Microsoft Joins OpenDocument Alliance

Jim writes "Microsoft has joined a committee that has a key role in the ratification of OpenDocument as an international standard, leading to accusations that it intends to sabotage the process. Microsoft has denied this accusation, claiming that the only reason why Microsoft employee Jim Thatcher has joined the group was to get involved in the ISO standardisation of its own file format." From the article: "'There sits Microsoft, waiting, like a spider,' wrote Jones, in a posting on her site. 'I am imagining ODF plodding along, with Microsoft asking questions, fine-combing through the comments, did you mean this or that?, getting bogged down in minutia until, lo and behold, either Microsoft's XML makes it as an ISO standard first, or they arrive neck and neck.'" More information here on a subject we touched on in a recent Slashback. update a few readers have asked for the clarification that MSFT has not joined ODF, but rather the "INCITS/V1 Technical Committee"

Comments

Typical Growlaw

[porkThreeWays]

I don't think this is a huge thing to get up-n-arms about either. PJ at Groklaw is very quick to react and shoot off her mouth. She seems to have Eric Raymond syndrome. She thinks she's much more important to open source than she actually is. I know this isn't a popular opinion on slashdot, but I've yet to see her do anything important. She seems more like a liability than anything. I would absolutly love someone to prove me wrong, but time after time she shoots off her mouth and makes outrageous accusations without any real understanding of the issue. It just makes open source users look like even bigger zealots.

Immature solution :-) PH33R

[Werrismys]

I'm not condoning violence.
But if a series of incredibly improbable, non-related events of M$ infiltrators getting smacked with a trout - or squashed by a piano - took place, it would make them think twice whether to fsck up other people's sincere efforts for money.