Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire: Microsoft and Open Standards

Kids know that when one kid lies all the time, the next thing out of his mouth is likely to be another lie.

So what's the IT buying public's excuse for thinking Microsoft's new embrace of openness is anything other than a lie?

It's one thing for Microsoft to declare that it will open up its Office XML file formats and have them be recognized as a formal standard by Ecma. It's another thing entirely for this so-called standard to be a real open standard.

Well, like most of us here, Steven has been dealing with Microsoft's lies, deception, and lawlessness for a long time. It's not that surprising that he's come to expect the worst. Of course, I suspect that he's absolutely correct. We'll just have to wait and see exactly what Microsoft does to poison the well this time.

Well, I submitted this story to Digg and it's now on the front page.

Maybe someone in Boston will read it. That would be nice.

'Stephen Nails Micropants' sounds like a Simpsons character.

I'll write Fox and see.

...in the face of this.

Despite DOJ judgements, EU judgements, threats against the Danish Gov', "the third key", DRM, over 300 patents applied for every day, Massachusetts and so on, nothing has changed. Absolutely nothing.

How can "people" be expected to succeed where Nations have failed?

Corporations and money are the same as addicts and heroin.

Go to the previous article and write an email.

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/48268/index.html

Honestly, get enough email flowing to the two writers suggested and you'll see this issue come up. Especially, because it's a deal between Democrats and Republicans in Massachusetts.

I'd bet that Governor Mit Romney is silently fuming over this.

How can "people" be expected to succeed where Nations have failed?

People can succeed, because they are not corrupt politicians, bought and payed for by greedy corporations.

People who fail to stand up against corporate manipulation, fail because they don't have the spine to persevere. All it takes is the determination to stick to a choice made. Don't come whining to me as a home user that there are applications you can't do without. That is just giving in to convenience.

You either switch and take the losses as a consequence of decision to use Free Software or you stay with the proprietary solution. Either is fine. Just don't think you can become a FOSS user and supporter without a strong determination to do so. You'll fail the moment the big green start button doesn't appear on the desktop.

ra: Can you add this to your tough love speech?

People can have their reasons or results. Which would you rather have?

People who fail to stand up against corporate manipulation, fail because they don't have the spine to persevere.

r_a_trip - that is utter crap.

People who fail to stand up are either out of their depth, intimidated or just plain ignorant.

So you have stood up to Microsoft successfully eh? Funny, I don't remember hearing that they were broken as a corporation.

hey guys,

We stood up to Microsoft with the last fdisk to purge our systems of Redmond Code. We stood up to Microsoft when we decided glitz and shiny little buttons were not as good as stable, free products. We stood up to Microsoft when we decided to help a friend or acquaintance install Linux on their system and held their hand while they became familiar with it...

These are cumulative effects and none of them by themselves will require stitches...but the downfall of Microsoft via thousands of small cuts will. Toppling isn't the goal, while it would be nice. 20 percent of firm, solid Market Share is. To lose 20 percent of its business to Linux would be considered a humiliation to MS.

It can only go up from there.

helios

It's acollective effort and one can only do his/her part.

Tom,

I liked to add that most people are doing their part, not as an act of standing up to Microsoft, but in order to fulfill their own needs.

Microsoft puts its needs above the needs of its customers. Every now and then they adjusts their offerings in order to fulfill enough of their customer's needs, but they never change the overall priority.

Microsoft's products are aimed at the one size fits all consumer marketplace. Microsoft's products do not address the specialized needs of corporations, organizations, and individuals. Those solutions have to be hand coded, or built out of several pre-existing components then stitched together with some hand coding. The few products that Microsoft does offer that can be used to do this are specific to the Intel platform and cannot be scaled across an enterprise.

The reason most Open Source Code exists has nothing whatsoever to do with Microsoft. The code was created to fill a specific technical need in an efficient cost effective manner.

To borrow a famous quote, "it was done to scratch an itch."

"it was done to scratch an itch."

LOL number6x, that bit of pseudo psycho babble can be applied to absolutely everyone for everything they do!