12.18.07
Quick Mention: If There is ‘War’, Microsoft Started It
Good standards earn recognition, impotent specifications require armies
As a followup to last week’s war of words between Brian Jones and Rob Wier, consider this:
If it is a standard war, as Brian proclaimes, Rob Weir (IBM) is an excellent asset without high fidelity. A trustworthy expert personality who always surprises you. And here comes the problem: People can be very sympathetic towards Microsoft and their products or just to the persons who evangelize their formats. But they cannot deny the obvious: that OOXML is a spec that should not have been submitted under fast-track. If someone like Brian takes part in the dirty campaign to rush it through anyway he needs to keep in mind that it is not a good way to make friends or gather sympathy. Probably it is a well-paid business as is corps washing and hangman business. Sorry, no one has the right to get an ISO stamp for a broken specification.
Microsoft has a lot of nerve claiming that there is war against it while it’s taking ISO as a poor hostage. This picture says a thousand words. █
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy. 