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Open Secrets

Oooh, how mysterious. I was listening to the Redmonk Podcast with Simon Phipps about yesterday's announcement of the ODF Translator project. Towards the end Simon is asked to talk about the ODF Foundation plug-in he saw demonstrated in Brussels on Tuesday.

Simon explains that he was at a private event held under "Chatham House Rules" and that he'll "need to check with the people who demonstrated there to find out whether he can actually say what he saw". I understood The Chatham House Rule allowed you to use/discuss the information you'd gained but shouldn't identify/attribute participants. The Chatham House web site says the rule "originated with the aim of providing anonymity to speakers and to encourage openness and the sharing of information".

Now, by coincidence, OpenForum Europe's press release cautiously welcoming Microsoft's announcement yesterday also mentions that "This week OFE, in partnership with the ODF Alliance has been running briefings in Europe to senior government officials on the impact of ODF, and were able to see one live demonstration of the plug-ins, similar to that now being proposed by Microsoft."

Could these be one and the same? If so why is Simon so circumspect in discussing what happened on Tuesday? There's no mention of these meetings on OpenForumEurope's web site or the ODF Alliance's. 

All very mysterious - it appeals to the Mulder in me. Why so much secrecy? What's being hidden? Who attended Tuesday's "private meeting" I wonder.

On reflection it seems unlikely it would be the "senior government officials" that OFE/ODFA were lobbying. Whoever it was they clearly weren't football fans. The truth is out there.

Posted: Jul 07 2006, 12:03 PM by Stephen McGibbon | with 6 comment(s)
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Comments

Graham Taylor said:

Steve, thanks for flagging this to me, but you are way, way off beam on this one. Sorry to disappoint you but there is no conspiracy, no secrecy – just a professional event which you were not invited to! No apology for that – for the reasons below. Last Tuesday's session was just one of a series of Briefings that we (OpenForum Europe) run as part of our support for open, competitive choice for IT users. Only one of the ways in which we meet our our objectives is to enable balanced discussion on a particular topic of interest. The audience for these sessions is the European public sector, both at local and national government and the commission. These sessions have now been running for close to three years, on an irregular basis, and we invite directly those from that target who have expressed an interest in attending. Their success can be measured by the step by step increase in attendance. So the reason why it is not published on the OFE website is extremely simple, it is to dissuade an avalanche of requests from suppliers to attend, desperate to sell their particular products or harangue on their particular strategies. The successful format for these sessions has not changed since we started – a balanced set of presentations from informed and relevant speakers, there to enable an in depth discussion with the audience on the selected topic. The topics change, but the format doesn't. Key is an absolute ban on any commercial 'selling', and adoption of Chatham House rules  exactly as you quote, to encourage openness and sharing of information. It works extremely well as a discipline on all of us, and allows attendees to raise issues, concerns and discuss experience and best practice – I'm pleased to hear that discipline is being maintained. In this case the topic was 'ODF- Where Next', so we brought in a speaker reflecting what was happening within ODF, a number of speakers from national countries able to compare and contrast what was happening there, and a demo of  a plugin to illustrate the potential of this route, and to debate the practical issues involved. We choose our topics carefully based on feedback, and ODF was a natural choice this time. Unusually we ran this one in partnership with the ODF Alliance, who have seen their membership soar to 230+ in  a matter of 4 months, with over 50% coming from Europe, emphasising the level of interest. As it happens if you had been a little less secret about your announcement, then a representative from the project able to talk with authority on the detail, and timescales would have certainly proved a valuable addition to the discussion. I don't know what our next session will be on, but at some time I'm sure ODF will be raised so perhaps you can provide me with the contact in the project best able to talk in detail on the development?

So Steve a request, like any good journalist, check your facts before you publish. You have both my email and telephone numbers so it couldn't have been simpler to find the facts.
Rgds G

# July 11, 2006 9:03 AM

Simon Phipps said:

Actually all OFE meetings I have ever been invited to have been conducted under rules allowing everyone present to speak freely without fear of ending up reported in the press. In this context, that's what "Chatham House Rules" means - no conspiracy, just an antidote to the dreadful behaviour so common from the press these days as their patch gets eroded by blogs and the like.  I find it very liberating, it means there's no-one from ZD UK there :-)
# July 11, 2006 12:59 PM

Mark Lange said:

Graham presents some compelling reasons for having a closed forum, which is fair and certainly enables a "balanced" presentation and his view of "discipline".  But given his reasons, he should fairly call his group "Closed Forum Europe" since that is what they provide.  
# July 14, 2006 4:24 PM

Stephen McGibbon said:

Which facts did I get wrong? Ok, I said that attendees couldn't be football fans. I didn't know the soiree had a huge screen and free (as in beer) beer. That sounds more like "corporate hospitality" than a typical Brussels cocktail reception to me.

To Mark's point Graham, how can you call it an open balanced forum when it's invitation only, only half of the debate gets heard and the guest list is confidential?

Of course you've got every right to lobby policy makers to mandate ODF, exclusively or otherwise, but it's wrong to represent this as a position of balanced neutrality.
I don't know which policy makers attended, but I wonder whether some may have been under the incorrect impression that the event was an open forum for policy debate. Some may remain under that false impression.

So, a direct question if we are being open and upfront with nothing to hide, can you share which public policy makers were there and at whose invitation? Then we can make sure the full debate is aired.

I'm also delighted to accept the invitation to a future event ... I hope it's as good as the last :-)

# July 14, 2006 7:40 PM

Stephen McGibbon said:

The ODF Alliance have provided more information now on their mailing list.

ODFA was pleased to partner with OpenForum Europe (OFE) in hosting several events in Europe. The first, held at Scotland House in Brussels on July 4, gave several EU member states a chance to report on progress. Belgium was officially represented by an official from FEDICT, the ICT policy unit at the heart of the Belgian government. Speakers from Denmark and France also discussed what their main concerns were and Simon Phipps of Sun gave his perspective. Florian Reuter of the the OpenDocument Foundation demonstrated a converter.

The second event, which took place at the historical venue of the Guildhall in London on July 6, was more focused on the UK, and made all the more interesting by Microsoft’s announcement on that day of the project to develop an ODF translator. Bob Sutor, IBM’s VP for Standards and Open Source, was one of the two keynote speakers, the other being Gavin Beckett from Bristol City Council (UK), which recently joined the Alliance.

# July 15, 2006 11:24 AM

Notes2Self.net said:

Gary Edwards of the OpenDocument Foundation stopped by the other day to comment on my post...
# July 28, 2006 2:33 AM