An interesting (if long) blog today by Andy Updegrove A Proposal to Recognize the Need for “Civil ICT Standards”. This week’s discussions in Geneva about Microsoft’s request to ISO to approve a second standard for office documents has generated more heat than light in the technical press. Andy takes a philosophical spin on the issue and comes up with something approaching a manifesto for a new bill of rights for the ICT age.

I won’t attempt to summarise them here, but I’m sure his arguments will find favour from the tens of thousands of people around the world who give their time and energy freely to help design, develop, test, translate, document, support, and promote OpenOffice.org. Many of us are driven by the desire to end the digital divide, to save digitally endangered languages, and to give people the tools they need to make their voices heard in an increasingly digital world regardless of ability to pay.

Andy gives a theoretical framework for much of what we do. It has been interesting watching him make the journey over the past year or more, driven inexorably down this route as he has watched the ICT industry at work, and compared the ways of proprietary and open-source camps. Good read, Andy; we look forward to future installments.

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