[odf-discuss] Gnome, Ecma, and what governments (and FOSS?) should have done

[Pamela Jones]

Since you don't follow my reasoning, let me show you someone else who 
explains the issue in a way that may be clearer:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=1616



Will GNOME split give Microsoft Open XML standards win?

Dana Blankenhorn
& Paula Rooney

Microsoft’s efforts to overturn a vote earlier this year denying its 
Open XML “fast track” standards certification seem to be getting a boost 
from the GNOME Foundation....



OpenXML, also called OOXML, was denied “fast track” International 
Standards Organization (ISO) approval in September, but a final vote on 
making it a standard will take place in February, and Microsoft is 
anxious to get the earlier decision reversed.

To that end Microsoft is working with the ECMA TC 45 group to answer 
detailed questions which accompanied the negative ballots in September, 
in hopes of changing hearts and minds by February. GNOME’s participation 
in that group is upsetting Open Document Format (ODF) advocates....



Dave Neary, a member of the GNOME Foundation and community manager for 
OpenWengo, says it’s all safe as milk.  Quoting Jody Goldberg, who calls 
supporting ODF “significantly more difficult” than supporting OOXML, he 
suggests ODF will never be the “one true format” without destroying its 
utility....



Once a proprietary standard is approved by the ISO, and made a standard, 
its eventual replacement by a truly open standard like ODF becomes 
impossible. At best the two stand side-by-side, and Microsoft’s market 
dominance is baked into the market.


Jody Goldberg wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 02, 2007 at 09:06:56PM -0400, Pamela Jones wrote:
>> It's an issue that came up in the first vote discussions repeatedly. Here 
>> is just one example from the meeting in Australia, where the MS 
>> representative and CompTIA both mentioned that MS OOXML should qualify 
>> because so many others want it and use it.
> 
> I'm sorry but I do not follow your reasoning.
> 
> MS argues that their vast installed user base of MS Office users
> wants a non-binary file format.  How does the existence of Gnumeric
> or OO.o relate ?
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