OOXML Denied INCITS V1 Approval 159
Xenographic writes "INCITS V1, the US group responsible for the US vote over whether or not ANSI will grant fast-track approval to Microsoft's OOXML format, failed to reach the 2/3 consensus required to recommend OOXML to ANSI. What makes this vote interesting is the graph in the article, showing all the new Microsoft business partners who joined INCITS just this year to vote for OOXML. The INCITS Executive Board will now deliberate further, until they can come to some agreement on what to recommend to ANSI, but it's pretty clear that Microsoft is pushing OOXML as hard as it can."
wha? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:wha? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:wha? (Score:5, Insightful)
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My irony meter just exploded (Score:2)
OpenOffice should sue them? Don't you mean OpenOffice.org should?
(See here [openoffice.org], under "Trademark", for what I'm talking about.)
Approve. (Score:2, Funny)
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Ponder the roughly decade-long pageant of XML "textnologies" that were supposed to magically unfrobnicate everything, and usher in Web X.O.
From a certain aesthetic/spiritual vantage, we need another decade of unrelenting rejection of bloated obfuscations just to bring the software industry back to a contemplative, resting state.
Or has this just been dogma lifting the leg on another bad
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It would have been nice if ODF had avoided the XML bandwagon. I feel that a document format should have the requirement that a UTF-8 text file with newline only seperating the paragraphs and a very small set of ASCII characters (perhaps only 0-31) not occurring should be a legal document. XML fails this test.
Fighting XML is even harder than fighting the billion-dollar Microsoft FUD machine
Cash is King (Score:5, Insightful)
We'd all love to see the proprietary and over-complex OOXML file format die on the vine. It's sickening how they've purposefully obfuscated the issue, how they've picked a name that's confusingly similar (think Florida's 2000 election all over again!) and have lied and misrepresented what it is.
But just look at that graph! The lengths that Microsoft will go to in order to prevent people from being free of the vendor lock-in... Cash is king, and Microsoft has more available cash than many countries's GNP. How far can they corrupt the process? Probably far enough, with enough time and money, and the only holdback is the time.
What we need to do is simple: continue building world-class software. Continue to push for open standards. Make quality, useful, non-locked software and eventually, the marketplace will correct itself. That we've come this far is a testament to the power of the marketplace.
Re:Cash is King (Score:4, Insightful)
It's more a testament to the power of the word "free".
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Look at it like this:
Microsoft Office (closed proprietary) == Office Open XML
Open Office (Free, Open Source) = Open Document Format.
Even the name behind OOXML implies that it has something to do with Open Office! Tell me that OOXML wouldn't easily be misinterpreted as Open O
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Re:Cash is King (Score:5, Interesting)
I was with you until this last bit of advice for future action. Building world-class software is not the solution - think Kerberos, think Netscape, think Samba. Nor is the conitnuing push for open standards... we have just seen how standards bodies are geting polluted by cash-rich firms. The market-place is not being allowed to correct itself, by shills and so-called business partners... besides share-holders who can only think on quarterly basis, and forget the larger issues involved.
We've come this far because of the GPL, and because in a panic, Linus chose to use the GPL. And now so-called 'commercial users' (there is no commerical user of Free Softwar - only commercial exploiters like Tivo, Apple, Novell and Microsoft) are cashing in on the Free Software movement. GPL3 is a well thought out move, and IBM has now promised not to use their patents against developers.
Now that there is enough critical mass behind the open source movement, I think we need to cash in and become more vocal about abuse of standards, patents and monopolies. The blog by Rob Weir is a step in the right direction. I for one, wouldn't mind a year of dupes on Slashdot, that highlights continuous abuse by commercial firms, of the standards processes.
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Wait... what?
I suggest the following: If you carefully stop talking, you can avoid saying anything stupid like that in the future. If there are no commercial users of free software, then why does MySQL exist, and who uses it?
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If there are no commercial users of free software, then why does MySQL exist, and who uses it?
MySQL AB is not a commercial 'user' of Free Software - they are one of several commercial 'distributors' of Free Software. Those who use MySQL for their own projects are non-commercial users, those who bundle MySQL along with their 'software products and services' are again commercial distributors of Free Software like MySQL.
Companies like RedHat and Canonical are commercial 'Service Providers' and 'Value Added Distributors' for Free Software - they are not users.
I think Google and other SAAS companies mig
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Even Richard Stallman wouldn't look at it that way. MySQL is available under the terms of the GPL, so it's free software. Like the LGPL, the total license that MySQL AB offers compromises the viral nature of the GPL for another goal (profit isn't innately an ethically positive goal, but it's still a goal).
Compare the effects to releasing the program under the MIT license or some other non-copyleft free software
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Here's where the disagreement is. That's an interesting claim, what's your argument to support it?
Fortunately, not abusing others isn't one of my personal goals.
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If people are using MySQL in any sort of product or website that they intend to use for revenue generation, that makes them a commercial user. Heck, any use by a for-profit corporation should count as commercial use, and thus that corporation is a commercial user.
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If people are using MySQL in any sort of product or website that they intend to use for revenue generation, that makes them a commercial user. Heck, any use by a for-profit corporation should count as commercial use, and thus that corporation is a commercial user.
I don't think even Microsoft uses this definition of a 'commercial user'. You are either an End User or a Value Added Reseller or Distributor; hence their EULA or End User License Agreements as opposed to the GPL. The EULA applies whether you use Microsoft software to make money OR play gmaes.
Atleast as far as Free Software is concerned, the GPL (and other Free licenses) do not concern themselves with the nature of end-use - whether they be commercial or not; infact the license kicks in only when there is
Re:Cash is King (Score:5, Informative)
No, it's not! Even with infinite allowance for ugliness, the sewage that Microsoft is trying to foist upon everyone isn't even sufficiently complete enough to write an independent implementation with! You can't have a standard that says "do it the way $foo did it;" you have to at least actually describe how $foo did do it. Microsoft has failed to do even that!
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Re:Cash is King (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not complaining about it being hard to read, I'm talking about it literally saying things like "format the text the way Word 95 does it," which would require somebody wanting to implement the standard to reverse-engineer Word 95! The reason Microsoft is the only entity that can possibly implement the standard is because the standard is just (incomplete) documentation of how Office already works, hacks to provide a semblence of version compatibility and all.
Re:Cash is King (Score:5, Interesting)
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Supposedly there is no reference description of the ".doc" format, there is only the reference implementation source code.
On a similar note, supposedly once Microsoft spoke of crafting insanely complex and multi-variate binary standards specically in order to confound reverse-engineering. Some might consider this the exact opposite of good engineering.
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Not only is this exactly what I believe is happening, it's exactly what I've been trying to tell you for the last two posts!
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So take them out. (Score:2)
Other than, say, being occasionally used by Word, creating documents which break under other implementations, making it look like a bug in those implementations?
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The fact is that ODF, while a great office format
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Obviously this can be abused, I would expect Word to do this extensively if they are forced to read/write ODF. I also expect Open Office to do so. Expect lots of arguments about whether some use of this is abusive.
HOWEVER:
The first difference with OOXML is that unlike these tags, the document is not required to
Re:So take them out. (Score:4, Informative)
Legacy document support in Microsoft OOXML is based on patent encumbered proprietary format tags. The "standard" only preserves legacy documents by keeping them in the proprietary format they were made in. And it took Microsoft 6000 pages to say, "if you want to open a Word 95 document, buy a copy of Word 95," and then in fine print, "just because there is a reference to Word 95 in our patent unencumbered, pledge protected standard doesn't mean that you can use the patent encumbered and highly proprietary Microsoft Word 95 format in any implementation other than one purchased from Microsoft, now or at any time in the future."
ODF has not ignored the issue of legacy formats, and neither has Microsoft. Microsoft wants to keep legacy formats closed and preserve the lock in mechanism you blamed on ODF. ODF objects to referencing closed, proprietary formats in standards that are supposed to be open.
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Is the format somehow inadequate that it has no other method of specifying word 95 compatible formatting?
As an example, one of the issues i read about was that some old version of word would use a font 2 points smaller when "small caps" was turned on, surely the conversion process could simply reduce the font size within the output file, rather than having to use an explicit backwards compatibility kludge?
There's no sense in polluting
Re:So take them out. (Score:4, Insightful)
You're talking about a semantic issue. Your argument is basically the same as saying "Why do we need a bold tag in HTML, why can't we just specify a style that uses a heavier weight?" There are cases where there are semantic differences between small caps and merely using a smaller font style. Word processing documents are not just words with formatting (though many people treat them that way), they have tables of contents, links, indexes, styles, etc... semantic markup.
The whole point is to preserve the original semantic information, not do nasty (and lossy) conversions that destroy the original semantic content, which always has to make assumptions as to the meaning of those semantics. That's a process that will always be error prone, and in certain fields (legal, medical, etc..) that's simply not acceptable.
Let's take an example. Suppose you have 10,000 legal documents written in Word 95, and many of them use "small caps" to indicate a specific legal meaning. Now, let's convert the documents to ODF, and those "small caps" are merely converted to a smaller font. Ok, it may look the same, but what if I want to search through my document management systems for all documents that have terms with the specific meaning that small caps were meant to represent? If the documents are converted with that semantic information intact, I need only return all documents with 'small caps'. How do you do that with the converted document? You can't really.
That's the danger of conversion. Not all data is in the data.
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Again, I call BS - my experience of dealing with legal firms in the 90's was that they all (without exception) used WordPerfect, so the idea of a corpus of 10,000 legal documents in Word 95 format is numinous to say the least.
Perhaps you could expand on what specific legal meaning would be represented by 'small caps' in Word 95?
Besides, one of the drivers for SGML was to allow semantics to be stored as part of a document, and ODF, as a proper subset
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But that's the wrong way to do it! You don't say "do it the way Word 95 did," you actually specify how it did it and then mark it up with the appropriate tags. For example, say italics in Word 95 were tilted 20 degrees. You don't mark that up as "<Word95Italics>[foo]</Word95Italics>", you mark it up as "<italics tilt="20 degrees">[foo]</italics>"!
Besides, b
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Not true. Read my comment here [slashdot.org]. The idea is to extend the style engine to be able to support most of the arbitrary crap, so that actual "SpacingLikeWord95" can be implemented as a style in that particular document, and need not be retained for posterity in every single implementation of ODF (or OOXML) -- but implementations that don't truly understand SpacingLikeWord95 will still b
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Actually, there are such tags. For instance, suppressTopSpacingWP is there for Word Perfect documents and there's a date format that is there because of bug in Lotus 123. However, i doubt there is a gigantic legacy archive of framemaker documents out there, unlike word or excel documents.
Most of those legacy documents will not need to b
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PDF doe require a postscript engine if you want to truly understand the entire semantic markup of a document. Let's say you want to return all documents that use an underlined strikethrough text. How are you going to do that without a deep understanding of the PDF language? What's more, XML is more or less human readable, PDF isn't. Why do you think Sun
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Is there a semantic standard for using underline and strikethrough, or is it some arbitrary convention adopted by someone at some time?
There is a proper standard for semantic markup, and it's called SGML.
The proper process for conversion of an arbitrary markup scheme would involve the creation of a translation schema, and the use of a proper standard (hint - not OOXML) for the output documents.
OK - you work in docu
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So in essence, you can have varying levels of compliance and only Microsoft will ever be able to produce a piece of software which is 100%, no questions asked compliant with every last nuance of the specification, even the optional parts.
That's not a standard. That's an obvious attempt to maintain dominance in a market by making sure the standard suits your business and not anybody else's.
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In practice it appears that even Microsoft have trouble actually doing this
Re:Cash is King (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft has some of the most talented and well-paid coders in the business. If some dumb hacker that got pushed into a project so that his employers' network didn't end up on blacklists can comprehend a documented standard, then I'm sure Microsoft can.
OOXML is a scam. It's meant to give Microsoft some air of respectability in an arena that it is, to say the least, deeply distrusted. The documentation is intentionally incomplete, and that's because Microsoft doesn't want anyone to implement it. This is simply part of their war on up-and-coming competitors. The whole thing is a lie, and it appears that a strong enough minority of the committee recognize this stunt for what it is. What is sad is that money may very well win the day, when Microsoft should be shown the door and told not to come back until it has a standard that any competent programmer could build an interface in an application for, even if they possess no libraries to help them along.
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Most people find anything hard to read. Seriously. Although most western countries claim literacy rates over 90%, in reality more like a quarter of people are functionally illiterate. (http://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/PDF/2006470.PDF) (Functional illiteracy is reading so poorly that it seriously diminishes one's earning ability.
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The thing is: a standard is just a piece of paper. There's no enforement body - that's the difference between the law and a standard. A good standard documents what the industry leaders have done, which creates strong financial motivation for others to follow that standard. Such standards are often ugly, but at least someone follows them.
That's a great description of history. The only problem is that it's... well... history. It was true when the Industry followed product lines in a sort of monolithic product manner. But things have changed over the years. We're getting away from "this is how Vendor X does it" and moving towards "this is how Vendor X and Y will interoperate."
Standards are no longer arbitrary product descriptions. True (open) standards are commitments from vendors that purchasing their wares will lead one to an infrastr
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When two components form different vendors work together in practice, it's almost always because some test lab somewhere discovered the interoper
maybe its just me (Score:5, Insightful)
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Intentional? No. It's merely the result of some poor sod documenting the Office formats, which are essentially dumps of the programs' internal state. What you see is merely the consequence of the fact that Office is held together with spit, bailing wire, and the curséd blood of sacrificed Microsoft H1-b programmers.
No, it's M$. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's merely the result of some poor sod documenting the Office formats, which are essentially dumps of the programs' internal state. What you see is merely the consequence of the fact that Office is held together with spit, bailing wire, and the curséd blood of sacrificed Microsoft H1-b programmers.
No, it's ugly because M$ has been playing this game forever. Office 2007 does not export to systems before Office 2007 is because it can't and it won't export well to any other system but it's own. M$
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Hey, nobody ever said you couldn't attribute malice and stupidity!
Also, by the way: you're ranting at the choir. Cut it out.
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Then, corrupting standards bodies
If they wanted to do something good for the customers, they wouldn't just be using OpenDocum
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You know as well as I do that the offer by Oasis for Microsoft to participate is disingenuous. The group is dominated by Microsoft's competitors who would do everything in their power (as evidenced by the blog articles they write on a daily basis, and legal maneuvering they keep coming up with) to sideline and make their participation in the group moot.
I believe that Microsof
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Maybe you should read the whole comment before saying something so stupid. I specifically addressed that, and you seem to have ignored it.
They refused because it wasn't a genuine invitation. It's like when you invite the next door neighbor to your party so they can't complain about the noise, but you desperately hope they say no, and make plans to make them uncomfortable and sideline them if they actually do show up.
They i
Read the Halloween memos... (Score:2)
Oh no, beware of the bloggers? Umm, it's Microsoft who got Peter Quin fired for using ODF. It's Microsoft who is stuffing the ballot boxes here (and m
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No. The bloggers are merely the mouthpieces of their employers (just as Brian Jones and other Microsoft bloggers are for theirs), voicing their employers agenda. There's nothing to 'beware' of.
And for the record, Peter Quin wasn't just "using ODF", they were excluding Microsoft, likely in collusion with Sun. This is easily evidenced by the fact that early on Quin said that they'd consider Microsoft if they opened up
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Other standards they participated in were already established, and thus they had no choice. With ODF they preferred to ignore it and hope it would go away, had they supported it then the migration to ODF format would be in full swing right now, and the biggest reason people keep using msoffice would have been eliminated.
As for supporting legacy documents, that is not the
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I'm sorry, are we talking about the same ODF here? Even OASIS doesn't agree with you, as they've already set up 2 working groups to address the incompleteness of it, namely accessibility and formulas. The one piece they still haven't addressed is legacy documents from Microsoft, Word Perfect, Lotus, and others, which is a HUGE problem for anyone that will want to convert their
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Word processing formats are not for archiving or publishing, they are for editing, and should only be used during editing.
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However, that doesn't change the fact that
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It is. It's perfect for all of that. It's just that Adobe would rather have that you have to pay them for the advanced features, but it still works fine in Linux. You can read all text in it, index it, etc, etc.
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Or if PDF isn't what's needed maybe someone needs to design Archive Document Format.
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Or do they just do simple things, like slightly reduce font sizes, or adjust line spacing etc... Things like this are trivially easy to handle during conversion to a new format, simply change the appropriate option in the new file as you convert and the output will look the same as the input, although the programs will show dif
Standards organizations are politics... (Score:5, Insightful)
They're supposed to be setting up mechanisms for cooperation. But all too often they become political battlegrounds, where each member organization tries to warp the standard to make things easier for itself and to sabotage its competition.
Now we have Microsoft going a step further, not just trying to get its own stuff approved as a standard, but packing the committee just before the vote.
And missing by one vote. Oops! B-)
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I can't understand why Microsoft didn't bring in a hundred new companies. Then they could boast a 107-6 result.
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There are only so many hookers on the street at any given time. Wait until the next batch of shameless trollops come along to stick their venal posteriors in the air to receive the sordid blessings of the Redmond crowd. I think a proper and fitting way for Europe to punish Microsoft, and for the next generation of DoJ prosecutors to do it is forbid Microsoft from ever sitting on any standards c
Cool to see msft lose, even with a stacked deck (Score:3, Insightful)
Hack Back (Score:5, Informative)
But it is.
The good news is that it appears money can fix this - short money for most (the cost of a couple copies of Microsoft Office). If you have any discretionary budgetary authority and would be adversely affected by OOXML being an ANSI standard, please go here [incits.org], read about the membership process (it appears to cost $800 to be on the technical committees) and fill out the membership form [incits.org]. If you're an academic institution you can get on the technical committees and have an advisory role for $2000.
Yes, the process is broken, but it appears this can be stopped pretty quickly. They're hacking, all we can do is hack back.
It would be great if a hundred universities and a couple hundred Slashdotters' businesses were able to get on the committee by the end of the week. It would reverse the trend, by quite a margin. By all means, try to get the process fixed in parallel, but any such efforts there will likely come in too late.
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There are also some other issues to consider. What other responsibilities does this organization have? How will they be fulfilled them when the only reason people joined was to stick it to The Man? Or is everybody just going to quit cold turkey and give Microsoft r
Re:Hack Back (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, that's exactly their tactic.
"Son, never start a fight, but always finish one."
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Ummm, if we don't adopt it, they win. US votes for OOXML to be an ANSI standard. Fight over.
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They would need 20 to get a 2/3 majority vote.
You suggest that we hack back, but that is not etical.
When somebody's clubbing you on the head, first you stop the clobbering, then you worry about what to do with them. One can prefer a happy community spirit while still not subscribing to radical pacifism [wikipedia.org].
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If you only follow Marbux's position, the US will vote for OOXML to become an ANSI standard. That's why I advocated doing both in parallel. I guess if you had to chose among the two, Marbux's has the better long-term benefit, but we don't have to chose.
You are applying for accreditation? Allow or Deny (Score:5, Funny)
ISO credibility is at stake (Score:2, Insightful)
And yet, Microsoft might be cutting its own throat. If ISO loses
its integrity, there won't be any more standards, and Microsoft won't be able to claim it has a standard.
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I suggest you look up ISO 3103:1980 (also known as BS 6008:1980).
Microsoft's OfficeOpen XML in Massachusetts (Score:5, Informative)
Massachusetts would like to recieve comments about Microsoft's OfficeOpen XML specification (now Ecma 376) being proposed as an addition to their list of usable "open standards". I'm hearing that they are reading the emails and will take them seriously.
It's a proposal, and it's not yet carved in stone. Time will tell if they mean it, but with that reassurance, I have to put my cynicism on hold, at least for now, and say that if this is an issue you care about, you need to let them know how you feel in polite and informative emails before July 20th, 2007. It never hurts to try, particularly since I've no doubt Microsoft is lobbying wherever it can. When I thought it was useless, I didn't want to pretend otherwise or have you engage in make work. But if it has a chance, it's very different.
Here's the address to write to: standards at state.ma.us. (Only use the @ symbol instead of the at.)
I suspect the most important thing right now is numbers, so even a short email is helpful. They can't know how you feel unless you tell them, and they can't understand the tech unless it's presented with proofs of statements made. And remember, it's a new crew, so some of the things we explained the first time may not have been transferred to the new brains at the helm. So please let me provide you with some resources, so that if you wish some materials at hand to compose a more thoughtful and more technical email, it will save you some time.
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Woops Wrong Link (Score:2)
Misunderstandings of the standards process (Score:2, Informative)
Second, in SDO's it accredits, ANSI requires balance among participants to ensure that all kinds of s
Why the push? (Score:2)
If MS wants to keep that going having a completely open spec format kinda limits their "keep buying Word, or you wont be compatible" argument. There has to be another reason but it eludes me.
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This is Microsoft's way of having their product officially stamped as being "open."
Re:Why the push? (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps you haven't heard, but OOXML is not anywhere near an open standard. Google: autoSpaceLikeWord95 (...how exactly do you autoSpaceLikeWord95? Decompile Word 95 on Windows 95? Where do you get these programs?), VML (is that even implementable outside of Windows and Internet Explorer? oops!), WMF (ditto), and "referenced" patents. MS is even employing Linux companies to write "translators" that can never fully implement OOXML because of these intentional problems. Just read the Halloween documents where MS says they need to innovate above standards (embrace + extend) or some Comes v MS documents. Google "Microsoft on standards". http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/01/microsoft-on-
I'll have to say, so many people are falling for the Open Office, er, I mean Office Open XML "standard" that MS's PR firm must have been paid very well.
From the OOXML patent promise:
"Microsoft irrevocably promises not to assert any Microsoft Necessary Claims against you for making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing or distributing any implementation to the extent it conforms to a Covered Specification (Covered Implementation), subject to the following. This is a personal promise directly from Microsoft to you, and you acknowledge as a condition of benefiting from it that no Microsoft rights are received from suppliers, distributors, or otherwise in connection with this promise. If you file, maintain or voluntarily participate in a patent infringement lawsuit against a Microsoft implementation of such Covered Specification, then this personal promise does not apply with respect to any Covered Implementation of the same Covered Specification made or used by you. To clarify, Microsoft Necessary Claims are those claims of Microsoft-owned or Microsoft-controlled patents that are necessary to implement only the required portions of the Covered Specification that are described in detail and not merely referenced in such Specification. Covered Specifications are listed below.
This promise is not an assurance either (i) that any of Microsofts issued patent claims covers a Covered Implementation or are enforceable or (ii) that a Covered Implementation would not infringe patents or other intellectual property rights of any third party. No other rights except those expressly stated in this promise shall be deemed granted, waived or received by implication, exhaustion, estoppel, or otherwise."
Oh, you mean VML is only referenced and therefore not covered by the patent promise, at the same time MS is throwing their patents around Linux? Too bad it's inherently part of the OOXML spec....
OOXML... (Score:2, Troll)
The questions remains - just how good are the purchased goods?
What can I do? (Score:5, Interesting)
We all have our prejudices, and a lot of us geeks are (not unduly) suspicious of anything "open" coming out of Redmond, but to step back and compare these two formats I see ODF as a clear winner:
So what can I do to promote ODF? Write to my congresscritters? Spend some time proofing drafts of the spec?
I intend to write candidates. (Score:2)
Mostly because I have not seen any candidates weigh in on technical issues that I care about:
Why is MS taking all this trouble? (Score:2)
If MS really believed in their products they wouldn't need to push OOXML so hard. It's obvious from their behaviour that they're scared to death about ODF. I wonder how many people would switch to Open Office if ODF really takes off. I think you will find that the number of switchers will not be as big as MS is afraid of. People are too used to MS's stuff and usually reluctant to change.
Re:Why is MS taking all this trouble? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes it is quite certain that if ODF was required, Microsoft word would read/write ODF. And Microsoft word would almost certainly still be the number 1 word processor, and just like
The difference is that a number-2 word processor could then at least exist.
Microsoft is not worried about Open Office, that is just another bit of FUD they throw out (they act like there is some physical impossibility of any program other than an open-source Open Office working with ODF, which is a blatently false, but unstated, premise, of all their arguments).
What they are worried about is a *commercial* number-2 word processor. Say Google-word. Or maybe a company we never heard of. But suddenly no "something is wrong with open source" arguments will work (whether these are FUD or not), and any other argument against it will sound like Microsoft is claiming that they are the only company legally allowed to write software.
Such software would cut far more into Word sales than Open Office (I think the result would be 50% Word, 40% this competitor, and 10% divided amoung Open Office, a dozen other free open-source products, and 5 or 6 other commercial attempts). Retaining their market share would also require them to compete on functionality by developing the software, further cutting profits.
More serious is that it removes a possible lock-in for server products for the office. Even if a place uses 100% Word, the pointy-haired boss may actually have a hint and question why the "microsoft document server" they are thinking of buying will not work with this possible competitor, and for the same price they can buy the IBM unit that works with both. Microsoft will be forced to make such products that work with both or they will lose all the sales. But they will then lose that lock in, and then lose the lock in of things that run on or talk to these servers, etc, etc.
evil (Score:2)
I think ANSI should remove authorization from INCITS to make recommendations, since INCITS has demonstrated that they can't be trusted.
The process is manipulated worldwide by MSFT (Score:2, Interesting)
If MS did embrace ODF (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You need competition among vendors. Not among standards. You want everyone from Yokohoma to Goodyear to Cooper to Bridgestone building tires compatible with your car. You dont want to choose between Ford-Tire Standard vs GM Tire Standard vs Toyota Tire Standard.
What do you gain by having to choose between .Net and C# and Java? If you have three vendors fighting on a single platform, be it .Net or C# or Java, they will sell you more and more feature rich IDEs, inno
Re:where is the list of ooxml supporters (Score:5, Informative)
http://v1.incits.org/v1mem.htm [incits.org]
Apart from a few biggies like IBM or Sun, most of them you never ever heard of.
The interesting part what is RH doing there except what MS does, but within the opposite camp? E.g. being there purely to thwart MS' doings.
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder what they are thinking.
Re: (Score:2)
With 14 of the 16 latest joiners voting yes, and one of being RedHat, I'll estimate the votes of the remaining 15.