Like many others I read this blog because it is entertaining. For the first month of having it in my list of feeds I thought it was some sort of comical parody site, but I couldn’t work out what of.

As for a game of semantics: yes, this is about semantics, that’s in fact precisely the problem. It’s significant that you think semantics is a game, and you feel free to ascribe meaning to those who obviously don’t support your views.

Believe me, my expections of this blog aren’t that high. You’ve admitted you don’t read it or research it, but using someone else’s words to espouse an opinion they don’t hold is generally thought to be pretty bad form. It’s bad manners, Roy.

As for the rest, you’re playing a game of semantics. It’s an endless thing and your expectations from a blog are as high as you wish for them to be.

You see, that way you don’t confuse his words about the process with your words about the OOXML standard.

“The kind of fast-tracking procedures used for ODF and mooted for OOXML give very little time for a small part-time volunteer group to give such bulky documents adequate scrutiny. There is no doubt ODF is, right now, less good than it would have been if subjected to the full rigours of ISO standardisation. With OOXML predicted to weigh in as a behemoth 7,000 page standard the danger that OOXML will be inadequately scrutinised is greater still.”

– Alex Brown, June 2006

He has consistently held this opinion all along, long before the BRM.

This still doesn’t give you the right to twist his words. You said, specifically (of Alex), “OOXML needs to be flushed and we need to “start again from scratch,” to use your own words”.

So, if I use *your* words to put forward my point of view, that’s ok? Sure, let’s try that. I give you your own words on Moonlight:

“Moonlight is fine”, in the words of Roy, “it’s a great step forward”.

Now do you see how wrong that is? They’re your words, but not your opinion. You’ve done exactly the same to Alex Brown.

So what exactly are you thanking Alex for?

Admission that the process is dysfunctional. He pretty much joins the voice of Bryan as far as I can tell, but he is less open and blunt about it (Bryan didn’t mean for this to be publicly seen and he regretted that this had happened).

Putting his words in the context of your own opinion implies that he agrees with it.

You’re being overly pedantic, Alex, unlike those who attended and managed the BRM in Geneva.

Putting his words in the context of your own opinion implies that he agrees with it.

Alex Brown isn’t saying OOXML needs to be started from scratch:

I did not say that he said that. Read carefully. I am sure that you, being an OOXML apologist, would be quick to defend it as usual.

I’m not sure it’s fair to twist someone’s words like that.