Open Malaysia  Promoting ODF (OpenDocument Format),open standards, open source,open ICT collaboration andopen innovation in Malaysia
An Interview with MyMeeting Senior Developer  MyMeeting(download here) is a web application specifically designed to help better managemeetings in government agencies. Initially developed at the OpenSource Competency Center (OSCC), it is the first Malaysian governmentsoftware to be released publicly under the open source BSD license. We conducted an email interview with Abdullah Zainul Abidin, the senior developer on this project. The answers are below verbatim (with some minor formatting changes).0) Tell us the story of how MyMeeting came about being developed. Who's brainchild was this? Who were the key developers? How many developers were allocated to work on MyMeeting? Was there management buy-in before development started? Was the development of MyMeeting conducted in OSS manner (ie open mailing lists, bug tracking software, public access to SVN/CVS/git etc)?MyMeeting actually started life as a custom system for the management of decisions made in the GITIC committee. GITIC (Government Information Technology And Internet Committee) is a committee chaired by the Chief Secretary Of Malaysia that discusses the implementation of government IT policies and so it has members from every government agency in Malaysia.Once the GITIC system was complete, MAMPU saw that MyMeeting could actually be useful to other government agencies too thus most of the customized for GITIC portion was taken and turned into settings which could easily be changed by the various agencies for their use. Then it wasn't really open source yet. We were using all the open source technologies (PHP, MySQL, Apache, SVN) but the development wasn't really open for all to see.It was when we wanted to redo MyMeeting for MyMeeting version 2 that we saw MyMeeting is a perfect candidate for a completely Malaysian Government Open Source Software project. Most probably the first of it's kind. So yes, development of MyMeeting is conducted in OSS manner. You can access the bugtracker at http://trac.oscc.org.my/mymeeting, download it through svn at https://svn.oscc.org.my/mymeeting, register to it's mailing list at http://lists.oscc.org.my/mailman/listinfo/mymeeting-users and alsoedit it's wiki at the knowledge bank http://knowledge.oscc.org.my/solution-areas/application/mymeeting.1) MyMeeting was developed on CakePHP. What was the reasoning to choose CakePHP over other PHP frameworks? Did using an ROR-style framework help speed up development? Were there any problems faced when using CakePHP and how did the developers go about solving the problems?The reason we choose CakePHP was exactly because it was an ROR-style framework. At the time when we decided to redo MyMeeting, there was a suggestion that we should use ROR especially after we saw Kamal's presentation on ROR at MyGOSSCON.But I was worried about the learning curve that we would have to face and also considering the limited amount of time we have it was just not realistic to expect all of the OSCC developers to grasp a completely new language (none of us have any kind of experience with Ruby) and a completely new approach to web application development. I mean doing programming with the MVC concept after so long of mixed PHP and HTML hackery it certainly is very different. But I knew that we would not be able to go far with "traditional" way of developing php software. We have to overcome MVC.So we choose CakePHP because it was marketed as clone of ROR. The initial learning curve of a new approach was pretty steep but once that was all over we find that it did help speed up development as it keeps things clean. Everyone knew where things need to go and where to look if there are problems.2) Is there any plans to officially support PostgreSQL (and other free databases) in future versions of MyMeeting? Also, why the support for MySQL only in this release?There is no "official" plans to support PostgreSQL and actually cakephp does support other free and non-free databases. Only there are some queries which we had to hack in as they are too complex for CakePHP. And to be honest we haven't had much experience with other databases. So if someone really needs it, or even gave us the patch to support it (hint,hint ;) we'd be more than glad to implement it into the main tree of MyMeeting.3) Has there been any patches fed back from the FOSS community? If members of the FOSS community are interested in contributing to this project, where should they go to information on getting involved?We had one patch submitted by SuMarDi that actually changed the theme of MyMeeting. It was really good. But as of date (11/09/2008) we have not yet put it in because he also changed some tags in the views so we need to make sure we don't break anything if we put it in. Apart from that we've got some good feedback from angch and he even updated the wiki in Trac.We welcome any contribution and involvement from the community regarding MyMeeting. If anyone is interested they should first register themselves at the OSCC Knowledgebank (http://knowledge.oscc.org.my) and from there they can read up on the latest MyMeeting documentation (http://knowledge.oscc.org.my/solution-areas/application/mymeeting). They should download the source code and try out MyMeeting (the Knowledgebank would have information on how to do that). If they find some bugs or would like to suggest some feature they can do so at the mymeeting trac site (http://trac.oscc.org.my/mymeeting) by logging in with their Knowledgebank account.They should also register with the mymeeting-users mailing list to keep up with the latest happenings with mymeeting at http://lists.oscc.org.my/mailman/listinfo/mymeeting-users. Apart from that, sometimes the mymeeting developers can be found in the #oscc irc channel on freenode. We'd be glad to help in any way we can so that the community can contribute.4) Are there plans to integrate into existing legacy calendaring systems? Are there plans to integrate into FOSS calendaring software? How about integrating into existing proprietary calendaring software?We have a vague plan of exporting the meeting calendars with iCal or something. But that is still a long way to go in the pipeline.5) What is the roadmap for future releases of MyMeeting?We haven't got a lot of feedback from the community yet as of where we should be heading. So most of it is only in the developers head of what next we should do. Yeah.. we're still very new at managing an open source project. It should be in trac.. :P6) Why was the decision to keep MyMeeting development within OSCC before version 1.0 ?That was actually the default way of doing things here at OSCC. We're actually trying to introduce something new with MyMeeting version 2 with it being completely open source and all.7) Will future projects appear to the public prior to v1.0?That would have to depend on the management.. :)8) How is the team adapting to releasing the code?We were pretty nervous at first. Not knowing whether our codes were any good and all. But we're okay now. Still got a long way to go to be fully disciplined in the open source way thought (release control and all) but insyaAllah we'll get there.9) Management must be well educated to have the source code released. Was this an issue, and did you need advocacy sessions?We are supposed to be the Open Source COMPETENCY Centre. :) So management should already know about the advantages of doing it in open source. We didn't need advocacy sessions.10) How does your team / Management / OSCC / MAMPU rationalise the sharing of Intellectual Right of copyright and software patents?We want Malaysia to be seen as a contributor of knowledge and technology to the global community.11) How many seats has this been rolled out to (#Agencies / #Seats) and how much would this have cost for an equivalent commercial product?There is at least around 6 agencies that is actively engaged with us to use MyMeeting. And since MyMeeting is freely downloadable there could be more out there that we don't even know of that's using it. Our current estimate is that it would cost at least RM 100K per agency to get something like MyMeeting commercially. So that's RM 600K at least already. :)12) How much would your team foresee saving the Govt over the next 5 to 10 years from MyMeeting, and other OSCC products?For MyMeeting? In 5 years maybe more than RM 15 million. If we can get all (and we mean ALL) of the government agencies and bodies to use MyMeeting. Not sure about the other products though.13) Govt is cutting back on spending generally. Do you foresee that it will cut back on OSS investments?Actually I think the right way to go is to put in more on OSS investments if they want to cut back. So I don't think they will.14) Any new projects from OSCC labs we should look out for?MySurveillance is rolling out soon. It is a HIDS system based on Prelude. 15) Can the private sector make use of the applications from OSCC?Yes of course. But we won't be able to officially provide support though. We're more focused on government bodies.16) Will OSCC provide support, or do they have recommended partners?We would recommend partners wherever possible.17) There have been cases where proprietary software vendors have opposed OSS initiatives by the government. Has there been any negative feedback from these vendors on the release of MyMeeting code, and if so, what has happened thus far?No problems so far.We would like to thank Abdullah Zainul Abidin for his time in answering the many questions. We are encouraged by the fact that the Malaysian goverment is moving so far as to open source its software projects. Indeed, the incredible interest from other government agencies clearly proves that the open sourcing of MyMeeting was a far-reaching wise investment. It has clearly allowed for efficient use of ICT resources by all, not to mention many millions of tax ringgits that are being saved through the choice of liberal OSS licensing. With their efforts leading to the promotion of OSS innovation and creativity, this initiative will surely lead to increased and sustained growth of the local ICT ecosystem. Posted by ditesh on Saturday, 27 September 2008 at 02:42 AM in FreeSoftware, OpenInnovation, OpenSource, PostsByDitesh | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) The Black Screen of Death Just yesterday, Microsoft Malaysia posted a new advertisement in a Malaysian daily which gloated that it now had control of all the software pirates in Malaysia. This new "feature" targets pirates by making the background of the desktops black, making it easy for law enforcers to fine the law breakers.  I don't know about you, but this ad is just begging to be parodied. So the art team here at OpenMalaysiaBlog came up with THE advertising programme Microsoft should have run instead: As with all proprietary software, please read the fine print by clicking on the images above.yk. Posted by yoonkit on Wednesday, 24 September 2008 at 03:54 PM in PostsByYoonKit | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0) Technorati Tags: advertising, microsoft Press Release: "IBM Announces New I.T. Standards Policy" Just released, IBM announced new principles for IT standards. Below is the full press release,from: http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Ibm-NYSE-IBM-902622.htmlSOURCE: IBM Sep 23, 2008 00:01 ETIBM Announces New I.T. Standards PolicyTo Encourage Improved Tech Standards Quality and Transparency, and Promote Equal Participation of Growth Markets in Globally Integrated EconomyARMONK, NY--(Marketwire - September 23, 2008) - IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that, effective immediately, it is instituting a new corporate policy that formalizes the company's behavior when helping to create open technical standards. Such standards enable electronic devices and software programs to interoperate with one another.In the globally integrated economy, open technical standards are integral to enabling the delivery of everything from disaster relief services and health care, to business services and consumer entertainment. They enable governments to create economic development platforms and deliver services to their citizens.The tenets of IBM's new policy are to:Begin or end participation in standards bodies based on the quality and openness of their processes, membership rules, and intellectual property policies.Encourage emerging and developed economies to both adopt open global standards and to participate in the creation of those standards.Advance governance rules within standards bodies that ensure technology decisions, votes, and dispute resolutions are made fairly by independent participants, protected from undue influence.Collaborate with standards bodies and developer communities to ensure that open software interoperability standards are freely available and implementable. Help drive the creation of clear, simple and consistent intellectual property policies for standards organizations, thereby enabling standards developers and implementers to make informed technical and business decisions.IBM encouraged members of standards communities to adopt similar principles, which are more stringent than required by existing laws or policies. IBM's new standards policy promotes simplified and consistent intellectual property practices, and emphasizes that all stakeholders, including the open source community and those in growth markets, should have equal footing as they participate in the standards process.IBM described steps to put these principles into action. For example, the company will:Review and take necessary actions concerning its membership in standards organizations.In the regions and countries where we do business, encourage local participation in the creation and use of standards that solve the problems and meet the requirements of all affected stakeholders around the world. We will advocate governance policies in standards bodies that encourage diverse participation.Work for process reform in standards organizations so that proxies or surrogates cannot be used in standards creation and approval.Collaborate with standards organizations and stakeholders to streamline and consolidate intellectual property licenses and policies, with a focus on enabling software applications to become more easily interoperable by the use of open standards.IBM's principles were inspired by the results of an online conversation facilitated by IBM during the summer of 2008, in which 70 independent, forward-thinking experts across the globe -- from academia, standards-setting, law, government, and public policy -- debated the question of whether standard setting bodies have kept pace with today's commercial, social, legal and political realities. Actionable suggestions to modernize their processes were offered during the six-week discussion (http://www.research.ibm.com//files/standards_wikis.shtml), with an eye toward increasing standards transparency, fairness, and quality.An invitation-only summit is planned for November, under Yale University's auspices, that will flesh out recommendations from the online discussion and begin steps toward improving the standards-setting environment."Common, open and consensus-based technology standards from reputable standards bodies help ensure that each of us can easily purchase and interchangeably use computing technology from multiple vendors," said Bob Sutor, IBM vice president of open source and standards. "The ways in which they are created and adopted provide reasonable assurances that disparate products will work with one another, and withstand the test of time."About IBMFor more information about IBM, please visit www.ibm.comContact:IBM Media RelationsAri Fishkind914.945.2319fishkind@us.ibm.comClick here to see all recent news from this company Posted by Hasan on Tuesday, 23 September 2008 at 03:34 PM in OpenStandards, PostsByHasan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) Let's complain about Microsoft restricting choice in the market (part deux) Yoon Kit wrote about being forced to pay the Microsoft tax when buying computers from computer manufacturers (eg Dell). I submitted a complaint to the Ministry of Internal Trade and Consumer Affairs and received an official acknowledgment from the ministry that the Penang branch office will investigate the complaint.I strongly urge everybody who uses non-Microsoft operating systems on their computers bought from Dell or any other manufacturers to write in through the web interface and make an official complaint. Make your voices heard so that we can stop being forced to pay for software we don't use!State Chief Enforcement Officer,Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs,Tuanku Syed Putra Building,Downing Lane,10300 Penang.(Dated: 15th August 2008)Sir,COMPLAINT ABOUT PURCHASING DELL COMPUTERSDITESH KUMAR A/L SHASHIKANTI am instructed to respectfully inform you that this administration has received a complaint where the complainant was asked to use Microsoft Windows from Dell Computers, which add an additional cost to the purchase.2. For your information, the complainant does not use Microsoft Windows software and as such, does not ask for Microsoft warranty and hopes that the company in question does not add any extra charges.3. In line with that, we would be pleased if your party could conduct the necessary investigations and inform us of any developments to this administration.Your cooperation in this matter is much appreciated and we thank you in advance."SERVING THE COUNTRY"Following orders,Mazlan bin Hanifffor: Director Sep 9, 2008:@Wu MingShi: Thanks for the better translation. Posted by ditesh on Saturday, 06 September 2008 at 04:32 PM in FreeSoftware, PostsByDitesh | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) ODF approved as Swedish Standard  Time to fly the flag again. This time, Sweden's. The last time Sweden was dubiously mentioned in OpenMalaysiaBlog was during the OOXML voting saga. Nothing dubious about the car of Swedish make that I drive. Nothing dubious about ODF being approved as a national standard in Sweden! See the report by Peter Krantz, and the SIS page (in English) that describes SS-ISO/IEC 26300:2008.Great stuff. Congratulations, Sweden!Anyone still remember that ODF is still a proposed Malaysian Standard? Along the way, others like Italy and Korea made ODF their national standard for document formats. Yeah, July 2006 (the Malaysia proposal date) till now is an awfully long time. But you know what? That proposal was historic to me because it became the point that started rallying ODF supporters together in Malaysia -- the tumultuous events in Malaysia surrounding (e.g. here and here) and after that proposal saw the Malaysian Government decide to adopt open standards and ODF, for one, and the committees under Standards Malaysia saying NO to OOXML again and again, for another.The MS26300 proposal is still alive, mind you -- the approval will be sweet. What's sure is that Malaysia has become more open in the 2+ years, as OpenMalaysiaBlog has revealed. Posted by Hasan on Thursday, 04 September 2008 at 12:39 AM in ODF, OOXML, OpenStandards, PostsByHasan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) OOXML won't be accepted in South America. Over the past month, the team at OpenMalaysiaBlog was really happy to showcase the good work Malaysians have done in government agencies and state governments in adopting OpenOffice.org in their offices. Some were driven from MAMPU's direction, but most were self initiatives, some even starting way back in 2003. I personally, have been deliberately avoiding OOXML news because basically, I wassick and tired of it; where the latest ridiculous situation is where the samepeople who voted for the standard, get to vote against the appeal of the decision. Surely it shouldn't be an immediate voting procedure (ala BRM), but more of a consensus gathering effort? What happened to the process of working out the sustained objections as espoused by ISO procedures? As far as I know, since the Contradiction documents prepared by all the NBs back in Feb07, there has been no effort by ISO to work that out. Looking at the ISO process,its clear its broken and when there are forces determined to push itthrough, it will push it through.  Looks as though that this process has pissed off more people though. Entire countries. Continents even. In the International Congress of Society and Electronic Government (CONSEGI) 2008; Brazil, South Africa, Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba and Paraguay signed a joint declaration against the latest decision by ISO to ignore the appeals.  They reiterate the issues of ISO "bending of rules" to fast track DIS29500, ignoring the contradictions with ODF, the growing and widespread use of ODF based applications in these countries, and questions the "vendor neutrality" of ISO, where its reputation and relevance is now suspect. [See below for transcript, and scanned image of the letter]The event is far more than these few countries criticising ISO. It has a far greater impact on the FOSS world in southern countries, and as described by a participant, "the event in Brasilia was the Mecca of free software in the world". Check out the long list of speakers from relevant representatives from government agencies, international speakers and institutions. This blog better describes the discussions:Gatheredin the framework of South-South Coalition Dynamics, which occurredduring the first day of CONSEGI, representatives of South Africa,Angola, Argentina, Brazil, Cape Verde, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, India,Paraguay, Sao Tome and Principe , Uruguay and Venezuela discussed waysand strategies to spread the use and development of open sourcesoftware and open source, e-government programs and digital inclusion.So even though Microsoft may have gotten the ISO certification it desperately needed, the damage done has been considerable. The past two years brought together the international community, raised more awareness to real open standards than before, and unfortunately for them, pinpointed them as a common "enemy." It looks like countries south of the equator have clearly indicated that OOXML will NOT be recognised as any form of government interoperability format.And the backlash has only just begun ...yk.CONSEGI 2008 DECLARATION We, the undersigned representatives of state IT organisationsfrom Brazil, South Africa, Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba and Paraguay, notewith disappointment the press release from ISO/IEC/JTC-1 of 20 Augustregarding the appeals registered by the national bodies of Brazil,South Africa, India and Venezuela. Our national bodies, together withIndia, had independently raised a number of serious concerns about theprocess surrounding the fast track approval of DIS29500. That thoseconcerns were not properly addressed in the form of a conciliationpanel reflects poorly on the integrity of these international standardsdevelopment institutions.Whereas we do not intend to waste any more resources on lobbyingour national bodies to pursue the appeals further, we feel it isimportant to make the following points clear:1.The bending of the rules to facilitate the fast trackprocessing of DIS29500 remains a significant concern to us. That theISO TMB did not deem it necessary to properly explore the substance ofthe appeals must, of necessity, put confidence in those institutionsability to meet our national requirements into question.2.The overlap of subject matter with the existing ISO/IEC26300 (OpenDocument Format) standard remains an area of concern. Many of ourcountries have made substantial commitments to the use of ISO/IEC26300,not least because it was published as an ISO standard in 2006. 3.The large scale adoption of a standard for office document formats isa long and expensive exercise, with multi-year projects beingundertaken in each of our countries. Many of us have dedicatedsignificant time and resources to this effort. For example, in Brazil,the process of translation of ISO/IEC26300 into Portuguese has takenover a year. The issues which emerged over the past year have placed all ofus at a difficult crossroads. Given the organisation's inability tofollow its own rules we are no longer confident that ISO/IEC will becapable of transforming itself into the open and vendor-neutralstandards setting organisation which is such an urgent requirement. What is now clear is that we will have to, albeit reluctantly,re-evaluate our assessment of ISO/IEC, particularly in its relevance toour various national government interoperability frameworks. Whereasin the past it has been assumed that an ISO/IEC standard shouldautomatically be considered for use within government, clearly thisposition no longer stands.- Aslam Raffee (South Africa) Chairman, Government IT Officer's Council Working Group on Open Standards Open Source Software- Marcos Vinicius Ferreira Mazoni (Brazil) Presidente,Office of Federal Data Processing - Carlos Eloy Figueira (Venezuela) President, National Center of Information Technologies - Eduardo Alvear Simba (Ecuador) Director of Software Libre, Presidency of the Republic- Tomas Ariel Duarte C. (Paraguay) Director of Information Technology, Presidency of the Republic - Miriam Valdés Abreu (Cuba) Director of Analysis, Office for Computerisation. Continue reading "OOXML won't be accepted in South America." » Posted by yoonkit on Tuesday, 02 September 2008 at 12:54 AM in OOXML, PostsByYoonKit | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) Technorati Tags: brazil, consegi, ooxml OpenOffice.org deployed in Malaysian Schools  Just announced today (27 August 2008), The Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) and the Ministry of Education (MoE) are working with the State Government of Terengganu to further increase the adoption of Open Source Software in government and schools. This is announced at the "Open Source Software Seminar for Accelerated Adpotion" held at Wisma Darul Iman, Terengganu.OpenOffice.org in Schools Pilot launchedtoday by the Chief Minister of Terengganu supports the increasedadoption of OSS and deployment for the upcoming generation ofMalaysians. OpenOffice.org is an Open Source software alternative foroffice productivity software. The pilot phase in the state involvesdeployment to over 100 schools since January 2008. From January 2009,all 467 schools will start using OpenOffice.org in the state.What is interesting is that the pilot project began early this year with little fanfare, and now 8 months on, over 100 of Terengganu schools have already upgraded from their old office suites to OpenOffice.org. What will be interesting is the future impact this would have, ala Philippines. This, however is stunning:Over the next 2 years, the Ministry ofEducation plans to build on this initiative and deploy OpenOffice.orgin over 300,000 PCs in schools throughout the country.300,000 PCs in schools nationwide will have OpenOffice.org. Why?!!!The savings in licensing costs, supportfor open standards and platform neutrality and increased securityfrom threat of document viruses of this software will provide betterdelivery of education services by students and teachers.Thats why! Costs, Open Standards and Security. I love it that the Government is finally understanding the term "platform neutrality"! They are finally understanding that the "Technology Neutrality" stance is actually a powerful means of procuring the best value product and not tied in to any one vendor. It is definitely not an excuse of being apathetic on issues which are important to Malaysia's interests.300,000 PCs would certainly be the largest deployment of OOo in the country. Well done to the Ministry of Education for going ahead with this. What is encouraging in that this is not just a MOU type announcement; they have been doing this consistently over the year and are only announcing this when there has been significant progress in the "pilot project":The Terengganu State government has also setup a community training centre that has trained over 20,000 state citizens with IT skills using open source software on 585 Linux desktops.This news is wonderful, and it highlights the domino effect with OpenOffice.org as the catalyst, as a FOSS solution are increasingly being used by government agencies. As this builds momentum, vendors will not be able to resist the demand for OOo to be pre-installed on all their machines. Instead of the dreaded Microsoft "Works" (a misnomer; because "Works" doesn't work) pre-installed, it would be infinitely more useful if vendors pre-installed OpenOffice.org.  The project is being implemented with the support of the Terenganu State Education Department with commitment and financial support from the State Government of Terengganu through the Implementation Committee chaired by B. En. Ahmad Razif bin Abdul Rahman the director for the Science, Technology and Human Resources Committee for the State of Terengganu. The implementaiton of this project hopes to achieve increased knowledge sharing and innovation for computer users with the optimum license and minimal cost.Its great to have forward thinking excos like En Ahmad Razif who has the will to drive initiatives like this. Adoption of the open source officesuite, OpenOffice.org for state government agencies is now officialin the states of Melaka, Kedah, Pahang and Sabah. States like Melakaand Kedah have been deploying OpenOffice.org and OSS since 2003. Mostrecently Pahang State Government has issued a circular on the statesintention for all state agencies to migrate to Openoffice.org.Combined they have saved millions in ringgit for licensing fees,expenditure now spent locally to provide better public services intheir respective states. If you ever get the question, "How do you make money from FOSS?", tell them that's the wrong question. Millions of ringgit saved. Well done MAMPU. Well done Ministry of Education. Well done State Government of Terengganu. I wonder what Microsoft Malaysia thinks of all of this. Perhaps they were too preoccupied with the OOXML saga last year to notice the major changes in government choices? yk Posted by yoonkit on Wednesday, 27 August 2008 at 04:11 PM in FreeSoftware, ODF, OpenSource, PostsByYoonKit | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) Technorati Tags: education, mampu, moe, terengganu "Software Patents in Malaysia?" In ComputerWorld Malaysia, next to the article about Linux in schools in Philippines, was this interesting box. Im not sure whether it was an advertorial, but it seems like a reignition of the software patent debate. 5 Minute Reading: "Software Patents in Malaysia?"by Noriswadi IsmailChallenge me if this statement is quite misleading: "IntellectualProperty Rights (IPR) within the Information Communications &Technology (ICT) industry in Malaysia is largely segmented". Toquantify, ideally, most of the IPR components that hit the nationalheadlines are mostly on infringement. And of all the decided cases inour national courts - are purely surrounded by invalidation andinfringement cases - so much so, the ICT industry is still hoping formore development and progress.There are some initiatives by Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC)to suggest a move towards software patents. It was sometime, in thefirst quarter, this year; I had attended a well-organized conference byMDeC. Officials form the Japan Patent Office and Malaysian IntellectualProperty corporation (MyIPO) were invited to provide their views andstance on software patents. There were invited consultants whoimpressed the attendees with their overall insights to - from basics tothe advanced level understanding. During the wrap up session, I hadpersonally opined:-i) That MDeC and MyIPO should gauge extensive feedbacks, through apublic consultation paper, from Malaysia's ICT stakeholders on softwarepatents;ii) That the result of the consultation should be diffused and disseminated to the stakeholders; andiii) That MDeC and MyIPO should consult a well-coordinated forum withthe Attorney General' Chambers ("AG Chambers") to consider suchpractice notes, guidelines or amendments to the existing MalaysianPatents Act.Though these three (3) items may sound such a Herculean task, however,from the ICT industry perspective, it's timely for Malaysia to have itsown stance. Putting the legal debate on patentability of softwareaside, for the time being, the ICT industry is hoping for a quantumleap that could stimulate software innovation culture. Some players mayargue that software patent stifle innovation. To a certain extend, ithas its merits. Arguably, the global software patents landscape arediversified due to its territorial nature of IPR protection andenforcement. Some countries allowed software patents. Some countriesallowed software patents with conditional guidelines and some countriesare very much grey on this subject matter. On this case, where isMalaysia heading to?Assuming: If software are deemed to be patentable, the next challengethat will be faced by Malaysia's ICT industry is the monopoly ofother competitors and big players. Whilst there is no competitionregulations and laws addressing such concerns, perhaps, MDeC, MyIPO andthe AG Chambers should add this in their must-to-do list in the nearestfuture. To move forward, my urge to all the readers - policy makers,stakeholders and ICT industry players, what do you think about SoftwarePatents from other angles - business, economic and others? Your viewsare highly sought in shaping our public policy engagement in Malaysia. Email me your thoughts at: noriswadi@heitech.com.myThe writer is a British Chevening Scholar and Group General Counsel / Company Secretary of HeiTech Padu Berhad.Although this call for comments appears to be neutral, there are some issues which cause concern regarding Noriswadi's position:He only says that there are some countries who allow it, some who allow it with conditions and "some countries are very much grey on this subject matter." There is no mention that there are countries which have clearly rejected software patents, namely India, UK and the entire European Union. He seems to be calling out for more proactive moves on MDeC and MyIPO to re-invigorate the local software scene and "hoping for a quantumleap that could stimulate software innovation culture". Maybe a policy move could achieve the effect, but encouraging software patents I believe is the wrong way to go about it.He forgets to include are the most important stakeholders of this issue; the Malaysian public. We are unfortunately net importers of technology. We need the freedom to choose whatever technology available, be it proprietary to FOSS (Technology Neutrality). Software patents will hinder FOSS adoption due to scare tactics or legal suppression by patent holders. End users will have to bear the burden for artificial monopolies, legal and licensing costs.He does not elaborate on what actual benefits software patents would bring to the local ICT industry. He just says "To a certain extend [sic], ithas its merits". Perhaps the merits and demerits could be elaborated on to give a complete picture for Malaysia to decide? Back in 2006, PIKOM held a seminar on this very issue, and I had the pleasure to listen to and summarise talks by Ng Wan Peng and Deepak Pillai. Wan Peng was from MDeC, and she concluded in her talk entitled "Policy considerations in the patentability of computer implemented business methods" Here are some interesting points from her presentation.The MDeC report [in 2005] also noted that in the Malaysian SoftwareDevelopment environment, we are still a net importer of technology. Itasked these questions, Will Software Patents help:increase Foreign Direct Interests?reduce the deficit in Technology balance of payments?reduce transactional and social costs?For all three queries, the answer was a resounding 'No'. A strong legal framework is an important but relatively small criteriain selecting a country for investments. The other criteria comes fromable workforce, stable government, language and cultural preferencesand other major economic reasons. IP protection is important, but notas important as the rest. In conclusion,MDeC's position on Software Patents are:Retain status quo: Software Patents are possible on stringent criteria: if it shows innovation and novel ideasBusiness Methods are clearly not Patentableand a review of position in 3 years time ...I guess 3 years on, the 2005 report is now due for a review, and that is probably why we are getting renewed interest in software patents. Deepak's presentation "Intellectual Property - Know your rights," was just as interesting;He notes that Software patents are seen as an inhibitor of theproduction of both FOSS and proprietary Software Development inMalaysia. Reason being is that it puts developers and users at risk ofpatent infringement suits. It also requries developers to conductsearches to be aware of existing patents before proceeding withdevelopment work. This is wasteful in both monetary, manpower and timeresources. The USPTO system of granting software is open to abuse asregistration is easily acquired and a challenge requires substantialfinancial capacity which not many start-ups have the deep pockets.However Software Patents are not the cause of theproblems facing the software industry now... its the ease in which theUSTPO is awarding patents to the applicants. A regular mechanicalpatent requires detailed schematics and actual operational machinesbefore it can be awarded to the applicant. However Software Patentsjust requires a 'concept' to be documented. No actual implementation incode is necessary! This provides huge leeway in terms of approvalcriteria and subsequently interpretation in enforcement. To me, ithighlights the huge difference between Hardware (Traditional) Patentsand Software Patents. One being undeniably useful, and the otherredundant.I had the opportunity to ask him: "Why do we need Software Patents to protect software? DoesCopyright Law provide sufficient protection?" Deepak immediatelyanswered "Yes, current Copyright Law is sufficient in protectingSoftware Intellectual Property."I do hope that En. Noriswadi's intentions are sincere in that he is looking genuine input from stakeholders. I do also hope that he is more sensitive to aspects of this debate from the FOSS perspective. More importantly he does his homework on the full benefits and disadvantages of software patents.It is interesting to note that globally, the software patent mess is starting to rear its ugly head yet again. In the EU, Charlie McCreevy is trying to legalise software patents with a US-EU patent treaty, and in India the Patent Office is working on a Draft Patent Manual to allow software patents.  Candlelight Vigil held to protest againstsoftware patents on 23 Aug 2008 in Bangalore... and it looks like Malaysia is also going to join the party.yk. Posted by yoonkit on Tuesday, 26 August 2008 at 10:48 AM in FreeContent, FreeSoftware, PostsByYoonKit | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0) Technorati Tags: software patents Malaysia's Sabah State Government moves to OpenOffice.org too. In this post, OpenMalaysiaBlog continues to cover Malaysia's various State Governments' steady migration from proprietary office suites to OpenOffice.org.  In this very concise notice, Sabah's State Government has announced that they will be joining the OOo bandwagon! Translated from Malay for our international readers:"In-linewith the directive from the Director of the State Computer Service, theKSIT TSKN (Deputy Chief Secretary of Sabah, IT Support Group) will be installing the OpenOffice.org office suite onall micro computers and notebooks belonging to the State Government ofSabah. Our team requests that all staff will be informed about thisinstallationFor your information, courses on the usage of thisapplication has been prepared by INSAN (Public Sector Training Institute)and the relevant staff from your departments may attend thiscourse."It then quotes MAMPU's migration to install OOo on all its computers, yes the one with the famous word: "dihapuskan" which literally translated means "eradicate" or "wipe from the face of the earth" with regards to current Microsoft Office installations.Isn't it amazing how "easy" it is? State after state, from Pahang, Kedah, Melaka and now Sabah. Thats the reality of todays environment. When there is a freely available alternative, which is functionally capable, why spend the money of fancy features which you will not use? Even if Microsoft Malaysia manages to pull off a USD30 (or RM99) version, state governments will be hardpressed to justify spending any more money then necessary.yk. Continue reading "Malaysia's Sabah State Government moves to OpenOffice.org too." » Posted by yoonkit on Monday, 25 August 2008 at 04:10 PM in ODF, OpenSource, PostsByYoonKit | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) Technorati Tags: OOo, sabah "23,000 Linux PCs forge education revolution in Philippines" Interesting news from our neighbour Philippines - it was a two page article in the August edition of Computerworld Malaysia, page 18 entitled: "Open Education". I tried to search for the article in computerworld.com.my, but failed to get any results. However Google worked, and here is the article published online by Computerworld Australia: "23,000 Linux PCs forge education revolution in Philippines"Here are some interesting bits of information:With funding from the Japanese government, the PCPS program startedaround the 2000 timeframe when the contractors installed Windows PCs,but five years later it was discovered a lot of the computers were notbeing used because nobody knew how to use them.There goes the myth that Windows is friendly and everybody knows how to use them. When it comes to education, its the first opportunity to teach kids how to do things. Not get them ingrained in only one way of doing things on one product. Ricardo Gonzalez said, "The project dragged on for four to five months to apoint where Microsoft matched the price by offering Windows XP for$US20 a copy and throwing in Office for $US30, but we still came outcheaper. Microsoft was also providing free training to high schoolteachers."So even when Microsoft Philippines was authorised to slash prices (with questionable sales tactics of 70-90% discounts) for this project, Microsoft was still the more expensive option. Its funny because when it comes to the education of kids, there is no mythical "migration" costs, and therefore Microsoft's standard arguments of Total Cost of Ownership studies with retraining goes right out the window. In a few years, Microsoft will become even more expensive because of the "migration" costs from Linux to Windows X, and I wonder if that will be a factor in their TCO studies."Because we saved so much we gave the government 3000 additional units,so now another 300 schools have Linux networks," Gonzalez said.From an initial contract of 10,000 units, Gonzalez provided 3,000 additional units. I don't know about you, but I'd figure that a 30% surplus in deliverables is certainly a key indication that Open Source is key in providing great value. What do you think?The key part of the article to me is this soundbyte from Gonzalez:"People in the government now understand Linux can do so much for solittle outlay," he said. "In a brand new computer 50 percent goes tothe operating system and office suite, so how many people can affordthat?"When you have a proprietary OS and the office suite factored into the price, it does come up to 50% of a price of a new computer. Why should this be the case, especially in developing countries in Asia? I highlighted this in my complaint on the Microsoft Tax post a few weeks ago. 23,000 computers deployed by a 3 man team is certainly phenomenal. Lets see of other countries around the region are moving in this direction especially in the education sector, where in the long term it matters most.Well done, Ricardo Gonzalez!yk. Posted by yoonkit on Monday, 25 August 2008 at 11:16 AM in FreeSoftware, OpenSource, PostsByYoonKit | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) Technorati Tags: education, philippines Melaka City Council's OSS migration and savings In our ongoing series of Free and Open Source Software deployments in Malaysia, OpenMalaysiaBlog is proud to highlight the efforts of the City Council of Melaka. They were one of the first few departments to migrate completely to OpenOffice.org (98% of their 300 hundred seats. They need to retain a few copies of MS Office for some difficult proprietary files). Back in 8 December 2006, the Mayor of Melaka, Y.Bhg. Dato’ Haji Zaini bin Mohd Nor, presented "Successful Deployment Of OpenOffice In The Public Sector Seminar" and was very enthusiastic about OpenOffice.org.Although not as far reaching in terms of number of seats as Pahang and Kedah, the Melaccan story is interesting by itself as a city council looking for ways to reduce costs, increase efficiencies and promote Free and Open Source Software.What is different about the previous two states is that Melaka is trying to migrate their desktops to Linux as well. Unfortunately there are legacy applications which are holding them back from migrating completely. OSCC Case Study Awards 2008 OSS on Every DesktopName: Hj. Mohsin bin SaripGovernment Agency:Majlis Bandaraya Melaka Bersejarah (Melaka City Council )Full Street Address:Graha Makmur, No. 1 Lebuh Ayer Keroh75450 Hang Tuah Jaya, MelakaPostal Address:Peti Surat 10775720 Melaka.Email: mohsin-at-mbmb.gov.myPhone: 06-23264xx ext 13x / 019-6575xxxFax: 06-23104xxURL: www.mbmb.gov.myType of Solution: Desktop ApplicationsIntroduction on AgencyAs a local authority with anorientation of service to citizens, MPMBB [Melaka City Council] hasbeen the main driver to make historic Melaka dynamic, advanced andbeautiful. Its administrative jurisdiction is in tune with thedevelopment of the whole of Melaka state, where focus is on sectors ofagricultural, industrial and most recently, tourism. Infrastructuredevelopment is highly visible, competing with other advanced states inMalaysia. This situation accelerates the inflow of investors to put incapital as well as creating job opportunities to her population. Totalnumber of staff at this agency is 840 people.MissionTo make Melaka City Council the main driver towards the creation of a city that is dynamic, advanced and excellent.Operational objectivePlantingthe spirit of loving the organization and working as one team with onedestination towards creating an organization that is solid, dynamic andexcellentExecuting duties and working to obtain keredhaanSolidifying system and way of working to be more transparent, fast and accuratePersonifying workers who are dedicated, lively and diligent, united in loving MBMB [Melaka City Council)Rallying the roles of the community and other agencies more effectivelyClientsProperty assessment taxpayers, licensees, Council Members, compound payers, etc.Project ObjectiveEvery compute at Melaka City Council uses OSS technologyKey PartnersSenior ManagementMayorDirects all members to use OSSSecretary, Melaka City CouncilMonitors progress of usage of OSS in the CouncilDirector of Information Technology DepartmentEnsures usage of OSS in the Council is implemented as planned by Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU)OSS Technology UsedOperating SystemDesktopUbuntu - http://www.ubuntu.comXandros - http://www.xandros.comRedhat – http://www.redhat.comServerCentos – http://www.centos.orgApacheWeb server – http://httpd.apache.org/Office ProductivityOpenOffice.org – http://www.openoffice.orgPurpose of UsageEasy to installEnd User usageOffice productivity: OpenOffice.orgInternet / Web browsing: Mozilla FirefoxHardware and ApplicationsDesktop PCs: ± 300 PCOpenOffice.org usage: 98%Operating Systems: Ubuntu, Xandros : 60%40% do not use OSS because there are application software which are not compatible likeMAPINFO, AUTOCAD, Sistem e-Kewangan, Sistem e-PbtApplication Serverse-Pbt – OracleBackup – Bak BoneStok – Php; MySqlTwincities – Apache;php;MySqlLogins – CentosMail – RedhatDomino server – RedhatFirewall – network boxWhy use Open Source Software / Linux?Saves costs - RM120K a year saved from licensingEasy to maintain, and can be configured for end users needs with the availability of source codeNo virus attacksLess maintenance on PCsHow and why does OSS solve your needs / problemsSecurity - virus freeNo additional costs for purchases of "upgrade" licenses No piracyEffect of OSS Migration on the Agency and the publicAgency saves costsThe public receives better serviceUpdated informationFaster access to informationManagement of the Council is more efficientExperienceUsers found difficulty accepting OSS in the early stages of implementationThere are several applications operating in the Council which are not compatible with LinuxMapInfo, AutoCAD, System e-Kewangan (Microsoft Internet Explorer dependent), e-Pbt SystemProject Status Open Office - 98% Operating System - 60%TestimonialName: Tuan Hj. Mohsin bin SaripPosition: Director of Information TechnologyTel: 06-2326411 ext 134What is great about this case study is the support from upper management all the way down to the end users.The enthusiasm by the team in Melaka is certainly commendable, and it looks like they are still going strong. This was what the Mayor said then:"... I don't understand why some agencies may still be hesitant despiteall the sessions MAMPU has conducted ... go back and convince your superiors on the benefits of OSS and OpenOffice.org, and that implementation is easy"Now that we know that the State Government of Kedah has been migrating since 2003, and the State Government of Pahang has just initiated their migration, the growth of ODF adoption will now happen in a more organic manner, and in a few years time be the du jour standard especially in the public sector.yk Posted by yoonkit on Friday, 15 August 2008 at 11:56 PM in FreeSoftware, PostsByYoonKit | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) Technorati Tags: melacca, melaka, OOo The State of Kedah moves to OpenOffice.org  A case study submitted to the Open Source Competency Center by the Center of Information Technology, Office of the Chief Minister and State Secretary of Kedah, has indicated that OpenOffice.org has been installed in 70% of the computers in the Kedah state government agencies. There are currently 2,202 installed seats and by the looks of it, the numbers will just keep rising!For the convenience of international readers, here is a translation in English of the case study (original was in the Malay language):Project ObjectiveOpenOffice.org as office productivity software (1 PC - 1 copy of OpenOffice.org)OSS Technology UsedOpenOffice.orgDesktop software is the main software for all computers of the officers and office staff. It is not specific to groups of officers or specific staff. The need and requests for desktop software has increased in line with the additional computers provided.From cost analysis performed, 25% of the purchase cost of a computer is allocated for the purchase of desktop software which is Microsoft Office, where it should should be licensed according to the number of units purchased.Taking into account the state government's financial allocation restrictions, cost saving measures have been implemented through the use of desktop software applications which is OpenOffice.org. It was first introduced in the year 2003 in several stages through the annual supply of computers for several departments. Purchase control was performed at the State Secretary Office (Kedah Information Technology Center).Training courses under the State Public Sector ICT Cultivation Program was conducted along with the purchase controls noted above. Other then email and Internet courses, OpenOffice.org was among the main modules for which training courses were given.Project SpecificationEach new computer provided by the State Government is only supplied with desktop software which is OpenOffice.org for the purposes of administration work by officers and departmental staff.OpenOffice.org courses are open to all interested public sector personnel. At the early stages, attendance was mandatory. It was conducted by the State Information Technology Center.System UsageOpenOffice.org was used as the main desktop software for daily state administration work.SoftwareOpenOffice.org 2.4Why Use OSS/Linux?Cost savings for the governmentAvoiding non-compliance of the Copyright Act by government agenciesTechnology choices that are fit for purposeWhy and How OSS Solves Needs/ProblemsPercentage of departments owning computers and ICT equipment is still lowCost savings allows for more ICT equipment to be purchasedChoice of technology on par with departmental users' needNon-compliance to Copyright Act can be reduced in stagesEffect of OSS Conversion on Agencies and the PublicNumber of computers supplied can be increasedIncrease in skills and knowledge of officers and staff in multiple desktop applicationsThe spread of virii which is common through the use of MSWord file formats is reduced/stoppedExperienceOfficers and staff found it hard to adapt to equivalent features between Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org.OpenOffice.org is more open compared to Microsoft Office. It supports multiple file formats and is not tied to Windows based files only.Project Statusa) OpenOffice.org installation in government departmentsUntil today, computers supplied and installed with OpenOffice.org are:Year200320042005200620072008Total Computers4501225503503803502,202In total, it is estimated that 70% of all computers are installed with OpenOffice.org software. This policy is continued in line with the efforts of the State Secretary so that government departments take cost savings measures.b) ICT Cultivation Program (OpenOffice.org)Till 2008, 1913 people were exposed and given training to OpenOffice.org.TestimonyName: Ahmad Bawadir Bin Haji Abdul GhaniPost : Director of Information Technology for the state of KedahTelephone: [omitted]What is surprising is that the migration to OpenOffice.org occurred way back in 2003, and this looks like a pretty extensive long term project. It also is good to know that they are consistently covering 10-15% of their users per year. This would mean they would need another two more years to fully migrate over to OpenOffice.org. Kudos to Ahmad Bawadir and team in Kedah.The original case study in Malay is as follows:  [Update 3:35am 16 August 2008: Thanks to MingShi for the better translations!] Posted by ditesh on Thursday, 14 August 2008 at 01:02 PM in FreeSoftware, ODF, PostsByDitesh | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) The entire State of Pahang moves to OpenOffice.org   Its just been made official that the State of Pahang is migrating all its productivity suites to OpenOffice.org. This succint memo from the State Secretary of Pahang entitled "Perlaksanaan Penggunaan Perisian OpenOffice.Org Di Semua Agensi dan Pentadbiran Negeri" (translated: "Implementing the use of OpenOffice.org suite in all State Agencies and Administrative centres") outlines the reasons for migrating, the benefits and how to proceed.Here's my rather rough translation from Bahasa Malaysia to English. Apologies in advance (corrections are welcomed):Distributed to:All State Head of DepartmentsAll District OfficersAll Head of UnitsSecretariat Office for the government of PahangImplementing the use of OpenOffice.org office in all state agencies and administration1. Purpose1.1 The purpose of this memo is to ensure the usage of OpenOffice.org for office automation in the administrative offices of the State of Pahang.2. Background2.1 OpenOffice.org is one of choices of software for office administration or Office Suite. It features and integrated suite for word processing, spreadsheets, slides and database.2.2 OpenOffice.org can be used in different operating systems like 'Windows', 'Linux', 'Solaris', 'Mac OS' and 'FreeBSD'2.3 OpenOffice.org is distributed for free and represents a suite which is on par with other office suite software applications.2.4 The main objectives for the use of the OpenOffice.org suite are:2.4.1 It is easy to use and ensures that civil servants are not left behind in the ICT field;2.4.2 It encourages civil servants to use the latest software available to help andan Malaysia terutama melibatkan polisi, dan nyata sekali polisi ini adalah untuk penggunaan agensi tersebut oleh sebuah syarikat luar negara merupa satu campur tangan asing... Sebuah bentuk penjajahan ...For me, their intervention in the business of an agency of the Government of Malaysia especially when it involves policies, and especially when this policy is stated for the use of this agency, by a foreign company represents ... a form of colonisation ...Siapa mereka untuk tentukan dasar dan pentadbiran sebuah negara. Saya sebagai rakyat Malaysia cukup marah dengan campur tangan sebegini. Perkara ini telah lama diperhatikan sejak daripada melobi penerimaan standard yang kononnya adalah satu pilihan.Who are they to define the policies and the running of a sovereign country. I, as a Malaysian citizen, have enough with their interference of this nature. This behaviour has long been witnessed ever since the lobbying efforts of the standards which is claimed to be yet another "choice".Saya tidak akan duduk diam dengan bentuk penjajahan cara baru ini. Saya tidak akan berhenti menulis dan berkempen untuk mendedahkan apa jua yang dilakukan oleh syarikat ICT ini untuk terus memaksa penggunaan produk mereka.I am not going to sit quiet with this new form of colonisation tactic. I am no license. The State Government will not be responsible in the event that an audit finds software in use without a valid license.4. Effective Date4.1 This circular is in effect from the date of this letter (7th August 2008)"Serving our Country"*signed*Dato' Muhammad Saifan bin Ismail, DSAP., DIMP., AAP., AMP)State Secretary of PahangThe driving force for this migration seems to be cost of proprietary software and the fear of unlicensed software. OpenOffice.org is the obvious solution to these two pressing problems (thanks, BSA!) What is good is that they have chosen ODF by default, and they are not changing the file format to the binary proprietary ones.What is interesting is that the public sector in Malaysia is moving towards FOSS independently from any government directive or mandate, so no amount of whining would derail our government from choosing and making their choice. Its a simple business decision, and the market has decided. State Governments are faced with the reality that software costs money, and they would rather use the money saved with FOSS rather than flashy and bloated software, on better things. Now I wonder if tomorrow, Microsoft will 'extend' their RM99 Microsoft Office Home & Student license for 3 computers to these Government officials now. Or maybe even better; USD5 per seat? Any takers?Bye bye fat margins, you've been commoditized!yk[Update 9:45am 14 August 2008: Thanks to MingShi for the better translations!] Continue reading "The entire State of Pahang moves to OpenOffice.org" » Posted by yoonkit on Wednesday, 13 August 2008 at 06:23 PM in FreeSoftware, ODF, PostsByYoonKit | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0) Technorati Tags: migration, openoffice.org, pahang Let's complain about Microsoft restricting choice in the market What we have learnt throughout the two years with the OOXML / ODF issue, is that Microsoft always complains about the need to have a "Technology Neutral" outlook in policies and to "Let the Market Decide" as it whinges to government officials. What is ironic or ... hypocritical is the fact that they have made it so that their products are mandated in every new PC sold by manufacturers. Or else face the wrath of the BSA. I guess its the legacy of having Malaysia as the nexus of pirated software, where every unpaid software copy is automatically assumed to be illegal. Fortunately times have changed. We should be more sophisticated now to realise that an unpaid copy of an application may not be pirated. It could be totally legitimate as a licensed Free and Open Source Software.If you need to purchase a new PC for your office, which requires reliable service, support and warranty on parts, you would need to approach reputable companies like Dell, HP or others. What is restrictive is that they do not sell machines where the Operating System is optional, especially for desktops. I have been using Ubuntu exclusively on my laptop coming up to two years now. Linux has come to a stage where I don't have to use ANY software which requires Windows in a separate boot partition. I can run all my office work and be extremely productive on a Linux desktop. I do not need Windows. I do not need NT, 2K, XP, and most definitely Vista. I would like a choice to purchase a PC from Dell without having to pay the additional RM300 for Microsoft software. I don't need IE, MS Works, Media Center, nor all the other bloatware which comes pre-installed just to get the machine to be protected and to be remotely functional.Unlike Yasmin Mahmood (MD of Microsoft Malaysia) who only believes in an illusion of choice; "Its not about choosing but about having a choice", I think its is totally about having a choice, and choosing your preferred option.So I decided to write in. I believe if consumers have been artificially restricted in their choice, or that vendors are collaborating in creating uncompetitive markets, this is a problem which can only be fixed by complaints against these vendors through government regulatory bodies.In the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs (KPDNHEP), there is an "eAduan" system which is online. This eAduan System is developed and implemented with one primary objective in mind: to provide an Internet medium of receiving complaint from the public. By having this system, it is hoped that it will ease affairs between public and KPDN & HEP. For your information, this system is made available beginning 14th June 2004. All complaints shall be investigated and complainants information shall be made confidential. Please do not hesitate to contact us if there is no response or feedback within 3 days. I am not sure how efficient the service is, but we can only test it out. The fields required is about average for a government website. It took me less than a minute to fill in the particulars, and a few minutes to compose the complaint itself. It looked something like this: I couldn't find an appropriate "Complaint Category" for "more choice", so "No Price Tagging" was the closest candidate. After filling in the information, an email confirming the "aduan" will be sent to your account, and this reassuring page will appear: The content of my complaint was something like this:Dell restricts users in purchasing computers. I intend to installUbuntu on my new computer, which means I do not need to have WindowsVista as an operating system (OS) installed in the system. The price ofthe Windows OS can cost up to 30% of the purchase. This is a cost whichshould be optional. Ubuntu is a valid alternative, and even Dell USA sells machinespreinstalled with Ubuntu for over a year already. Dell Malaysia doesnot have that option yet.My consumer rights are restricted as there is no option to 'opt-out' of the inclusion of the Windows OS. I do not expect Dell to provide software support as my team and I are technically competent to self support the systems. I only expect Dell to provide support on hardware failures.Offering Ubuntu as an option not only reduces the cost of computing, but also discourages piracy, as it comes with a multitude of productivity software which makes my computer fully functional at zero cost.Wouldn't it be interesting if the KPNHEP received a deluge of requests from Malaysian users of Gentoo, Fedora, Ubuntu, Mandriva, CentOS, openSUSE, openSolaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD and the thousands of other alternative OS's for manufacturers like Dell, HP, Acer or Lenovo to offer, or at least allow the opportunity for us to "opt-out" in purchasing Windows preinstalled?I know some cynics out there would say that companies like Dell would never budge, either "it doesn't make business sense" or "50% of their marketing budget comes from Microsoft". But lets make it a consumer rights issue, a pressure external from their companies, and then they will HAVE to conform to our needs. If you think this is worth doing, please spend 5 minutes filling in this form, and help get the FOSS community heard. Its about time we have the choice to choose not to pay the Microsoft tax. Let the market decide. Long live Technology Neutrality.yk.ps. I would like to make it clear that I have nothing against Dell per se, I chose them in this complaint because most of the computers I purchase are from them, and I will purchase more if they give me the choice I so deserve. I want them to improve to compete better. This is also a true and sincere complaint. Posted by yoonkit on Tuesday, 12 August 2008 at 02:04 AM in FreeSoftware, PostsByYoonKit | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0) Microcars Malaysia thinks Malaysian Government should not choose! The team at OpenMalaysiaBlog just received this strange letter from a foreign MNC demanding that the Malaysian Government explain themselves on the choices this country wants to make. It's strange, bizarre, and mind boggling. Enjoy!===Microcars (Malaysia) Sdn BhdLevel B2 Tower 2,Petronas Twin Towers,Kuala Lumpur City Center,50088 Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia3rd July 2008Big Chief of the Malaysian Government,Re: MAVEMPU's Migration to OpenCarsFirst of all, I would like to thank you for your time and fruitful meeting on 18th May 2008.Further to our discussion, we would like to express our concern and seek some clarification on Malaysian Vehicle Modernisation Planning Unit's (MAVEMPU) recent announcement that it is migrating to OpenCars and demolishing all its Microcars by the end of this year.Please let us assure you that we support promoting the awareness, training and skills related to locally produced cars, and we are certainly not against the use by anyone of locally assembled vehicles based on merit and cost consideration. In fact, we believe in the co-existence of local cars and imported cars and we leave it to the end users to decide or choose freely which vehicle best suits their needs.Our position is also in line with the Cabinet's policy on "vehicular neutrality" which was reaffirmed by the Minister concerned in November 2006 that the government would not favour one technology, platform or vendor over another (unless security, safety or national interests are involved).The Cabinet's decision on "vehicular neutrality" is also consistent with the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) which do not support any procurement policy that favors one foreign car vendor over another.We are wondering, based on the announcement and feedback, whether or not the above action by MAVEMPU's goes against the spirit of Cabinet's policy on "vehicular neutrality" and also the rules of WTO.We are particularly concerned with MAVEMPU's decision to demolish all its current inventory of Microcars cars as it does not make administrative sense and logic to do so. There is no technical requirement to obliterate the cars for any garage to service and house OpenCars. It also presents no real cost savings to the organization. Perhaps MAVEMPU should further clarify this aspect of their program and why they are doing this.With the greatest respect, we would also like to know if there was any proper study done before MAVEMPU decided on the vehicle migration program. If such a study was done, we would like to know the content of the study and how MAVEMPU based its recent decision on it. We believe that this is not purely an internal technical or administrative matter as we feel that MAVEMPU's above decision has wider implications for the Car Industry in the country.MAVEMPU makes and enforces policies and it also acts as the role model in promoting administrative efficiency in the government. The government is a major user and purchaser of cars and vehicle procurement policies by the government has a major impact on the development of the Car Industry in Malaysia. There should be greater transparency surrounding the basis of such decisions by MAVEMPU as it is of public interest and there are no state secrets involved.Since the above announcement by MAVEMPU, many of our Malaysian car distributers and partners (who see this case as a threat to their transport business and livelihood) have written to us to express their worries and anxieties. Therefore, we feel this issue may have far reaching implications to Malaysians who are involved in the development and trading of proprietary and foreign vehicles.We are also extremely concerned whether this vehicle migration program by MAVEMPU is a prelude to similar implementations in other governmental departments or agencies as well. We have also received information that PUSPAKOM is also launching the same initiative on migrating to OpenCars. We would like to hereby seek your clarification on this matter.We hope you would view the above concern expressed by us in a constructive manner and as a genuine feedback from the Car industry.Thank you.Yours sincerely,*signed*Hairy PuréeSenior Director Government AffairsFor Microcars Malaysia===Don't you think it's rather presumptuous of this particular foreign company to question the right of a country's choice in a certain product? Maybe it's because all these foreign companies just think that it's not about choosing but about having a choice, and we poor third rate countries haven't the brains to think for ourselves.yk. Posted by yoonkit on Friday, 01 August 2008 at 10:41 AM in FUD, PostsByYoonKit | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) Neelie Kroes clearly thinks its about choosing and making the right choice! It looks like Ms Neelie Kroes, the Competition Commissioner for the European Union is in agreement with governments and their agencies for choosing proper open standards, as reported by the New York Times:“I know a smart business decision when I see one — choosing openstandards is a very smart business decision indeed,” Ms. Kroes told aconference in Brussels. “No citizen or company should be forced orencouraged to choose a closed technology over an open one.”So its apparent that Malaysian agencies like MAMPU are also doing the right thing in adopting true open standards like ODF as their document file format, despite the fact that Microsoft Malaysia is constantly lobbying and interfering with MAMPU's decisions. The reaction from Microsoft's lobbying is certainly interesting. I think people are getting tired of their underhanded tactics, and false cries of "competition" and "fairness". Ms Kroes continues to applaud the efforts of governments in making the right choices:She praised the German city of Munich forusing software based on open standards, along with the German ForeignMinistry and the Gendarmerie Nationale, France’s national police force.Ms. Kroes, who is Dutch, encouraged the Dutch government andParliament to continue moving toward use of open standards. EU agencies“must not rely on one vendor” and “must refuse to become locked into aparticular technology — jeopardizing maintenance of full control overthe information in its possession,” she said. A policy by the European Commissionadopted last year to promote the use of software products that supportopen standards “needs to be implemented with vigor,” she said.It would be great if she could look into the running of the Netherlands National Body which is was forced into a "abstention" decision not because of any technical ineptitude to review OOXML, but because Microsoft held the 'veto' to find no full consensus amongst the TC members, as described here:The result of this intensive process was that during the last meetingon the subject on August 16th 2007 in Delft - where the vote was to becast - after a majority rejection of a proposal for an "Approval" afinal proposal for a so called conditional approval (i.e.: a no votethat would turn into a yes vote if a number of reasonable and alreadydetermined conditions were met at the next stage) almost got unanimoussupport - from all but the local support branch of Microsoft. Thisisolated position caused the vote to fail and the Netherlands toautomatically vote for an "Abstain".Ms Kroes is of course no stranger to the wrath of the Microsoft machinery, having to battle with them for over 4 years with regards to Microsoft's bundling of their proprietary products, and their indignation in defying her orders. What is interesting is that governments and regulators are getting tired of Microsoft's antics and are starting to bite back.Ms. Kroes did not name Microsoft in advance copies of her speech,but she made her meaning clear by referring to the only company in thehistory of EU antitrust enforcement that has been fined for refusing tocomply with commission orders — a record held by Microsoft. “The commission has never before had to issue two periodic penalty payments in a competition case,” she said. I wonder when the Ministry of Domestic Trade will wake up and realise that they are practising uncompetitive behaviour by mandating that all PC's should be shipped with operating systems from a single vendor? Surely consumers should have a "choice"? Why isn't the Institute for Software Choice / CompTIA lobbying Dell to have more choice in their OS offerings for their desktops? Ubuntu/Fedora/openSolaris/FreeBSD? Why aren't those being offered?What is ironic is that we are being told by Microsoft that their rushing of OOXML is due to the EU's request for more open standards in their products. Unfortunately in their haste to push OOXML through the ISO process, they caused such a mess in terms of their relationships with governments, agencies, national bodies and more importantly the media, that Microsoft is now being investigated on their attempts to play the ISO system for OOXML, as reported by The Wall Street Journal in February 2008.So things aren't looking so swell for Microsoft. Their OOXML is currently in limbo, and will not be published on schedule, because 4 countries (Argentina, Brazil, India and South Africa) have appealed against the ISO stamp of "approval". Additionally, the final draft as promised by the BRM is still not available to National Bodies to review, 3 months on (directives clearly state that it should be available within 1 month). Unless of course they don't want to see any changes between the final draft and published text because of the restrictions imposed due to the "Fast Track" process?Lets see how the Microsoft machinery reacts to this set of interesting news, and see how they spin in. How much has this fiasco cost them? What did they get out of it? A chance to be more open? Can you see a change yet? yk. Posted by yoonkit on Tuesday, 10 June 2008 at 07:39 PM in ODF, OOXML, OpenStandards, PostsByYoonKit | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0) Technorati Tags: eu, neelie kroes, ooxml ODF Comes of Age: IBM Lotus Symphony Turns 1.0 Nearly One Million Beta Users, 24 Languages, Web 2.0 Extensions,New Technical Support Services for Enterprises   In September last year, I posted on the introduction of IBM Lotus Symphony - beta version. Symphony is a suite of free desktop software for word processing, presentations andspreadsheets based on ODF. Lotus Symphony supports Microsoft Office andcan export content in PDF format, too.Now it's out of beta! You can download it here, for free, of course. Here's the text of the IBM press release:ODF Comes of Age: IBM Lotus Symphony Turns 1.0Nearly One Million Beta Users, 24 Languages, Web 2.0 Extensions, NewTechnical Support Services for Enterprises ARMONK, NY - 03 Jun 2008: Open Document Format (ODF) comes of age today as IBM (NYSE: IBM)announces the commercial-grade, general availability of Lotus Symphony(http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony), a suite of free,ODF-based software tools for creating and sharing documents,spreadsheets and presentations. This announcement affirms IBM's commitment toevolving office productivity software from static, financially drainingsoftware to a dynamic, cost-effective tool that allows businesses toinvest in more innovative pursuits. While Lotus Symphony remains a free, easy download from the Web withfree online, moderated support, IBM is also announcing fee-basedservices to support the needs of large organizations. This optionalservice, IBM Elite Support for Lotus Symphony 1.0, delivers unlimitedremote technical support at a level consistent with other IBM softwareproducts via an annual subscription to IBM's Passport Advantage orPassport Advantage Express volume licensing programs. Lotus Symphony could save a company with 20,000 employees $8 millionin software license fees or potentially more than $4 million insoftware renewal fees. If it chose to switch to Symphony for only halfof its employee population, it could still save several million dollarsin license or renewal fees, even if it subscribed to IBM's EliteSupport services at $25 per user for 1,000 employees. Launched in September 2007, Lotus Symphony has been downloaded bynearly one million individuals in an open public Beta program. LotusSymphony is a truly global product, available in 24 languages,developed by a worldwide team anchored in Beijing, China, and improvedthrough the community of individual users on the Symphony Web site. "Major technology vendors are lining up to support ODF -- even thosepreviously opposed to it," said Steve Mills, SVP of IBM Software."Symphony -- backed by enterprise customer support services -- is readyfor business." A growing number of businesses are considering decisions to renewtheir Office licensing agreements, and move up to Office 2007 andVista. Lotus Symphony 1.0 provides a timely and cost-effectivealternative tested by nearly one million people worldwide and backed byIBM. Plugging Into the Power of Web 2.0 Another noteworthy benefit of Lotus Symphony is aligned with Web 2.0-- the newest Internet technology -- not the fading era of the personalcomputer. In the spirit of Web 2.0, Lotus Symphony individual usershave the ability to influence the development of the software throughfeedback on the Symphony site, much the way that content iscontinuously revised and updated through Wikipedia. More importantly, IBM offers a set of powerful, open APIs forextending Lotus Symphony with a wide range of plug-ins -- includingEclipse and Universal Network Object component model and others. Thiscan empower business people to harness powerful business processes suchas enterprise resources planning and customer relationship managementdirectly from their desktop. Companies and governments can integrateLotus Symphony tools into their custom applications and connect tomyriad data sources that allow individuals to work in a single viewwhile presenting and updating data from multiple sources instantly. IBM is offering a free developer toolkit on the Symphony site thatenables individual users of Lotus Symphony, as well as independentsoftware developers, to create plug-ins, or software adaptors, andcomposite applications, or mashups. These can transform staticdocuments into living information streams capable of managing primarybusiness functions such as shipping, sales and fulfillment. The three core tools comprising Lotus Symphony -- Lotus SymphonyDocuments, Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets and Lotus Symphony Presentations-- handle the majority of office productivity tasks that most peopleperform. Quick reading reference cards and online tutorials on theLotus Symphony Web site show how easy it is to transfer documentsbetween Symphony and Word, PowerPoint or Excel. Symphony Provides a Foundation for SMBs In a related development, Lotus Symphony is being extended to smallbusinesses within a new turnkey collaboration product called IBM LotusFoundations (www.ibm.com/lotus/products/foundations),commercially available today. Lotus Symphony will serve as the officeproductivity software within Lotus Foundations, which also includesLotus Notes and Domino mail, file management, directory services,firewall, back-up and recovery, anti-virus, and anti-spam features.Lotus Foundations is part of a broad IBM initiative code-named "BlueBusiness Platform" to simplify information technology for smallbusinesses. Local IBM Business Partners are the primary route to market forLotus Foundations. A variety of third parties, such as Linuxdistributors, media companies and IBM Business Partners from NorthAmerica, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region are offering Lotus Symphonyeither as a free, standalone download off the Web or for sale withcustomized applications. Posted by Hasan on Thursday, 05 June 2008 at 12:17 AM in ODF, OpenStandards, PostsByHasan | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) A Memo to Patrick Durusau (Part Deux) When Patrick Durusau wrote that Microsoft had no opposition to ODF, he was indefensibly and gloriously wrong. Those of us involved in national standards bodies and on government policy panels have had the dubious honor of having to defend against Microsoft's desperate attempts to kill any possible introduction of ODF as a voluntary standard. Perhaps even worse was having to witness first hand Microsoft makingloud complaints against any internal government policies of the usageof ODF and any software which uses ODF (OpenOffice.org being the mostprominent). And, of course, many of us have faced the intense lobbying campaign carried out by Microsoft against open source governmental policies.So when Yasmin Mahmood, Microsoft Malaysia Managing Director, made the famous statement that "It's not about choosing, but about having a choice" with reference to ODF and OOXML, we assumed this was a new chapter in Microsoft history.Then came along a recent blogpost by Harisfazillah Jamel, "Apabila Membuat Pilihan Dipersoalkan / When Choices are Questioned", on the right of government agencies to make choices. It's written in Malay, but it has been translated by Yoon Kit for the benefit of our international readers. It makes for extremely interesting reading on the pressure Microsoft Malaysia is placing on a government agency because of their choice to use OpenOffice.org/ODF over Microsoft Office:Apabila Membuat Pilihan Dipersoalkan (When Our Choices Are Questioned)Ada yang sebuah syarikat ICT yang kononnya mempunyai satu lagi standard bagi satu perkara adalah satu pilihan kepada pengguna. Sedangkan pengguna, mana-mana pengguna juga faham, standard, mempunyai standard bermaksud kita telah membuat pilihan, membuat satu pilihan daripada pelbagai pilihan yang terbaik untuk pengguna.There is an ICT company which has one more standard for one more application for one more choice for consumers. While consumers, many users understand standards, having standards means we have made a choice, a choice which is the best for users from many options.Wakil mereka di Malaysia dalam satu muka surat sebuah akhbar menyatakan, kejayaan mereka mendapatkan iktiraf standard bagi satu format adalah satu pilihan kepada pengguna. Teruskan membaca, apabila membuat pilihan bukan kehendak mereka, adalah bukan pilihan mereka.Their Malaysian representative, in a page of a newspaper stated that their success of having the standard as a format is yet another choice for users. Read it, if we make a choice not to their liking, it is not their choice.Lalu sebuah agensi dalam kerajaan Malaysia telah membuat pilihan. Membuat pilihan bukan dalam kehendak syarikat ICT tersebut. Pilihan setelah panjang membuat penilaian. Pilihan atas dasar untuk memberi sokongan dan pilihan kepada agensi-agensi lain. Pilihan yang dibuat atas kehendak sendiri tanpa tekanan mana-mana pihak. Pilihan yang dipesetujui diperingkat pengurusan tertinggi hinggalah keperingkat bawahan.An agency in the government of Malaysia had already made a choice. The choice was not the choice of the said ICT company. The choice was made after a long study. The choice was based on principles to bring support and choice to other agencies The choice was made on its own needs without any pressures from any party. The choice was agreed by the highest level of management to the lowest level.Sekarang timbul isu, syarikat ICT itu tidak senang dengan pilihan yang dibuat oleh agensi itu. Mereka merasakan agensi ini mahu menentukan dasar yang keras terhadap pilihan yang telah dibuat. Oh ya betul, mereka tidak senang dengan pilihan yang dibuat oleh sebuah agensi kerajaan Malaysia dan mula menjalankan kerja-kerja melobi untuk memaksa agensi ini, menurunkan maksud polisi penggunaan standard yang telah dibuat oleh agensi ini.Now this issue has surfaced. The ICT company is not happy with the choice that was made by the agency. They felt that the agency wants to set a policy which is incompatible with the choice that they prefer. Oh that is true, they are not happy with the choice that was made by an agency of the Malaysian Government and have started work lobbying to force this agency to dampen the meaning of the policy of using standards that was announced by this agency.Polisi yang telah disusun, dibincang dengan panjang lebar dan diluluskan dalam pengurusan tertinggi agensi ini mahu diubah oleh syarikat ICT tersebut kerana ia tidak menepati pilihan yang kehendak mereka. Bahawa diingatkan polisi ini adalah khusus hanya untuk agensi ini supaya memudahkan pelaksanaan atas satu standard. Itu maksud tujuan standard, memudahkan pelaksanaan kepada satu pilihan. The policy that was prepared, was discussed widely and in detail, was approved by the highest level management of this agency, is to be modified by the said ICT company because it is not inline with their needs. Whereas it is reminded that this policy is specifically for this agency such that it can easily implement one standard. That is the meaning and purpose of a standard, the ease of implementing one choice.Yang buat saya marah, adalah teknik yang saya panggil, kilas tangan dengan kasar memaksa agensi ini tukarkan polisi agensi ini. Ya memaksa, walau apa pun cara yang digunakan, bagi saya ia masih panggil ia memaksa, agensi ini tukarkan polisi dari segi pelaksanaan.What makes me angry is what I call their heavy handed technique of forcing the said agency to change its policies. Yes force, by any means possible. I still call it force, to get the agency to change its policies on implementation.Bagi saya, campur tangan dalam urusan sebuah agensi kerajaan Malaysia terutama melibatkan polisi, dan nyata sekali polisi ini adalah untuk penggunaan agensi tersebut oleh sebuah syarikat luar negara merupa satu campur tangan asing... Sebuah bentuk penjajahan ...For me, their intervention in the business of an agency of the Government of Malaysia especially when it involves policies, and especially when this policy is stated for the use of this agency, by a foreign company represents ... a form of colonisation ...Siapa mereka untuk tentukan dasar dan pentadbiran sebuah negara. Saya sebagai rakyat Malaysia cukup marah dengan campur tangan sebegini. Perkara ini telah lama diperhatikan sejak daripada melobi penerimaan standard yang kononnya adalah satu pilihan.Who are they to define the policies and the running of a sovereign country. I, as a Malaysian citizen, have enough with their interference of this nature. This behaviour has long been witnessed ever since the lobbying efforts of the standards which is claimed to be yet another "choice".Saya tidak akan duduk diam dengan bentuk penjajahan cara baru ini. Saya tidak akan berhenti menulis dan berkempen untuk mendedahkan apa jua yang dilakukan oleh syarikat ICT ini untuk terus memaksa penggunaan produk mereka.I am not going to sit quiet with this new form of colonisation tactic. I am not going to stop writing and campaigning and resist any action by this ICT company which forces the use of their products.Banyak sudah duit rakyat, duit rakyat mengalir keluar daripada Malaysia, hanya untuk pembayaran lesen. Pembayaran hanya atas kertas, tiada hasil kepada kita rakyat Malaysia, hanya menjadikan syarikat luar negara atau individu luar negara lagi kaya.Too much of our citizens money, money of the people has flowed out from Malaysia, only to purchase licenses. The payment is only for paper, without any value to us Malaysian citizens, only to make a foreign company or individual foreigners rich.Sedangkan duit yang berjuta-juta itu boleh dialirkan kepada industri ICT negara kita dalam bentuk pelaksanaan sistem sokongan, penyelidikan dan pelaksanaan kepada aplikasi sumber terbuka atau Open Source Software.If only the multi-millions of riggit could flow to our ICT industry in the form of system support, research and implementations in Open Source Software.Mengapa perlu kayakan orang lain sedangkan rakyat ini yang membayar cukai tersebut perlu lihat sahaja duit itu keluarkan. Sedang sudah ada pilihan, pilihan yang setelah dikaji, boleh mendatangkan faedah yang banyak kepada rakyat Malaysia.Why must we make other people wealthy while citizens have to pay the tax. Just see the expenditure. While there is already a choice, a choice that has been evaluated which can bring much benefits to the citizens of Malaysia.Polisi dan dasar sudah ada. Mengapa tidak sokong? Soalan yang hendak tanya kepada ahli-ahli politik negara kita ...The Policies are already defined. Why is there no support? These are the questions which need only be asked to the politicians of our country ...Apa yang saya tulis ini adalah pendapat peribadi, akan tetapi saya mahu ia dipandang serius oleh banyak pihak. Lama mana kita mahu dijajah ... ???What I have written is just my personal opinion, but I want this viewed seriously by many. How long do we ever want to be colonised ... ??? Posted by ditesh on Tuesday, 03 June 2008 at 04:00 PM in FreeCulture, FreeSoftware, FUD, ODF, OOXML, OpenSource, OpenStandards, PostsByDitesh | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) A Memo to Patrick Durusau I really must commend Patrick Durusau's innate capability of writing the most inflammatory and outrageous publications, publications that are so divorced from reality that one cannot help but think that the dude must be hoarding some seriously good weed to be able to live so completely within his own defined existence. His latest publication, "Not With a Bang, but With a Whimper", has been receiving flak from the collective open standards community for exactly that reason and rightly so.Patrick writes that:Signs the document standards war was entirely fictitious have been around for quite some time. Wherewas the Microsoft opposition to OpenDocument in standards bodies such as OASIS and ISO? Perhapsthey forgot? Didn't get the memo?Given that we at OpenMalaysiaBlog, as open standards supporters, havebeen at the forefront of receiving the brunt of their vicious (andoften personal) attacks on ODF, I find Patrick's assertions asridiculous and cockeyed at best, and deliberately offensive at worst.Microsoft has been running an anti-ODF campaign in favour of OOXML for a long long time now. In Malaysia, their campaign started with opposition to Malaysia's proposed adoption of ODF ISO26300:2006 as a voluntary standard by invoking Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt on the ODF standard. The campaign continued on by personally attacking members of the technical committee who were in favour of ODF, by casting undue aspersions on their characters, in particular, insinuating that we were subversive agents of IBM intent on the destruction of Microsoft (apparently, anybody who supports truly open standards is a biased IBM agent).In fact, during a technical standards meeting on ODF, senior management of Microsoft Malaysia printed out an unrelated and personal blog post from Yoon Kit (in which he was slightly critical of a Malaysian government agency whose representative was also present during the meeting), passed it around to all members present in the meeting and demanded for proper ethical conduct from members. That's right, folks - he printed out a non-technical blog post and attempted to cast a false and misleading charge on the character of a member of the technical meeting.To the credit of the representative of the government agency in question and the chairman of the meeting, the meeting was quickly brought to order. The representative of the government agency did not have a problem with Yoon Kit's blog post but Microsoft Malaysia did. Note that this is not hearsay, I witnessed this first hand and was thoroughly shocked at the extent Microsoft would go to destroy any perceived threat to their Microsoft Office cash cow. The Microsoft Malaysia representative in question also distributed printed blog posts from OpenMalaysia and circled the name of a member of this blog who also happens to be an IBM employee, insinuating to all that members of OpenMalaysia are influenced by IBM in pushing for a pro-ODF stand. This happened during a meeting to discuss the technical aspects on ODF! That particular meeting was followed by an anonymous smear campaign against one of the TC members. A letter was faxed to the organization of the TC member in question, accusing the TC member in question of helping politicize the issue (which is, of course, untrue). I too had the dubious pleasure of hearing first hand how Microsoft attempted to remove me from the TC (they did not succeed, thanks to integrity and cojones of the organization I am affiliated with).If this unethical behaviour by Microsoft was not sufficiently despicable, they did the unthinkable by involving politics in what should have been a technical evaluation of the standard by writing to the head of the Malaysian standards organization and getting its business partners to engage in a negative letter writing campaign to indicate lack of support of ODF in the Malaysian market. Every single negative letter on ODF received by the Malaysian standards organization was written either by Microsoft, or a Microsoft business partner or a Microsoft affiliated organization (Initiative for Software Choice and IASA).That's right, Patrick, every single negative letter on ODF can be traced back to Microsoft. And you ask where was Microsoft's opposition to ODF? Here is a letter by Yasmin Mahmood, Microsoft Malaysia Managing Director to the head of the Malaysian standards organization, opposing ODF as a voluntary standard (note that I have digital copies of all the letters in questions, if you wish to read them):     Patrick, you write that:Need more? Watch the reaction to this announcement by Microsoft. Remember the cry has been that Microsoft should adopt OpenDocument. Microsoft has now adopted OpenDocument and it will be devoting resources to its development. For those unfamiliar with the concept, that means Microsoft will be making a positive contribution to the ODF development effort.My recommendation is that everyone put up their noise makers and welcome Microsoft to the OpenDocument community and prepare to work with them to advance its developmentPatrick, you make the assumption that those who are opposing OOXML are doing it solely because we oppose Microsoft. You couldn't be more wrong and I think it's high time you recognize the most excellent effort by many parties in helping improve the OOXML specification.Yoon Kit and myself have spent countless weekends and many, many, many man hours finding ways of improving the proposed standard. My report to the TC, based on the reading made of the proposed standard, have always been on a solely technical basis, and Patrick, you of all people, should accede to the fact that there are/were severe technical deficiencies in the proposed standard and that input from members of National Bodies helped improve the specification.The campaign against Open XML was at its start, in the middle and at the end an anti-Microsoft campaign. The merits or demerits of Open XML were simply a convenient launching point for criticisms of Microsoft.Making the dangerous argument that "the merits or demerits of OOXML were simply a convenient launching point for criticisms of Microsoft" works to undermine the important constructive value of criticism, which is to improve the proposed standard in question. The logic you have employed, that any attempt to criticize the technical deficiencies in OOXML is equated to criticism of Microsoft, is superfluous. By any measure, our criticism and feedback has helped improve the proposed standard immeasurably and you simply must recognize that, if intellectual honesty carries still carries weight with you.Patrick, to further claim that we are solely "noise makers" does irreparable damage to value of the work we have put into improving the proposed standard. In fact, some of the decent folk at Microsoft (yes, they actually exist) helped arrange a conference call to Brian Jones, whose input helped clarify some the issues I was attempting to understand. I subsequently revised my technical contribution to the TC based on the clarification by Brian Jones. Your assertion that we are doing this so as to criticize Microsoft is an unfair charge and only serves to undermine your already dwindling reputation among the open standards community.Now, when I was first told about Microsoft Office support for ODF by a Microsoft employee, my reaction was: "Awesome!". Then I puzzled for a minute over why they didn't do this two years ago and avoid opposing the passage of ODF as a Malaysian standard. In any case, the following day, I relayed this message to Yasmin Mahmood, the Microsoft Malaysia Managing Director, with an invitation for OpenMalaysia Blog to interview her on this positive and constructive development. I've not heard back from Yasmin on my invitation, but let me publicly assure the lady that the invitation is still open and we are committed to publishing the interview verbatim (word for word). Yoon Kit and I also offered to publicize the good work Microsoft is doing on ODF by running an interview with them. Brian and Doug, that invitation is still open if you choose to accept it by answering the questions we sent to you 11 days ago.So all in all, Patrick, you owe us an apology for your thoughtless remarks, your unfair insinuations and biased connotations on our character. Posted by ditesh on Sunday, 01 June 2008 at 09:53 PM in Blogging, FreeSoftware, IntellectualProperty, ODF, OOXML, OpenStandards, PostsByDitesh | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) Onward Pak Nan -- cycling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing!  Pic: On flag off day, 27 May 2008, Adnan Osman with Dato' Dr Low, Commander-in-Chief of St. John Ambulance MalaysiaMy uncle, Pak Nan (Adnan Osman) is 65 years old. He's cycling all 9,000 km from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Beijing, China! This will take him 2 months, from Malaysia through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and into China for the summer Olympics.Datuk Johan Jaaffar first highlighted Adnan's quest in the New Straits Times early this month. Datuk Johan said a duo will be cycling to Beijing, but no, when I called Pak Nan last weekend to wish him well, he said he and his partner will cycle to the Malaysia-Thailand border town of Bukit Kayu Hitam; from then on he will ride alone!You can read updates on his adventure at his own blog: http://oadnanxtreme.blogspot.com -- please post your comments there and lend your support!Update 1 June 2008: Join the Facebook Group: Adnan Osman Cycling from Kuala Lumpur to BeijingGod, and all people meeting him in Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and China, please take care of Adnan Osman. When I was 21, I cycled from KL to Langkawi. That was not even 1,000km. But my uncle is making history. It's arduous, but I know he will make it. Safe journey, Pak Nan. Posted by Hasan on Friday, 30 May 2008 at 10:50 AM in Blogging, PostsByHasan, Travel | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) Older » Bloggers @ Open MalaysiaWe are a group of individual bloggers working to build openness in Malaysia's ICT culture. Most of us have day jobs and a couple of us are students. Those with a job work for companies ranging from large international enterprises to self-run Malaysian start-ups.Email us at this address:open -AT- openmalaysiablog -DOT- com We declare our independence of opinions from our employers, institutions, associations and clients, past and present. Thoughts and expressions in the Open Malaysia blog are rightly each blogger's own and each of us stand by what we individually write. Views by readers who post comments and others whose writings we link to in this blog are theirs. Mauricio Martinez on Forgive me if I am not convinced Criss Angel on The South Africa Bureau of Standards submits an official appeal to ISO and IEC against OOXML LinuxMalaysia on The Black Screen of Death LinuxMalaysia on An Interview with MyMeeting Senior Developer Wayne on The Black Screen of Death Steven on The Black Screen of Death Wintificator on The Black Screen of Death orlando_ombzzz on The Black Screen of Death Rob Weir on The Black Screen of Death anon on The Black Screen of Death An Interview with MyMeeting Senior Developer The Black Screen of Death Press Release: "IBM Announces New I.T. Standards Policy" Let's complain about Microsoft restricting choice in the market (part deux) ODF approved as Swedish Standard OOXML won't be accepted in South America. OpenOffice.org deployed in Malaysian Schools "Software Patents in Malaysia?" Malaysia's Sabah State Government moves to OpenOffice.org too. "23,000 Linux PCs forge education revolution in Philippines" Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 September 2008 August 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 November 2007 October 2007 More... 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