[odf-discuss] Gnome Foundation and ECMA

[Ian Lynch]

On Sat, 2007-11-03 at 08:58 -0700, Daniel Carrera wrote:
> Ian said:
> 
> > If there is an agreed and published ISO standard I doubt that will be
> > possible. Their attempts to pervert W3C standards have not been
> > successful and non-IE browsers now thrive.
> 
> As a web developer I disagreed.

As a politician I clearly have a different perspective ;-)

>  Microsoft has been highly successful at wrecking or slowing the
> adoption of W3C standards, and I don't think that 14% for all non-IE
> browsers together is enough to say that they "thrive". 

Its relative. 10 years ago web sites routinely stated "best viewed in".
5 years ago IE was pretty well 100% market share. Now its accepted that
their are alternatives with a minority but significant market share. In
these terms firefox is thriving to the extent MS have been forced to get
IE 7 out of the door. While some sites still require IE they are
becoming few and the trend is for governments to specify that sites must
conform to W3C standards. Its not yet perfect but there is enormous
pressure from tech politicians such as myself and colleagues in OSC,
OSA, AFFS, FFII etc to keep them honest so Firefox et al can thrive.
Sure MS can distort standards with FP extensions etc but increasingly
they are being forced to conform. If they had such a strong hold why
bother with an XML file format at all just plough on with .doc etc. In
future I can't see them getting away with any major distortions of ODF
simply from extrapolation of current trends in government attitude -
nothing to do with hacking or coding. BECTA just filed a complaint to
the OFT on interoperability among other things. Over the last two years
these things are becoming more frequent as governments are lobbied by
technological pressure groups. If MS in future does anything to
technically reinforce its monopolies its likely to risk law suits from
governments and in the long run it can't win those battles and it knows
it.

> I am working on the website for the school Rosemary Musker and just
> yesterday I was telling Sigrid how frustrated I was that I can't do
> what I want on the website because IE won't support an 11-year-old W3C
> standard like PNG and I'm forced to limit myself to whatever IE
> chooses to support.

IE 6 or7? IE6 is very old but a lot of people still have it. What you
are experiencing are the problems of 5-10 years ago as a legacy. Why
have MS had to upgrade IE7? If they are so all powerful why not leave
IE7 with no PNG transparency support? SVG is another problem and MS will
drag things out as much as possible but in the end they risk losing the
market to Firefox if they get those judgements wrong. 

> Keep in mind that ODF is easier to pervert than HTML and PNG and
> Kerberos because unlike those standards ODF explicitly allows
> extensions. So they can totally bastardize ODF and call it "ODF"
> through the same line of reasoning that the OpenDocument Foundation
> was trying to label their "ODF + dark objects" ODF.

Again you chose not to consider the political ramifications. If they did
do that and it destroyed interoperability the lawsuits would follow or
governments would chose something else. They would probably have got
away with it 5 years ago, they won't do now or in the future. The
momentum is on the side of interoperability and open standards. The
recent debacle over the BBC iplayer and DRM is a point in case. The
anti-trust convictions against MS are only the tip of the iceberg. If
governments really decide to turn up the heat MS will get roasted and
the more viable alternatives that emerge the more likely that is to
happen.

> > RMS has had more effect on the take up of free software
> > from his political activities than from his coding.
> 
> I would not agree with that statement. I think RMS has been a very
> poor politician / marketer

You have to take into account that whatever he has done to piss people
off, he has raised the profile of free software. Whether you are hot or
cold I'll swallow you up etc. RMS is an extreme but extremes and
conviction often put ideas on the map simply because they stir up
emotions. RMS is not a skilled politician in the Machiavellian sense, he
is more a convictionist like Margret Thatcher but more to the left ;-)

>  and in turn his coding contributions have been critical to the
> development of FOSS. The fundamental tools needed to create FOSS
> (compiler and C library) and the fundamental tools needed to run a
> free OS (the GNU utils, which are vast) are from him.

Many people could have produced the code. But code does not get used
without some sort of marketing or political lobbying. Only one person
has the initials RMS that are synonymous with GNU and the principles of
free software. Code is obviously fundamentally important but it's no
good by itself on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck
in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying beware of the
leopard.

Ian
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