02.28.08
Vint Cerf, Jim Zemlin and Pamela Jones Explain Why They Dislike OOXML
In case you wish to keep up with OOXML critiques, here are several new pointers of interest.
From Open Malaysia:
The Open Forum Europe (OFE) event was re-scheduled to accommodate for this event. At 7pm, the OFE event started, and it was an excellent discussion by 4 luminaries of the Open Standards world; Bob Sutor (IBM), Håkon Lie (Opera), Andy Updegrove (StandardsConsortium.org) and Vint Cerf (father of the internet, and now Google). They all stressed the importance of true Open Standards (as some are more open than others), and how it will become more and more relevant as we move our lives online. Vint had the best line on this:
“Merely publishing your specification doesn’t make it an open standard. It needs open participation to become an open standard and full implementation commitment by multiple independent vendors”
The Linux Foundation responds also:
“What I’d love to see is Microsoft adopt the already existing ISO standard,” Zemlin says, referring to the OpenDocument Format (ODF) backed by Google and others. “It’s akin to Microsoft going to the United States Congress and proposing an alternative bumper heights.”
Groklaw has complaints about the latest Microsoft deceptions.
Microsoft’s problem isn’t technical or financial or a matter of skill. It’s attitudinal. Microsoft, from what I see, doesn’t want to be interoperable with the GPL, their principal competition, or with ODF unless someone forces them. And that’s not a problem we can fix for them. If they desired true interoperability, not customer lock in, they’d embrace ODF and work out one standard we could all use, no matter what operating system we use. Think about the obvious goal of Microsoft’s current patent strategy. It’s the same song, to me. The GPL is being squeezed out, if Microsoft gets its way, and we all get squeezed for money whether we use Microsoft software or not.
[…]
I’m tired of Microsoft’s dirty tricks too, actually. Why can’t Microsoft compete fairly, with decency? What place do smears have in a standards process? Did you read the News Picks item by Tim Bray on what Microsoft did to him and his wife years ago because he dared to support Netscape?
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.
LinuxIfFun said,
February 28, 2008 at 3:47 am
Microsoft entire business is based on money and lockin.
They will never open up (unless they are forced to)
I hate these publicly traded companies and stock market. Their only bottom line is profits at the end of each quater. Stock market is THE EVIL of today. Most of the crap is coming out of these greedy corporates at the expense of the ecosystem.
They are just pushing products in the market place to achive their quaterly sales targets.
LinuxIfFun said,
February 28, 2008 at 3:58 am
They would put patents on TCP/IP and license it if that would have been possible !!
Its just FUD the microsoft is spreading. Their licensing and false perception of costing and high prices is just plain rubbish.
They have already ripped off billions of dollars in the name of MS Office.