08.15.12
Microsoft Needed 5 Years to Implement Its Own OOXML Pseudo ‘Standard’
Phantom ‘Standard’
Summary: The sham which is OOXML and what the past teaches us about it
THANKS to some funds from former Microsoft executives, Mono continues to be developed, giving the illusion that there is something “open source” about .NET. We saw the same thing being done to promote the idea that OOXML is “open”; companies like Novell were bribed to become participants. According to this new post from Andy Updegrove, only in 2012 did Microsoft actually get an implementation of OOXML. To quote: “Yesterday, Microsoft made an unobtrusive announcement that brings a degree of closure to a seven year long epic battle between some of the largest technology companies in the world. The same saga pitted open source advocates against proprietary vendors, and for the first time brought the importance of technical standards to the attention of millions of people around the world, and at the center of the action were Microsoft and IBM, the latter supported by Google and Oracle, among other allies.”
Just as we stated years ago, nobody had implemented OOXML; this was just an excuse for attacking ODF and keeping people stuck with Office. Looking further back we find that Microsoft used similar tactics against old Novell. To quote Pamela Jones: “When Judge J. Frederick Motz recently threw Novell’s WordPerfect antitrust case under a bus, ruling for Microsoft on its motion for judgment as a matter of law, his excuses seemed flimsy to me, at best. One of his reasons was that, in his view, when Microsoft withdrew support from certain APIs back in the ’90s, Novell could have just used what they already had to at least come up with a makeshift solution to tide them over so as to be ready for the Windows 95 launch. He also found it important that Novell bigwigs didn’t complain about the APIs to Microsoft at the time.
“Was he right?
“[I]n the process of corruption Microsoft managed to rip people out of their job (we provided example), simply because they stood up against Microsoft’s criminal activity.”“I want to show you some emails from 1994 and 1998 our volunteers have just transcribed as text, from the collection of PDF exhibits in Comes v. Microsoft. The 1994 internal Microsoft thread includes Jim Allchin saying, in effect, that the company should deliberately make sure competitors’ applications don’t work as well on Windows as their competing applications do. That is precisely what Novell claims happened with WordPerfect, and in that exact time frame. The Allchin email seems to match Bill Gates’ notorious email about deciding to pull back on the API support (“We should wait until we have a way to do a high level of integration that will be harder for the likes of Notes, Wordperfect to achieve, and which will give Office a real advantage.”). And then there are a couple of internal Novell emails from 1998 on problems with Microsoft, and finally a Gateway thread from the same general time frame, showing how Microsoft could really mess your business up, if Microsoft Help didn’t want to help, which Novell says is what happened right after Microsoft pulled the API support.”
This is very revealing. Microsoft does everything to sabotage interoperability and it still does not get punished for it. Rich criminals are rarely being jailed, even when they bribe, cheat, and bully. See the OOXML abuse index.
Glyn Moody says the latest news “means [Microsoft] *failed* to [implement OOXML] until now” and he links to this submission from Updegrove. Not a single person was sent to prison for what clearly was Microsoft corruption. Not a single person in Microsoft lost his or her job, either. On the contrary, in the process of corruption Microsoft managed to rip people out of their job (we provided example), simply because they stood up against Microsoft’s criminal activity. █
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Needs Sunlight said,
August 15, 2012 at 12:07 pm
It’s so bad that even M$ cannot fully implement it. What chance do other companies or projects have, even if that were desirable which it is not? But it was obvious from before the beginning. On the one hand you had M$ opposing open standards and on the other hand you have ODF backed by the 600-odd companies and organizations in OASIS.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
August 15th, 2012 at 12:15 pm
This OOXML (belated) fiasco gets some press coverage now: “With the upcoming release of Office 2013, Microsoft is finally offering full support for the Open XML document standard, a format that Redmond itself created and has been promoting for nearly seven years.
“”Microsoft continues to lead in giving customers choice and flexibility in file format standards and interoperability,” writes Redmond’s Jim Thatcher in a blog post announcing the change – although the actual history has been somewhat different.”
I laughed at “Microsoft continues to lead in giving customers choice”. The choice of “comply with the B0rg or get fired”.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
August 15th, 2012 at 1:21 pm
Some PR associated with ODF too:
Microsoft Office To Support ODF 1.2 File Formats
http://www.muktware.com/4150/microsoft-office-support-odf-12-file-formats
Embrace and extend.
mcinsand said,
August 15, 2012 at 2:46 pm
Now, especially in this election year, US readers need to remember Mitt Romney’s role in squelching ODF in the US. Massachusetts showed promise as an ODF foothold when Peter Quinn was the CIO and Mitt Romney was governor. Mr. Quinn was advocating implementation of an open standard for government documents, which would ensure that citizens would not have to spend hundreds of dollars on a particular proprietary package in order to view state publications. Needless to say, certain companies were furious. Peter Quinn was falsely slurred in a local paper and run out of the office and the state. Romney did nothing, absolutely nothing to support his subordinate. To me, that says everything about his lack of principles and character. Basically, he’s the perfect Apple advocate, but let’s keep him out of public office!
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
August 15th, 2012 at 5:34 pm
All that crooked stuff is being put behind because Microsoft has a new “charm offence”:
http://www.zdnet.com/office-to-finally-fully-support-odf-open-xml-and-pdf-formats-7000002696/
http://www.zdnet.com/microsofts-office-2013-odf-1-2-support-could-be-true-catalyst-for-openoffice-adoption-7000002689/