01.21.08
Quick Mention: The Latest OOXML Stunt Dissected, Trashed
“It’s hard for Microsoft to commit to what comes out of Ecma [the European standards group that has already OK’d OOXML] in the coming years, because we don’t know what direction they will take the formats.”
–Brian Jones, Microsoft (prelude to the many different 'OOXMLs')
Microsoft bloggers, including Mary Jo Foley whose career depends on Microsoft, are enthusiastically praising Microsoft for its latest predictable stunt. “Microsoft is bending backwards,” they’ll tell you. “Microsoft changed its ways.” “Microsoft is open, it’s all open.”
“The only company that benefits from OOXML is Microsoft and a few companies that try to join the Microsoft ecosystems and become enslaved to it.”If you look closely at what we have documented here, all that cheering is over a load of rubbish (pardon the language). What we have been seeing in the past year is a multiple-times convicted monopoly abuser resorting to sabotage, briberies, bald-face lies, obstruction of formal processes, lobbying that leads to the loss of jobs and so many other things.
The only ‘openness’ we have seen is the openness of Microsoft’s wallet, which has shelled out over $300,000,000 for OOXML support from Novell (among other things). There are many other examples. The only company that benefits from OOXML is Microsoft and a few companies that try to join the Microsoft ecosystems and become enslaved to it. This is not competition. It’s what was once called the "Trust", just before antitrust laws came.
Here is one rebuttal to Microsoft’s claim that its formats will be more open.
First there is that “oh, we forgot we never gave you the specs of our binary file format” game popping up again through Brian Jones, as if nobody had seen that one coming. So what’s wrong with this? Let me write that again in an easy way: If Microsoft were truly delivering the whole specs, not only would the OOXML spec be at least half smaller, (why do you need all these mysteries about faithfully representing past application behaviors?), but the whole OOXML hoax would be made completely useless.
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Besides, there are two elements that are left undiscussed here: Whether Microsoft will actually deliver the specs entirely and not just partially just like they already did before, and when they will publish the specs. All what we have here is, yes, we will deliver you the specs, and you will be prompted to sign a license agreement before you can actually read anything, so that’s again an old story, just like they did during the ballot period in France.
Surely enough, Microsoft will spin this in such a way so that the average person will be incapable of seeing through. Yesterday we explained why this so-called openness from Microsoft is fake and useless. It’s probably just a publicity stunt. It is one among a series that won’t end until the BRM is over and people have had a month to change their decisions. █
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.