[odf-discuss] Private deal to approve OOXML? More evidence surfaces

[Christian Einfeldt]

Hi pls ignore this is a test

On 4/11/08, Ian Lynch <ian.lynch at zmsl.com> wrote:
>
> > E.g., Microsoft has always played the embrace and extend game with
> > their own formats.
>
> That's not really surprising since format evolution would normally add
> to an existing specification.
>
> > ISO/IEC:29500-2008 grants Microsoft permission to continue the same
> > game in the XML context with the legal status of an international
> > standard. They remain eligible for government procurement contracts.
>
> This I can't see. If the EU specifies that member status must use an ISO
> document standard, using Office 2007 won't comply unless it has
> comprehensive support for the document standard. Just because MS has
> some theoretical standard it doesn't mean it can be practically
> implemented and if it isn't why would any government choose it over a
> standard that can be practically implemented? Furthermore if there is no
> general support for multi-vendor interoperability it's likely that the
> EU would veto it anyway even fine MS for further anti-trust violation.
> If a tender goes out for software that complies with ISO xxxx the first
> thing I would do if I was managing the tender would be to check that
> companies were putting forward products that supported ISO xxxx, not a
> piece of paper saying they had a standard and promised to put it into
> something some time in the future.
>
> > Microsoft's primary product feature throughout its tightly integrated
> > stack  is interoperability. But interop only for Microsoft apps and
> > only for the latest versions of them. It's the upgrade treadmill
> > whilst maintaining a moving interoperability target for competitors.
> >
> > The key fact here is that ISO/IEC:29500 is not a true standard. It
> > does not specify a standard, uniform product. It includes some 600
> > identified extension points with no specified functionality, for
> > "future" vendor-specific extensions. (Grep for the exLst attribute in
> > Part 4.)  It's riddled with options and permissive "may" and "should"
> > interop breakpoints that conceal by ambiguity the hard-coded
> > SHALL/MUST decision points in the MS Office/Sharepoint, etc.,
> > interoperability framework, which is not part of the standard's
> > specification.
> >
> > There are of course collateral benefits to Microsoft in monopolizing
> > OOXML interoperability, e.g., MOOXML is also a communications protocol
> > between MS Word and Sharepoint Server. So MOOXML extends the vendor
> > lock and competitor exclusion from MS Office into the Web 2.0 space.
>
> So is OOXML going to be used in practice as a document format or just as
> some theoretical possible envelop for encompassing a range of diverse MS
> formats? If the latter, it at best maintains the status quo for MS and
> seems to serve an entirely different purpose to odf.
>
> Ian
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-- 
Christian Einfeldt,
Producer, The Digital Tipping Point