The case of OOXML in Africa

A Standards Story

World IT ForumAddis Ababa

22-24 August 2007

J. Philipp SchmidtUniversity of the Western Cape

United Nations University MERITphi.schmidt@gmail.com

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

Email

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