• From: Len Bullard <len.bullard@u...>
• To: Jim Melton <jim.melton@a...>, Rick Jelliffe <rjelliffe@a...>
• Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:57:50 -0500

This is where we agree fully, Jim.  This is what I fear most.  This bitter
butter battle over white elephants is damaging the delicate and not very
long-lived respect established for international standards.  Where we differ
is that this is entirely Microsoft's doing.  What I read on the blogs, the
Ban OOXML stickers, the unfounded charges and rumors, these tactics are also
doing damage.   What I can say with some certainty is that the use of legal
maneuvers in other bodies to force others to use one set of standards
(remember the US government making it necessary to use W3C specifications a
few years ago until the W3C maundered?) is doing damage all the way around
because it forces the market battle into the standards meeting room in ways
I haven't seen since the days of the IBM hegemony.

We're burying ourselves in the feces of our convictions.  Yuck.

len

From: Jim Melton [mailto:jim.melton@a...] 

In closing, I want it to be clear that I have no personal opinion 
about the proposed standard itself.  I have not read the 6500+ pages 
of the document, nor have I read the ODF standard.  I love 
competition (but doubt that the effect of this is going to be 
increased competition) and I care very much about being able to 
express complex document semantics in XML.  I use Microsoft products 
and I have a love-hate relationship with those products.  I do not 
think that Microsoft is the devil incarnate.  What I care about is 
the long-term viability of the standards processes.  And I believe 
that the, um, fiasco that has been happening with respect to this 
proposed standard is truly a train wreck in effect.  Microsoft will 
almost certainly (I give it better than 99% probability) of 
succeeding in making OOXML an international standard.  But, in the 
process, they will have significantly damaged the credibility of the 
process itself, and of their own relationship with standardization.

Grumble...
    Jim


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