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It's now clear that bribery *was* part of the process, with the emails from Microsoft promising extra "marketing contributions" as a payoff for voting for Open XML: http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/F36E6AC141F8C10ECC2573470074B795 Anyone know if Karl Rove is now consulting for Microsoft? - Dennis Jonathan Robie wrote: > Len Bullard wrote: >> The author of that article is on dangerous legal ground. >> >> "One would think that SIS would not accept new companies to >> participate in >> the vote since they haven't been part of the earlier discussions and >> meetings. But according to SIS they didn't see any problem that new >> companies wanted to take part in this vote without prior notice. So what >> happened here is that Microsoft gather together a bunch of loyal >> partners >> that would vote yes to their standard without any questions." >> >> None of that other than the time they signed up is supported by >> evidence. >> It is more likely that Microsoft partners vote for this submission >> for the >> same reason Massachusetts changed the position given switching >> costs. This >> is self-interest. No proof of bribery is shown. There is no indication >> that questions have not been asked. Continuing to make that charge in >> public forums without proof is opening the author and the employer of >> the >> author as well as the publisher to slander lawsuits. This is not a good >> thing, Jonathan. >> > > > Len, there's no allegation of bribery in the article, there is only an > allegation that Microsoft had something to do with gathering most of > the new members together, and the author of the article supports this > allegation by pointing out that 18 of the 23 are either Microsoft Gold > Certified Partners or Microsoft Certified Partners. The article does > not say anything specific about what kind of communication may have > occurred between Microsoft and its partners. The article does suggest > that it's pretty unusual when a standards vote is determined primarily > by people who were not members of the group the day before, and are > partners of a company who was going to lose the vote. Do you think > this was just a coincidence? Do you think this is the way important > votes should be held in standards bodies? > > >> Google's paper is specious. It claims wide use for ODF without the >> numbers >> to back that up. > > Here's what they say: "Counting the number of documents found by doing > Web searches for different document types the older Microsoft Office > formats dominate, but the second most widely used format is the > existing ISO standard ODF. As translation is needed anyway it would > make more sense to convert to ODF, the existing ISO standard for > editable document types." You suggest that Google does not have the > numbers to back that up? Er, this is Google, after all .... > >> My guess is the number of users of products that can use >> OOXML is far greater than that of ODF and in fact they support that >> later in >> the paper. Worse, they claim to be offering no legal advice, then go >> on to >> make legal assertions about the OOXML IP. >> > > Google's argument seems to be this: > > 1. ODF already exists, and can represent Microsoft documents as well > as the documents from other vendors. Blessing OOXML as a second format > results in two mutually incompatible formats that can each claim to be > standard. Google invokes memories of Betamax to suggest this is bad. > > 2. OOXML is too large and complex to be easily reviewed, and does not > play well with existing standards. "The OOXML standard document is > 6546 pages long. The ODF standard, > which achieves the same goal, is only 867 pages. The reason for this > is that ODF references other existing ISO standards for such things as > date specifications, math > formula markup and many other needs of an office document format > standard. OOXML invents its own versions of these existing standards, > which is unnecessary and complicates the final standard.", > "Considering that OOXML has only received about 5.5% of the review > that comparable standards have undergone, reports about > inconsistencies, contradictions and missing information are hardly > surprising." > > 3. OOXML is not yet widely adopted, at least on the Web. ODF is the > most common XML format for office document data, and it would make > more sense to translate data from proprietary formats into a simpler, > existing standard format that has already received extensive review. > > 4. There is not widespread adoption of OOXML outside of Microsoft. > Most of the OOXML implementations are from partners of Microsoft who > have contractual agreements to implement OOXML software. > > 5. There may be legal issues with Microsoft's "Open Specification > Promise". > > Up to now, I have been summarizing their argument, rather than > offering my own views. To me, at least 1-4 seem to be valid arguments. > I'm not as able to evaluation 5. > > I guess I should express my own views too. I think OOXML is a good > thing, and I'm very glad Microsoft produced it. I don't think it > should be a standard, because it is designed precisely to represent > one vendor's office documents, not as a general purpose office > document format created by a group of vendors. > >> I am not arguing technical merit here. This is about a slander campaign >> conducted by companies and individuals opposed to OOXML. >> >> This bitter butter battle over white elephant products demonstrates in a >> very disappointing way the hypocrisy of claiming moral high ground >> for the >> sake of commercial advantage. They are destroying their own >> credibility. >> > > Yawn. I'm not very good at arguments about who are the good guys and > who are the bad guys, but I don't find this kind of language terribly > convincing. Maybe I've heard too much of it. > > Jonathan > > _______________________________________________________________________ > > XML-DEV is a publicly archived, unmoderated list hosted by OASIS > to support XML implementation and development. 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