In September 2007 the BSI had voted ‘No – with comments’, attaching a long list of reasons. The response had been prepared in the open over the web, using the BSI OOXML Wiki. It was applauded by many, including members of other national standards bodies, a BSI report to the All Party Internet Group (APIG) stated:

BSI has been making its scrutiny process transparent by assembling comments on the Web in public view, and is recognised as leading the international scrutiny effort. The German standards body DIN are adopting a similar process, and one US standards committee member has written “when I compare [our process] to the BSI’s excellent work developing detailed comments on a publicly-readable Wiki, I think we in the US should be ashamed …”

The wiki hasn’t been substantively updated since October 2007. I’ve been unable to find any stated reasons from the BSI for the reversal of their position or in fact any announcement by BSI of their final vote.

On 30th April the UK Unix Users Group (UKUUG) requested judicial review of the BSI’s reversal. In June this application was rejected by a Judge. On the 19th UKUUG appealed, the BSI made no public comment. Unless it becomes public record in court, their reasoning will remain secret.

This post isn’t about the BSI or ISO 29500/OOXML.

Open Politics

I’ve come to the opinion that the UK Government systemically favours large, closed, all encompassing IT projects. They are institutionally closed source. These projects nearly always go over budget, beyond their deadline or under deliver. Government IT is a running joke.

The civil service and the UK political establishment is wedded to the closed source model of software development. Project decisions are made in private by a few blessed individuals, then published as a fiat accompli. Opportunities for public scrutiny are rare, it takes parliamentary questions to drag basic details out of whitehall.

I believe the civil service and the government would function far better by adopting open source development techniques and culture. The following practises would improve the quality and value of software delivering our public services:

1. Design, debate & decision making regarding public IT conducted in public, on the record.
2. Development of public documents in public, versioned repositories.
3. Development of services and systems in small increments, with new features deployed early and often.
4. Public bug tracking, where this doesn’t compromise privacy.

I’m not talking about adopting Free/Open Source software in the UK public sector, though this would help. Instead I am arguing for a change of mindset, from the big closed-cathedral like practises we now follow, to a messier & more open bazaar model.

1. On Thursday 28 March The Register reported from an anonymous source, that the British Standards Institute (BSI) would reverse their vote on the proposed DIS 29500 standard from ‘No – with comments’ to Yes. In response John Pugh MP, Liberal Democrat member wrote a letter to the BSI Director urging BSI not to vote yes.
2. On Tuesday 1 April Pieter Hintjens, former FFII president gave a talk on ‘Software Patents and Open Standards’ at the UKUUG Spring 08 conference.
3. On Wednesday ISO announced that Microsoft OOXML/Ecma 376 is to be approved as DIS 29500.
4. On Thursday David Cameron MP, Conservative leader gave a speech on ’Innovation and its role in public policy‘ to NEST. He said a Tory government would open UK government data and “We also want to see how open source methods can help overcome the massive problems in government IT programs.”
5. On Thursday evening Material World broadcast ‘Redefining the Kilogram’ on efforts towards a better international standard of mass and weight.

The theme is how the Free/Open Source software movement might aid the political establishment.

Civil Service

I’ve worked as a civil servant for nearly 5 years; first as a system adminstrator, then a DBA. I’ve seen and provided input to the lower levels of IT decision making & procurement within an executive agency. From afar I’ve followed media coverage of projects such as the NHS National Program for IT (NPfIT) and the former Child Support Agency (CSA) payments system.

In that time I’ve learned that Yes Minister is comic genius  & still highly applicable, to a civil service that is very conservative (with a small c) about novel ideas. Large government IT projects typically deliver late, over spend or under perform. Microsoft and other large providers of closed source software are so deeply entrenched in central government, that by default they’re seen as the only choice, if any choice is recognised

Open Source

The civil service has made moves toward F/OSS, in 2004 the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) released a policy document that stated:

“UK Government will consider OSS solutions alongside proprietary ones in IT procurements. Contracts will be awarded on a value for money basis.”

I’ve never seen a case where this has been put into practice.

With the recent conservative announcement, all parties have made noises to some degree about use of F/OSS. It would appear it is entering the consciousness of the political establishment. However, more pertinant than the issue of Free/Open Source software is the issue of how much choice the civil service & government has in their software purchase. Currently the choice is close to zero, because every team, agency, MP and department have enourmous silos of Microsoft Office documents.

Word, Excel, Powerpoint & Outlook are the defacto industry standards. They’re proprietary, meaning that a single company controls them. Until this changes we are all at Microsoft’s mercy.

Open Standards

The International Organisation for Standards (ISO) made a delayed announcement on Wednesday that baring any appeals, Microsoft Office OpenXML (OOXML) will become DIS 29500. It will join the existing OpenDocument Format (ODF)/DIS 26300 as an international standard for document storage and interchange.

MS OOXML passed amid widespread process & voting irregularities amongst the national standards bodies. Accusations of improper behaviour have been made against against ISO, Microsoft & ODF supporters. As part of the Microsoft anti trust investigation, the EU has asked questions of Microsoft and the national bodies regarding voting on OOXML.

This relates to the kilogram, currently defined by a lump of metal in Paris, because that most basic standard is being improved in the open following rigorous scientific debate & evaluation. Listen to last Thursday’s material world of the low down, but I’m confident the new kilogram standard will be trusted by all.

Like the kilogram, the standard for our office documents is central to our society. Billions in trade and public expenditure are dependant on the software we choose and the standards to which it conforms. If we can’t that trust the standard is sound then we can’t have the freedom to choose our software. Our software will continue to control us, instead of putting us in control.