”Is Microsoft still trying to portray IBM as unethical and dangerous in order to justify its own corruption of the whole system?“It seems like Brian Jones finds new excuses to declare war or describe this situation as a war. He even puts the blame on somebody else by taking the word "standards war" completely out of context. In BetaNews, when Brian Jones claimed victory amid a stunning defeat, some said that he pulled a George Bush (reference to the war in Iraq). Speaking of blame passing, how about those mythical weapons of mass destruction? Is Microsoft still trying to portray IBM as unethical and dangerous in order to justify its own corruption of the whole system? There have already been insinuation about IBM's role in Kenya, so this type of strategy isn't unprecedented.
Anyway, here is what Brian says and here is a decent response.
Just because MS produces 90% of the office documents, does not give it carte blanche for the ratification of their defacto formats as an ISO. Perhaps it is this arrogance, why MS fails to understand what “Open” is and for that matter why OOXML is not.
All the conjecture means nothing; it won’t make the square peg fit in the round hole. The fact still remains that OOXML does not represent a common ground for the majority. Is represented by one company and a few entities aligned to that company financially for the sole purpose of keeping the “playing field” lopsided.
So MS and their friend ECMA (who does not mind MS's vision of standards) are now finding that the ISO process is definitely not friendly. This is not because of any bias against Microsoft, but because the “standard” MS is proposing flies in the face of everything ISO has attempted to do in its long history. What is hard not to understand.
