Here's a quotation for the ages, from an Alex Brown comment on Andrew Updegrove's Standards Blog (scroll down) asking Brown if he'd agree that ODF was cleaner than OOXML:
"I'd go with that. I think ISO/IEC 26300 (ODF 1.0) can be compared to a neat house built on good foundations which is not finished; 29500 (OOXML) is a baroque cliffside castle replete with toppling towers, secret passages and ghosts: it is all too finished."[...]
I see I am not alone in viewing OOXML as a move of aggression. Microsoft must be realizing by now by the outpouring of dismay all over the world that this isn't just a typical vendor fight, where winner takes all and everyone shakes hands and moves on. The public cares about ODF, because it realizes it will impact every one of us directly, and we see the obvious, that OOXML is a spoiler. This has nothing to do with market share.
The move came as an ISO committee meeting in Norway attracted protesters, who gathered to call for the retraction of OOXML from the ISO standardisation process.
At the start of April, the document format won enough votes to become a fully fledged ISO standard. Many observers had been against that standardisation, pointing out that the OpenDocument Format (ODF) already existed as an ISO standard, and arguing that OOXML's documentation contained too many unanswered technical problems to be passed.
--Tim Bray
Comments
CoolGuy
2008-04-15 13:42:57
wtf ?? they are asking us to keep quite to the injustice that a abusive and greedy corporate monopoly is doing to the ecosystem...hum...
CoolGuy
2008-04-15 13:44:07
Roy Schestowitz
2008-04-15 14:09:02
It's called vendor capture. The same problem exists in the industry in fact. Former Microsoft employees can regroup, so to speak, in territories of Microsoft rivals. It happens all the time.
Roy Bixler
2008-04-15 19:26:51
Victor Soliz
2008-04-15 19:35:52
Many times MS was not the biggest player around, but once they replaced the marked leader they began their utter abuse, happened with office, .net, etc. If you don't like the one of the current monopolies, don't worry, MS can sure make it much worse.
ZiggyFish
2008-04-15 21:53:50
Roy Schestowitz
2008-04-16 02:59:16
Victor Soliz
2008-04-16 12:27:51
LinuxIsFun
2008-04-16 12:33:32
AFAIK M$ has always been like this. They have done this from the DOS era and keep doing it - that is how they got so big by crushing out competitors using unfair tactics and having no shame for it. They have no business ethics, never competed on quality or innovation but by forcing out other players and shutting them down - like a bully. The list goes on and on...I have never seen such a abusive and pathetic company in my life except for very few like Enron, etc..
Roy Schestowitz
2008-04-16 12:43:36
LinuxIsFun
2008-04-16 12:46:31
1. M$ buys out smaller innovative companies and shuts them down.
Google has never done that. Rather they have incorporated and bought huge values to such companies (youtube, orkut, etc.)
2. M$ adds their own proprietor extensions to standards to break them and makes everyones life worse. They never work outside M$ and are horribly buggy and unusable (Internet explorer).
Google uses those standards and never seen them do such cheap things. Google products always works. (jabber, ajax, java, etc.)
3. M$ uses threats to force people to pay and comply (dell, hp..etc)
Google innovates and has never used any threat, but rather collaborate with other companies (salesforce.com, etc) on good terms.
4. People are horrified of getting taken over by M$. Most of it ends in disaster.
People love to work with google. They are dying to be bought out by them.
5. M$ is run by lawyers and marketing people
Google is run by engineers and innovative people.
GOOGLE has a huge market trust. People love Google. Microsoft have negative market trust. People buy M$ only because of lockins or threats. People hate M$.
Roy Schestowitz
2008-04-16 18:17:50
To be overly cautious here, I think people used to say the same things about Microsoft in an IBM era. The important thing is to stay alert.