Microsoft’s Open XML format has a poisonous nature. There is little or no question about it. The highly respectable Bob Sutor explains why.

Who will implement Open XML correctly and fully? Maybe Microsoft. Why? Since it is essentially a dump into XML of all the data needed for all the functionality of their Office products and since those products are proprietary, only they will understand any nuances that go beyond the spec. The spec may illuminate some of the mistakes that have been made and are now being written into a so called standard for all to have to implement, but I’m guessing there might be a few other shades of meaning that will not be clear. Fully and correctly implementing Open XML will require the cloning of a large portion of Microsoft’s product. Best of luck doing that, especially since they have over a decade head start. Also, since they have avoided using industry standards like SVG and MathML, you’ll have to reimplement Microsoft’s flavor of many things. You had better start now. So therefore I conclude that while Microsoft may end up supporting most of Open XML (and we’ll have to see the final products to see how much and how correctly), other products will likely only end up supporting a subset.

Several hours ago, Novell announced, in the form of a press release, that it would support Open XML in OpenOffice. Why on earth would Novell boast about it? Is it a Microsoft press release? Just like Corel, which previously fell victim to a Microsoft deal and some time afterwards dropped WordPerfect support for GNU/Linux, Novell is helping Microsoft sabotage OpenDocument adoption. OpenDocument is the ISO standard which is recognised by various office suites.

As a result of this mishap, Microsoft will continue to offer ODF support as a semi-functional plug-in for Office 2007. Novell’s move gives backing to this loose ‘support’, despite its promise to preserve the status of ODF format. Sadly, this type of strategy has the same effect on the EU‘s antitrust ruling.

This is by no means shocking anymore. Not so long ago, Novell carried a joint full page advert in the UK Financial Times (paid for by Microsoft), which boasted patent protection (in a country where such patents are illegal). This leads to confusions and develops Linux misconceptions/myths, which Microsoft tried to encourage and reinforce.

Thank you, Novell, for helping Microsoft control and manipulate a standard while changing public perception. In other news, Novell continues with the ‘chair shuffle’. I can only imagine, based on several such stories, that they have been losing some staff recently. They are quite likely in the process or reorganisation amid the departure of betrayed developers and angry customers.

Ouch. It sounds like they sell a camera, as well as a vibrator with batteries included. Here’s another funny typo which someone told me about last year.

Here is a quote-worthy statement from Groklaw regarding an interview with Novell’s marketing VP:

Linux Action Show has an interview with Novell VP for Marketing Justin Steinman, who talks about the deal. He says some interesting things. One thing he says is the Novell has noted that the deal for non-compensated developers (he calls them “hobbyists”) should be irrevocable, and Microsoft is “willing to talk about it.” Of course, that isn’t the real problem. The real problem is distribution and sharing and the apparent acknowledgement of some unknowable Microsoft “IP” — whatever that is. What about the compensated developers?…

Head over to CIOL and read Chaturvedi’s article about the Novell/Microsoft deal. Being a great thinker with broad knowledge of history, this man understands why the divisive nature of the deal could be the beginning of a disaster.

Embrace, Extend, Exterminate

Since, the eighties, Microsoft has been at loggerheads with some or the all the IT companies. It is renowned for the subversive tactics that it employs to nullify opposition. “Embrace, Extend, Exterminate” is supposedly the corporate philosophy that it lives by. In its three decade of existence, innumerable companies have either been gobbled up or simply run out of existence. Gates (and now Steve Ballmer, the CEO) do not look kindly at competition.

Sun, Oracle, Apple, IBM, you name it, all have been detractors of Microsoft. Google was one of the few companies that was able to steal a march over Microsoft and establish itself as a leader in the online space. Yet, one of Microsoft’s favorite bugbears has been a product company with a cute penguin as its trademark, Linux.

The open source movement is an anathema to Microsoft. The company propagates proprietary systems and is loathe to giving anything away for free or even opening itself.

‘Halloween documents’ is the name given to internal Microsoft memos that were leaked to the open source community in 1998. It is a revealing commentary on how Microsoft perceives competition, mainly Linux kernel-based operating systems. The memos dub open source software as ‘a growing long-term threat to Microsoft’s dominance of the software industry.’

OU may have been wondering what happened to my blog. For the past couple of week I have been writing for another blog and I added copies of my entries to my personal space. To provide some background I’ll quote a page that I recently added to boycottnovell.com. It’s merely the motivation — the raison d’être if you like — which I added to the About page.

“If the Microsoft corporation, whether it wishes to be part of this ecology in a genuine and sincere sense or not, if it succeeds in getting one distribution to pay royalties for the distribution of free software, other distributions will do so. They will have to. That will then succeed in marching the commercial sector away from the non-commercial sector, and Microsoft then will be able to use its patents to sue to block the development of software in the non-commercial sector without the fear of suing its own customers, which is the force that now constrains them from misbehavior with their patent portfolio.”

       
       –Eben Moglen, Software Freedom Law Center

I am working in collaboration with another person. As the About Us page introduces us:

• Shane Coyle is the Founder of EDU-Nix.org.
• Roy Schestowitz is a Ph.D. Candidate in Medical Biophysics at Manchester University. He advocates the use of Open Source technology in the public and private sector, as well as uses his background in computing to make personal contribution to the Free Software movement.

If this blog ceased to be fun, please drop me a line. I can probably separate the topics and set irrelevant material aside.

The court battles with SCO ought to teach us that Novell is taking part in an abusive relationship. On the one hand it defends itself against Microsoft-backed anti-Linux FUD while, on the other, it also collaborates and tolerates the abuse. Groklaw has the details on the latest round in the SCO case.

If Novell wins its motion here, obviously that makes it simpler to decide some of the IBM motions. There’s a certain complexity to having the two cases going on at once, and now that the judge has indicated that IBM’s motions will go forward, it matters to have some of the Novell issues decided.

One can’t help but wonder if the Microsoft/Novell relationship plays a role in the offence that’s directed at SCO. This relationship has clearly played a role in antitrust proceedings, OpenOffice and formats, patent infringement threats, etc. The big(ger) question remains: will Novell be encouraged to let the SCO nuisance linger on? This seems improbable. However, the whole bizarre scenario does come to show that Novell fights on two fronts with the same enemy. More oddly, it collaborates with its enemies. Is Novell trying to sell Linux? Or is it interested in having it integrated with Windows? Ron Hovsepian has already confessed that he had a vision of Linux running virtualised under Windows. Additionally, does Novell protect Linux from so-called ‘intellectual property’? Or does it only expose Linux as a whole (itself included)? Does it fight SCO or does it empower it? It is, after all, collaborating with one of SCO’s backers and fuels void speculation that Linux contains tainted bits.

There have been some crazy speculations coming from various people, some of whom suggest that Microsoft wants a BSD or Linux kernel for its Windows applications. Then, they say, Wine could be used to run applications without any problems. Unsurprisingly, a Wine developer was actually among the first people to compare Novell to SCO, just shortly after the Novell/Microsoft deal had been made. While crazy speculations are out in the open, I might as well mention this Nicvell (Microsoft Novell Linux) rumour.

Quotes of the day

From sys-con:

“CEO Steve Ballmer picked up the biggest, fattest, slitheriest worm out of that can of worms he opened up”

From Linux gazette:

“Well, I was extremely unhappy when Novell took over SuSE, but decided to take a wait-and-see attitude. Novell, in my assessment, back in the heyday of Netware was as arrogant and expensive as Microsoft. Hmmm… maybe it’s not surprising that they’re sharing a bed these days.”