Software Free

The International Organization for Standardization has approved Adobe Systems' widely used PDF (Portable Document Format) as an international standard, and is now in charge of any changes made to the specification.

Standards bodies abused and exploited by company/ies and proxies to whom it's all about money.

WIPO will discuss next week a report on the international patent system. A section of it is mentioning open standards.

THE UK'S CHALLENGE to Microsoft's bid to have its documents become an official international standard is back on track.

Sigh:

the world is not so simple as “open” or “closed.” Most software has both open and closed elements, and thus falls along a linear spectrum of being more open or more closed (or proprietary). But politicians, we know, will often eschew nuance and speak in simple rhetoric. And what rhetoric it is! No citizen should be forced or ENCOURAGED to choose a “closed technology” — this is more befitting of the Free Software Foundation or any NGO, just not a government’s chief antitrust official.

The point is that openness is not a business model: it is an engineering model. It benefits everyone: users, developers, suppliers. Kroes was (rightly) advocating such a level playing field, since it allows everyone to compete on the same terms - something that closed technologies do not.

Oh how we love the W3C. Such an exciting summer for all their working groups and recommendations, it's hard to believe that there is still work to do.

The W3C launched a new Web Applications (WebApps) Working Group, co-Chaired by Art Barstow (Nokia) and Charles McCathieNevile (Opera Software). The group combines the former Web APIs and Web Application Formats Working Groups and is focused on developing standard APIs for client-side Web Application development, including both documenting existing APIs such as XMLHttpRequest and developing new APIs in order to enable richer web applications. The group is a part of the Rich Client Activity.

Four national standards body members of ISO and IEC – Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela – have submitted appeals against the recent approval of ISO/IEC DIS 29500, Information technology – Office Open XML formats, as an ISO/IEC International Standard.

It has just been made easier to keep an eye on whether ODF gets subverted or not

There is an announcement just posted about OASIS opening a new discussion list for members and nonmembers to discuss a proposal to form a new technical committee to help out with "ODF Implementation, Interoperability and Conformance". Yes, interoperability is the key.

A reader from Slovakia tells us that his country has just made the right move

There seems to be a push to rewrite history about Microsoft's aggressive fight against ODF

British citizens can now sign a petition that supports ODF adoption in the country

One reader is suggesting that there might now be 5 (formal appeals against OOXML); Germany's DIN jumps in to the debate also

Now that there have been at least three official appeals filed against OOXML, by South Africa, Brazil and India, as well as a letter of protest from a participant entity at the BRM over the way matters were handled in Denmark, I thought this might be an excellent time to take a moment and remind ISO of its published Code of Ethics [PDF].

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3 nations (at least) are already confirmed to have appealed against ISO's decision