Standards Expert — "Microsoft Fails the Standards Test" 177
levell writes "Alex Brown, Convenor of the Ballot Resolution Meeting on OOXML, has written a blog post saying that Microsoft is failing the standards test. Mr. Brown notes: 'In its pre-release form Office 2010 supports not the approved Strict variant of OOXML, but the very format the global community rejected in September 2007, and subsequently marked as not for use in new documents — the Transitional variant. Microsoft are behaving as if the JTC 1 standardisation process never happened, and using technologies (like VML) in a new product which even the text of the Standard itself describes as "deprecated" and "included... for legacy reasons only"...' He also says that defects are being fixed very slowly and that 'Looking at the text, I reckon it is more like 95% that remains to be done, as it is still lousy with defects.' It's an insightful look at what has happened with OOXML since ISO approved it from someone who was not opposed to its becoming a standard."
Alex Brown gets heart broken (Score:5, Funny)
"But Microsoft said it would respect me in the morning! And call me later!"
The best bit of this gushing fountain of schadenfreude is the comments. Rob Weir pointing out that they were entirely fucked over precisely as Tim Bray predicted, and Alex and Rick Jelliffe still insisting that Microsoft will love them really once it sees just how pure and worthy their love is.
Guys. You got fucked over. Ballmer had his sweaty way with you and got his ISO number. He deleted your number on his way back home. He is never going to light up your phone.
Re:Alex Brown gets heart broken (Score:4, Funny)
So, here's a new motto up for grabs: Don't be evil... unless you can pay the MS licensing fees?
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Is it safe to talk about Stockholm Syndrome in such cases already?
Either way, since he was one of those who planted the seeds of the mess, while being constantly warned how it'll end up, I don't see how he can complain and expect to be treated seriously... (not that he won't be)
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And this is a surprise because of .. WHY ??? ..
This is Microsoft after all
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It gets better. In the comments Jeremy Allison provided Mr. Brown with a reality check. Yet he still defends Microsoft with this response via the Ike Turner defense:
Don't you think corporations change? Google from wide-eyed startup to the new Big Brother megacorp; Sun from centre of the technical solar system to bin-end bargain; IBM from evil monopolist market-abuser to ... no, wait ...
Microsoft: Promise, baby. I won't hit ya no more, I love you, you know that.
Mr. Brown: I know it baby. It just hurts th
Re:Alex Brown gets heart broken (Score:5, Insightful)
And implying Jeremy had no experience of Microsoft to base his opinions on. It's class all the way down.
Re:Alex Brown gets heart broken (Score:5, Informative)
I think that you have to give Alex Brown a lot of credit for this article. He effectively "sided" with Microsoft in the massive controversy that was the OOXML standardisation. In that position many people would convince themselves they had done the right thing and turn a blind eye to Microsoft's failings.
That he's prepared to publicly do what he has make me have a little more respect for him and people like him (Rick Jelliffe) for the part they played in the mess that was the initial standardisation.
Re:Alex Brown gets heart broken (Score:4, Interesting)
He's still in denial and lashing out at people who dast say "I told you so" too early for his liking.
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He may come out less credible out of this - but so does Microsoft.
And this just confirms what we have known a long time - Microsoft don't give a crap about any opinion or being popular. They are big enough to just roll over everyone. Not very different from dictators around the world.
Microsoft never invented anything (Score:4, Insightful)
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But he double-dutch promised. He even flew in a pair of twins from Dutchland, and they double-dutch vouched for his promise. And you know how trustworthy the Dutch are.
So now you know how deep our disappointment is. He has totally ruined our whole belief in the double-dutch system.
Unless he had his fingers crossed behind his back. Did anybody remember to check? Both hands?
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It's all IBM's fault. IBM aren't Dutch enough.
Alex Brown musn't have been paid then (Score:4, Insightful)
... because he was sure full on in favour of his masters work and blind to its faults when the ballot took place.
and this is new news why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this news? Microsoft doesn't follow any standards, and never has. It's part of their strategy. Since they're bigger than everyone else, everyone has to adhere to their (non) standards, which means everyone else is always playing catchup, and can never get ahead. This way implementation is never judged on speed or size, but instead judged on "how Microsoft-like" it is. Microsoft always wins that comparison.
Re:and this is new news why? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's news because governments are increasingly requiring computer data to be stored in standard formats. It's much easier to check that box if it's ISO approved. If, however, Office isn't using the ISO approved version of OOXML, there might be some governments who will never install Office 2010.
Microsoft may be shooting themselves in the foot.
Re:and this is new news why? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is the idiots who keep thinking Microsoft is going to do any of the things they say they'll do when it's said to get their way who are shooting themselves in the foot. And the really moronic thing is that they keep lining up to do this without seeing how many have done the exact same thing year after year after year.
If this "news" gets any traction and Microsoft Office Open XML( notice how their product name is in the name of the standard ) gets bashed any more, they'll just pretend to do some work on it and the same idiots will think that something will come of it and they'll back off. 2, 3, or more years from now someone will cry that Microsoft isn't acting in good faith. Like I said, they're idiots. IMO
LoB
Re:and this is new news why? (Score:4, Informative)
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Yeah idiot moderator, watch SNL!
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Re:and this is new news why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Fortunately, not all governments have fallen for the ploy. Recently, the Socialdemocratic-Socialist opposition forced the Conservative-Liberal government in Denmark to pass a law, requiring the state to use truly open formats. One major battle were exactly if OOXML should be considered an open standard. This battle were won by the opposition, as it managed to force the government to make a series of criteria for for what an open format is, where only ODT were included, and it is highly unlikely that the OOXML version including deprecated functionality will meet the criteria.
Microsoft Office Open XML
Are you sure that is the official name? If so, why isn't the abbreviation MOOXML?
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why isn't the abbreviation MOOXML?
PETA didn't like it. And *noone* messes with PETA.
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So if you abbreviate MS for Microsoft then you get the MS OOXML but if you just use M then it'd be M OOXML or MOOXML as you stated. All the same thing, a Microsoft Office dump and a steaming pile for people, businesses, standards orgs, and governments to step in. When you step in it, it oozes
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Friends don't let friends use office, period.
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i dont love XP but it does the job where linux was failing at it.
NO.
GNU/Linux isn't failing. It's precisely because people like is are willing to just jump and use whatever OS certain hardware/software requires that those providers won't develop their software for other platforms. Hiring windows developers is cheaper. Porting is more expensive. The fact that you and lots of other people are willing to jump boats whenever your privative software overlords tell you to do so is what allows this companies to continue not giving a fuck about anything but microsoft.
GNU/Linux d
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Re:and this is new news why? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you are supposed to use one of the many SDR solutions that have good GNU/Linux support, including many that even release their source code, and are compatible with other Free Software.
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Yes to promote freedom, you should do EXACTLY WHAT I SAY!
Because God knows you won't be free unless you're mindlessly following somebody else's instructions! While you're at it, work on eliminating that damned independent thought.
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Yes it is his right to use any SDR he wants to buy and to run it on Winodws if that is what it needs. He I supposed underder the first Amendment is still entitled to complain about how it does not work on OSS and call OSS a failure, if he wants but its stupid because:
There are SDRs that support OSS
Some of the best SDRs support OSS
As a parent pointed out he is acting as an enbabler for behavior the community he wants? to be a member of does not like; when he had better options.
He is doging his personal resp
Re:and this is new news why? (Score:4, Informative)
Another example of this type of fail would be buying a car that required diesel, then putting unleaded in it instead, and complaining that it didn't work. PEBKAC.
In other words, use whatever OS you want -- really, I don't care -- but don't complain later when you didn't bother to check for basic compatibility before purchase, only to discover it's incompatible or lacking features when used with the OS or accessories you selected.
Re:and this is new news why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and "Linux" did not "fail". The vendor decided to not support Linux. The vendor decided not to publish the tech details so that others could support their hardware. Nobody "failed". The vendor did exactly as they desired: To lock their customers into their software. And the vendor decided to only support Windows as a simple economic decision.
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If somebody has a requirement that only Windows succeeds in fulfilling, then use Windows.
Such as, for example, Direct X 11?
Do We Expect Otherwise? (Score:5, Insightful)
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What is unexpected about MS doing this? The only thing unexpected is Brown saying this publicly. From what I saw a few years ago, I figured that he was Microsoft's play thing forever and ever.
Re:Do We Expect Otherwise? (Score:5, Insightful)
Inexcusable acts do not become less inexcusable and deserving of less outrage just because you do them a lot.
Microsoft IS standards (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yes it sucks. But if it acquires a monopoly then open web standards will become the defualt. Then OpenGL becomes the default. Etc. Etc. Etc.
So then all other operating systems get a chance to become compatible with the big fat de-facto and then Mine (Mine is not an emulator) can be created and then Linux can finally become very compatible and by extend usable and by more extend makes your computer running Linux/*BSD/whatever capable of being used in the social world.
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That's why I said about. I do not live in the US, I like here:
And the prices where old, but here a MacBookc costs 899 euro's, Shuffle 55 (two months ago at a large mall here (BCC) 79 euro's) and Mac Mini does, yes, costs 599.
Totally my fault. Totally my bad. But it's a fact that these things are becomming cheaper every year.
My predictions from 2009 (Score:4, Insightful)
That and more from my 2009 blog post [robweir.com]
Every one of these has come to pass. If the scales are falling from Alex's eyes, then great. But the rest of us saw this coming a long time ago. In fact, Microsoft told us at the SC34 meeting in Seattle last year that the "Strict" conformance class would not be supported until Office 16. Alex knows that. So it is odd that he is pretending that this is something unexpected.
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Microsoft not following a standard that they set? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Isn't OOXML, you know kind of, XML like rather than a binary standard???
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I agree that complex proprietary formats are a big problem, but can you define "binary formats" a little better? Everything except for stuff in a few experimental architectures (trinary, analog, etc) is stored in a binary form.
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Say it ain't so! (Score:2)
Wait, what!!!? Microsoft is ignoring standards?! Noooo waaay!
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The best part it's their own standard they're ignoring, not someone else's halfcocked 'standard' like CSS or XML.
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But it was Microsoft doing all the pressuring to get it adopted. So even if they weren't the writer or director, they took producer credit (and that's the credit that ends up with the Best Picture statue).
You could have seen this coming (Score:4, Insightful)
even if you were born 2500 years ago: [wikipedia.org]
http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?4&TheScorpionandtheFrog [aesopfables.com]
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Except in this case, the scorpion is stinging the frog before even getting into the water.
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And the river bank is thick with poisoned frog corpses.
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LoB
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I just posted this comment on TFA: (Score:5, Interesting)
Many previous posts said it was unrealistic to expect microsoft to implement proper support in Office 2010. I think what is unrealistic is expecting microsoft to implement any kind of standards.
The only time they will implement anything that is standards compliant is when they have no choice. Think about IE. It took 15 years to get them to implement standards in IE (In IE9) and they only did so because Mozilla, Apple, Opera and Google forced them. Only after they lost significant marketshare against this companies that they implemented HTML5. And, remember, embrace, extend, extinguish. IE9 is only phase1 (Embrace). In a year or so, we'll see IE9 marketshare grow, and the proprietary extensions will start rolling. In a few years, It'll be 2001 all over again. IE15 will be as incompatible as IE6 was.
This is microsoft. That's what they do. They won't change. They are the most hostile company I've ever seen. They blatantly attack the rest of the industry, and as long as people put up with it and buy their products, they have no reason to change their tactics. They've worked well for them for almost 3 decades.
Re:I just posted this comment on TFA: (Score:5, Informative)
What's especially interesting is that if Microsoft hadn't stopped working on IE for years, probably there would be no market reason for them to do anything involving web standards today.
You can't legitimately bash IE6 for being incompatible, though -- in its day, it had so much of the browser market (largely by default) that whatever IE6 did was the standard for anyone with a pragmatic bone in their body.
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You have no understanding of the browser wars.
Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_war [wikipedia.org]
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Uh... the article you're referencing has a diagram showing that IE had over 80% of the market for about 7 years and around 90% for several of them. During those years when Netscape had pretty much died and Firefox wasn't going (or later, gaining traction yet), IE was, from a pragmatic web developer's standpoint, the standard.
I'm not sure what in this article you think refutes anything I said.
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What you are missing is WHY ie was the "only" choice back then:
It was because it had already destroyed all the other alternatives.
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I disagree; Netscape became a stinking pile of crap all on its own.
Sadly.
The computing press disagreed (Score:2)
The last real Netscape Navigator release was 4.x, which was the contemporary of IE4 not IE6.
And IE4, as reviewed by most, was a steaming pile of crap. But it still steamrolled over Netscape because of Microsoft's tying it to Windows.
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Somehow you think that Explorer beating the crap out of Netscape, fairly or unfairly, negates the fact that Netscape was even worse at standards.
Educate yourself, because you obviously werent paying attention back then. Those were the days when proprietary extensions were king, be it blinking text, scrolling text, and all the other crud. Back then, sites had to explain which browser they were developed for so people knew whic
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Dude, libwww was written by Berners-lee in 1992. It was used by all browsers at the time. When Netscape came into the market, it was standards compliant and compatible with libwww. After the hoards of windows and AOL users started to use the web with their explorers and their netscapes, the whole web was libwww, which was standards compliant, free and multiplatform.
After IE broke every single standard, and added every single proprietary extension imaginable, causing 50% of the web to be incompatible with Ne
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You're entitled to your opinion, but it doesn't agree with how I remember things to have actually occured.
Shit, it took years for IE to even catch up with what Netscape could do, and you're crazy if you think everything Netscape could do at that point followed any kind of web standard other than the "this is the most popular browser, so what it does is the standard" standard.
I'm not all that sure even Mosaic was all that standards compliant.
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It's not about what you think. It's about what it is. When Netscape came into existence, libwww was everything. And they had to comply. You are not sure Mosaic was compliant? Mosaic was nothing but a framework over libwww, just as lynx and others. libwww was the rendering engine, and it was written BY Berners-Lee, Off course it was standards compliant.
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What about KHTML?
The whole modern web (Chrome, Safari, etc) is based on Webkit, and webkit is nothing but KHTML plus a few additions, and cleaned up as a library (also, ported). I was a KDE user from 2001 till 2006. Konqueror (KHTML based) Rocked. KHTML was created in 1998.
Also, Mozilla Suite rocked dude. Phoenix rocked too. I've never, ever used IE, and I've been around the web for a long, long time.
Re:I just posted this comment on TFA: (Score:5, Insightful)
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It makes you wonder about all those promises that Microsoft has made to GNOME, Mono, and Linux to not sue. I don't buy any olive branch that Microsoft bares. Microsoft is evil, they will do everything to make it look like they want standards and interoperability, and then do everything in their power to make their product the only product. Seriously, anybody who believes any offer of friendship from MS is seriously gullible.
Agreed. I'm deeply worried about the future of Gnome. Specially since they had that stupid fight with the FSF. I spoke with Richard about it, and told him that it was important to keep Gnome close, since it was in danger. Here's what he had to say: (This is an extract from a very long email exchange)
Lots of fellow hackers and developers condemn the ideals of free
software. That has been true for 20 years or more. I wish
everyone agreed with the free software movement, but they don't.
We can't convert them. We can refuse to let them convert us.
We must, above all, refuse to be a coward like Obama who will make
whatever concession is necessary to avoid the appearance of short-term
defeat. That road leads to total failure.
So, we are between the FSF (Who, at the time, is more important than ever, but still acts like a zealot and drives people away) and Microsoft (That, as usual, acts like your average pedophile, lurking in kids
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That snippet from Stallman is disturbing. It's almost like he's completely forgotten why Free Software is actually appealing to people.
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So, long as they charge the same amount, or give the same terms to anyone else who is working on an implementation of
Ideally; standards can have no patents, have a RAND to ensure equal fees across the board, or have patented tech and then the co
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Are you crazy?
The first HTML standard was created in 1989. Then, in 1994, the w3c was founded, as well as HTML 2.0.
Fool me... (Score:4, Funny)
Fool me 48 times, shame on you, fool me the 49th... Shit! You did it again!
But you won't fool me 50 times. I'm sure you wouldn't do that.
Mod parent up! (Score:4, Informative)
Too bad we're just preaching to the choir here...
Purchasing failure - set the requirements, follow (Score:5, Insightful)
The requirements need to be set by purchasing and strictly followed.
Buy only Software that meets OOXML-Strict or OpenDocument. If no supplier is able to meet OOXML-Strict then no purchases will be made.
I hope the EU and government sue (Score:4, Interesting)
For each and every project that specified that a standardized format should be used, they can now be hold liable. Lets hope that they get sued to bits over it. I'm not holding my breath though, the EU seems to have some random rights and wrongs they pursue.
Samba won big... (Score:5, Informative)
I believe that in one of the last suits, Samba (and thus the rest of us) had a pretty big win in which Microsoft agreed to hand over a lot of technical documentation. I believe that there was even some part of the agreement that basically defused a number of patents that might have been brought to bear against Samba and other FOSS, but I can't remember the particulars off the top of my head.
So sometimes the EU's suits do bear good fruits.
Which we can pick up for Free and enjoy deliciously!
(. Oh, how bewildering .) (Score:4, Insightful)
Is this person for real?
Yes, what really is the difference between 'office app space' and 'internet browser space'? Let's not forget Microsoft's swift rush to Internet standard conformance! They were like frolicing collies running over the meadows, busy herding eager to please!
Reached out (Score:2)
I'm glad that Alex Brown talked to the responsible Microsoft Program Manager for comment rather than basing his article solely on a pre-release version of Office that is many months old.
Talk about being tainted... (Score:5, Insightful)
The article says
Microsoft employs many eminent and standards-aware people of unimpeachable record – they also obviously “get it”
Actually, Microsoft employs many people who were previously of unimpeachable record. When these obviously intelligent and "eminent" persons get in bed with Microsoft and then don't cry foul at the first, second, third, or fourth time that Microsoft willfully and intentionally manipulates standards bodies, then how can we possibly consider their record anything but stained?
I know several people who work for Microsoft, and while I am happy that these friends still have work, especially in this time of massive layoffs, I wish that they had an opportunity to apply their skills at a company not so unbelievably hostile to standards groups.
To all you professing to have seen this coming (Score:4, Funny)
Microsoft is just kind of like my wife. She promised me after I found out about her cheating on me all those times that she'd stop. She's turned over a new leaf. She never MEANT to hurt me. And she's really trying to mend her ways but it's hard to change all those years of learned behavior, you know. It's not her fault she has needs I can't fulfill. And she loves me, I know she does. She says so every time I text her to ask her where she is. So I know it's true. And when she comes home smelling of some other man's junk I know it was just an accident. She would never intentionally take advantage of my naivete after all these years I've been with her. And neither would Microsoft.
Right?
I stopped reading when I got to this nugget (Score:2, Interesting)
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I was just thinking he must be the world's naivest man!
After Internet Explorer lock in, closed network protocols (SMB, AD, Exchange, SMB2, Kerberos) , private API's only MS apps can use, Sharepoint only working well on IE, patent trolling on FAT etc etc
he can't believe a convicted monopolist wouldn't subvert the hallowed ISO standards process for profit.
Wow, either naive or just thinks MS critics must be motivated by bitterness and jealousy, 20 minutes of googling and a little bit of insight (and not just b
OH, COME ON!!!! (Score:4, Funny)
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Please, show me the standard a PERL CGI script adheres to
Gee, I dunno, maybe this one [w3.org]?
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Wow, I wasn't aware there was a standard for using PERL! You've found something amazing and unique!
I'm being sarcastic.
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"We don't need no stinkin' standards" (Score:2)
Disagreement (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to disagree with Alex. Not with his summary of what happened, but with his conclusions. The OOXML standards project hasn't failed, and isn't heading for failure. It's been wildly successful. Remember that Microsoft's goal with it wasn't to produce a standard document format. It was to get an ISO standard passed with OOXML in the name so Microsoft could provide the correct tick-list item to sell to governments, while still keeping MS Office using a format that only Microsoft could reliably read and write. In fact, a document format that conformed strictly to a published standard that was completely and correctly specified was for MS an explicit non-goal, something to be kept from happening.
And if Alex expected anything else from Microsoft, I have to think he's deluded. There's nothing in Microsoft's history to suggest they'd do otherwise if they have any alternative open to them.
Just like RTF all over again (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft worked with industry partners and standards organizations to create the RTF standard for document interchange. The first version of Word that could save RTF saved a badly broken non-standard version of RTF. WordPerfect and other competitors who tried to implement the standard for document import were screwed because they couldn't faithfully import MS Word documents. Users blamed WordPerfect.
Who knows whether MSWord's buggy RTF export was deliberate or merely incompetent. The point is that history once again repeats itself.
:O (Score:2)
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OMG.
Ironically (Score:4, Insightful)
A good thing for open standards (Score:2)
Since our company has a requirement for Open Standard file formats we can still forbid MS. When Microsoft apologists whine "but it's OOXML, that's an ISO standard" we can reply "sorry, it isn't standard OOXML".
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In the case of MS, it's two things. First, nobody but nerds cares about any of this.
Among nerds, it's rage that normal people don't care. So instead of letting the market work it out, they know people won't change their buying habits so they attack the "problem" with an authoritative approach. Can't make people buy what they (nerds) see as "better"? Then get the government to force MS to change.
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What you are describing is the way standards used to work before they became so political. It's not surprising that MS doesn't adhere to new standards - many were designed specifically to break from existing de facto standards if those standards were created by MS.