I would have simply posted this as a response on the NZ Open Source Society blog. But the requirement for me to register kinda put me off so here goes. This is a direct response to some of the comments in this post from Don Christie. For the record I was at the ENTIRE Standards New Zealand ECMA 376 meeting.

“The tone of this comment was unexpected, and perhaps even libelous to those that participated the two day Standards NZ workshop on OOXML this week.”

As I said to Ken from IBM on Friday..... ‘Is that a legal opinion Don?’. I found the commentary by the NZOSS the most valuable of all the objectors. They had actually done some of their own research and brought along their own expertise. Contrast this with Ken from IBM who basically just read out the same old IBM crap that has been parroted at pretty much every meeting around the world and, of course, having told all that he was not a lawyer Ken then proceeded to proffer an opinion on the intellectual property issues.

I’m pretty comfortable that the comments by Jim and particularly Doug Casement were targeted not at Kiwi folk like the NZOSS or myself.... but rather were targeted at the obvious corporate interests in the room seeking to further their commercial ends. I speak here of course about Microsoft, IBM and Google NZ (if you can call a contract lobbyist ‘Google NZ’).

“Of course the technical debate was rigorous and sometimes very detailed, but it was also valuable as the Mircosoft expert from Redmond, Gray Knowlton, asserted. That was also the direct feedback I received from all members of the SNZ committee present. Indeed, they seemed pleased that the meeting hadn't descended into name calling and zealotry that people like yourself and Rod Drury had been predicting.”

I would agree with Don that the meeting was remarkably well behaved and really didn’t descend into the sort of Black and White bigotry that one might have expected given the participants. I do however continue to note my concern at the obvious hopes of some participants (Don included) that the process might be used as a means to effect competitive change in the market- such matters are not an interest of the ISO standardisation process and I have placed such concerns on the record. I actually felt that the technical conversations didn’t add all that much value over actually just sitting and reading the documentation. In particular I found the IBM technical comments, the ECMA response document and the NZOSS white paper particularly useful. Have read a LARGE amount of documentation on the issue over the past few months I am confident that there were no new major technical issues raised here in New Zealand that have not already been aired elsewhere- I also note that ECMA has publicly committed to resolving these technical issues at the Ballot Resolution meeting stage and that a number of other standards bodies (German and USA on Friday) have voted Yes with Comments on this basis.

“The fact that all the NZ government agencies took the time to consult, run workshops and, come to a common conclusion and to send four representatives to the SNZ workshops is an indication of the importance of this issue, Microsoft and software in general to our country.”

I MUST add a little more detail here. The ‘New Zealand Government Agencies’ were a very interesting bunch. They were certainly well prepared though lacked technical depth and seemed to have a bee in their bonnet around screen readers. They slipped a couple of times (though corrected) into saying they represented the views of the New Zealand Government- something that they clearly did not. The point I want to pick up on here however is that at the end they felt the need to respond to comments by Microsoft that only a small section of Government was represented- said response was by way of reading out some of the agencies involved in their consultation from a list they had carried with them. When I asked the SIMPLE question that this list be added into the Standards NZ record they refused. Their reason? ‘Participation in the workshop by government agencies was confidential’. As such I hardly think that the statement sets out the fact of the matter-certainly the four people at the table reflected the views of ‘some’ of the Government agencies, BUT, the actual extent of their mandate shall remain unknown. I do wonder if an Official Information Act Request might reveal more details. I was, quite frankly, ASTOUNDED at their response to my request to put the participants on the record.