GNOME Foundation Statement on ECMA TC45-M Participation

[Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org>]

GNOME Foundation Statement on ECMA TC45-M Participation
=======================================================

In recent weeks, a number of articles raised concern in various communities
about the GNOME Foundation's membership of ECMA and participation in TC45-M
-- the technical committee reviewing Microsoft Office Open XML, or "OOXML".

In this statement we describe our participation in ECMA TC45-M, and provide
a summary of our position on ODF, OOXML and related issues.


Background
----------

Jody Goldberg is the lead maintainer of Gnumeric, a GNOME-based spreadsheet
application, a position he has held for seven years.

Before June 2007, he worked for Novell, representing them on TC45-M in order
to obtain further documentation of OOXML during its review process. In June,
Jody left Novell and proposed that the GNOME Foundation facilitate his work
with TC45-M by joining ECMA as a non-profit.

We accepted Jody's proposal to make sure that OOXML was documented enough
such that FLOSS implementations were possible without a huge amount of pain
(as experienced by those working on DOC and XLS binary format support). The
decision to participate in TC45-M was made by the Board as a direct result
of Jody's request. It did not involve any third party influence or financial
considerations at any point.

Jody's last interaction with TC45-M was in July, to deal with the latest set
of issues he submitted regarding charting and pivot tables. While he is not
participating in the current activities of TC45-M (which is focused on issue
resolution for the ISO standardisation process), our membership continues so
he can participate in the next review period.

During his participation in TC45-M (via Novell and the GNOME Foundation),
Jody has raised hundreds of issues with the documentation of the format,
which will demonstrate a significant, material, on-going benefit to FLOSS
implementations of OOXML and as a result, to users of FLOSS products that
require such interoperability.

In 2000, the GNOME community de-emphasised its own office software products,
choosing to support the nascent OpenOffice.org project. As a result, there
are no office products released on our six-month time-based release schedule
today, although we encourage and support projects such as AbiWord, Glom and
Gnumeric.


Position
--------

 1. GNOME's principal mission is to deliver Software Freedom to users around
    the world. The GNOME Foundation aims to support the world-wide developer
    and contributor base of the GNOME project towards this goal.

 2. The GNOME Foundation is a member of the ODF Alliance, and along with our
    contributors in the GNOME community we are passionate supporters of open
    standards in general. We believe that ODF delivers the best opportunity
    for industry and government to collaborate on an open document standard,
    to drive unprecedented innovation, productivity and public transparency.

 3. The GNOME Foundation's support for Jody's participation in TC45-M does
    not indicate endorsement for, or contribution to, ISO standardisation of
    the Microsoft Office Open XML formats.

 4. While Microsoft should be applauded for releasing information about the
    Office document formats, their maneouvres around the standards process
    demonstrates that they are not pursuing standardisation as a platform
    for innovation for the entire industry. Indeed, Microsoft continues to
    behave in the abusive manner of an unreformed, convicted monopolist with
    no passion for true industry collaboration in the interests of users.

 5. We are deeply concerned that abuse of the standards process is eroding
    public trust in the value and independence of international standards.
    Both ODF and OOXML are very heavily influenced by their implementation
    heritage, neither are likely to deliver the "one true office format",
    and both communities have -- in their own way -- played a role in this
    erosion of trust.
    
    We in the Open Source and Free Software community should be cautious
    about taking a black and white approach to a process that is rapidly
    turning standards into industrial weapons to the detriment of our users,
    software and communities. We face the very real danger that standards
    will suffer the same fate as patents: created to spur innovation and
    sharing, but manipulated to control and restrain.


Get Involved
------------

The GNOME Foundation is supporting the pursuit of Software Freedom through
the innovative, accessible, and beautiful user experience created by GNOME
contributors around the world. It's a fun and inviting community, so if
you're reading this and wondering what you can do to help promote Software
Freedom, contributing to GNOME is a great way to start!


Media Enquiries

  GNOME Foundation Press Officer
  Jeff Waugh (Sydney, Australia)
  Email: gnome-press-contact gnome org
  Phone: +61 2 9318 0284
  Mobile: +61 423 989 818

This statement is also available on the GNOME website:

  http://www.gnome.org/press/releases/ecma-tc45-statement.html