Microsoft wins battle over document format standards

DWPTA said:
Wonder how much of a blow will this be to the open source community?
Click to expand...
Not much I think. Read an article by one of the many ODF dudes. He said he was not against MS's format but rather for ODF. He seemed to support exactly what happened now.
 
well if MS opens the standard up, the only drawback will be that it is more complicated than ODF. The question a lay person like me will then ask is whether there is any proprietary intellectual rights within MS's format which will curb the open source community.
 
milomak said:
well if MS opens the standard up, the only drawback will be that it is more complicated than ODF. The question a lay person like me will then ask is whether there is any proprietary intellectual rights within MS's format which will curb the open source community.
Click to expand...

The reason why MS had to go the Open route is because governments etc all over the world started to consider closed formats as a continuity risk - will they still be able to open MS closed documents in 10 years time?

There is no place within this scenario to play "proprietary intellectula rights" games. The first hint of MS playing this game will kill the marketing potential of MS's products on the open format bandwagon.
 
what you are saying is along the lines of what i was thinking.
 
Among those voting in favor of OOXML were the United States, Britain, Germany and Japan, according to the OpenDoc Society list. Opponents included China, India and Russia.
Click to expand...
Seems like a rerun of the cold war!
 
Only gripe I've got with MS is that new .docx format. They shouldn't make that the default save format.
 
Fudzy said:
Only gripe I've got with MS is that new .docx format. They shouldn't make that the default save format.
Click to expand...

Have you seen the size difference between the new format and the old format? WAY BETTER compression
 
Among those voting in favor of OOXML were the United States, Britain
Click to expand...
I wonder how many bribes, sorry contributions, they had to make to get these votes?
 
This is a very serious problem. There are proprietary portions in the format which means that only MS will be able to truely open the files. Its a smoke screen to cover for the governments requesting a standard format. It's 6000 pages as opposed to the 800 in the ODF. This whole process has totally discredited ISO. In Norway, for example, the vote went 18 against and 4 for. The chairman went into another meeting with the MS representative and the representative of a company supporting the MS bid and decided to vote "Yes". Remember that the majority of the people (over 80% had voted no).
 
noxibox said:
I wonder how many bribes, sorry contributions, they had to make to get these votes?
Click to expand...

They stacked to votes by giving their partner companies discounts etc to pitch up and vote for the standard. If you look at the for and against columns, the only support for the standard has been from MS partners and other large companies with a vested interest. All public organisations (Universities, etc) have been against it. I still cannot believe that a 6000 page format can be fast tracked. One bloke has begun sampling the document to identify problems and has encountered flaws on 75% of the pages he has looked at.
 
milomak said:
Just to confirm. You think the OpenDoc and ISO organisations have no credibility?
Click to expand...

They have certainly lost some credibility here, yes. (Your "no credibility" question is a flimsy strawman and false dichotomy that I'm not going to entertain - it's not either 'no' or 'full' credibility.)

milomak said:
well if MS opens the standard up, the only drawback will be that it is more complicated than ODF.
Click to expand...

No, the main 'drawback', or problem, is that it's not truly a standard at all, it's just masquerading as one - meaning effectively there will just be continued lock-in to a proprietary single-vendor format, instead of migration to a competitive standards-based platform-independent one, and for the global economy and for individuals and taxpayers and so on the drawbacks of that are fairly significant.
 
DavidJ said:
They have certainly lost some credibility here, yes. (Your "no credibility" question is a flimsy strawman and false dichotomy that I'm not going to entertain - it's not either 'no' or 'full' credibility.)



No, the main 'drawback', or problem, is that it's not truly a standard at all, it's just masquerading as one - meaning effectively there will just be continued lock-in to a proprietary single-vendor format, instead of migration to a competitive standards-based platform-independent one, and for the global economy and for individuals and taxpayers and so on the drawbacks of that are fairly significant.
Click to expand...

DavidJ - On the credibility issue, did you accuse the organisations of bribes? i believe my question was quite specific in post 17.

I asked about proprietary intellectual issues in post 4. Are you sayin what kaspaas posted in post 5 is incorrect?
 
Last edited:
milomak said:
DavidJ - On the credibility issue, did you accuse the organisations of bribes? i believe my question was quite specific in post 17.
Click to expand...

There are a number of anomalies that raise serious questions regarding bribes and other pressure that has been exerted including personal contacts from Bill Gates to the heads of certain countries. One just has to take a look at the Norway debarcle to identify that something is going on behind the scenes. 90% of the members voted against it (21-2) and it was passed by 3 people behind closed doors (one of which was the MS representative). In Germany, the member were told they could either vote yes or abstain. And then to change a the deadlock situation of 6-6, the DIN representative voted in favour and swung the vote to a yes. This despite DIN members not being allowed to vote. MS Sweden payed partners to join ISO and vote. The list goes on and on.

I asked about proprietary intellectual issues in post 4. Are you sayin what kaspaas posted in post 5 is incorrect?
Click to expand...

Yes, there are proprietary components to the Open XML standard. Even MS office is not fully in complaint with the standard. What's worse is that the Open XML license says that you have to be if "full compliance" so if MS Office remains uncompliant then no-one else will be able to build MS Office compatible software. Already thats a problem because of the proprietary portions. MS Office could embed a widget in the file as a proprietary extension which only MS Office can open and is licensed to open. Game over. No one else will be able to work with the files. The reason MS has pushed this standard is because ODF levels the playing field and MS will start to bleed market share. Now MS can do what they want, they have the "standard" that governments have been pushing for and also the document lock in. A likely situation is for MS to stick the office scripts or something else like that in a proprietary embedded format and then lock it down like that. Other vendors can still read the documents but cannot work with them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X