The debate about document formats in Massachusetts is one example of the way standards can impact the world of free software.

If a standard is patent-encumbered, then free software developers may not be free to write software that implements the standard, without first obtaining a patent license. This effectively prevents free software users from following the standard.

There is an important issue facing the European Commission now with regard to standards, and they need to hear from you. Please support this campaign in favor of open standards by adding your signature on their web page (by 2007 September 15), answering the European Commission's request for comments, and asking your friends and colleagues to do the same.

The EC is considering an update to the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) that would threaten what has been an ongoing push for open standards. This second version of the Framework has not yet been endorsed -- there is still time to stop it.

The FSF has been campaigning since 2005 in support of Massachusetts adopting a free and open format, Open Document Format (ODF), as its standard for document storage and production.

For just as long, Microsoft has been attempting to sabotage support for a free standard. They would prefer that governments and their citizens stay locked into proprietary formats and licensing agreements. They would prefer that anyone attempting to access public information be forced to depend on Microsoft.

Recognizing that public opinion is overwhelmingly in support of free and open formats for documents that belong to the public, Microsoft named their latest effort at sabotaging the process accordingly: Office Open XML Formats (Open XML).

Despite the misleading name, Microsoft's format is not open. Microsoft has not explicitly granted any rights for vendors other than Microsoft to implement the specification. They expect everyone to trust vague, unusual, and poorly worded promises not to sue. Their proposal conflicts directly with a number of existing and accepted open standards, and so seems quite clearly to be an effort to replace current open standards with something controlled by a single proprietary vendor (who also happens to be a convicted monopolist).

Our government and citizens deserve much better than that. Unfortunately, Massachusetts is seriously considering allowing usage of Microsoft's format for government documents.

The draft framework for defining acceptable standards, which is called the Enterprise Technical Reference Model (ETRM), is open for public comment until Friday, July 20th.

If you are a Massachusetts resident, please let acting Massachusetts CIO Bethann Pepoli know that Microsoft's format is not an open standard, and that it should be removed from consideration.

Send your comments to standards@state.ma.us by Friday, July 20th. Let us know that you sent a comment by CCing campaigns@fsf.org.

Also, remember that you can further show your support for free software usage in Massachusetts government by casting a vote in favor of the issue at Deval Patrick's web site.

If you are not a Massachusetts resident, please do some research to find out what's going on in your own government. Let us know what you find so we can take action.

A wealth of information detailing problems with the Microsoft format can be found at Groklaw. FSF Europe has written a list of questions that need to be answered before any of us are convinced that MS-OOXML is actually an open standard.

We've gotten Gnash running on the OLPC as a browser plugin, added a debugger for Flash movies, and other interesting new features.  The OpenMoko folks have gotten the Gnash port to OpenEmbedded as well, so that'll be our first smartphone port. Gnash also runs on my old Sharp Zaurus, my Pepper Pad 3, and pretty much all of my GNU/Linux based devices. With ports to a Nokia 770 tablet and my Nokia E61 smartphone in progress.

Right now we're struggling with ffmpeg and Gstreamer not working quite the way we need them to for Flash. It works in CVS as a "hack job", but now we need to fix all the subtle behaviors of the ActionScript classes in the FLV player Flash movie. Our simple streaming video tests work fine finally, and embedded FLV video is also now starting to work. I expect, that with community help for Gnash and support from the ffmpeg and Gstreamer folks, the next release will enable us to put an end to the number one bug report we receive - Gnash won't play YouTube videos.

In an interview with Newsweek, Steve Jobs made some very disturbing comments about how 'open' the device will be:

“You don’t want your phone to be an open platform,” meaning that anyone can write applications for it and potentially gum up the provider's network, says Jobs. “You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn’t want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.”

This is complete nonsense. There's this other network out there called the internet. People install '3rd party software' on the machines that are hooked up to it all the time. And guess what - the West Coast part of the Internet doesn't crash and burn every other day. I wonder why that is, if '3rd party software' is oh so dangerous.

Also, this quote is particularly disturbing coming from Jobs - a large chunk of Mac OS X is 3rd party software. The kernel was derived from BSD, which was not written by Apple. BSD is all about openness. It pains me to see that codebase used to build a completely crippled and closed environment. With software under the GPL, this would not have been possible...

I suppose the community will have to start working on a port of an entirely Free operating system to the iPhone before it will be useful. Given the existance of Rockbox, that hopefully won't take too long.

In the mean time, it's probably a good idea to let Steve Jobs know that we want telephones that are more open and that support Free Software better than what exists currently, not yet another walled garden. Be polite but firm - there is a rumor that he actually reads and responds to e-mail coming from @gnu.org addresses...

It seems that some universities (University of Illinois @ Chicago?) are requiring their students to install special nonfree software and to use a nonfree operating system in order to access their wireless network.

If you've been affected by this kind of policy, would you please write to us at membership@fsf.org and tell us about it?