Ms. Neelie Kroes Commissioner DG COMPETITION Bourgetlaan 1 1140 Evere Bruxelles/Brussel

SUBJECT: Suggestions for Interoperability Undertaking

The Hague, September 28th 2009

Dear Commissioner Kroes,

We read with interest the article in several media published last week1 where you were quoted as saying that the Commission is near to closing a deal on a number of issues in the case against . We think that this inquiry is of great importance, and that restoring a level playing field in this area is essential for the future ambitions of Europe. On behalf of OpenDoc Society we would like to respond to the "Interoperability Undertaking"-proposal2 from Microsoft that was made to the European Commission, hoping that this will be of help to you in finding effective remedies to the issues that matter most in this case.

OpenDoc Society is an international member-based not-for-profit organisation headquartered in Europe, with individual and organisational members around the planet. Our organisational members range from large software vendors and open source communities to small and medium sized enterprises, from (also European) government organisations to academia and research, and from education and cultural institutions up to special needs groups, registered charities and the military. Our goal is to promote best practises for productivity applications, most notably in the area of open standards, document exchange and processing. In this document, we will respond to the Undertaking from our expert knowledge in this domain and make a number of proposals to improve that document in order to make it effective given the purposes it is drafted for. We hope you will forgive us the sometimes deeply technical nature of these comments.

From our perspective it seems that good progress has been made in several other areas of the European Commission's investigation, e.g. in the browser part where the use of web standards will soon be the default. Yet, in the field of productivity applications (probably economically and societally the most important area) many serious issues unique to that domain are still likely to remain if the Undertaking were to stay limited to the current proposal. These issues may not be the most eye-catching in this situation where different investigations are on top of each other, yet they are essential if we want real solutions that work for the customer and for the market. Office file format lock-in is probably the single strongest impediment to customer choice in IT. In the area of personal productivity applications we have a long way to go before the market can restore itself to health, because issues are densely interwoven across different levels and across time. With the current proposals it is unlikely that we will see a level playing field: the use of open standards (even those with a large traction in the market, such as ODF) does not stand a fair chance, which hampers choice and makes real competition almost impossible. That in turn will remain to have a huge effect on the IT market in general for many years to come.

It is to be commended that Microsoft is thinking about giving people an active choice to choose ODF as their default file format. But in contrast with the browser it is only currently promising this for a very small minority of their users – excluding an estimated 80% of users that use a version other than the last version of their Office for Windows product. While Microsoft has been delivering ' Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats' adding support for its newly developed (non-standardised) Office 2007 for Windows file formats3 for all its legacy versions on all platforms for a number of years, ODF would be supported only on Office 2007 SP2 for Windows and subsequent versions. In fact, in versions before Office 2007 for Windows ODF is currently still not officially supported under warranty, even though the software to do this has been available for years in an outsourced project coordinated and funded by

1 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/business/global/23kroes.html 2 http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/eu-msft/docs/Microsoft_Interoperability_Undertaking. 3 These 'final' legacy formats were created midway the drafting of ECMA 376, the precursor to IS29500. The differences with both these formats are not publicly known.

OpenDoc Society ÷ Wibautstraat 150 ÷ 1091 GR ÷ Amsterdam The Netherlands ÷ [email protected] Microsoft. Also there has not been any sign of supporting ODF for Microsoft Office for Mac, let alone its legacy versions. Its free Office Viewers for the Windows platform don't support ODF as of yet. We consider that 'second class citizenship' of ODF to be extremely harmful to choice and competition. We note also that the actual proposed 'file format ballot screen' has to undergo significant scrutiny, because the actual wording and interface usability can have a huge impact on the outcome. Our organisation is very willing to help the Commission and Microsoft strike the right chord in this respect.

There are of course many other issues. To this day there are still no complete specifications of Microsoft's legacy formats (from the various historical binary formats to the Office 2007 for Windows default file formats).4 The amount of documentation compared to the available specifications for ECMA 376 and IS29500 is rather small, and many embedded elements are not even covered in those – posing a risk with regards to patents. Since there is also no authoritative mapping of the Office for Windows file formats on ODF or even on ECMA 376 or IS29500, fully reliable real-world interoperability with current and historical Microsoft products remains impossible. Providing a smooth transition between old and new file formats is a key element in realising a migration scenario where applications supporting a new standard interact with existing applications. Writing an implementation to reliably support the legacy Microsoft file formats is currently like hitting a moving target in the dark, and often involves trial and error in the black art of software reverse engineering. Since there are no official test suites for the legacy file formats, competitors can verify nor prove to customers they handle these formats in the right way. The absence of complete specifications and mappings to standards (and vice versa) and the lack of a test suite puts other implementations at a major disadvantage in any practical scenario which involves interaction with older Microsoft products – which still have a dominant market share by themselves.

At an implementation level there is still much to be desired in the current Office 2007 for Windows implementation of the ODF standard. Currently for Windows fails to retain all revision history information when saving to an ODF file. There is no practical reason for this, and fixing that unnecessary information loss is crucial to the Microsoft user base that want to make the switch to application-independent and future-proof ODF. In addition, Office 2007 for Windows behaves without much respect towards other ODF applications - destroying many data elements on import which the ODF specifications say should be kept. This effectively disables many of the innovative uses of ODF and foreshadows immediate incompatibility with future versions of ODF. This is a good demonstration of the fact that the promise as made under the 'General Provisions' in the 'Interoperability Commitments' of the Undertaking will not suffice: the publicly available implementer notes for ODF published by Microsoft state that these elements are not supported, and that would be sufficient according to the principles (set out under point 8 of the Undertaking). The fact that the Office 2007 for Windows software is able to handle custom XML as part of its Office 2007 for Windows native file format proves that this behaviour is unnecessary. Clearly, a complete, faithful and trustworthy implementation of ODF by Microsoft matters a great deal – one only needs to make a small step aside in this dossier to look at the browser case where barely noticeable implementation deviations from the standard in Microsoft products had immense effect on the outcome of the browser war.

With regards to future versions of the ODF standard we are also concerned about the huge delay in supporting any new ODF version. Please note that the expected updates of the standard will contain functionality such as OpenFormula formula's which are essential for the professional market and already now offer full interoperability with many products already on the market. Any delay in full support by Microsoft has a huge impact on the market. The Undertaking proposal talks about waiting for nine months after publication by ISO in order to support it. Since Microsoft participates in OASIS within the ODF technical committee, there is no reason why they should wait for final ISO publication before supporting a new ODF feature. Currently, Microsoft already like most vendors has chosen in its current implementations to support a version of ODF published only by OASIS (ODF 1.1) rather than wait for the adoption of ISO of that same standard which is now in the pipeline. Note also that in the case of IS29500, no such caution to await the publication of the standard was taken by Microsoft (even shipping the product before the standard was halfway finished) with as a result the severe differences between Office 2007 for Windows file formats, ECMA 376 and IS29500. Unless Microsoft commits to the same type of caution for all of the file formats it supports, this would put ODF at a definite disadvantage. The fair solution is to require that within a period of nine months after a feature is approved in either OASIS or ISO it is implemented by Microsoft in all relevant products. In addition it would be reasonable to to require that all features of a future specification as published by the ODF TC in a publicly available committee draft or beyond which are implemented by at least three different products in a separate namespace and which are not substantially different from existing constructs in either Office 2007f for Windows file format, ECMA 376 or IS 29500 will be supported by Microsoft in that same nine months time frame.

4 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=3657CE88-7CFA-457A-9AEC- F4F827F20CAC&DisplayLang=en

OpenDoc Society ÷ Wibautstraat 150 ÷ 1091 GR ÷ Amsterdam The Netherlands ÷ [email protected] Because is at the core of our processes, that list of relevant products requiring a change is much longer than merely the personal productivity applications. Since ODF was standardised in 2005, many Microsoft products were upgraded to work with newly introduced proprietary Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows, Office for Mac and Works file formats, with ECMA 376 and possibly IS 29500. There is a plug-in funded by Microsoft for viewing the Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows file formats5, but none for ODF - which puts ODF at an important disadvantage on the web. There is no adequate support for ODF in Microsoft's document management environment Sharepoint, while there is ample support for the other formats mentioned. Development tools (like Microsoft Visual Studio) are providing export controls for reports that have the choice of file format hard coded - excluding ODF, that is. Probably there are many more, and Microsoft needs to provide a good overview of which applications need to be adopted.

Standards are not optional if we want to restore a healthy software market that again will allow competition on features, software quality, customisation and price. Microsoft should as a rule of thumb enable the user to choose ODF across the board at the exact same support level it has for similar file formats created after 2005 (the year ODF was first published as a standard). This means any application that works with application specific formats such as Office 2007 for Windows formats, as well as ECMA 376 and in the future IS 29500. We think that everywhere where Microsoft offers a solution or feature for one of those formats in any application, it should do the same for ODF at the same time – unless there is a very solid technical reason for not doing so, which it needs to explain in detail and which should not prevent it from making a best effort to support what is possible. And it should do so in a reliable and complete way.

One final issue that impacts portability is not related to the format in which the document is saved, but the font resources that are referenced in it. In all versions prior to the release of Office 2007 for Windows the default fonts the software would use were a set of system fonts that was and is available free of charge. This meant that these fonts were automatically available to competing products on the Windows platform, but also to open source projects and other competing products on other platforms. In Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows a new set of copyrighted (third party) fonts are installed alongside the application (and the Windows-only viewers), and these are set as the default fonts when a file is saved in any format that handles fonts. User that want reliable rendering of these documents on other products or platforms (including the web), or don't want to burden the recipients of their documents to buy these (very expensive) fonts have no easy way to switch off the use of the new proprietary default fonts in Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows.

We hope you consider this contribution to be useful, and we remain at your service should you require so. This is a critical case and the outcome of your agreement will severely impact the future possibilities of European consumers, companies and governments in the knowledge economy that Europe is gradually turning into. Only parity of support for ODF from Microsoft will guarantee that the market can work as it should. Without equality of arms regular competition does not stand a chance. We want to see the best possible outcome of this Undertaking for the end user, creating a fair and open supply side that meets the demands of many different types of users in a future proof way.

Kind regards,

Bert Bakker President OpenDoc Society

5 http://www.openxmlviewer.com

OpenDoc Society ÷ Wibautstraat 150 ÷ 1091 GR ÷ Amsterdam The Netherlands ÷ [email protected] Proposals to amend the agreement text Insert the following text under 2.2 (before point 28)

Microsoft will in principle enable the user to choose ODF across the full range of all its products at the exact same support level it has for any format it has introduced itself since the initial publication of the ODF standard in 2005. Everywhere where Microsoft offers a solution or feature for one of those formats, it will do the same for ODF at the same time. For applications and services where this is currently not the case, it will do so before March 1st 2010. If there are any solid technical reason for supporting ODF less than any other format, Microsoft will seek input from external experts appointed by the European Commission to find a resolution. Meanwhile, Microsoft will make a best effort to support what is possible.

New proposed point 32:

Microsoft shall support the ODF Standard in the following way. For ten years from the effective date of this Undertaking, within 9 months of final publication by either OASIS or ISO of a new version of the ODF Standard Microsoft shall support such a version of ODF together within all relevant software and services that have been created or updated to support similar formats that published after the initial publication of ODF 1.0 in 2005. This means Microsoft will provide full ODF support for current and legacy versions for Microsoft Office for Mac, as well as for any web-based or on-line applications that read and/or write to legacy Microsoft Office for Windows, Office for Mac and Works file formats, ECMA 376 or IS 29500. Microsoft shall provide a warranty as specified in the general provisions outlined in Section B.I of this Undertaking, effective at the time of release to manufacturing of such updated support. This provision is subject to the following pre-requisites for each version of the ODF Standard: (i) the version of the standard must be developed and available for implementation under substantially similar terms as ODF 1.0, including for a substantially similar purpose and under substantially similar (no less than reasonable and non-discriminatory) licensing terms covering all intellectual property rights in the standard; (ii) the version of the standard is not substantially more difficult to implement technically than the previously supported version; and (iii) the standards development process for that version of the standard has not been manipulated or otherwise subject to misuse. Irrespective of the termination of this Undertaking Microsoft shall maintain the then existing level of ODF support over the commercial product lifetime of the existing version release of the applications and services involved including any web and cloud based services. In this respect Microsoft shall provide a warranty in line with the general provisions outlined in Section B.I effective as of the date of the termination of this Undertaking.

Insert the following after point 33:

● Microsoft will update the current installed base of Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats and the free viewers (Word Viewer, PowerPoint Viewer and Excel Viewer) to include the ODF add in (or functionally equivalent) through Windows Update as a mandatory update to all current users within 2 months after this settlement will become effective. Any major updates to the add-in will be delivered in the same way. Microsoft will actively reach out to it's OEM partners to assist them in servicing their customers with support for ODF, both in any trial versions of products and through an ODF-enabled Word viewer, Powerpoint viewer and Excel viewer. ● Along with the complete specifications of Microsoft's legacy formats Microsoft will include an official test suite for all historical versions of its own file formats, so that competing applications can prove to customers that they comply with them. ● Microsoft will provide an authoritative and up to date mapping of all legacy Microsoft Office formats on ODF, ECMA 376 and OOXML/IS29500. ● Microsoft will provide documented conversion software for Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows file formats to ODF, as well as documented conversion software for ECMA 376 and IS 29500 file formats to ODF. ● Microsoft will improve all relevant ODF implementations in any Microsoft software and services to contain revision history and retain all data elements the ODF specifications require applications to keep. ● Microsoft will make it possible to cut and paste well-formed ODF on the clipboard by default in Office for Windows and Office for Mac, in order to support real-time interoperability between applications without information loss. ● Microsoft will add adequate support for ODF in all versions of Microsoft Sharepoint, equal to the level of support for any of its own historical file formats, ECMA 376 and (future versions if any) of IS29500

OpenDoc Society ÷ Wibautstraat 150 ÷ 1091 GR ÷ Amsterdam The Netherlands ÷ [email protected] within six months of the publication of this Undertaking. ● Microsoft will create and maintain an open source browser plug-ins for ODF functionally equivalent to the Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows browser plug-ins that were already created under the name of OpenXML viewer, and provide these as an automatic update to users of those plug-ins through the appropriate mechanisms in the various browsers that are targeted. Alternatively this may be done through a Microsoft-specific tool such as Windows Update or equivalent. ● Microsoft will create a complete public inventory of development tools and other relevant current services and software in its product portfolio that deal with any of Microsoft's proprietary Office for Windows file formats, as well as with ECMA 376 and IS 29500. Microsoft will update these and guarantees that none of its products discriminate on the basis of file formats, or hinders the use of open standards in any productivity application. ● Microsoft will actively inform its customers through its website and newsletters with adequate and balanced information about the possibilities for using ODF, especially in the context where it already discusses or promotes any file formats created after the publication of ODF in 2005 – including but not limited to the Office 2007 for Windows file formats, ECMA 376 and IS29500. ● Microsoft will make it possible for users of its productivity applications to change the default fonts used in its productivity applications to use freely available fonts across all predefined templates in its applications. Alternatively Microsoft may come to an agreement with its suppliers to release all relevant fonts under the same conditions as the system fonts that were used as default prior to Office 2007 for Windows.6

6 Please note that the fonts are already installed for free alongside the free Word Viewer, PowerPoint Viewer and Excel Viewer, but that the accompanying license mandates the use of .

OpenDoc Society ÷ Wibautstraat 150 ÷ 1091 GR ÷ Amsterdam The Netherlands ÷ [email protected]