| Mest læste nyheder | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| Danish UNIX user group complains to EU over the Danish state use of OOXML |  |
|
Press release Copenhagen, 2008-02-26 The Danish Unix User Group DKUUG makes a formal complaint to EU over the Danish state mandatory regulation of ECMA OOXML The Danish Unix User Group DKUUG has made a formal complaint to the EU commission over the Danish state, for breach of the EC Treaty article 81 on unfair competition. The complaint concerns the internal regulation in the Danish state to prescribe the use of a mandatory standard, namely the specification ECMA-376 or ISO/IEC DIS 29500 OOXML, which describes a format that is used in the Microsoft Office 2007 product. Other producers of software are here having a competitive disadvantage, as Microsoft has a great competitive advantage of already having a product which implements the specification, and substantial parts of the specification are not specified, such as formats and their interpretation in earlier versions of Microsoft Office, and these specifications are therefore very diffficult for competititors to implement fully. DKUUG asks the commission to make a decision to make void the part on OOXML of the Danish regulation on mandatory standards, so that other products can participate in the competition on office software for the Danish state. 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. The EU legislation allows regulations on unfair competition, if this is for the benefit of the consumers, but this is not the case here generally, on the contrary there are many examples of public institutions saving much money by using competing products. Keld Simonsen, vice chair of DKUUG, says that the regulation of the Danish state on OOXML conformance can be seen as an attempt to continue the de facto monopoly of Microsoft in the Danish state on office software, as the various public agencies and institutions need to buy the products of Microsoft to comply to the regulation. It is unusual to see that the Danish state directly works for the continuation of a private monopoly - in other countries, for instance Norway, the explicit aim is to break up this monopoly, he says. He is also concerned that the ECMA OOXML has been made mandatory, when it does not live up to the requirements on openness, that the Danish parliament has agreed upon in its decision B103 in 2006. The National IT and Telecom Agency has procured a report from the Norwegian consultant firm Ovitas AS that concluded that OOXML could not be considered fully open. Keld Simonsen thus asks the Danish parliament to request the National IT and Telecom Agency to withdraw the ECMA OOXML from the list of mandatory IT standards to be used in the Danish State. Reference: Complaint from DKUUG to the EU commission http://www.dkuug.dk/keld/complaint.pdf Reference: Report from Ovitas AS to ITST on OOXML etc. http://www.itst.dk/arkitektur-og-standarder/Standardisering/Aabnestandarder/baggrundsrapporter/Research_OXML.ODF2.pdf/view Contact: Keld Simonsen, telephone +45 3322-6543, email keld@dkuug.dk DKUUG is an association on UNIX, Open Systems and Open Standards. DKUUG this year has its 25 years' anniversary, and also celebrates the 25 years anniversary for email and the start of the Internet in Denmark. DKUUG pioneered the definition of Open Standards contained in http://openstandards.dk and used by the Danish parliament. DKUUG holds a number of courses and meetings over the year on Open Standards and Open Source. More information at http://dkuug.dk |
|
|
| Andre nyheder |
|---|
