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Our Blogs Open Sauce What the OOXML fiasco can teach us
Our Blogs Open Sauce What the OOXML fiasco can teach us | What the OOXML fiasco can teach us |
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| by Sam Varghese | |
| Thursday, 03 April 2008 | |
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Page 3 of 3 Fast forward 25 years, after a massive number of court cases and even an action for software piracy - which a French company won in 1994 - Microsoft employs much the same tactics. We've heard enough about what has happened in the run-up to the ballot resolution meeting and the OOXML vote to bear repeating. Suffice it to say that one wouldn't use the word "kosher" when talking about what was done.Norway has lodged a protest about its own vote but this will not change anything. And nobody, but nobody, apart from individuals - people like Andy Updegrove, Russell Ossendryver and Pamela Jones - will have the guts to unmask what's happened behind the scenes. Groups from smaller countries like Malaysia and New Zealand should also be praised for the opposition they put up - and this was solely based on technical criteria. The ODF Alliance issued a statement (PDF) saying, in part: "The process itself brought to the fore OOXML's deficiencies that will prevent its use by public administrations, chief among them that OOXML remains a 'community of one' — undocumented features, IPR restrictions, and features and functionality linked to other Microsoft products that will prevent OOXML's use in other software products. Governments will naturally take a 'buyer beware' attitude toward OOXML and its lone implementation, Microsoft Office 2007. Nothing about the process will provide governments with any more confidence in OOXML's openness and interoperability than they had before the vote." There are times when one hopes that people will rise above partisan interests and look at the bigger picture. The OOXML fiasco has demonstrated aptly that the "I want my f*** you money" attitude dominates. What I call the metal-type mentality is the ruling trend - lock-in is perceived as the only way one can keep marketshare. But as it happened in Poland, Romania and Hungary (to name just a few), the human spirit will one day break free. Make no mistake about that.
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