loss as to why it was designed from scratch rather than being based on the existing standard of MathML. Ecma’s reply was that OOMML has features that MathML does not.
It took almost an entire week of discussions in the corridors and in emails to sufficiently clarify the issue. During our investigation we learned that Office 2003 documents converted to OOMML by Office 2007 retain their equation fields as equation fields, and equation editor objects as embedded binary objects; you can use OOMML only in new equations. After some discussion with Rick Jelliffe, Australian delegate, on the extensibility of MathML, we figured out that you can extend MathML, although the resulting extended language will not be MathML anymore. There were reservations by Canada because extending MathML might break existing MathML accessibility tools, and there was the argument, on my side, that it is easier to fix the accessibility tools for an extended MathML than to fix them for an entirely new language.

The purpose of the BRM was not just to discuss things in theory, but also to propose specific resolutions. What resolution could be proposed on this issue? “Redesign OOMML on top of MathML” was not realistic, not only during the BRM, but also for the time left for Ecma to make the final changes in March. Therefore, the only realistic resolution could be “drop OOMML” entirely, since the old ways of writing equations (equation fields and equation editor) are unaffected, and MathML had also been added (although without extensions). Would that, however, gain enough support?

While the chairman was reviewing remaining issues on late Friday, he asked Greece about it. Greece replied that we are still uncomfortable about OOMML, but that there is no time to resolve the issue. Therefore, we removed it from the agenda. The time was 15:45.

Another issue that came in late was that ISO 29500 should be backwards compatible with Ecma 376. I first heard this by Brian Jones on Thursday, during lunch, and on Friday morning it was made clear to the BRM that this was an issue. This, of course, was an entirely new argument, which affected everything. The BRM simply did not have time to discuss whether we want this compatibility or not. It was around 16:30 on Friday when the BRM decided to add the clarification “Microsoft Office 97 to 2008″ to the Scope, where it says about the existing corpus of MS Office documents. Now although the “97″ was undisputable, it was not clear that the BRM wanted “2008″ rather than “2003″. It was clear to everyone, however, that there was absolutely no time to discuss about that, so when Greece proposed the “97 to 2007″ it went to vote after minimal discussion and only the technical correction of replacing 2007 with 2008 (the Mac OS X version of MS Office 2007).

Incidentally, while researching the equations, an issue of contention was the phrase “MathML renderers are allowed, but not required, to accept non-standard elements and attributes,” in the MathML specification. This did not make much sense, and it took considerable effort and several email exchanges, before David Carlisle, MathML editor, clarified in an email to Rick Jelliffe that this phrase appears to be an error (although the rest of the section (2.4.2 in MathML 3.0, 7.3.2 in MathML 2.0) appears to be ok). The reason I’m mentioning this is that it shows how a slight carelessness in a minor detail of a standard can create trouble, and all of us who have used standards know that all too well, because no standard is perfect.

The contrast with OOXML is sharp, and this brings us to another issue of contention. The Greek workgroup on OOXML had been handed only the Ecma Responses for Greece. It was at the BRM when we found out that we should have studied all responses, not only those for Greece. It is not clear if this is an error by Ecma or by the Greek NB, but, in both cases, we did not have the time to study one thousand responses, so there would have been no difference. In fact, even the 80 responses that Greece studied, we did not study at the level of scrutiny that is required when you inspect a standard. There was no time for that. What we did was glance through, and make fast decisions based on what seems right at a quick glance.

Dates

The date issue highlights several other problems. The original text proposes to store and manipulate dates by using two different representations, i.e. number of days from either 1900 or 1904, which contain a deliberate error for backwards compatibility: 1900 is considered to be a leap year. Other problems that were pointed out were that specifying dates before 1900 is not possible, that there is no reason to have two representations when one is enough, and that new ways of storing dates should not be invented since we already have ISO 8601. In the Disposition of Comments, Ecma proposed to add two additional ways of representation, which solved some of the problems but complicated the problem too much.

Before the BRM, I had prepared an alternative proposal on dates, which is much cleaner. There are three issues that demonstrate how the whole process was affected by the time constraints.

The first issue is that my proposal for dates, despite the fact that I had written it with care in the course of a few weeks, and that it had been reviewed by several people, did have shortcomings. By comparing my work to the work by Ecma and Germany I found out that I had failed to notice that data types were described in two places, 3.17.2.6 and 3.18.12, and I had only noticed 3.17.2.6. And while thinking about the whole issue I saw that the way I had proposed for handling durations probably did not work (although now I’m having second thoughts – but I’ll need very careful studying of ISO 8601 to arrive at a good conclusion). Both problems were easy to fix, and I submitted an updated proposal on Friday morning. However, this shows that it was very hard to write error-free proposals when the magnitude of changes were so large.

The second issue is related, but more important. When I discussed my proposal with Brian Jones on Thursday morning, he pointed out that it would be difficult for Ecma to accept it, because they did not have the time to verify that it actually works in all cases. Now this was a very valid concern. My proposal was more than 30 pages. Even if it were well thought and error free, Ecma had no way of knowing that. Therefore, the BRM was essentially confined to making changes that only scratched the surface of the problems.

The third issue is that, while writing my proposal, I and my reviewers found 13 additional errors in the original specification. However, national bodies were not allowed to submit new comments (and rightly so, otherwise there would have been total chaos). Therefore, there was no way to submit and correct them.

The changes that actually passed in Friday morning did add the possibility to store dates in ISO 8601 format, but they also keep the old ways, and in addition they add all ways proposed in the Disposition of Comments. Therefore we now have five different ways of representing the same thing.

EU fines Microsoft record $1.4bn
Microsoft must now pay a record 899m euros ($1.4bn; £680.9m) after it failed to comply with a 2004 ruling that it abused its position.

The ruling said that Microsoft was guilty of not providing key code to rival software makers.

EU regulators said the firm was the first to break an EU anti-trust ruling.

The fines come on top of earlier fines of 280m euros imposed in July 2006, and of 497m euros in March 2004.

“Microsoft was the first company in 50 years of EU competition policy that the Commission has had to fine for failure to comply with an antitrust decision,” Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement.

Future improvements?

An investigation concluded in 2004 that Microsoft was guilty of freezing out rivals in products such as media players, while unfairly unfairly linking its Explorer internet browser to its Windows operating system at the expense of rival servers.

The European Court of First Instance upheld this ruling last year, which ordered Microsoft to pay 497m euros for abusing its dominant market position.
DISPUTE TIMELINE
March 2004: EU fines Microsoft 497m euros and orders it to release key Windows code to rival software developers
September 2004: Microsoft tries to have the ruling temporarily suspended
April 2006: Microsoft appeals the ruling in the European Court of First Instance
September 2007: Microsoft loses its appeal

Last week, the firm announced that it would open up the technology of some of its leading software, including Windows, to make it easier to operate with rivals’ products.

“As we demonstrated last week with our new interoperability principles and specific actions to increase the openness of our products, we are focusing on steps that will improve things for the future,” Microsoft said.

Further cases

But the firm is still being pursued by Brussels.

Earlier this month, the European Commission launched two new anti-competition investigations against Microsoft into similar issues.

The first will look at whether there are still problems regarding Microsoft abusing its dominance of the PC market to grab market share of the internet.

The Commission will also investigate the continued interoperability of Microsoft software with rival products.

Kas viidatud lahendustest ka midagi kuskil mujal maailmas kaitsmisel või kaitstud on, seda saab kontrollida Ülemaailmse andmebaasi Espacenet http://ep.espacenet.com/ abil, nt: advance search->publication number US2006271574 -> avades leitud dokumendi ja klikkides lingil “View INPADOC patent family” näeme, et tõepoolest lisaks mitmetele muudele riikidele on ka Euroopa Patenditaotlus esitatud (EP1675017)

Kindlasti tasub ka arvestada, et see millele lõpuks patent välja antakse (kui antakse) ei pruugi olla sama, millele patenditaotlus esitati. Seega viidatud dokumentide sisuga tutvumata ei tasu ära ehmuda – patenditaotlusesse võib kirjutada mida iganes Iseasi, kas kirja pandud lahendusele ka patent välja antakse.

Head uurimist! Loodetavasti oli abiks

Simon Phipps is chief open source officer for Sun Microsystems Inc. As such, he stands at the center of a heated debate over standards-based XML file formats like the OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML). With OOXML approaching a crucial late-February review by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Phipps has been busy. Really busy.

Kui vaadata seda, mis alal koolitust ollakse saanud siis see välistab igasuguse mitte-Windowsi operatsioonisüsteemi. Samuti kui vaadata, mida arvutifirmad hetkel Eestis teha suudavad siis saavad vast kõik aru, et MacOS-i, GNU/Linuxi, BSD vms. UNIX-ilaadse operatsioonisüsteemi paigaldajaid ja haldajaid ei ole just eriti palju (ühe käe sõrmedel võib neid kokku lugeda – OÜ Nordtech, OÜ Siidsisalik, OÜ Rootcom ja ega ei teagi rohkem neid…).
Kui nad ei oleks kuu pealt kukkunud siis tuleksid nad mistahes graafilist kasutajaliidest omava operatsioonisüsteemiga toime. See on praeguses olukorras sisuliselt ainuvõimalik lahendus kuna firmasid, kes aitaksid näiteks GNU/Linuxi alla, on lihtsalt nii vähe. Aga kuna Eesti Vabariigis sisuliselt muud peale Windowsi tavakasutajatele ei õpetata ning ka arvutid, mida müüakse, on vaid Windowsiga varustatud ja iseõppimine on sisuliselt null siis ei ole ka midagi imestada. Inimestel ei teki enamasti üldse küsimustki, et kas peale Windowsi veel midagi olemas on ning mis tasemel. Ning paljud neist, kellel see küsimus tekkis, tahavad ja suudavad ette võtta mõne vabalt saadaoleva operatsioonisüsteemi ning seda iseseisvalt kasutama õppida… Et kas näiteks ISO-faili allalaadimine ja plaadile kirjutamine ja sellelt kirjutatud plaadilt arvuti käivitamine LiveCD-na või tarkvara kõvakettale paigaldamine; või näiteks VirtualBox-i allalaadimine ja sellega allalaaditud ISO-faililt virtuaalarvuti üleslaadimine või miks mitte ka tarkvara paigaldamine üleslaaditud ISO-failist selle virtuaalarvuti kõvakettale on miski ulmeline raketiteadus või midagi sellist, mida näiteks juba 1. kooliastme viimase klassi õpilased teevad ning ka oma vanemaid ja vanavanemaid võivad sellel teemal õpetada-aidata… Miski kodulehe püstipanek, mis neid asju õpetaks, ei ole just eriti keeruline – http://www.arvutikaitse.ee/ on seda edukat näidanud. Aga palju oleks neid, kes viitsiksid sealtoodud õpetuste järgi ise asja teha? Et paljudel üldse tekib küsimus, et kas ainuvõimalik lahendus on nuumata ühte USA kommertsfirmat või on olemas ka teisi ja mitte kehvemaid võimalusi… Lugedes Eesti riigi prioriteete RISO kodulehelt http://www.riso.ee koosvõime raamistiku alt siis tekib paraku mulje, et RISO on tore organisatsioon aga päris elus Eesti nuumab endiselt ühte USA kommertsfirmat vaatamata RISO püüdlustele ja Eesti riigi ametlikule tarkvarapoliitikale. Jutuks hea küll ehk siis kui majandus- ja kommunikatsiooniminister kinnitab, et Eesti Vabariigis pooldatakse avatud vorminguid ja avatud standardeid aga endiselt nuumatakse päris elus ühte USA kommertsfirmat ja liiguvad selle USA kommertsfirma poolt loodud suletud ja patenteeritud vormingutes dokumendid siis miks selline silmakirjalikkus ja veel nii avalikult? Siis võiks ju kohe kuulutada, et Eesti Vabariik on ennast ühe USA kommertsfirmale maha müünud ja kasutavad vaid selle toodangut ning andmevorminguid. Ning kõik, kes ei jaksa seda kommertstarkvara osta, et neid suletud ja patenteeritud andmevorminguid avada/salvestada – need lihtsalt ei saagi tööd teha. Aga vaadake, mida näiteks meie lugupeetud president kasutab Siin üks hea lugemine – http://paber.ekspress.ee/viewdoc...
Ehk siis kui tõesti tahetakse tasulist asja panna siis MacOS aga samas kui tahetakse selle raha eest paremat/funktsionaalsemat riistvara (näiteks rohkem muutmälu) siis ilmselt miski vabatarkvaraline UNIX ehk siis mõni GNU/Linux, PC-BSD, vms. lõppkasutajale mõeldud versioon.

Google‘i poolt pakutav tasuta tarkvarapakett Google Pack sisaldab nüüdsest Sun Microsystems‘i StarOffice versiooni 8.0, mille IT-hiid andis kunagi välja vastukaaluks Microsoft Office‘ile. Google Pack’i koosseisu kuuluv tarkvara on tasuta ning valiku üle otsustab Google ise.

Google Pack on tarkvarapakett, mille koosseisu kuuluvat tarkvara iseloomustab Google järgmiselt:
tegemist on tasuta tarkvaraga selle sõna otseses mõttes – ei mingeid trial- ega shareware-versioone,
paketiga kasutajatele pakutav tarkvara ei sisalda nuhkvara ega muid kasutaja teadmata masinas toimetavaid programme,
kasutajad saavad endale sobiva paketi ise moodustada ning paari lihtsa liigutusega omale arvutisse installeerida.

Samuti on näiteks MS Word-i failivorming suuteline konfidentsiaalset infot lekitama kui kasutatakse seda, et avatakse varasem dokument, tühjendatakse see ning siis luuakse samasse faili uus sisu. Nii olen kohanud 1-leheküljelisi *.doc faile, mis on 1 MB ja isegi suuremad kuigi sisaldavad vaid teksti ja *.odt vormingusse ümber salvestamisel kujuneb mahuks 10…12 kB, mis on selle info tegelik maht… Uurides sellise *.doc formaadis “mammutfaili” sisu näiteks Notepad2-ga, võib sealt leida eelnevalt kustutatud teksti, mida aga võibolla ei taheta levitada…