Follow the money

Story: Open standards advocate comes out in favor of MicrosoftTotal Replies: 7
Author Content
rcweir

Jun 16, 2007
2:49 PM EST 		If I'm reading the last paragraph of his biography page correctly ([HYPERLINK@www.oreillynet.com]) it sounds a lot like Rick is being paid by Microsoft to attend events like this. So I'd suggest the title of this article be changed from "Open standards advocate comes out in favor of Microsoft" to "Microsoft consultant comes out in favor of Microsoft".
dinotrac

Jun 16, 2007
3:25 PM EST 		>"Microsoft consultant comes out in favor of Microsoft".

Is he on Microsoft's payroll now?

Looks like the work he did before was

a) Just a few days,
b) Not covert,
c) Ok with the Wikipedia folks.

If Micrsoft paid him to say the things that he said, it should be made public. Otherwise, it might do you well to grow up and let people make an honest living.
Abe

Jun 17, 2007
6:23 AM EST
Quoted:
it might do you well to grow up and let people make an honest living.


Nothing wrong in making an honest living, on the other hand, making a living by wrongly vilifying some one else isn't. Are the quoted really honest statements? Let's see.

Quoted:
However, today there are two competing open standards, the Microsoft initiated Open XML which is part of Office 2007 and the Sun initiated ODF,

Since when Open XML is open? Does its schema carry the qualification of being open? Not really. It is controlled by MS alone, isn't.

Quoted:
On whether Open XML was started to stop ODF, he pointed out that Microsoft had started work on developing an XML data format back in Office 2000, work that predates some of the ODF work.

Can he or MS verify that the work started in 2000? MS was a participant on the OASIS committee, how come they never mentioned it? If it wasn't to kill ODF, what was the real reason then if there was one? Couldn't MS work with OASIS on unifying the two standards for the benefit of "openness" and the consumers which MS claims to listen to?
Quoted:
On the accusation that ECMA is a second rate organization, Jelliffe said that it was a different kind of organization than W3C and Oasis, aimed at standardizing contributed technology. It is not a standards invention organization.

This is just fat and no beef. ECMA is a second rate organization when being compared to ISO, not to W3C and OASIS.
Quoted:
Some have suggested the Open XML standard, at 6,000 pages, is too long and impossible to properly read and review. However, Jelliffe said that it grew to that size because during the review process at ECMA, non-Microsoft people demanded more complete documentation and thus it grew to that length because of its openness.

They demanded more documentation because MS has a huge part of its previous file format supported in the specification without documentation. They added junk to fulfill the request. The complain is about junk in 6,000 pages, not the valid specs.
Quoted:
ISO is an organization where each country has one vote. "I have been accused of selling my vote at ISO. I don't have a vote at ISO so I can't be bribed for that," he said.

Influencing votes is even worse than selling a vote.

This next one takes the cake for dis-honesty. Let's work each statement alone
Quoted:
"It's very good for Microsoft to be involved in standards again. For many years, the large companies have not been very engaged in the standards world.

Sure it is good, on the other hand, what was the out come of MS participation in OASIS? A competing standard to serve MS interests alone by locking consumers and to compete to kill ODF. MS even didn't want to create a translator initially and was give an ultimatum, either you inter-operate or be isolated. They had to be forced by organization to cooperate. Is he being honest about a company that claims to respond to customer needs and requests?
Quoted:
Being pro-Open XML doesn't make you anti-ODF.

Yes it does, ODF & "Open" XML are not complimentary, they are competing standards for doing the same thing.

The next one takes the icing. A cheap shot at ODF.
Quoted:
They have been developed for different purposes.

Their purpose is not different, and they don't have to be different, they both are specification for document formats. MS and its lackeys (you) are making them different to serve MS interest. To lock consumers and to control the market using monopoly power.
Quoted:
If you want something for interchange and if it is platform neutral, then I'd tend to ODF.

Well, this is the purpose of the XML standard. ODF does a good job at, why doesn't "Open" XML do the same?
Quoted:
However, if I wanted to make sure that all the data in the document opens up the same way, then I'd go for Open XML," he said.

This is the cheap shot. Are you saying ODF doesn't? what a crock. If the MS claimed "Open XML" is truly open, ODF will sure make all data in documents open up the same way not for ODF files only, but also for "Open XML" files too without any fuss or hassle. This is dis-honesty my friend.

I see no honesty in this whole article. I see nothing but mean blue bones.
dinotrac

Jun 17, 2007
7:43 AM EST 		>I see no honesty in this whole article. I see nothing but mean blue bones.

Oddly, that's how I view your posting.
dcparris

Jun 17, 2007
8:52 AM EST 		I don't think MS is out to 'kill' ODF. I do think they simply want to be able to establish their own standard - and promote it as the 'superior' one. Ahem!
dinotrac

Jun 17, 2007
10:26 AM EST 		>I don't think MS is out to 'kill' ODF.

But only because they can't. The computing landscape has changed dramatically in the last ten years. The US no longer dominates like it once did.

Survival means learning and adapting, and MS is trying to figure out how much and how far it has to go -- not to mention can go -- and still make great big whopping piles of money.
bigg

Jun 17, 2007
11:02 AM EST 		I think Mark Shuttleworth's post put it best. There's probably little correspondence between the Open XML format and the Office format, making the Open XML format largely meaningless.

> I do think they simply want to be able to establish their own standard - and promote it as the 'superior' one.

The proprietary Office format will be the 'superior' format. It will be easier to "improve" on Open XML so that they can lock in their customers' data. They will respond that they do have an available open format, it just doesn't have very many features that customers demand. My speculation is that they don't like ODF because it would be much harder to "improve" it than to improve Open XML.
Abe

Jun 18, 2007
5:12 AM EST 		Very excellent review about the differences between ODF & MS OOXML.

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