"The damage done by OOXML may never be erased"The stories about how the monopoly got here is more interesting than the decision we are bound to see. Never before have I witnessed such an endless and tiresome flow of reports, pretty much all of which talk about corruption (to an extent). Over the past few years, I have been learning more about Microsoft's controversial past and on a daily basis I've seen new cases and examples where customers get abused or products are made poor (not necessarily by design). OOXML is different. In many people's minds, OOXML is now associated with many negative thoughts about a monstrous thing with a monstrous operation behind it. The technical complexity of OOXML no longer seems to be the point of focus in the press. The ethical grounds on which it's built has completely taken people's attention away from its many deficiencies. A technical debate, which is where it all started, turned into a techno-political debate. Microsoft tried to characterise OOXML as an embodiment of IBM's business ambitions. Then, more recently, this political debate turned into one that revolves around themes like bribery, corruption, nepotism, extortion, bullying, lobbying, and intentional deception. The damage done by OOXML may never be erased. Its path of destruction will have the credibility of some governments, some companies, some national institutes, and the ISO seriously hurt. All of this was orchestrated by one single company. Never before, in a 20-year career in this area, has Andy Updegrove witnessed anything like this, let alone done single-handedly by a group of people too vain to honour -- let alone recognise -- ethics and fair play. Watch these quotes and be shocked. With that in mind, here are some of the latest stories and developments in the twisted 'OOXML world'.
Microsoft did not respond to several calls requesting comment.How loud can a deafening silence be? Microsoft hasn't anything to say to defend itself. That sums it all up nicely. If Microsoft could make a decent specification using its great manpower and then have it accepted, that's one thing. That's probably acceptable. However, Microsoft produced a highly-flawed, bug-ridden, overly-complex, Windows-only, already-semi-implemented, effort-duplicating pile of a paper. That pile of paper is as tall as a young child (the Linux Foundation talked about it too). What was Microsoft expecting? What on earth was it thinking? Here is a possibility worth presenting. Sam Hiser picks a Microsoft 'smoking gun' court exhibit, but also links to some very curious analysis of strategies Microsoft has used to escape scrutiny.
Try "25 Ways to Suppress the Truth: the Rules of Disinformation" also for some nice bed-side reading that will remind you of a moment here or there in the OOXML v ODF conflict.That's a truly classic and good find. Here is one these techniques being used in Africa (sadly enough, in yesterday's African press):
Microsoft salutes debate on Office Open XML [...] Microsoft also said that over 2 000 partners representing 67 countries on six continents have given their green light for the ratification of the OOXML by the International Standards Organisation (ISO).Microsoft has partners. Who would have guessed? The partners all hail Microsoft. Therefore, OOXML must be great. Some call it 'cattle effect' while dissemination of such viral infection relies on the 'network effect'.
It's official. Denmark will vote no with comments on OOXML.Free Software Magazine has another short story about OOXML in Sweden.
This entire OOXML campaign stinks! This is being forced on everyone simply because one corporation has manufactured a back-door strategy, to maintain a software monopoly.It's always worth reminding ourselves that with monopolies like this, there is no innovation. And it shows, based on this new article.
In the survey, only 46 percent said they were satisfied with the return. One cause can be traced to this: Thereââ¬â¢s a lot of fuzzy thinking about innovation.
According to one source, "The Ministry of Labor in Brazil signed a pact with Microsoft very similar to one of the provisions of the pact in ChileIn case you do not know what has happened in Chile:
Just today, a secret agreement between MS and the Chilean Government came to light. In it, every citizen was sold as a potential user of a Windows Live Spaces model where every SSN is linked to, overbypassing any privacy term and cashing Bill some bucks. It wouldn't be so awful to all if that agreement wasn't aprooved yet (Spanish follows).There is a lot more information about it here.
Receita Federal (SRF), with whom we've had our encounters as part of our campaign against the software it imposes upon Brazilian citizens, has long been a bastion of proprietary software in the Brazilian government. Last Monday, Aug 27, we learned it planned on purchasing, on Aug 30, 40K+ licenses of Microsoft Office 2007. Yeah, that's right, the one that introduces the very file format that the Brazilian society had rejected just the week before, and a brand new user interface that pretty much obsoletes all training for earlier releases. The alleged reasons? Users are already trained (in the older versions). TCO studies funded by Microsoft. Limitations of ancient versions of OpenOffice.org, caused by the very fact that Microsoft Office's formats are proprietary. The statement that any file converter to a competing file format will be obsolete by the time it reaches the market, because Microsoft keeps changing its file formats. Yes, unbelievable!, this is listed as a reason to use Microsoft's software, not to run away from it! Fallacious reasoning that the slow adoption of GNU/Linux and OpenOffice.org, caused in great part by this very tactics of introducing incompatibilities, indicate they're going to remain niche operating system and application.
ââ¬ÅKeynote will open and export to Officeââ¬â¢s Powerpoint file formats, as with every non-Microsoft consumer of Officeââ¬â¢s formats that eWEEK Labs has tested certain formatting inconsistencies seem impossible to avoid.ââ¬ÂStephe Walli joins in. As Bob Sutor states:
Stephe Walli further demonstrates why the partial Apple implementation of OOXML is even more partial than we thought.We covered this several times before. The only product that supports OOXML is Microsoft Office for Microsoft Windows, but it doesn't stop Microsoft from lying about it. Further, there is this from Brian who refers to Stephe Walli's findings.
It has been demonstrated time and again with OOXML, that it does not pass even this most simple test. If you read my friend Stephen Walli's blog entry that was posted on Linux Today earlier, you know that the OOXML technology is so screwed up, even Microsoft applications can't run it correctly.Stephen Walli, mind you, has roots in Microsoft. Even Brian Jones, the head of this OOXML assault against the world, has already admitted that OOXML is still flawed. Even the man who was paid by Microsoft to edit Wikipedia's article on OOXML said he would have voted "No, with comments."
But if Microsoft doesn't get the required number of votes this weekend, its challenge would be bigger, because it would need to get some national bodies to change their minds before the final vote. Results of that final vote are expected in March.