MS Awarded "Best Campaigner Against OOXML"

HansF writes "Microsoft itself is the surprise winner of the FFII's Kayak Prize 2007, offered by the FFII in its call for rejection of Microsoft's OOXML standards proposal. The software monopolist is honored as 'Best Campaigner against OOXML Standardization.' FFII president Pieter Hintjens explains, 'We could never have done this by ourselves. By pushing so hard to get OOXML endorsed, even to the point of loading the standards boards in Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy, and beyond, Microsoft showed to the world how poor their format is. Good standards just don't need that kind of pressure. All together, countries made over ten thousands technical comments, a new world record for an ISO vote. Microsoft made a heroic — and costly — effort to discredit their own proposal, and we're sincerely grateful to them.'" If Microsoft doesn't send a representative to claim their 2500-Euro prize at the FFII General Assembly in November, FFII will give the money to Peruvian earthquake relief.

Comments

Vista makes me smile.

[Erris]

I don't think the ISO organization will allow M$ to damage their reputation that way. The OOXML vote is an international scandal and the people who count are not going to forget it. The whole business has already been damaging to ISO and they would do better to bury ooxml.

Just the same, I don't feel smug about how easily they damaged ISO. When I want to feel smug, I contemplate Vista's failure and what that means for the whole next generation of M$ crap and lock in.

Vista is one of the best things that ever happened to free software. It's later, more restrictive more expensive and less functional than anyone could possibly have imagined. There is zero enthusiasm for it and a plenty of rejection.

Re:Vista makes me smile.

[Technician]

Vista is one of the best things that ever happened to free software. It's later, more restrictive more expensive and less functional than anyone could possibly have imagined. There is zero enthusiasm for it and a plenty of rejection.

One of the best parts is WGA. Microsoft doesn't have the users who build their custom machines, but decide against the cost of the MS retail boxed version taxes. Spending $600-1200 on a custom box build soon finds the cost of an OS and Office suite a good part of building that can no longer be migrated from the old box. Alternatives to expensive restrictive software are now part of the cost decision.

I used to upgrade hardware re-using my legal copy of Windows 98. XP and Vista have ended that process. XP now simply means it is residing on the oldest slowest machine in the house as it is not upgradable (without playing mother-may-I with Microsoft who may say no way). Vista is the same dead end. I am test driving Ubuntu Dapper Drake (the long term support distro), Fiesty Fawn (newer but has issues), and Freespire (out of the box rich Web browsing with codecs and flash) on my new home built hardware. XP will retire on the hardware it arrived on. In it's lifetime it only got a hard drive repalcement due to hardware failure and a memory upgrade. It won't be moving on to a Core 2 Duo box simply due to the EULA, vendor hardware specific recovery disc, and WGA to enforce it.

Thank You Microsoft for closing the door on software re-use, right of first sale, and encouraging me to expand my horizons. I have learned the advantages first hand of not runing with administrator privilages, Software not vendor tied to hardware, open standards, community developement, GNU GPL, and no longer dealing with a per seat restrictive EULA.

Thank You Red Hat, Caldera (pre SCO), Novell SUSE, Mozilla, Sun Microsystems, IBM, ODF, EFF, Adobe, and everyone else who made this possible.

MS is experienced in shooting their own foot

[Opportunist]

Let's face it, folks. MS had the OS market in a stranglehold. They could've gotten away with pretty much anything. Bundling with hardware? No problem at all. Actually made the Average Joe user happy. Crappy bundled software like players and browsers? Zero problem either. Who doesn't know that there's better alternatives is happy with what he got. Mandatory registration? Already a bit of a nuisance to the average user (especially if he doesn't have internet access), but still bearable. Anyone will make a single phone call to use his computer.

But then they stepped across the line where the average user grins and bears it. After a major repair, another call. After a few more, the spanish inquisition starts. People start to get nervous. They didn't do anything wrong, yet they feel as suspects for copying software. Software they bought honestly. People also care whether they can do what they used to do. Now DRM is hanging over their heads, and they start looking at their friends who use Linux, who don't have to call, who don't have to register, who get tons of software for free and legally so, and with the various installers the distributions have, it's also only a mouseclick away.

People start to look around for alternatives. Being the moderator of a "non-geek tech board", I got a pretty good idea what bugs the "Average Joe" users and what direction they take. For about a year now, we have had a vastly increasing number in postings containing questions about Linux, which distribution to take, how to install it and how to get it going, quickly followed by quite happy notes how easy it was.

I've been trying to talk them into it for a few years now. Until recently the response was mostly "What for?". Now there's a reason. So if anyone helped Linux become more of a mainstream system, it's MS.