01.07.10
Gemini version available ♊︎“On the SVG List, a Couple of People [Are] Leery of Microsoft.”
“The Internet? We are not interested in it.”
–Bill Gates, 1993
Summary: Microsoft’s entrance into a panel that it has battled against for about a decade leads to great skepticism and worry among those who paid attention to Microsoft’s behaviour
MICROSOFT boosters and several others [1, 2, 3, 4] seem to have taken notice of the news about SVG, but not much is being said about Microsoft’s long- and short-term history of corrupting standards bodies such as ISO almost as a matter of strategy/policy. Microsoft managers have expressed their reluctance to help form standards and The Source writes about this very important fact:
The primary point of interest to me in this is the idea of Microsoft joining a Working Group for a technology that it has been pointedly ignoring for 11 years, and for which Microsoft can boast an industry leading 0.00% support for in its latest and greatest browser.
What exactly is Microsoft going to contribute here? What deep pool of SVG experience and credibility gets Microsoft a seat at the table?
[...]
In any case, now the W3C will probably be burning calories proving Microsoft hasn’t corrupted the W3C ISO-OOXML style.
”On the SVG list,” told us a reader who follows it, “a couple of people [are] leery [sic] of MS.“ The creator of the World Wide Web, who is an opponent of software patents by the way, slammed Microsoft for its attitude towards SVG. That was about a year ago. █
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Needs Sunlight said,
January 7, 2010 at 2:09 pm
I can’t believe anyone on the W3C committee would be so absolutely stupid as to allow Microsoft reps into any activities involving SVG, even in an observer status. Microsoft minions have been doing far more than ‘pointedly ignoring’ standards like SVG.
Dennis Murczak said,
January 8, 2010 at 10:59 am
My theory is that MS is hatching a way how they can claim SVG support in their browser, while in fact pushing Silverblight.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
January 8th, 2010 at 11:02 am
That’s their OOXML strategy – pretend to live with ODF to gag critics.