Choice between Multiple Standards

The case of format neutrality

Czech Interoperability Roundtable

Prague, 18 May 2007

Hugo LUEDERS,
Director Public Policy, EMEA

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 Overview

• CompTIA: A Community of Communities …

• EU Policy Needs for ICT Standardisation
• Why One Format is Not Enough
• Choice between Multiple Standards
• Document File Formats: Policy Issues 2004-06
• German EU Presidency Recommendations 2007
• EU Member States – Reality Check 2007
• Some Conclusions: The Way Forward

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 CompTIA: A Community of Communities …
• Inclusive
- Members from the entire ICT industry spectrum incl
hardware, software, telecoms, ICT services and skills certs
- 25 years old with today more than 20,000 members, incl
not-for-profit organisations in some 100 countries (85% SMEs)
• Effective
- Industry driven through member ‘cornerstone’ processes
- Advances the interests of the ICT industry through public
policy and advocacy initiatives
• Global
- Worlds largest vendor-neutral provider of ICT skills certs
- Successful track record in global standards collaboration
- 14 offices on six continents - including in Asia since 1999

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 Who is CompTIA
CompTIA has members from the entire spectrum of the ICT industry
including; Hardware; Software; Telecommunications; ICT Services

@doc
Cisco Fujitsu Computer Lenovo NTT Data Intel
Alien Technology Corporation Global Knowledge Network Packard Bell France
Apple Inc gtslearning ProsoftTraining.com
AT&T Internet Services Hewlett-Packard Co. Ricoh Corp.
BFC (Integrated Print Ingram Micro Inc. Sharp Electronics Corporation
Management) Intel Siemens Enterprise Communications
Canon, USA HP
Circuit City Stores Inc.
Juniper Networks
Lenovo
Fujitsu GmbH & Co. KG
Samsung Electronics America
Cisco Systems Inc. Lexar Media Sybex, Inc.
CompuCom Systems Inc.
CompUSA
McAfee Inc.
MicroTek
TAC
Tandy/Radio Shack
Texas
Cprod
CSK Toshiba
Microsoft
Motorola
Motorol TechData Corp.
Technology Service Technology Service

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Dell Canada Inc. NCR Corporation Texas Instruments
Dell Europe Du Sud New Horizons Toshiba America
EDS New York City Department of Toshiba America Medical Systems Inc.
Element K Education Websense
Embraer Aircraft Manufacturing NIIT Ltd. Xerox Corporation
Epson Europe B.V. Novell
Microsoft Apple
Verisign Siemens
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 CompTIA Global
Düsseldorf Dubai
Toronto Germany / Middle East
Canada
Brussels
EU

Beijing
London China
UK

Washington DC USA Tokyo

Japan
Chicago, HQ
USA
New Delhi
India

Hong Kong
China
CompTIA’s Sao Paulo Sydney
Offices Brazil Johannesburg
Australia
South Africa
Worldwide
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 EU Policy Needs for ICT Standardisation
• Standardisation is a significant aspect of economic life, especially
with the dawn of the “Information Society”, trying to ensure a
level playing field between the different stakeholders and to improve
the quality of products and services
• Especially since the mid-1980s, with the adoption of the so-called
“New Approach” model (defining goals not setting standards), EU
policy makers have made an increasing use of standardisation in
support of EU policies and legislation
• Policy makers in Europe want to use standardisation as a tool
for reaching two main policy objectives:
- first, the completion of the EU27 Internal Market
- second, the support of European policies in particular in
the areas of competitiveness, public ‘innovative’ procurement,
interoperabilitiy, environment and consumer protection, etc.
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 Formal and Non-formal Standards
The paradigm shift to informal standards

• The informal standard setting process - the creation of standards

driven by industry and/or consortia outside of formal standardi-
sation bodies, including non-formal standards with global reach
(IETF, W3C, OASIS, WS-I, etc.) - is becoming more and more
important and should be given the necessary policy attention
• EU standardisation as a policy has to better integrate these
informal
standards to ensure that standards can be developed by the most
appropriate party, under the condition it meets the relevant quality
criteria (effectiveness, relevance, impartially, independence, etc.)
• A structured inclusion of multiple non-formal standards into
European Norms need to bridge the parallel universe of formal
and non-formal standards through multi-stakeholder partnerships
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 Why One Standard is Not Enough

One is not enough for continued innovation

• The plethora of standards can be daunting, seemingly at odds

with the concept of interoperability – think alone on multiple
electrical plugs …
• But is having one, and only one, standard for a given purpose
best for software developers and users, including for innovative
government e-infrastructures?
• One and only one standard is often not best for information
technology standards, especially for products and services
marked by continued innovation. Why?

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 Static vs. Dynamic Environments

Continued improvement through multiple standards

• In a static environment where there isn’t change or innovation in

what information value is being delivered, a single standard
governing that exchange is optimal
• However, in an environment where the value of information
delivered by interoperating systems is changing as software
providers innovate, the situation is different
• This is the dynamic environment, an environment where
developers and vendors continually add functionality, and data, to
improve the value of their software, and these developments often
impact interoperation with other software

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 Competitive Standards for Innovations
Standards at the higher level of the stack

• Until there is stability in the information requirements in a given

domain multiple standards need to exist to enable innovation
• Standards work well when the standards users have agreed that
the functionality can be/has been commoditized - Standards at
the lower infrastructure layers are a prime example
• It was a good thing that on that level no one mandated an existing
ISO standard, because TCP/IP was better, more innovative and
was widely adopted as result of choices based on merits
• As we move up the stack into higher levels of abstraction, forced
standards convergence stifles innovation and causes
cumbersome standards that are costly to implement …

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 Choice between Multiple Standards (1)
The Case of Format Neutrality
• Both Open XML and the Open Document standards, as well as UOF
and PDF define XML schema for applications and semantics
• The use of any one of these format does not preclude the use of the
others, applications implement all of them, they can all be used on
multiple platforms and multiple business models, and data can
flow from a document in one format to a document in another …
• Each of these standards enables the innovation and flexibility
necessary to support robust, but innovatively different, document
processing applications, they are up for innovation …
• This is an area where multiple standards serve the industry
and the society as a whole as new and innovative document
processing software is being developed
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 Choice between Multiple Standards (2)
• Multiple, co-existing standards are not unusual in the
ICT industry. For example, digital image formats, such as
CGM, JPEG, and PNG, each of which is an ISO standard,
meet different needs in the marketplace
• The recent case of one exclusive standard (DVB-H) for
mobile TV in Europe as suggested by the Commission
has provoked strong reactions in the industry:

“It is ridiculous for the Commission to think that only one system
can work everywhere! Each country has its own unique
requirements and market conditions … mobile operators and
broadcasters need flexibility to develop different business
models” (WorldDMB)

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 File Format Policy Issues 2004-2006

2004 IDA Recommendations *)

“Microsoft should consider the merits of submitting XML

formats to an international standards body of their choice”

IDA explicitly requested from industry:

• to put the evolution of the formats under the
control of a international standardisation body
• to build translators to/from ODF

Translation seen as real choice between multiple standards

*) http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/document/2592/5588

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 2006 IDABC Recommendations (1) *)

Public administrations are invited:

6.1. To make maximal use of internationally standardized open
document exchange and storage formatS for internal and
external communication
…
6.5. To create guidelines for the use of revisable and non-revisable
document exchange and storage formats for different purposes
Industry, industry consortia and international
standardisation bodies are invited:
6.6. To work together towards one international open document
standard, acceptable to all, for revisable and non-revisable
documents respectively
*) http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/servlets/Doc?id=26971

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 2006 IDABC Recommendations (2) *)

IDABC Conclusions
“Both the ODF and the OpenXML document format
specifications are XML based, promising great opportunities”

Main concerns met by both formats:

• to communicate with all citizens (without requiring citizens to
use one vendor’s products) and
• to archive documents over generations without worrying about
the format being controlled by one commercial entity
• Format interoperability is being actively addressed now through
conversion and translators

*) http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/servlets/Doc?id=26971

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 German EU Presidency
ODEF Conclusions – March 2007 *)

Para. 4
For all parties involved, the exchange of documents and data
between authorities, businesses and citizens must be possible
without technical barriers
The public administration must not exclude anyone from
participating in an electronic procedure owing to the use of a
specific product
The Member States agreed that in the future electronic
documents should be exchanged fully on the basis of open
document exchange formatS.”
*)
www.eu2007.bmi.bund.de/Internet/Content/Common/Anlagen/Themen/Europa__Internationales/V

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 EU Member States – Reality Check 2007
No conclusive policy or practice across Europe for
any particular document file format preference
Most EU Member States are not implementing
widespread or exclusive document file formats
• In the contrary, concrete policy measures focus in most
EU Member States on the value of multiple standards
competition and on tech- and format-neutrality
• The impression promoted by the press and others (like the
ODF fellowship) that Member States are widely adopting
ODF as the exclusive document retention standard is not
supported by facts and thus far from being accurate …
Myths have to be separated from realities

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 Belgium
Belgium often misstated as having "ODF only" government policy
However, in reality the actual situation is more differentiated:

• The decision is to go for (XML based) open standards

• “Policy only” applies to:
- Exchange (only) of documents between Federal agencies
- Not all internal use, not for exchange with the public,
not regional or local administrations
- Deliberately inclusive policy: ECMA-376 OpenXML will
be considered if ISO approved and is interoperable
• FEDICT CTO praised the commercial software industry
for translator work …
• Relevant ICT officials currently pushing both MS and ODF
side for better interoperability, and publicly questioned
implementation timeframe for “ODF not being ready“ …
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 Denmark
• DK Parliament Motion, June 2006:
“Public sector must by 1 Jan. 2008 use software based
on open standards. However this introduction should be cost neutral”
• DMSTI implementation report in February 2007
proposes that the Public Sector should be allowed to use both
OpenXML and ODF
• However, heavy political interest by MEPs up to the level
of the PM, very active and engaged opposition …
• Economic assessment shows it would be prohibitively costly
to adopt just ODF – because it is seen as not mature enough
• Potential decision end May to mandate one standard (?) or to
confirm implementation of 2 standards due to cost reasons …

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 Norway
Standardisation Council Proposals - 11 May 2007
According to press information the Norwegian Standardisation
Council, an advisory board to the Government, has proposed to
mandate a set of standards for document formats, including:
• ODF for document exchange and downloads of editable docs.
• PDF for publication of static documents on the web
• UTF-8 (ISO/IEC 10646) as a universal character set standard, to
be used in web publications, connections to registries and
databases, and all other textual exchange and archiving
• ECMA-376 is recognised as being in ISO process …
The proposals open a discussion and consultation,
in which all stakeholders can participate
According to the press any decisions following these consultations are
set to be enacted by 1 January 2009
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 Germany (1)

The German DIN is currently reviewing the file

format ECMA-376 (Office Open XML) for
standardisation at ISO

ECMA-376 and Oasis ODF are

both confirmed XML-based open formats

• In certain applications such as the integration of cross-

company and cross-agency processes, conversion from
one format to the other is necessary if interoperability is
to be achieved

A DIN Working Group will discuss OASIS ODF and

ECMA-376 conversion issues
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 Germany (2)
DIN Oasis ODF and ECMA-376 conversion issues
DIN Conversion Technical Report

• Define whether and how dates in one format can be

converted to the other format
• Recommend translators where models considerably
differ in terms of properties and design
• Give translator examples using the W3C XSLT standard

DIN will involve internationally known experts and will base its work
on experience gained in various international projects (such as the
Open Source Project )

see: http://www2.din.de/index.php?lang=en

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 Spain

Law on Electronic Access for Citizens to Public Administrations

Regulatory Principles
• Tech and format neutrality
• Freedom of choice
• Multiple standards: the administration will use open standards
as well as other standards generally used by citizens
• Reciprocity principle: the administration has to reply
to citizens in the same format as incoming requests
• Both formats ECMA 376 and Oasis ODF to be used

The law has been politically agreed (formally to be voted

end of May and in July – Senate and Parliament)

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 Other EU Member States

Europe quo vadis?

• Government policies and practices in other EU Member

States are still in flux, and hard to be definitive at this stage
• However, the few examples presented are sufficient to
showcase that there is no given and conclusive pan-
European policy or practice in document retention …
• There may always be exceptions and new developments,
but at least at this stage Europe27 represents across the
board a widespread picture of tech and format neutrality

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 Some Conclusions: The Way Forward
• Customers want to use many different kind of file formats,
because they have all their different needs and interests, and
because they benefit by that from ongoing innovation in file formats
• Diversity and competition are good for customers,
because they allow them to choose between different packages
that contain features meeting their various needs
• Increasingly, customers and consumers are able to choose
products that implement all the file formats they need
• The technological innovation will allow multiple ways to manage
data in documents with strong competition based on merits
• Multiple translators in a variety of design and properties will
enable customers to convert data from one format into others …

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 Contact

Hugo LUEDERS

CompTIA Public Policy Office EMEA

B-1040 Brussels/EU
6, Rond Point Schuman
tel: +32-2/234.78.22/23
mobile: +32-475/63.33.52
e-mail: hlueders@comptia.org

www.comptia.eu
www.softwarechoice.org

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