04.01.10
OOXML Crony Admits That “Microsoft Fails the Standards Test”
Summary: Microsoft back into its walled gardens after bribing, cheating, stuffing ballots, and lying to everyone for the sake of hurting document standards (ODF)
What a lovely Easter present. Even one of the people who are responsible for the OOXML fiasco [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21] admits the obvious and concedes that Microsoft was bluffing.
Alex Brown writes:
Microsoft Fails the Standards Test
[...]
Microsoft has many enemies who will no doubt see the current state of affairs as proof that Microsoft never even intended to be good standards citizens. Indeed standards and XML veteran Tim Bray, writing shortly after the standard’s approval, made a prediction which could now seem impressively prophetic:
“It’s Kind of Sad • The coverage suggests that future enhancements to 29500, as worked through by a subcommittee of a subcommittee of a standards committee, are actually going to have some influence on Microsoft. Um, maybe there’s an alternate universe in which Redmond-based program managers and developers are interested in the opinions of a subgroup of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34, but this isn’t it.
I suppose they’ll probably show up to the meetings and try to act interested, but it’s going to be a sideline and nobody important will be there. What Microsoft really wanted was that ISO stamp of approval to use as a marketing tool. And just like your mother told you, when they get what they want and have their way with you, they’re probably not gonna call you in the morning.”
So Alex, how does it feel to have helped corrupt the integrity of ISO, which you purport to be a part of? Note the comment at the end, which says: “Alex, I am surprised, after all the allegations of stuffing, bribing and coercion of NB’s that were, until DIS29500, uninterested in XML document standards, that you seem surprised at the outcome thus far.” This doesn’t even mention the personal role of Alex in all that malarkey. █
“The ISO process, brutal and corrupt as it was, has been covered to death by everyone.”
–Tim Bray
