09.04.07
Quickie: OOXML May Have Already Lost the Battle for ISO Approval (Updated)
Watch these charts and have a glance at Andy’s forecast. Opposition to OOXML — motivated by freedom and consumers’ benefit — may have just earned some bragging rights for being victorious, but it’s too early to say anything with enough certainty.
“…it’s too early to say anything with enough certainty”Who wouldn’t love to trust these analyses? Knowing Microsoft’s ethics, however, they might pull something out of their sleeve at the 90th minute. Remember Massachusetts? Andy saw it being bullied to the ground by the Microsoft Money Machine(R) even after it had found liberty (Massachusetts chose ODF).
One protester in Digg has just appeared out of the blue. He or she keeps posting the same message over and over again very aggressively and stubbornly. It’s worth quoting here because that person really wishes to be heard.
Win or lose, Microsoft’s manipulation of the ISO standards process has opened eyes and drawn attention at a level they could never have imagined. Hopefully pressure from not just standards bodies, but (even more importantly) business managers and individual users who are completely fed up with having their data locked into formats that only one vendor can properly read and write will finally free us all of this insane inability to truly take our files to whatever company has the best value software, not the one we have to live with because we’re stuck with them.
It’s OUR data Microsoft! Not YOURS! Just because you can get some country like Equatorial Kundu to upgrade from “Observer” to “Participating” status 15 minutes before the ISO votes and stuff the ballot box we’re not going to give up control of our “data destiny” to you! I can’t tell you how much I miss the old Microsoft. The one that used to be so confident that their products were better than Lotus, or WordPerfect, or whatever that they knew they’d win in the market on FEATURES alone! Now you’re just a shivering shadow of your former self, depending on “data lock-in” to maintain market share, not real innovation. Don’t stoop to these pathetic manipulative methods. Return to Greatness Microsoft!
Update: is it all over for OOXML (for now)?
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Paul W said,
September 4, 2007 at 8:47 am
Hi Roy
Thanks for the excellent work. In my opinion, there is a lot more work needs to done before we really celebrating. Otherwise this victory is going to be short-lived. It’s time for us to expose the elected officials and standard organizations who ignore the calls from their citizens and listens only to the corporate pressure and (possibly bribes). It’s so unfortunate that countries like USA promotes democracy around the world, but fails when it comes a document standards.
Paul
Roy Schestowitz said,
September 4, 2007 at 9:14 am
Paul,
As Pieter puts it (recent from the press): “We’ve recorded fairly systematic manipulation of the voting process. We’ve seen what amounts to vote-buying in Italy, Portugal, Colombia, Spain. In Sweden and Denmark, much the same happened – Microsoft paying their business partners to join the vote.”
We have names of people. If OOXML gets intercepted as planned and predicted, then we have plenty of time to take appropriate action and ensure that OOXML fails the next round/s as well (it will not have improved or opened up properly by 2008). I’m seeing people who are searching for information about their local vote (e.g. Finland). They receive a detailed list of names with their absurd statements. Hopefully those who need to be educated or taken off the ‘OOX$L drug’ will receive treatment that will make the next round worse (not better) for OOXML. The closer you look at OOXML, the worse it looks. Some voters never looked. They just treat as it though it’s a political thing.
Paul W said,
September 4, 2007 at 9:24 am
Hi Roy
Great that you have so much enthusiasm, but your assumption that we have plenty of time to do this could end up in real trouble at the end. Especially considering the nature of the beast, we need start working on it as early as possible, so we can relax at the end.
Just a thought..
Paul