Important recommendations omitted

Why was important recommendations from McKinsey omitted in the report 'A professional and well driven police' to the Parliament?

From the report from McKinsey with the financial analyzes:

The section 'Use of cheaper software':

That in stead (of Microsoft Office) works with a scenario with a shift to OpenOffice.org or Star Office, as the product is called, when delivered from SUN (Oracle). By using a well know supplier such as SUN(Oracle), that now also develops and supports MySQL as well as Star Office, it will be assured that support is available with the quality the police needs. (p. 83-84)

A shift to OpenOffice.org or Star Office will according to McKinsey result in savings around 100 mio DKK untill 2017. McKinsey has also analyzed the initial costs that comes with the shift, and the estimates are between 2 and 7½ mio DKK. An investment that pays of after just a few months (p. 84).

It is further noted that shift to open source vill call for investments in education of the IT-staff and end users. These investments are estimated to be no more that 1 mio DKK., wich is a very small amount in comparison to the possible cost savings. Both in Denmark and international exists good examples of companies and organizations, that has taken advantage of the potential cost savings by shifting to OpenOffice products (p. 85).

The low investments required combined with the large cost savings is causing McKinsey to recommend:

An open source strategy that clearly recommends alternative software purchase like MySQL for especially database solutions to reduce costs (p. 86).

These recommendations is completely omitted in the official report from the Minister of Justice. The section about 'use of cheaper software' only says

The police is today using Microsoft Office 2007, wich is infact a newer version than most companies and organizations. In the current agreement with Microsoft it's planned to upgrade to a newer version within 3-4 years, but the benefits of such upgrade will be very limited. McKinsey therefor recommends that the upgrade of Microsoft Office and Windows is postponed, wich will reduce costs with a yearly amount of 13 mio. DKK (p. 85).

The list of relevant references, e.g., Swedish police, the Frensh Gendarmerie etc. are completely left out in the official report.

A police report

Last Friday the Minister of Justice revealed a report regarding the Danish police's finances. The background is that the police in Denmark has been spending much more money over the last many years, than they where allowed to in the budget.

The report is analyzing many parts of the police, e.g., a very week HR division and so on and so forth.

Of cause there is a chapter regarding software. Unqualified project management and lack of structured software purchase are two major issues. A solution to save money in the coming year are described in a chapter called 'Use of cheaper software' and the official report from the Government describes how upgrading to MS Office 2010 can be postponed for three or four years.

Thats all!

What is about to become a major scandal in the Parliament is that the same chapter in the original report from McKinsey & Company is a clear and undiscussable recommendation of open source software in general and OpenOffice.org in particular. The title of the that chapter is 'Use of cheaper software' suddenly makes sense.

The opposition parties are now asking the Minister, why there crystal clear recommendations of F/OSS and OpenOffice.org has been erased from the official version.

Are the police not willing to participate in cost reduction?

Links:
The official report (in Danish): http://www.justitsministeriet.dk/fileadmin/downloads/Pressemeddelelser2010/Et%20professionelt%20og%20veldrevet%20dansk%20politi.pdf

The original report (in Danish): http://www.justitsministeriet.dk/fileadmin/downloads/Pressemeddelelser2010/Budgetanalyse%20af%20politiet%202009-2010%20McKinsey%20&%20Company.pdf

Victory

The Danish Parliament has decided to create a list of allowed standards. The standards MUST be implemented before end 2011.

The decision includes two important things:

1. ODF is on the list - OOXML is NOT!
2. New standards MUST live up to certain criterias, among others it must be fully inter-operable with existing formats (formats already on the list). Microsoft is therefor responsible for interoperability with ODF.

Ref: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=da&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.version2.dk%2Fartikel%2F13690&sl=da&tl=en

The Parliament said: ODF only

Today the Danish Parliament said ODF only for public administration. The Minister of Science doesn't agree, so he will ask the Minister of Finance for advice. The Government is afraid that the decision will be too expensive.

The MP's warns the Minister: If you don't do it, we will ask for a formal ballot in the Parliament and the Minister will then lose.

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=da&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.business.dk%2Fbrancher%2Fit-beslutning-saettes-paa-standby&sl=da&tl=en

The expert panel will be called in again

After a few weeks of a rather hot debate on Danish Internet media regarding the final report from the National Authority of Competition, the decision was made this morning: The Parliament told the minister of IT and Technology to call in the expert panel again.

The case is not yet closed!

This is a very important victory for the open source community, because three reports has recommended dual standards. The members of Parliament didn't take these reports as a vote. The members has surely listened to the critics of the reports and will not make a final decision based on reports of varying quality.

English translation:
http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=da&js=y&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.version2.dk%2Fartikel%2F11939-ekspertpanel-skal-atter-se-paa-dokumentformater&sl=da&tl=en&history_state0=&swap=1

Better late than ...

On April 4th I wrote a letter to members of Parliament in Denmark (Folketinget): "Standards and free competition" (English translation: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A//ft.dk/samling/20072/almdel/UVT/Bilag/129/545869.HTM&hl=da&langpair=auto|en&tbb=1&ie=UTF-8). This was at the time where the Paliament was discussing with the Minister of Science whether The Danish Competition Authority should be participating in the follow-up on Parliament decision B 103. Fortunately the Parliament agreed to tell the Minister to ask the competition Authority to participate.

Today I read in the media ( http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A//www.version2.dk/artikel/7571&hl=da&langpair=auto|en&tbb=1&ie=ISO-8859-1) that Microsoft has answered. I don't know when they did, but I find it nice that Microsoft has taken their time to answer. One of the answers are, that Microsoft OOXML is an open standard because it's ...

1) Well documented and the complete specification is public awailable
2) Free implementable without any restrictions
3) Maintained in an open forum via an open process

Sorry Microsoft. two out of three (at least) missed this time.

English update in the Danish thing

This is easier than writing: http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/7661

Reaction from Parliament ...

Members of the parliament are angry that they didn't know about the total split in the Technical Committee under Danish Standards.

Several Danish IT policy rapporteurs are surprised that the OOXML Committee with Danish Standard has been totally divided. It will have consequences, "said Morten Helveg Pedersen (R).

http://www.computerworld.dk/art/45845

English: http://translate.google.dk/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.computerworld.dk%2Fart%2F45845&hl=da&ie=UTF8&sl=da&tl=en

Consensus in the Parliament

http://www.version2.dk/artikel/7121

It is expected that the Danish Parliament will reach consensus http://www.ft.dk/doc.aspx?/Samling/20072/forespoergsel/F24/index.htm about opening two new investigations about open standards:

1. First one is a technical investigation about the suppliers ability to provide full interoperability between the formats ODF and OOXML. This investigation will be carried out by a neutral part. Who that will be is not decided yet.
2. Second investigation will be about free competition. This investigation will be done by the Danish Consumer Agency http://www.forbrug.dk/english/ (Danish Competition Authority), an independent governmental organization.

This result must be considered acceptable. Even the Minister of Science and Technology agrees on theis one: http://videnskabsministeriet.dk/site/forside/nyheder/pressemeddelelser/2008/enigt-folketing-bag-koereplan-for-aabne-standarder

More details...

The Parliament decided today that implementation of open standards in Denmark will be watched by the The Danish Competition Authority and another neutral 3rd part. The theird part could be Professor Mogens Kühn Pedersen from Copenhagen business School (also chairman of the Danish National committee for document standards). Another person who has been menthioned is Judge Bo Vesterdorf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Vesterdorf), who is known for his time in European Court of Justice where he has convicted one of the major decisions against Microsoft in a law case.

Danish Parliament agrees

It seems that the Danish Parliament has agreed to ask a 'neutral' person or organization to make sure that the Danish public handles open standards according to the previous agreements about interoperability and free competition.

I expect that such person or organization will be announced on Tuesday next week.

Bo Vesterdorf has been asked to help

Will Bo Vesterdorf be a part of the Danish decision or is it just a political maneuvre to get the miniter do what he is asked ?

Perhaps you don't know him. Perhaps you do. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_14/b3877041.htm

Last year he was the leading judge in the case against Microsoft in the European Court. He was one of the key figures behind the historical judgement in the case about misusing their leading marked position.

Now the opposition parties in the Danish Parliament want him to be in charge of the investigation of B103 implementation. These parties has asked the Minister to order the The Danish Competition Authority to go into the work as agreed last year. The minister rejected and now the opposition is talking about asking Bo Vesterdorf to do it instead. -Woow.

Is it real or are they just teasing the minister to make him work with The Danish Competition Authority as he should ?

Shame

I'm ashamed that the Danish democracy (The Parliament; Folketinget) can appear so little creditable, that the country is at laugh to our neighbors (http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/12/12/danes-set-open-standards-trial). A decision in the Parliament has within a year and a half been reduced to nothing. It's not worth the ink.

It started so well in 1996, the parliament agreed (with no votes against it) to support a definition of open standards: It must be real open!

The next year it appeared that one or two local IT-managers couldn't live up to the "Readiness for changes" mentioned in his resume. The MP's got cold feet because they were afraid of criticism. All the good and innovative thoughts was completely killed by low practical questions and fear of the unknown.

Originally it was agreed that the final solution (end 2009) should be based on evaluations regarding influence on the competition and innovation and not (only) from practical decisions regarding interoperability (even that is important).

Before the election for Parliament last year, there was no limits to the promises from the political parties. Almost all political parties was agreeing on one and only one standard. ODF. But of cause I am naive.

The political parties behind the original proposal B 103 is bragging about how Denmark is ahead of other countries regarding the use of open standards.This is absolutely not the truth. We Danes (the parliament) made a decision in 2006; and if that decision is implemented as it was decided; yes we would be ahead. But unfortunately the implementation does not live up to the original word nor spirit. Please have a look at this report from the ODF Alliance, listing several countries and their opinion on open standards and how it's being implemented. http://www.odfalliance.org/resources/AnnualReport2007.pdf

Meeting in the Parliament today

Apparently there has been a meeting in the Parliament today about dual standards. The discussion was among other topics about how to determine the result of the test period next year. The Minister of IT- and Science Helge Sander proposed to ask an independent external consultant to make the conclusions. This proposal was *not* approved by the Parliament.

They agreed on a loose approach to announce a group of independant experts supported by an external consultant.

The group shall evaluate the interoperability between ODF and OOXML and further more evaluate if there shall be only one document format in the future.

The 'Conservatives' wants only one format. They have no idea about what standard that should be.

The 'Labour' is awaiting answers from the experts before they make up their minds. As they say: "We will ask the experts about that".

The 'Liberal' sees no problems in making a single format choice. They also awaits answers from this group of experts.

The final decision is expected next summer.

Source: http://www.computerworld.dk/art/43612

This is quite mysterious because a few months ago, the Parliament agreed to ask the The Danish Competition Authority to be the leader of such investigation on behalf of the Parliament. And during the election last year, almost all political parties (all except the liberals) was pro single standard and ODF as the one.

Answer to Jesper Lund Stocholm

Thank you to Jesper Lund Stocholm for his comment on this post http://lodahl.blogspot.com/2007/12/inquirer-has-coment-on-this.html

And thank you Jesper for correcting me when I misunderstand the information from the National IT- and Tele Agency. The thing is that I didn't participate in either of the two conferences. As a unpaid volunteer, I can't join all the meetings and conferences that takes place during daytime. I have a job to take care of. This is also the reason for not being so active on the blog over the last few months. I'm sorry if this is disappointing you Jesper, but that is how it is. Unfortunately this now ends up in you criticizing me for who I am and what I don't do.

These are some of the basic rules in open source communities:

• Don't put criticism to what people don't do, only to what they do
• Only put criticism to the actual work, not to th persons who did it
• respect other people even if you don't share your own opinion

I kindly ask you use another tone in the debate in the future, thanks.

The reason for the two posts on my blog http://lodahl.blogspot.com/2007/12/groklaw-denmark-pretends-msooxml-is.html and http://lodahl.blogspot.com/2007/12/inquirer-has-coment-on-this.html is that I have seen these international reflections to the situation in Denmark. The international press probably don't read Danish, so I try to keep them up to date with the situation. And yes, this is the situation as it looks from my point of view. I'm sure that someone else will talk about the same issue from other points of views.

The Inquirer has a coment on this

Thanks to Mads for this link.
The Inquirer calls the Danish approach a comedy.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/12/12/danes-set-open-standards-trial

A comedy is what it is. The Danish parliament first agrees on implementing open standards for office documents. It ends up with open standards or stick with Microsoft. The final solution is for text documents only.

The individual authority will be able to reject following the resolution, because it must be finacial neutral. So anything that costs money is a possible reason for not implementing open standards.

My conclusion is, that the resolution isn't worth the paper.

Groklaw: Denmark Pretends MSOOXML is an "Open Standard"

According to Grocklaw the Danish government is pretending that EOOXML is an open standard approved by ISO. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071211153924324

It's true that the public authorities is about to implement open standards in the public sector and that EOOXML is one of the accepted standards.

It must be emphasized that the ISO approval (or rejection) has never been a part of the discussion in the Danish Parliament. The ISO approval is not the final and true prove weather a document format is an open standard. ISO doesn't have the final word, but the the decision will of cause have effects in Denmark as well.

The Danish decision is this:

• ODF is an open standard (accepted)
• EOOXML is for now accepted as an open standard, but Microsoft must prove true openness in the process before end of 2008. The Danish Competition Authority has been asked to look after this.

I have talked to a few MP's about this both last summer when the discussion was open in the Parliament but also this late autumn where there was an election for Parliament. The politicians is very much aware of this problem and Microsoft will not get a final accept if the process isn't getting more open.

Clean ODF implementation IS realistic

Jesper Lund Stockholm has posted this comment to my blogpost about the implementation manual: http://lodahl.blogspot.com/2007/12/now-its-getting-operational.html#c8036683144354266846

- Thank you for that Jesper.

Jesper claims that according to a technical report, it's clearly not realistic to do a clean ODF implementation in the public sector.

I must say that I'm disappointed with the project in the Danish IT- and Tele Agency. From the Parliament came a clear message: use open standards for exchanging office documents. But the Agency has managed to shave the decision down to "Use open standards or Microsoft for text documents- if you find it appropriate".

To Jesper I will say: the technical report you are referring to is taken out of its context. You know that this report is written based on a decision of dual standards. A situation where we know that to kinds of documents formats will live side by side. In this scenario there will be a lot of document conversion every day - from now and forever. If the decision had been one standard only, there would only be initial conversion of a lot of documents. Later on, conversion of documents would happen only rarely.

How come it's not realistic in Denmark when it already happens in France, Norway, Brazil and many other countries ? What is it that makes it different in Denmark ?

Now it's getting operational :-)

First it was strategical decision in Folketinget (the Danish parliament) in summer 2006. This summer 2007 the agreement between government and the Danish municipals was a fact. And now we are getting close to the operational level. It all should start on January 1th. 2008, where all Danish authorities must be able to receive both ODF and OOXML documents.

A few days ago the Danish IT- and Tele agency published a 'manual' for the authorities. I think the manual as it is leaves the spirit of B103 behind and leaves the authorities with a choice of 'make he easy choice' with no respect for the original purpose and spirit of the resolution.

The manual (in Danish) can be found here: http://dokumentformater.oio.dk/billedmappe-til-dokumentformat-hjemmesiden/leverancer/62451-v4j-vejledning_-_rapport_tdh.pdf

There is a two week hearing period for this paper, and I will try to put rejections and comments.

Thanks to Jesper Lund Stocholm to direct my attention to this.

Whats up duck ?

I haven't been blogging that much lately. Sorry, but I feel rather busy at the moment.

• Busy trying to catch up with all the information floating around, both in the community but also regarding ODF and in the NOOOXML world.
• I have spent the last couple of days on a small travel to Aarhus ( http://www.findvej.dk/,8000 ). You know, I also need bread on the table ;-)
  
• Translation of 2.4 is going slowly forward. But we are still missing several hundred strings.
  
• Also preparing the next (December) edition of the Danish newsletter (expected to be out one of the first days in December). Sign up for it here: http://da.openoffice.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=nyhedsbrev (if you understand Danish)
  
• I am also trying to contribute to the new certification project and today I have submitted my comments to the Spanish syllabus (http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/OOo_Certification_Syllabus). Please join the project here if you think you can contribute in any way. Sign up here: http://documentation.openoffice.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=certification
• And then I have been trying to plan how to approach the new Parliament after the election this month. Hmmm. I think we have to act on this very soon. I better get on with it, eh ?

And then of cause

• I promised my family to be present once in a while. On Saturday I think we will all go to the movie theater together. Perhaps I should ask my wife out for dinner too. Yes, this is a high priority task on the list :-)