Brendan Scott, on behalf of Open Source Industry Australia Ltd makes this submissions to Standards Australia on the matter of endorsing ISO

OSIA suggests that Standards Australia should not support endorsement of the OOXML format as an ISO Standard at this time. OSIA believes endorsement of OOXML as an ISO Standard would create a number of issues including:

(a) the large number of existing contradictions and criticisms of the format are so numerous and are sufficiently serious to warrant rejection;
(b) endorsement will create confusion among Australian consumers of office applications;
(c) endorsement will result in legal issues under s 52 of the Trade Practices Act for Australian businesses making representations about such an endorsement;
(d) endorsement will be unfair to potential implementers;
(e) endorsement will disadvantage Australian vendors; and
(f) endorsement would place Standards Australia in a difficult position.
In addition, to the extent the existence of translators may be argued to alleviate any of these issues, the format is redundant and should be rejected for that reason.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Open Source Industry Australia Limited (OSIA) today released its findings of a survey of South Australian open source businesses it conducted recently.

Open Source Industry Australia Limited (OSIA) welcomes this week's admission by Microsoft in magazine articles, including Fortune magazine, that the patents it has identified against open source are liable to be struck out as invalid.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OPEN SOURCE INDUSTRY SURVEY IN SA

Open Source Industry Australia Limited (OSIA) is conducting a survey of South Australian businesses and professional practitioners working with open source technologies.

Press Release
For Immediate Release

OSIA: Strict Liability: No Thanks!

Sydney, 26 November 2006

The Senate is soon due to debate the provisions of the Copyright Bill 2006.

Open Source Industry Australia Limited (OSIA), Australia's open source industry body, welcomes Microsoft's acceptance of the new gold-standard in office file formats, ODF. ODF will now be interoperable with the most widely implemented office suite in the country. But OSIA cautions 'buyer beware'. Microsoft have announced development of a conversion plugin for the next version of Office, rather than adding ODF as a default option for saving and opening documents. Conversion does not protect against data loss. OpenOffice.org, the major competitor to MS Office, already uses the OpenDocument Format as the default for saving documents.

Linux Australia, Australia's peak Free and Open Source Software community group, announced the launch of a petition today calling on the federal government to resist pressure to abandon consumer and competition rights when drafting anti-circumvention laws. New laws are required under the terms of the Free Trade Agreement negotiated between Australia and the United States.

OSIA, Australia's open source industry association, is flattered by recent acknowledgement of Linux as the strongest competitior to Microsoft's desktop monopoly, by none other than Microsoft themselves. A competitor which should therefore be considered and evaluated by any business or government presently using Microsoft's products.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently declared that a $100 PC was needed to combat piracy in the emerging economies. Ballmer was quoted as stating that "There has to be...a $100 computer to go down-market in some of these countries. We have to engineer (PCs) to be lighter and cheaper."

The NSW Shadow Minister for Commerce, Chris Hartcher, reportedly warned the NSW government of the dangers of locking government agencies into single vendor products.

In what is probably the first major independent study contrasting Linux & open source against proprietary Microsoft software, open source was shown to have a lower TCO by upto 30%. This casts further doubts on the Microsoft-funded TCO study undertaken by IDC and adds additional momentum to the open source platform as the best way forward for most IT requirements. Who would have guessed it?

OSIA Welcomes Strong Support for Open Source from Four Main Parties.

This week we have seen numerous reports in the trade press referring to Gartner UK analyst Annette Jump claiming that pre-installing Linux on PCs encourages piracy of Windows. We dispute Jump's conclusion and her figures. Without a fully specified methodology and a presentation of all the raw numbers and polling methods, these findings are extremely dubious. Additionally, Jump's logic is problematic at best and farcical at worst.

The world's PC makers are hurting. Most turn meager profits from their PC product lines. And some major players carry a loss each year. OSIA has a solution which will assist both these hardware vendors and the open source industry. We want the major PC vendors to contribute to the completion of the WINE [1] Windows-compatibility layer which runs on Linux. This will allow Linux to run most Windows applications and can deliver higher margins and more control to the PC vendors.

Australia's Open Source industry body Open Source Industry Australia Limited (OSIA) is pleased that all major parties have made significant open source announcements within a week of a survey request from the organisation.

The entire Australian software development industry is at risk as a result of the Intellectual Property legal framework required on adoption of the AUS-FTA, Australia's Linux community and Open Source Industry bodies said today in a joint statement. It will increasingly hamper Australia's ability to efficiently compete in global markets. Much like the introduction of a flawed patenting regime for pharmaceuticals, adoption of a flawed patent regime for software is not in Australia's interests.