____/ [H]omer on Thursday 22 November 2007 20:07 : \____
> Verily I say unto thee, that Peter Köhlmann spake thusly:
>> Erik Funkenbusch wrote:
>
>>> You do realize that Sun or IBM were often the head of delegation in
>>> many countries for ODF, right?
>>
>> Did they bribe too?
>
> No, after all why would they? ODF is an /Open/ format, used primarily in
> Free Software. Those promoting such a standard would have little to gain
> financially from bribery. Even Lotus Symphony is free, and StarOffice is
> little more than OpenOffice with a collection of templates and clip-art.
> The sheer number of ODF adopters [1] (in application development), means
> it would be rather difficult to accuse any /single/ company of trying to
> create some kind of format lock-in.
>
> Microsoft, and their probably-MSO-dependant® Not-Really-Open® Oh-Oh-XML®
> on the other hand ...
>
> Erik and other Microsoft apologists might as well face the fact, that MS
> have been abusing document formats, and other "standards", as a means of
> tying customers to their products for so long, that they are now totally
> incapable of producing a truly Open standard. It's just not their nature
> to do so. How will they lock customers in to their cash-cow without some
> proprietary format, ensuring that MSO is a "requirement"? How indeed :)
Even the horse has spoken.
Halloween Memo I Confirmed and Microsoft's History on Standards
,----[ Quote ]
| By the way, if you are by any chance trying to figure out Microsoft's policy
| toward standards, particularly in the context of ODF-EOXML, that same
| Microsoft page is revelatory, Microsoft's answer to what the memo meant when
| it said that Microsoft could extend standard protocols so as to deny
| Linux "entry into the market":
|
| Q: The first document talked about extending standard protocols as a way
| to "deny OSS projects entry into the market." What does this mean?
|
| A: To better serve customers, Microsoft needs to innovate above standard
| protocols. By innovating above the base protocol, we are able to deliver
| advanced functionality to users. An example of this is adding
| transactional support for DTC over HTTP. This would be a value-add and
| would in no way break the standard or undermine the concept of standards,
| of which Microsoft is a significant supporter. Yet it would allow us to
| solve a class of problems in value chain integration for our Web-based
| customers that are not solved by any public standard today. Microsoft
| recognizes that customers are not served by implementations that are
| different without adding value; we therefore support standards as the
| foundation on which further innovation can be based.
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070127202224445
,----[ Quote ]
| [Microsoft:] ...we should take the lead in establishing a common
| approach to UI and to interoperability (of which OLE is only a part). Our
| efforts to date are focussed too much on our own apps, and only incidentally
| on the rest of the industry. We want to own these standards, so we should
| not participate in standards groups. Rather, we should call 'to me' to the
| industry and set a standard that works now and is for everyone's
| benefit. We are large enough that this can work.
`----
http://www.os2site.com/sw/info/comes/px09509.zip
> [1] http://opendocumentfellowship.com/applications
--
~~ Best of wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | Othello for Win32/Linux: http://othellomaster.com
http://Schestowitz.com | GNU/Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
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