On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 07:02:17 +0100, Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> Sometimes I need to remind myself
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>| A Malaysian standards committee was moving forward to approve ODF
>| as a national standard in Malaysia. This is called "transposing"
>| an International Standard, and is commonly done when a relevant
>| International Standard is approved. Microsoft has made every
>| attempt possible to prevent this committee from making progress
>| with their review of ODF, for almost a year now.
> `----
>
> http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/04/sometimes-i-need-to-remind-myself.html
>
> Microsoft: International gangsters.
Yeah, uh huh.
What's interesting is that Mr. Weir linked to this story about a Malaysian
adoption committee as proof of Microsoft's "interference", yet the article
clearly claims that it's ODF proponents that are causing the problem.
"There has been unprofessional conduct and a lack of ethical standards
among some members of the technical committee," he told the Star. Ariffin
cited blogs published by certain pro-ODF committee members, as well as
their push to have ODF ratified in committee by a two-thirds majority,
rather than by a full committee consensus."
What's even more interesting is that he insinuates that Microsoft is
mentioning the names of organizations like the British Library and the
Library of Congress without their involvement, but ignores the fact that
those organizations were mebers of the ECMA technical committee.
Then to top it all off, he claims that this document:
http://uf.freeculture.org/wp-content/antiODF.pdf
Is "filled with lies about ODF". I've read it, and while there are
certainly some arguable conclusions, I don't see a single thing that is
untrue about ODF.
It's not asking for OOXML to be made the standard. It's just asking that
ODF not be made the single, and sole standard. The 5 points it makes about
ODF are valid and true (Languages, disabilities, forumlas, arbitrary
external schemas, and backwards compatibility).
The only thing that's arguable is whether an ODF mandate would drive up
costs. I think it would, because of the work involved in document
conversion, which would have higher costs than OOXML because no ODF
supporting application has full document conversion fidelity, thus ensuring
a costly verification process to insure converted documents are accurate.
OOXML has full fidelity conversion from legacy office documents, so there
is no need for that step.
Also, the added costs of new technology for disabled people to work with
ODF when they finally do get their disability support, etc..
What I find to be the most interesting, however, is that ODF proponents,
supposedly proponents of choice, are pushing for EXCLUSIVE use of ODF to
the detriment of all other possible formats (not even just Microsoft's).
Makes you go hmmmmm....
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