the case of ooxml in africa
TRANSCRIPT
A Standards Story
World IT ForumAddis Ababa
22-24 August 2007
J. Philipp SchmidtUniversity of the Western Cape
United Nations University [email protected]
Standards describe a common way of doing things
Key issue related to standards is participation
Good standards enable participation
Open processes enable participation that leads to good
standards
Good standards =
Open Standards
A story of Bill ...
... and of Bob
New standard for
office documents
OOXML
Bill and Bob disagree ...
What is a good standard?
How do we create one?
Natural monopolies
Natural monopolies
=
monopolies
Technology standards are even more important in the world of
global information and communication technologies
The Web
But standards are not always good
Document Formats
ODF Open Document FormatISO/IEC 26300
700 pages
can be extended
open
New standard for
office documents
OOXML
Proposed OOXML
ECMA - ISO DIS29500
Fast-tracked (6 months)
During first phase many countries signalled
contradictions
There are some problems:
- too long to review in short time- tied to legacy formats- questions about patents- duplicates W3C standards- calendaring bugs- culturally biased (Weekends)
The discussion is not just about one particular standard, but
about much broader issues of how we create good standards
Careful deliberative processes
National standard bodies represented at ISO
Not all countries vote on every standard
But things are changing
More standards
Global implications
Deeply technical standards that require expert input
Fast-tracked procedures
Intense lobbying
Important to participate – the creation of standards and
governance of standards cannot be ignored
2 September 2007
AlgeriaBotswana
Cote d'IvoireDRCEgypt
EthiopiaGhanaKenya
LibyaMauritiusMoroccoNigeria
South AfricaSudan
Tunisia Zimbabwe
A story of Bob ...
... but this is also a story of Dorcas, Gbenga, Judy, Alice,
Solomon, AhA, Sunday, Omo, Igor, Benjamin, Dorothy,
Dawit, Abebe, Nnenna, Ben, Dhouha, David, and many
others ...
... forming a network of (civil society) organisations that can support and engage with their
national standards bodies