(has a temporary acl, ask rms@ansol.org to be added to editing group)

CT-173 meeting of 2007-07-31 By Rui Seabra

Contents

CT-173 meeting of 2007-07-31 By Rui Seabra

Intro

This document is in english because being in english may be of interest to ISO, many stakeholders and at least one participant of the meeting.

Participants

Initials (by order of participation):

FIXME: get names and affiliations of all participants.

Total Participants

Initials (by sitting order):

SM: Stephen McGibbon, Microsoft, OOXML expert
MC: Miguel Caldas, Microsoft, expert
ML: Miguel Luz, Câmara de Cascais
LV: Luís Calente, Câmara de Santarém
EC: Eduardo Coutinho, Via Tecla
MC: Manuel Cerqueira, ASSOFT (BSA alike)
FP: Fernando Pereira, II Seg. Social
AC: Alexandre Correia, Safira (MS Gold Certified Partner)
FB: Fernando Baptista, ONS and TC member. ONS is II (Instituto de Informática)
RB: Rui Barroso, ADRAL, Vogal
PQ: Pedro Quintas (not sure of the name), Jurinfor, Vogal
JM: Joaquim Machado, INE, Vogal
ARS: António Rito Silva, CIIST, Instituto Superior Técnico, invited as expert from INE
JN: João Neves, Intraneia, Vogal
GH: Gustavo Homem, Ângulo Sólido, Vogal
RS: Rui Seabra, ANSOL, Vogal
P300: Paulo Trezentos, Caixa Mágica (portuguese GNU/Linux distribution), Vogal
MV: Mário Valente, Director of ITIJ, ODF Alliance member, Vogal
PA: P. Amaral, J.P. Sá Couto, MS Partner
JA: Jorge Alves, ACIDI
H: Hélio(?), Primavera (MS Business partner), Secretary
HO: Henrique O'Neill
CR: Carlos Romero, ONS and TC member. ONS is II (Instituto de Informática)
MSD: Miguel Sales Dias, Microsoft, President of TC 173 "Lin guagem de Descrição de Documentos"

Notes

(RuiSeabra) I'm not a particularly strong note writer, so some information may still be missing, please help make it complete.

ITEM 1

Motivated by news that SUN and IBM were not accepted at the TC, declares such statements are inproper.
Presents slides with the procedures of invitation to TC-173 (see attached files Procedimentos.ppt, portuguese, Procedimentos-en.odp, english)

Points out that there were less than 48h between first time proper procedure was told to anyone and the time CR decides to stop inviting people at 20 participants.

ARS

Asks if policy of invitation was FIFO

Repeats the slide where II explains how it accepted participants, agrees it was by order of showing interest in participating.

ARS

Wonders if there was any sellection or care whether the entities represented the same interests, either present Public Administration or companies.
Points out there could be more rigour in the selection process.

Admits that the best that was possible, was done.

ARS

Asks about the 48h remark.

Explains that the first time it was known, was at July 11th, 19:54, when NB (IPQ -- Instituto Português da Qualidade) replied to some emails which askes what the correct procedure was.
States that if invitations stopped at 15:15, July 13th

Declares that at this time, it's no longer worth to discuss whether representativity is at stake, II shouldn't give so much importance to news.
Not putting at stake representativy, notes that it is sad that if Microsoft is present, then there should be more multinationals like SUN and IBM, which would bring more value to the discussion.
Solicits more clarifications on whether there is a pre-definition of representativity at the time of constitution.
Did II had the care of inviting SUN, IBM or even other multinationals besides Microsoft? They should have been.

Admits that possibility didn't occur to him at the time.
Hopes all is clarified.

Points out that MV did touch a pertinent issue.
Declares that the lack of representativity at the time the TC was constituted has repercussions reflected on the present membership.
Declares the damage is permanent.

Insists II invited the entities who demonstrated interest in participating.

Points out ANSOL only learned about the TC at June 26 when TV member MV called out, inviting new members.

ITEM 2

MSD

Starts reviewing the minute of the previous session.

JN, GH, RS

Propose a few changes with some corrections.

Points out an inconsistency on page 16, where it is claimed SM said different things than what RS wrote down at the time.

Insists he didn't say Microsoft's representative was excluded from the ODF discussions.
Claims what he said was «Gary Edwards had recently claimed that the OpenDocument Foundation had been ejected from OASIS for promoting a viewpoint that Sun didn't agree with.»

Propose to agree that SM could have said something he didn't mean to by accident.

After a short repetition of the discussion, remembers that SM is right.

Insists SM did say Microsoft's representative was excluded or ejected.
Considers this to be a minor issue, it could have been an honest mistake.
To demonstrate the value of YES WITH COMMENTS, will vote YES for the minutes adding the COMMENT that RS doesn't agree with the version of SM's statement in the official minutes.

Asks for a clarification to all present members about the voting procedure.

MSD

Understands that at ISO every member votes:
1. YES can come WITH COMMENTS to be dealt with at ISO
2. ABSTENTION
3. NO must come WITH COMMENTS to be dealt with at ISO

Concludes that the only form, then, to assure resolution of issues is to vote NO WITH COMMENTS

What about the vote, shouldn't the TC vote like ISO does?

MSD

Declares iso vote needs over 50% of members present; more than 2/3 must say YES, there must be less than 25% NO
Reminds TC that in first meeting it was decided to vote by simple majority.

Asks whether when comments on NO WITH COMMENTS are solved, the change into YES is automatic?

MSD

States the NB is invited to change the vote into YES.
Considers that the TC will probably not be consulted, but isn't sure enough to be certain.

ITEM 3

MSD

Proposes to have discussion happen before the break.
Proposes to have final declarations happen after the break, followed by the vote, at the predicted time.

Declares to have made an extensive analisys to ODF and OOXML since 2005.
Considers all points of controversy are possible to resume in only two major items, legal and technicalities about backwards-compatibility.
1. Legality issues
  - is it an open standard?
  - are there restriction on implementation?
  - we have two legal analisys that is contradictory.
  - ODF is pure in that it has no proprietary extensions, but revisions to ODF will have them.
2. backwards-compatibility
  - Proposes to move all backwards compatibility extensions into a 6th part dedicated to extensive documentation of these tags.
  - States it would make reading easier
  - States it would allow two adoptions: those which have the aim of backwards-compatibility and those which don't have that aim.
  - Will ask that to Microsoft to complete this, in his comments.
  - Thinks OOXML doesn't colide with ODF, neither does PDF, which isn't a standard, colide with both of them.

Declares that the legal matter must be clarified. The doubts come from OSP being a promise and not a patent grant.
Declares that if ODF is pure because it doesn't have proprietary extensions, OOXML is incomplete because it does have them, but doesn't define them adequately for implementors.
A 6th part would be good, but it would really need to document extensively these tags, and not merely move them to said part.
States that there are components that depend on the platform, ISO specs must be independent of platform.
Declares that if future versions of ODF have underdocumented proprietary extensions, he would oppose them just as vigourosly.

Cover's FSF Europe's 6 questions, giving examples, and requests that they are answered.
Agree's with GH's view of the 6th part proposed by PQ.
So far the legal analisys is inconclusive because there are contradictory documents. Time was too short for decent analisys. Also, it clearly doesn't cover EU Directives, and that is a major flaw.
Reminds TC of EU Directive 2004/48/EC which states patent rights become public crimes, so Ministério Público (note: more or less like District Attorney) must act upon those case, independent of whether the victim (Microsoft in this case) wants to or not.
Supports IBM's technical comments and adopts them, as well as FSF Europe's.

Wonders whether costumers can't reject implementations that use proprietary extensions unavailable to other implementors.
Asks if anyone has an ideia of what is the finantial impact for portuguese companies.

Delivered his list of comments.
Declares the lawyer who has been working with him on legal issues refused to provide a legal analisys in such a short time, at least one more week would be needed for a decent analisys.
As an implementor, would much rather have patent grants instead of being promised not to be sued for committing patent infringement, because of directives like 2004/48/EC.

Interrupts, declares Ministério Público only starts investigation and then asks Microsoft whether it wants to make a complaint or not.

Lawyer is also concerned about how binding the promise could be in face of inalienable rights. Microsoft is an US company present in stock, so it has moral and legal (fiduciary) obligations to its stockholders that may directly contradict this promise.
Declares this may lead to quite complicated court cases.
Admits ODF may be far from complete, but states that's why standards evolve and have future versions. Reaching a consensus with many implementors takes its time.
Reminds that this kind of standards must mention rendering, so the backwards-compatibility tags are important. Everyone knows how much people hate their documents looking inconsistently from computer to computer.
Asks if there is a map in order to be sure that older Microsoft formats are adequatly mapped to an OOXML implementation.
Is curious about how such a map would deal with things like the bitmap order inversion from MS Office 2002 to MS Office 2003. Hasn't found a reference to it in the spec, so he wonders if what happened would happen again: things like logotypes being inverted, for example.
Asks why is this standard proposed.
Declares that it's not it's value that is at stake, but simply that just still can't understand why it isn't an extension to ODF.
Restates that without a map, there is no way to assure backwards-compatibility.

Besides SUN and IBM, doesn't see why companies such as HP and Accenture aren't present either.
Considers that TC is representative.
States that AC represents Safira, which likes OOXML because many documents come from Microsoft Word or Excel.
Safira has to import many documents with complicated formulas, so it is good that there is a spec to define them.
Considers it may represent the end of Microsoft's monopoly.
Declares backwards-compatibility as important because there is a market that has to interoperate.
On existing multiple standards for the same end, doesn't see any problem. Gives X.400 and SMTP as an example.
Considers legal issues are for lawyers, not the TC.
ODF can't import documents from Microsoft, hence it is incomplete.
Safira is interested in that Portugal gives a vote in favour of OOXML.

States technical issues should be solved, but points out that the political nature is also important.
States it is fundamentally positive that Microsoft is participating in this process.
Admits there are relevant questions of legal nature.
Considers backwards-compatibility as a legitimate goal, but it must be well defined.
States the effort that is done by the implementors must be later on certified as compatible to the standard.

P300

Apologises for participating in "seat-gate" but considers the procedures should have been better defined.
Recognnises it's his first participation in this kind of TCs, but has already worked on other standardizations.
Hasn't read the full OOXML specification, but has followed documents that analysed it, and will define his arguments upon them.
States TC is cristalized because of Microsoft.
Hasn't yet decided his opinion, but will try to do so during the meeting.
Considers most present have already decided their vote prior to the discussion.
Declares that on one hand there are serious problems with the standard, but on the other hand it is very positive that Microsoft is trying to make a standardb because
1. due to Microsoft's power over the market, OOXML will end up being used
2. even if every country votes NO, ISO can decide to vote YES in the end.
Thinks that since there are problems, the vote must be useful, and the only useful vote is NO WITH COMMENTS because it makes Microsoft or ECMA address the issues.
Considers that the most effective form to achieve a better standard is to vote NO WITH COMMENTS.
Considers NO WITH COMMENTS will also make Microsoft treat the standardization processes better, due to the pressure from the rest of market players.
Since Microsoft wasn't forced to address issues in the past, now there are many documents that we have to support.
Declares that another advantage of NO WITH COMMENTS for Portugal, is the image of exeption of this TC that will be transmitted.
Recognises Microsoft is with a very good health in Portugal, having won an internal award recently, and has been signing lots of deals with the government. This way it would be good to show the TC is exempt.
Reminds that the spanish TC voted NO WITH COMMENTS, and it would be useful to follow its example.

ARS

Appreciates AC's intervention, b ecause it shows how closed formats affect companies' businesses.
Points out that governments are demanding open standards for preserving documents, so this is not just a business relationship between a costumer and a company, but also a matter of patrimony.
States that this position opens up the market.
Supposes Safira would not be happy if we ended up with some closed parts in the standard.
Considers governments must make sure that they use open standards in order to not force citizens to use certain products.
Considers companies also should worry on whether the standard can be closed up in the future.
Considers a standard is good if there is the guarantee that there are no proprietary extensions.
Microsoft must open up the format or create a tool that can convert Microsoft's Word .doc format into OOXML's .docx
Considers TC must have the courage to vote NO WITH COMMENTS to have this issues addressed.

Declares there is such a converter tool already.

Declares that statement is false, and asks permission to explain.

MSD

Reject's GH's request, and moves on to MV

States his love for companies. It is what he did before his political mandate as head of ITIJ two years ago, and hopes to do so again in the future.
Declares that as it is, he's mandated to defend the interest of the Public Administration, namely in the Justice department, which is the department that deals with the most of the documents in the PA. As such, ITIJ is strongly interested in open standards.
ITIJ is a member of the ODF Alliance, and ITIJ's vote will be NO WITH COMMENTS.
This is so for 3 reasons: 1, form, 2. function, 3. content
1. the legality of Microsoft's OSP and CNTS is just about OOXML proper. It must also apply to other formats that are merely referenced, but not specified. The best is to give a patent grant, which must also involve other related standards. Would vote YES if the legal and sub-formats were clarified.
2. There is already ISO/IEC 26300. OOXML may cover some more functionality but it should be done as an extension to ODF

(RS had to answer a phone call from his job at this point, and missed the remainder of MV's arguments, which lasted until the intermission. MV later said it was mainly the same argumentation he had discussed in the previous meeting)

INTERMISSION

MSD

States there are two conflicting juridical analisys
States IBM sent a list of commentaries which is subscribed by some TC members
States the current ITEM (3) is about clarifying the TC to know how to vote
States the next ITEM is the vote, which has only three possible outcomes.
Proposes to have a consolidated list of comments instead of several lists.
Invites TC to define methodology of consolidation.

Agrees there should be a single list, vote could follow that list but it should be made in the following days.

ARS

States document should summarize various perspectives in a short form of one or two pages to facilitate NB's decision.

Advises to make a merge which won't loose data.

Concludes it's too much to summarize properly, summary should make reference to attached documents, like lists of commentaries.
States NB will need the comments list, not just an overview, to use at ISO.

Proposes Instituto de Informática to preserve in an exempt form the presented documents.

P300

Asks if it has to be a single position (in favour or against OOXML), or if it may have more commentaries.

MSD + MC

It has to be a single position, YES WITH COMMENTS, ABSTENTION ou NO WITH COMMENTS.

Points out that article 9.8 defines YES WITH COMMENTS isn't binding for issue resolution, but NO WITH COMMENTS is.

Declares ISO looks equally to comments in any case, that issues are also solved when presented with YES WITH COMMENTS.

Points out that YES WITH COMMENTS binds no obligation, and NO WITH COMMENTS is by definition on the JTC1 Directives a CONDITIONAL YES.

Points out that the votes that count are the end result, YES WITH COMMENTS, NO WITH COMMENTS, or whatever.

. Points out that NO WITH COMMENTS becomes a YES when the issues are solved.

In case of a YES WITH COMMENTS vote, only YES comments may be included.

Disagrees, even though a YES WITH COMMENTS wins, the other commentaries may be included.

Declares that whatever the vote result is, only relevant commentaries should be sent to ISO.
Disagrees to posterior changes of the list of comments after vote.

States that in democracy there is only one winning vote. In this case it's YES WITH COMMENTS, ABSTENTION or NO WITH COMMENTS.
States that if there are commentaries, they should acompany the vote, whateve it is.
Proposes that a rapporteur should unify the commentaries and then TC should vote on that list of comments.

MSD

Considers there should be a list of topics.

Finds it hard to accept a document that wasn't voted. There should be a meeting to approve the document.

ARS

Finds that summarizing is very hard, points out that maybe there should be two rapporteurs.

Considers this is a good idea.
Points out that the dimension of this documents may be critical.

P300

Asks if the TC can have another meeting on this subject.

MSD

Finds it unlikely.

Asks the final opinion of Instituto de Informática

Also finds it unlikely.

States the communication to NB doens't have to happen in this day, so TC has time to define the document.

MSD

States there should be a list of topics, and fit the commentaries on those issues.

Agrees a topic list may be a necessity due to the number of technical comments.

Thinks that if the dimension is constrained, the document should make reference to other documents.

MSD

States that there has to be a list of topics.

Asks if it is possible to remove items from the technical comments.

Doesn't think there is time to discuss item by item if it should be there or not.

States a list of topics should be collected.

P300

Proposes the lists of commentaries should be collected by the rapporteur who should then consolidate them.

Proposes rapporteur collects commentaries until August 10th, compiles them until August 17th, then TC should vote until August 24th by email. Then it could be sent for the NB in time for the September 2nd ISO meeting.

(short general discussion on how to count email votes)

Proposes to use JTC1 instructions for vote by email instead of inventing a new rule set.

ARS

Thinks it's impractical to vote by email item to item. There should be an effort of summarising, and then vote even if the end document contains contradictory comments.

P300

Doesn't think contradictory comments can be sent, how can one solve one and another at the same time?

States contradictory comments don't make sense because it's impossible to solve both of them when taken to ISO.

ARS

Asks whether they are directly sent to ISO?

JN, MSD, GH, MC

Confirm that it is so.

P300

Proposes the rapporteur submits the document for discussion and then vote after compiling results.

(someone asks how to abstain)

Proposes abstention can be defined simply by not answering the vote email.

Proposes to simply remove both contradictory comments that are found.

(more general discussion on how to make the vote)

Asks if the the commentaries should reflect the general orientation of the vote.

States commentaries must be change proposals and not merely opinions.

(more general discussion on how to make the vote)

Points out that simple removal of contradictory statements may risk ending up with no comments at all.
States this situation should be avoided.

MSD

Proposes to have two rapporteurs, one the majority vote, and another from the minority vote.
Rapporteurs should then compile the result and send it to MSD who will propose them for vote.
Proposes to use the following dates, instead of what AC proposed, because of the short time for the NB between receiving the list of comments and the ISO deadline:
- August 10th, submission of commentaries
- August 17th, consolidation of commentaries
- August 22nd, vote

States that after the vote, the comments are those of the majority, and then the minority can ask for it's comments to be included.

MSD

Gives 30 more minutes for a final round of arguments

Would like to point out, about a previous RB comment about costumer choice and proprietary extensions, that he's assuming a perfect world where costumers make informed decision, and know what are, or not, proprietary extensions which are unavailable to other implementors.
Considers it unreal to think this level of information is of common knowledge to costumers.
Recognises some of them may be angrey when they find about it, but it may be after costly infrastructure decisions, which can't be merely discarded or replaced easily.

Defends that ignorance is not an excuse.
Wonders if forbidding proprietary extensions isn't a restraint on innovation.

States that with open standards, competition can compete for the excelency of its products.

Asks if that doesn't restrict innovation.

Declares that if not having proprietary extensions restricts innovation, then everyone should stop talking about open standards.
Declares that with open standards eveyone can compete for the most excellent support.
Declares all market wins if ISO approves an open standards, but it looses in the opposite case.
Clarifies that it's much more costly to implement multiple standards for the same end.
Cites blu-ray and hd-dvd as examples of increased costs, because players will have to support both formats.
Agrees that duplication of standards is a lesser reason if all legal and technical problems would disappear.

MSD

Proposes following a clockwise order on the table from his left for final arguments before the vote.

The City Hall of Cascais (CHoC) is faced constantly with two unavoidable diseases of the portuguese society: envy and suspition.
States envy is not a solvable problem.
States that suspition is solved by transparency.
Has to exchange documents with many entities and integrate them.
Boasts that CHoC didn't opt for choosing a standard, but instead chose to merely require electronic format, assuming the cost of integration, thus not forcing anyone to use a specific product.
States that multiplicity of formats isn't good, but standardization process is a form of reducing formats.
States many of it's citizens use Microsoft products, and as such they shouldn't be ignored.

Points out that migrating software may not be viable.

Interrupts pointing out that TC is not talking about discussing Microsoft products but the creation of a standard.

Declares he isn't present talking about the technical point of view.

Advises LV to, then, depart from the technical commitee.

MSD

Declares everyone should be given the opportunity to talk.

States that ViaTecla clients demand for solutions that present a button to import data into Excel.
States that in this situations, it is important to have a standard to follow, in order to make sure the conversion is correct.
Admits the majority of computers run Microsoft's software, and that it is the current reality.
The advantage of OOXML is that ViaTecla users gain more advantage.

States TC should consider the number of solutions in the market.
Standard competition is healthy, and the companies that ASSOFT represents demand it.
Reminds that fortunately there are no legal software patents in Portugal, yet.
Doubts that after Microsoft says OOXML is open, it will later on demand rights for it.
Criticizes the opposing juridical analisys for referring to many other rights other than patents.

Considers market reality to be that users use many formats, so it's good that they're standards.
Declares PDF is not a sandard, only a de-facto standard.
Delay of standardization process is harmful.
People want stable and long term formats in order to always be able to view documents correctly (points out that everyone knows how users get angry when this doesn't happen).
It must be possible to implement standards.
Publica Administration has to support various formats, and not choose among them.

During TC discussion some isolated issues where raised, like date or math formulas containing some errors, and whether 10% of OOXMl has errors.

Interrupts declaring that MV said about 10% of the examples in the standard documentation are not XML compliant.

Worries that if comments are sent back to ISO for mandatory resolution then it will go all the way back to ECMA, and then ISO will not have anything to say any longer.

Points out that after the vote, ISO has about two months of evaluation.

Confesses to not have much in the way of arguments that will add to the discussion.
Legal problems should be vinculatively solved.
OOXML and it's sub-standards should be better defined.
There should be an effort to have backwards-compatibility items in the same eventual section 6.

Knows OOXMl since 2005.
Knows how hard it was to use undocumented Microsoft APIs in the past, but since 2005 that doesn't happen.
That Microsoft has opened it's Office's file format was a surprise to open source community, now it can be opened even with notepad.

ARS

Declares the format isn't clearly open.
Declares entities are happy that it is more open, but they are here to decide whether its fully open, so they can access their documents in 10 or 100 years.

This was an important step because what we now have is better than what we had.
Declares there are still many issues that should be present in the final comments, like the date and formula problems, as well as interoperability.
Considers the proposal to not be enough open, and proposals should come out of this TC in order to get a more open and more accessible standard.

If rendering is out of the discussion, than we end-up with only text-mode.
Text mode isn't all that bad, had played the game Quake and viewd films in text-mode, but doesn't think its the desired viewing of the documents.
Reminds that the software patent game in Europe hasn't ended, in three years the scenery could be different.
Reminds that without a conversion map, there is no way to very backwards-compatibility.
Points out that backwards-compatibility is incomplete in what it defines, which is worse than no definition at all for implementors.
Points out the "the devil is in the details" of implementation, if supporting multiple formats increases cost, supporting indefinitions is even more costly to implementors.

Glad to see many entities defending the same as GH, mainly accessibility independently of the software that is used.
Considers that such defense is, however, not consciously argued since they defend it but by using "defense" arguments against it.

Interrupts to advise GH to not assume that they don't know the diverse platforms.

Isn't talking about platforms, but of standards.
TC should create the conditions so that what is defended can be actually done.

Is surprised to see Public Administrations boast actions that increase costs. They should choose an open standard so that they have less work and everyone could exchange documents with them.
Reminds TC that the PDF most people are used to is in fact PDF/A, which is an ISO standard. However people say PDF instead of PDF/A much in the same way people say Linux instead of GNU/Linux. after-note: not entirely true, I thought fonts were included by default, oh well, you can't be right all the time
Points out that even though software patents aren've valid in Europe, patents are valid by default because the patent offices have granted them. As such, in the case of alledged patent infringement, the accused has to prove his innocence, by proving that the patent isn't valid.
Reminds that Ministério Público must act upon public crimes, and Directive 2004/48/EC brings patent infringement to the public crime domain.
This makes a patent threats very scary, because court cases have been found to cost up to many thousands of euros. Even if innocence is proved.

P300

Comments that CHoC is his costumer, and that City Hall of Santarém is his city hall.
Points out that there is a plugin for support of ODF, so this standard being approved or not, has no consequence about stopping or not to use Microsft Office.
TC is working for the best result possible, so what is important is the useful vote.
Points out that CaixaMágica had to interrupt pilot-tests of migration to CaixaMágica on other citi halls because Microsoft pressured them based upon the number of unlicensed computers.
Asks if there is any opensource reference implementation of OOXML. Doesn't know any, himself.

From Microsoft, never.

P300

So there is no reference implementation of OOXML as opensource. This is important.

Ministry of Justice has spent over 5 million EUR on Microsoft licenses, as such doesn't intend on making any radical changes.
Points out that having a standards improves efficiency and equitu.
Defines the opposite of efficiency as "not making good use of public money by supporting various formats".
Defines equity as, constitutionally, the public administration has the obligation of guaranteeing equal access of its documents to all citizens.
Ministry of Justice must adopt a standard, ISO 26300 or 29500 is not very important, but the fact remains that it must be possible to use by any kind of program.
OOXML doesn't allow this.
MJ could adopt OOXML in the future, but it must be accessible to everyone without legal problems, formatting problems, or accessibility problems.
This kind of decisions isn't original. In the past governments forced the use of different kinds of gasoline that is more ecologic.
The public administration can't be viewed as a company, because it has more obligations than achieving profit.
The public administration has the obligation of caring for the common good, and in the past that meant more ecological fuel.
The public administration must allow more efficiency and equity, which is why ITIJ will vote NO WITH COMMENTS, and if they are solved, will change the vote to YES.

It's the first time Microsoft publicly documents a format, and that is good.

Declares that isn't true.

Wonders why, if there is already a standard, object to another?
Each user has the right to choose the standard he wants to use.

For the biggest monopoly to give such a huge step, it is a positive action.
Considers it to be lacking, though. Users want access to their files without paying more for it.
Recognizes Microsoft doens't have a good history record.
IBM technical comments make clear that there are gross mistakes in the specification.
Backwards-compatibility can help end a monopoly if it's available to other implementors.

Concludes that this shows we're all working for a better outcome.

ITEM 4

MSD

Verifies there isn't a consensus, so moves on for vote.

Points out that in other countries, the vote was done for each of the three possibilities, until one was chosen.

Points out that it was done that way in the USA.

Thinks it was done that way in Spain, as well.

The decision is about what the TC will vote, so a vote must be yes or no, about each of the options, YES WITH COMMENTS, ABSTENTION or NO WITH COMMENTS.

P300

If YES wins, then the other choices don't even need to be voted.

MSD

Makes vote: Will the TC vote YES WITH COMMENTS?
- In favour: 13
- Against: 7.

ITEM 5

MSD

Declares that now the TC should start consolidating comments.
Invites two TC members to propose as rapporteurs of the majority vote and minority vote.

Proposes himself as rapporteur for minority vote

Proposes himself as rapporteur for majority vote.

MSD

Proposes a media blackout until the TC publishes a press release.

Firmly says "No."

MSD

Mentions eventual necessity of writing internal bylaws for TC

ARS

Wonders if there was in fact representativity, libraries weren't even present.
Advises TC to review its membership, TC should transmit the image that it has broad representativity of society.

With 48hours, there wasn't even time for most institutions that would be interested.

MSD

Mentions the email of RS proposing to use ISO standards for exchanging documents of the TC.

Points out that he mentioned specifically ISO/IEC 26300

MSD

Considers that maybe about to be approved standards should be considered as well.

Replies that if they become a standard, TC can talk about it again. Right now, there is a standard already, and no full implementation of OOXML.

CT-173 meeting of 2007-07-31 By Rui Seabra

Intro

Participants

Total Participants

Notes

ITEM 1

ITEM 2

ITEM 3

ITEM 4

ITEM 5

END OF MEETING