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April 5, 2007 8:06 AM PDT
Microsoft criticized for Open XML petition
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The petition is an attempt to make it appear that Open XML has "pseudo-grassroots" support, argues Mark Taylor, the founder of the Open Source Consortium.
"In the open-source world, there's clearly a massive grassroots thing," Taylor told ZDNet UK on Thursday. "One of the lessons Microsoft has been trying to learn from open source is that--but they have to fake it. If there was any grassroots support behind it, the time to have done (the petition) would have been ages ago."
The petition, which was uploaded to Microsoft's U.K. site on March 29, asks businesses to show their support for the Open XML format being fast-tracked through the standardization process at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The format is integral to Office 2007, but Microsoft is pushing it as an international open standard for documents, spreadsheets and presentations.
"We already have an international standard, the OpenDocument format, and governments are increasingly adopting it," said Taylor on Thursday. "Having a second standard is utterly unnecessary."
Taylor also speculated that the timing of the release of the petition--which was shortly before the Easter and Passover holidays--was intended to make resistance to the campaign less likely. Despite the recent advancement of Open XML onto a new stage of the standardization process, Taylor also suggested that Microsoft was "in major trouble trying to get Open XML pushed through" and the petition "shows their worry."
That view was echoed by Rufus Pollock, the director of the Foundation for Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), who told ZDNet UK that Microsoft was pushing for the fast-track because it feared the spread of the OpenDocument Format through the popular OpenOffice package. Pointing out that the specifications for Open XML run to 6,000 pages, he suggested that fast-track standardization would be inappropriate because there were "a lot of concerns about what might be in there," such as patents.
"An over-complex proposal being pushed through is not going to be good for anyone, other than perhaps Microsoft," Pollock said.
David Meyer of ZDNet UK reported from London.
See more CNET content tagged:
petition,
standardization,
XML,
OpenDocument Format,
open source
Some people are never happy with anything!
BTW: If OpenOffice is that good - AND FREE! - how come no one cares about it? Most people I know prefer to use a pirated copy of MS Office than a legal copy of Open Office...
Haters Path to Profit:
1. Compain about Microsoft Office binary file formats are not propritary and unpublished.
2. Microsoft changes default Office file format to XML and publishes the spec.
3. Complain about Microsoft's intentions being evil and untrue.
4. Haters look retarded.
I don't see how the Haters profit here. No wonder why they are so upset!
Microsoft is too big to be a grassroots movement, well duh. There are users like me, and small organizations such as mine that are part of a smaller grassroots effort. I am not working for Microsoft and my organization is not owed or connected with Microsoft in any way.
I don't see why Microsoft would get upset that OpenOffice.org uses the new open format, I mean the whole idea of an open format is to share it with the world. The only thing I can think of is that Microsoft might be afraid that OpenOffice.org will take away marketshare from MS-Office if people use it for the Open XLS document format that MS-Office shares with it. Well duh, if you open up a standard, you are sharing it with the community. I am guessing AbiWord will use it as well as maybe Lotus AmiPro, Corel Wordperfect, etc. Now notice that none of these other competitors to MS-Office can use the Word 2007 format and that you'd normally have to convert the document to rich text format or Word 2002 or earlier to get it to work with the other word processors.
Microsoft already let the genie out of the bottle and they cannot put it back yet.
This actually benefits Microsoft because it means that MS-Office users can benefit from the Open XML document format being used on competitor's products so that they can use it to send a document in email or over a network to a MS-Office 2007 user and they can open it up. If the document is in OOO format, Wordperfect format, AbiWord format, or AmiPro format chances are the MS-Office user would have to buy a copy of the software the document was written in and might actually leave MS-Office in favor of something else that most of their documents are formatted in. In having a common open standard, there is no need to leave MS-Office for something else, and also no need to buy a different word processor to read a different format if everyone adopts the open standard. Microsoft wins, and competitors don't gain more marketshare selling to MS-Office owners and it actually strengthens MS-Office.
I am guessing that the default save format in MS-Office is still the Word format for documents. Then the user has to do a "Save As" to pick the open standard.
I mean MS-Outlook already uses open standards like the iCalendar and vCalendar standards for importing and exporting calendar events.
Why does everyone think IBM is so friendly to the standards and open source movement? If they were, then why do they continue to make billions (with a B) on patents? The ones they gave away to the community were basically meaningless (good PR stunt). IBM talks about how cool Linux is and how strategically important it is to their business but still continues to actively sale AIX and OS390 (why haven?t they open sourced these OS?s like sun did). If they are onboard with open movement then why not simply support JBOSS instead of websphere, mySQL instead of DB2, Linux instead of AIX and so on. If you are buying into this BS then I have a nice piece of oceanfront property in Whiner, West Virginia just for you.
If you want to beat Microsoft - build a better mousetrap and beat them in the market place. There is a lot of great innovation in the market today from companies Google, SalesForce.com, EC2 from Amazon, and a host of others. Companies like Oracle are redefining the playing field but acquiring companies like Siebel, Peoplesoft and JDE. Adobe is doing cool stuff around Apollo. What has IBM done ? made a couple of acquisitions like rational and filenet (yawn).
At the end of day Open XML will have to stand on its own merits. The vote should happen and be free of the negative influences of companies that are pushing a secret agenda. I?m amazed that the standards organizations and the open community are buying into this BS but at the end of the day I guess with the right amount of marketing and legal wrangling by large consulting firms anything is possible.
I would like to see it and fact check it for myself. Where is it?
At least, they are opening the format to outside scrutiny and use. It is a step in the right direction.
Considering how freaking slow these standards committees move(Just look at 802.11n), I don't blame MS for trying to fast track. This way at least it will be completed this decade.
- "Microsoft, IBM set aside rivalry to create XML standards"!
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by Commander_Spock
April 7, 2007 10:42 PM PDT
- Oh How Situations Change With Time!
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See all 41 Comments >>"IBM and Microsoft battled over a well-publicized split in the development of IBM's OS/2 operating system before Microsoft ditched OS/2 efforts to make Windows dominant. The pair continue to compete in e-commerce and database software technology that allows businesses to create e-commerce Web sites.
But for now, Taking sides on XML analysts said, the two will work together for the common good of creating XML standards. "It's good news (for the industry) that they'll get together sooner rather than later," Gartner analyst David Smith said."
So, from this "Year 2000"--can one now say that this is how things have worked out as was stated in the past. Read the rest of this historical article here:
http://news.com.com/Microsoft%2C+IBM+set+aside+rivalry+to+create+XML+standards/2100-1001_3-244091.html