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ISO Calls For OOXML Ceasefire
In response to the continued attacks on Microsoft's OOXML standard, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has called for a ceasefire. "Last week the ISO committee in charge of document standards, SC 34, met in Oslo to discuss the way forward for OOXML and ODF. The plenary session was marked by protests outside, largely carried out by delegates from a nearby open-source conference. The protesters were calling for OOXML to be withdrawn from ISO standardization -- something that could theoretically happen if a national standards body were to protest against its own vote within the next month or two."
We the undersigned wish to make it clear that the ISO fucked up and should never have made OOXML a standard, and that we will continue to attack ISO until it is revoked. Furthermore, we believe that this is for the ISO's own good, because allowing this result of obvious corruption to remain can only harm ISO's credibility as a standards organization. We also wish to remind the ISO that these so-called "personal attacks" have only become necessary in the first place because our technical objections have been entirely ignored. Finally, we note that the resolution to create working groups to maintain OOXML and "harmonize" it with ODF was stupid, because neither group would be necessary in the first place if the redundant, conflicting, and poorly-designed OOXML hadn't been approved in the first place!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Why is that even an issue? ODF passed, it's a clear and well-defined standard that nobody has a problem with and nobody had to be bribed to support.
The only issue is that cluster-fuck of submarine proprietary technology posing as an open standard called OOXML.
Keep OOXML, or reject that POS like they should have to begin with, the only effect that has on ODF is in the purchasing decisions that may be swayed by MS also having a "standard".
The enemies of Democracy are
A cease fire is when both sides agree to stop shooting. So is ISO saying they will agree to stop attacking us? I didn't even notice ISO was attacking me.
They deserve to be taken to the woodshed for a good spanking.
The ONLY ones who will benefit from a "cease-fire" are the ones who have the criticism coming to them. Let them admit they screwed up, that the processes behind their handling of MSOOXML are fatally flawed, and that a redo is necessary to preserve^Wrestore the integrity of ISO.
Kevin Smith on Prince
In my opinion, an easier way to counter this Microsoft OOXML standard is to urge respective governments to avoid it and not to touch it even with a 10 foot pole. That way, alternative formats will take route. Isn't this easier?
Screw the Ceasefire, time to employ Guerrilla Warfare
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
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Reduce, reuse, cycle
the ISO is corrupted. MSFT fscked up the ISO and it is permanently damaged. Germany, Norway, Poland, and several other countries are looking into voting irregularities in the OOXML vote. For that fact alone the OOXML should have failed to pass pending the outcome of those investigations.
right now there are several MSFT P member countries that will no longer vote on anything because they are no longer being paid by MSFT to work with the ISO. These countries are deadlocking other standards and forcing them to fail because they refuse to vote on anything not OOXML. Those countries should have their votes discarded until they start attended and voting on things other than OOXML.
So why should the attacks stop? Has the corruption stopped yet?
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
Does this mean that Norway and Great Britain haven't submitted their appeals yet? I believe both technical committees stated they would appeal. Does anyone know the status of them?
Of course, I'm sure the US Government will select that standard - remember, I did ask, what sane entity would choose such a horrible standard.
This may put Microsoft back in the running with governmental and other organizations, but I see it rather like getting a plow horse qualified to run in a horse race. Okay, there may be some profit in it for Microsoft, but even with ISO validation would you consider adopting a standard which even the author can neither explain nor understand? This pony'll go off at 99:1 every time, IMHO.
From the Article:
"Another ad hoc group will also become operational in three months' time, collecting reports of "possible editorial or technical defects" in OOXML from national standards bodies, "liaison organisations" and the general public."
Shouldn't they have done that BEFORE making it a "standard"?
You are either woefully ignorant of MS' business history or you have a check in you back pocket with Bill's signature.
MS has done a few things for the greater good but this action is one that will destroy MS' reputation in Joe users' mind when it get out to mainstream news.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
"Doing everything right the first time" in this context means adopting ODF, not pushing forward your own clusterfuck of a "standard".
http://outcampaign.org/
Why would they cause a ceasefire if people are concerned? Instead, shouldn't they encourage people to voice their opinions and let them know that they're hearing them? They're a standards organization that affects the world, isn't this stuff important?
Twinstiq, game news
I know the Slashdot crowd didn't start caring about ISO until OOXML hit SC34 but I have other issues with ISO. SC29/WG11 (More commonly known as MPEG) is notoriously closed off. All their proposed work for consideration is closed off from public scrutiny until after it has been accepted and published. Reference software updates are only made available to committee members while the rest of us have to wait for a version to be signed off as a Corrigendum/Addendum and then sit for a year as all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed in the general body (why can't non controversial reference software bugfixes get fast-tracked the same way OOXML was?). When people come to MPEG industry forum technical list (Mp4-tech) for clarification they are often referred secret documents and reference software that they have no way of getting. Furthermore their document interchange format is .doc not ODF or OOXML.
No, what you just wrote does not make you seem witty, funny or smart. People are seriously concerned about OOXML, and someone here just takes potty shots? If you don't know what the issues are about, go find out before shooting off your keyboard.
While probably true, it does not obviate the fact that they most certainly did many wrong things while trying to push through a "standard".
The fact that some will complain no matter what you do doesn't give you the right to do wrong.
Code or be coded.
The bribees did what they were paid for: vote for MS'OOXML.
So... NO!
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Sadly, I think you underestimate the apathy of the public over this stuff.
Joe user will hear the words "ISO Standard", "voting" and decide they neither know nor care WTF this is all about. The mainstream news will know this, and won't both reporting it.
Us in tech will find yet another reason to loathe Microsoft and their business practices, but to the average user, they simply will not care about this. You can't easily make this an issue people will understand why they should care about. It's so far off their radar as to be non-existent.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
WTF is ISO playing at when they take something that CANNOT be said to be a "reasonable standard" and still APPROVE it as an ISO Standard?
Fuck that! ISO is supposed to approve STANDARDS. Not approve crap and then try to turn it into a "reasonable standard".
ISO sold out and is now trying to play the victim in this.
Lets see,
number of companies that can make a format that works with ODF (aka compete): infinite
number of companies that can make a format that works with OOXML (aka compete): 0.
Let alone global trade rules that having overlap in standards doesn't allow, this will not pass over smoothly or easily.
So how much does MS pay you? I admit I'd take the cash too but I'd openly admit that I am, if that were the case.
The ISO process to fast track and/or approve OOXML has been fought hard by technical people on the basis of technical deficiencies.
OOXML is *NOT* worthy of ISO approval. Any rational review of the "standard," will show that it is incomplete, non-specific, and completely worthless as a blue print on how to implement a document reader for a document.
How this got approved is clearly worth a corruption investigation. It calls into question the integrity of the people and organization that approved it.
It is nothing less than an attempt to eliminate the ability to share documents without paying Microsoft and maintain Microsoft's monopoly. The very thing the ISO standard is supposed to fight. It is criminal that these bastards have subverted the standards process as they did.
Calling for the end of "Personal attacks" is nothing more than saying "fuck you." Public statements questioning the motives and integrity of these people is the only ration course of action given what they have done. They deserve every last bit of it. Jailtime if we can find a law to fit the crime.
ISO got gamed, ganked and pwned. At this point, Microsoft are teabagging their corpse.
What ISO need to do right now is to grow a pair and admit that they're gagging on sweaty Ballmer-balls, rather than putting their fingers in their ears and going "La la la, the process is perfect, la la la, there's nothing wrong."
I doubt you'd find any unbiased informed observer that believes them, although I'm sure you'd find a few who would happily say that in return for a free upgrade of their corporate Office installs. The emperor has no clothes, no matter how many procedural boxes they tick off to try to hide their ding-a-ling dangling in the wind.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
ideology has nothing to do with it.
Nobody but MS can implement this standard.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
If OOXML was a clean standard that could be implenmented freely then i woud stop complaining about it.
unfortunately it isn't. It is patent encumbered, limited, and reverse engineering the sections that say do like word 95, or keep dates like lotus123 version 2, is a problem.
From the standard alone you should be able to recreate an OOXML document. but it is impossible to fully implement.
to clean up OOXML to make it so that other developers can use it will take more work than simply using ODF, or even upgrading ODF to support new features will.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
There's insults and then there's insults. There's outrages and then there's outrages. It's like the moment in a grade school hallway where you don't even see it and there's a sense something has happened, a thrill rippling through the crowd of kids. A circle forms and there's two antagonists. You know that someone has done something, something big, something that cannot be shrugged off. Either the injured party must stand up and fight, even in the face of a serious thrashing, or he must submit and be labeled a bitch. Depending on the stature of the injured party, accepting bitch status can cement the bully's prestige and make all other resistance seem futile while even a lost fight can stiffen the resolve of the other kids and make them refuse to back down.
That's all this shit boils down to really, schoolyard power struggles. The only difference, when Microsoft is playing for all the marbles, they're going to take a hell of a lot more than just your marbles if they win.
So, is this the offense that sparks the rebellion or will it be accepted without complaint, confirming Microsoft's ability to do whatever the hell they want for there shall be no consequences?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
You want to take the bribe AND keep your reputation? Methinks not. That's like wanting the great sex AND keep your virginity. Ain't gonna happen. Take you big fat bribe and go choke on an umbrella drink somewhere and STFU.
In terms of constructive action: I'd like to write to the ISO regarding my views on this matter, urging that the matter be reconsidered.
Does anyone have the contact information for the appropriate body at the ISO?
In the contrary. It's no longer about just OOXML.
In addition to targeting OOXML, we ought to start targeting the ISO as a whole.
This organization, theoretically being in charge for the Standardization of a thousand matters, has knowingly let its own standards drop to an abysmal low level.
It is time now to question the qualification of the ISO as such severely and, possibly, get rid of it, replacing it by an impartial and responsible institution.
then get out of the kitchen. ISO needs nerds with spines.
ISO created their own mess that allowed the vote to be packed for OOXML. Now, they can suffer for their stupidity and lack of foresight.
In any case, the call for a cease fire should energize those that are making ISO sweat. It is obviously working and exposing the fact that ISO can be bought.
The only place for ISO now is history as they have allowed MS to soil their reputation. No one can trust them to do the right thing. Once a dog bites a person, we destroy it because it has demonstrated the propensity to attack a human. ISO has exposed its political side and there is no reason to not think that ISO will not be hijacked in the future.
Forgetting for awhile the obvious play on words when naming OOXML. How can both OOXML and ODF exist? They seem to be analogous to two trees planted in the same area, competing for resources. OOXML, coming from Microsoft, regardless of its flaws, has quite a head start and will simply kill off ODF. It isn't as if they both start on the same footing and so the better standard would win.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
So, what personal attacks are there? Can someone point to an example? Certainly, many think that the ISO is broken, Microsoft is corrupt, and suspect that there was some serious fraud happening at some level but none of these are personal attacks. They're legitimate complaints about major organisations. So who is this person being attacked?
So, to save an INK file, you need to place it into a OOXML container?
If ODF were to add INK support, would they need to repeat all the related specification from OOXML? (assuming it's not patent-encumbered)
Instead of approving a flawed "standard", why not open the INK format, so it can be used everywhere?
ISO is just digging themselves into a deeper hole. Any chance they had of redeeming themselves as a standards body was lost when the joke of OOXML was "approved". They are no longer a reputable standards body, they are just yet another bureaucratic bought and paid for rubber stamp. They will find that their "standards" no longer have any meaning in the real world...in fact they are being replaced as we speak. The official launch hasn't happened yet (but coming very soon): http://www.certifiedopen.com/
Absolutely sounds like a well paid Microsoft Info-mercial. ODF actually allows groups to submit their proposals for well defined extensions / additions. One standard for all document types is what is needed. (Not one wolf-in-standards clothing)
Here is what I see as the real issue.
Many jurisdictions are adopting regulations that documents be stored in open-standard formats. There are multiple reasons for this, including the long-term archival accessibility of the data.
This was obviously threatening to Microsoft. It would be difficult on technical grounds to map between Microsoft's internal formats and a true open standard such as ODF. If Microsoft's products can't read and write in true open standard formats, then government bodies have no choice but to use a non-Microsoft product to comply with the open-standards requirement, which means lost sales for Microsoft.
By forcing thru their proprietary format as a "standard", Microsoft can now truthfully state that their file formats satisfy the legal requirement for government documents to be stored in open-standard formats.
Very clever indeed.
Okay I don't know everything. However, why do we want another document format? Surely it would make more sense to incorporate the OOXML INK components to ODF. It's XML. Adding extra features is easy. Changing existing features is not easy.
When products and services meet our expectations, we tend to take this for granted and be unaware of the role of standards. However, when standards are absent, we soon notice. We soon care when products turn out to be of poor quality, do not fit, are incompatible with equipment that we already have, are unreliable or dangerous.
When products, systems, machinery and devices work well and safely, it is often because they meet standards. And the organization responsible for many thousands of the standards which benefit the world is ISO.
I call shenanigans. This may exist as some proprietary obscure standard (and it probably deserves to die).
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
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If that's actually a concern, why not just work to add that support to ODF instead of ramming through yet another format?
Any argument in support of "OOXML has this feature, ODF doesn't" has to start with why not just work to improve the current format first.
XML is eXtensible by name and by function, and therefore any standard based on XML is also extensible. You do not need two overlapping standards here -- you simply work to add what's missing to the existing one, just as OASIS is adding spreadsheet formulas to ODF (1.2 is due for ISO submission later this year, I believe).
Disclaimer: I work for IBM. This post and it's contents are my own thoughts.
You're right: there aren't any personal attacks here. This isn't about Microsoft, it's about the process. The easy manipulability of ISO's standards voting process is now open to scrutiny. This plea represents their shock that so many people were paying attention.
Personally I think Office Open XML becoming Open XML could lead to good things, assuming the standards body improves it over time and that we can get Microsoft to implement it faithfully. (I know, I know: big assumption.) But optimism aside, there's nothing wrong with criticizing the process and conducting an investigation into it. That concern goes way beyond Microsoft. So let's keep shining the light of accountability on this fiasco. If they're a genuine, open standards body they should welcome this.
For screwing up the ISO and reaffirming that all you give a fuck about is money. We should be attacking Microsoft too for being such a corrupt company. Obviously they dont care in the least about IT or computing unless they can make a buck.
I like my document format better anyways. Its called UTF-8. Its cross platform, super speedy, and incredibly small in size XD
Microsoft "INK" is funny as it is a decedent from "Pen Windows" which was inferior to "Go Computing" at the time. Microsoft's monopoly allowed them to threaten OEMS and have them abandon support for Go's platform.
Past crimes have a way of repeating themselves over and over again.
"INK" is all nice and everything, but it is hardly something that will, how did you put it, "cripple the medical industry at the very least."
I laugh at this. There is no reason why Microsoft can't support ODF and propose additions to the standard to support emerging technologies. Let these emerging technologies be developed and perfected in public.
If, however, they want their own proprietary system, no one is stopping them, but using the ISO standardization to promote their PROPRIETARY software is bogus.
If Microsoft wants to convince me that their standard is worthwhile, here's what they can do: have two teams, working completely independently with just the standard document as a guide, be able to create compatible implementations. This is the process the IETF uses before a Proposed Standard can become a Draft Standard (as outlined in RFC2026).
Yes, it would take years for two teams to implement a 6000+ page standards doc, only to have them come back and ask what "autoSpaceLikeWord95" is supposed to mean. That alone should tell us a lot about the quality of the standard.
Not a typewriter
OOXML "supports" ink, yes, but IIRC it doesn't actually specify it - the format of the actual data is left as entirely application-defined. So if you've got documents with a load of ink annotations in, and they're critical to your business, OOXML doesn't help - whether you use OOXML or the old Office binary format, your critical data is locked in a proprietary form that isn't specified anywhere and that only Microsoft Office can read. You may as well just use the old proprietary binary format, since you're screwed anyway.
"OOXML not only defines today's document technologies, but has built in support for emergining technologies and has detailed specifications for adding new technologies in the future that are far more elegant than a reference point and freaking Zip file with the content like you get with ODF."
This was almost taken seriously until I saw this point... OOXML is a zip file too. Do your homework better, astroturfer.
ODF allows for extensions as well, you know.
Similarly, if you work for a particular company in the tech industry that is relevant to a particular topic, it's common practice to state so in your post.
It's quite obvious from the content of your post -- and, FYI, no government agency I've ever heard of has asked ANYONE to change EXISTING documentation, so your argument about "going back and fixing" things doesn't work; it's always been about going forward -- that you work for such a company.
Please state so and who, as I have done.
The problem as I see it is that the only ones with standing to appeal are the national standards organizations. The same organizations that in many cases overruled the technical committees (sp?). Of course they are not going to appeal their own decision! This makes the appeals process useless... or am I missing something?
Actually, this is why OOXML is such a bad "standard". The whole point of a standard is to allow vendors to provide alternatives to customers, and for the customers to take from those alternatives whatever meets their needs.
Making a huge, omnibus standard built around a single vendor's current technology profile is just a branding campaign with standards body collusion. You aren't going to get anybody else implementing everything in OOXML, so why fret over whether it is a "standard" or not? Why not simply continue contenting yourself with the "de facto" standard of whatever MS choose to release as "MS Office"?
And building standards this way kills innovation. Suppose something better than INK comes along. Well, it'll never go anywhere. If you had two standards, X (OOXML or ODF), Y (how to embed INK in X), then somebody could propose a standard Z (how to embed the better think in X).
Then you, as a customer, simply look for a vendor or vendors who give you X & Y today; if you decide to jump on the Z bandwagon, you look for X & Y (for backward compatiblity) & Z.
Claiming a product is compliant with a standard isn't some magic pixie dust that makes it a good product, it's just a means of determining if the product might meet your needs. Approving OOXML as a standard allows Microsoft to market its product as compliant with "standards", but without customers receiving any of the benefits of standardization.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
INK has no business being part of a document format. It's an image format. It should exist as a separate standard on its own. The document format need not know INK specifically but rather provide for a way of including 'images' which both OOXML and ODF do. Then their specs can say "We allow the use of ISO XXXX (aka INK)."
MS doesn't get it. You don't get it. ISO doesn't even seem to get it anymore. It's hysterical that a format that represents exactly 1 commercial interest and has no implementations is published as a "standard." ODF has its failings, but it's already being used as a standard (multiple parties implement it) and it is being evolved with multiple parties in mind. Like a standard or something.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
see here for a piece at ConsortiumInfo on the matter...
----
Here is how the eleven countries that upgraded from O to P membership in the months (and often just days) before the OOXML voting period closed on OOXML, and also whether or not they voted in the more recent ballot (all data is from Rick's analysis of the voting record):
Upgrades that voted to adopt OOXML and didn't vote later: 7
(Cote dIvoire, Cyprus, Lebanon, Malta, Pakistan, Turkey, Venezuela)
Upgrades that abstained on OOXML and didn't vote later: 1
(Trinidad and Tobago)
Upgrades that voted against OOXML and didn't vote later: 0
That is like launching ICBM's and as soon as they detonate, calling for a ceasefire.
NO, I will only stop when the corrupt organization that is ISO is dead, or remedies the wrongs, and makes sure they cannot happen again!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
ive watch them sabotage many a good language {vrml and x3d} in the past with their red tape and rhetoric
meanwhile the organizations in charge of interfacing with the iso just keep complaining about no money and no support of the community, mostly because the communities move on to more productive interests
their need for process and committee basically squelching and stifling all innovation in the process
im not surprised this has dragged on for soooo long
why cant we all just use paperclip???
back in the day we didnt have no old school
Did you read this?
or this
My little Linux and tech blog
If they really want an OOXML "Ceasefire", then they should offer a compromise with the opponents of OOXML.
Namely: revoke the standard and allow it to continue to be reworked.
I doubt anti-OOXML activists would take issue with letting OOXML be re-evaluated a year or two fromnow. We would even let the ISO get away with NOT re-evaluating its processes that allowed brand-spanking new member countries to vote with as much power as long standing members.
In the meantime, Microsoft (and whoever else is interested) can address the technical issues with OOXML and revise the specification so that it meets the communities requirements for openness.
At the same time, I think it is accurate to say that there are "features" that customers require in OOXML that are not in any approved ISO standards (for instance, I believe OOXML has collaboration features, whereas ODF does not). Thus, the anti-OOXML community might attempt to code an "Open" standard which addresses those features. Call it the "ODF Extension" and empower it to combined with the original ODF standard to give an identical set of features as are specified in OOXML. If this were achieved and OOXML truly would not bring any added value to the Office/Productivity software standard, then it could officially be flushed down the toilet.
That said, there cannot be a "Ceasefire" as long as OOXML is still recognized as a Standard...
Support the 30 Hour Work Week!!!
Because the next step is to decommission ODF. Read the writing on the wall; you have two standards that overlap, and one company that is willing to push any amount of money to get their way. We might yet see Microsoft "agreeing" with its detractors that one standard is better than two--and then you can logically extrapolate from that what their next move will be.
Another version reads: "Two standards good, One standard better!"
Or perhaps summed up clearest: "Embrace, extend, extinguish."
- Roey
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Most doctors' offices I've been to have only been those tablets for a couple of years at most.
They're mainly using them to fill out charts that are multiple-choice or yes/no. Why? Because computers are well-suited to this task, and most medical forms were laid out this way to begin with, to save the doctor or nurse some time.
In most cases XPTE does not preserve strokes but convert them to type.
I fail to see how killing OOXML will send people back to the 90s when, as of 2008, there aren't any implementations of it. Scientists and engineers will be quite happy to continue using TeX whether or not OOXML lives or dies.
ISO sells out and countenances a corrupt process about which it had ample warning.
ISO's name becomes dirt among those who care for standards.
Some of the people ticked off at the destruction of this former standards body hold a public protest.
ISO does not like the resulting bad publicity.
I will say this once, ISO, so listen closely. Once a standards body loses the confidence of the people it is supposed to serve, it is terminal, unless it backtracks and expunges the reason for the loss of confidence. Chew on that. Get back to us once you have rediscovered your spine.
Reverse engineering the proprietary sections of the standard is a lot of work, and rather makes the point of an open standard moot. A lot of people also have trouble with OOXML because of patent concerns. Imagine putting all that work into supporting OOXML only to have Microsoft breathe down your neck.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
That makes too much sense. Now I'm really depressed. :(
The enemies of Democracy are
The scary thing is this is a direct excerpt from the OOXML docs.
Couldn't agree more. When a thief comes into your home and steals everything you have, it really doesn't make sense to do a cease fire. You take back what belongs to you....what Microsoft has stolen....
Now the thief may try to appeal for you to be reasonable by "splitting the difference" (i.e. respect ODF if OOXML is respected), but you're still getting a raw deal, even if the thief appears to be "generous" by giving you 80% and taking only 20%.
We need to call a spade a spade and this spade needs to be leveled on the head of the thief and all the thief's henchmen until they give the world back what it deserves.
Someone needs to Rickroll the ISO committee responsible.
The only thing I find moronic here is the insinuation that a child, which is the result of a rape, is somehow predestined to become evil.
How right you are. But maybe a "Dateline" expose would catch their attention. Oh, wait a minute. That show is produced and carried by (MS)NBC, so that ain't gonna happen. Hey "60 Minutes," how 'bout it?
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin. -H. L. Mencken
Yes
...that ISO has a history of being mostly stupid then -> "MPEG is a standard and yet is extremely heavily encumbered with patents."..they should never approve any standard that has patents like that in it. Just because. Unless the patents are then put into the public domain free and clear and unencumbered. Anything else is just kowtowing to some corporation/cartel and their attempts at vendor lockin as a "standard".
I say it is time to just abandon ISO, no longer useful. OOXML is just so glaringly and obviously lame that it stands out now, and they fully deserve all the criticism they are getting. They make US "blackbox voting" look scrupulously fair and honest.
That is spelled out in detail in the standards doc. Time for you to buy some new FUD.
Respect is earned.
This is not a matter of "strongly disagree" -- in about ten minutes, I was able to explain to my mother why OOXML is not particularly open, and not feasible to implement by third-parties -- and thus should not be a standard. Yes, my mother understands this, but the ISO doesn't.
Even disregarding that -- even assuming that's what they meant by "strongly disagree" -- Microsoft has thoroughly gamed the process, something which, again, is easy to see.
All of which means that personal attacks are entirely justified -- but it looks as though there weren't any:
That's right -- a protest.
In what way is a protest a "personal attack"? It is an attack against your organization, or against your working group -- it is not an attack against you, personally, and it is not an attack against anything about you other than that you passed a standard which, to put it kindly, is obviously incomplete and broken.
Speaking of which -- you brought this on yourselves. You passed a standard which is obviously incomplete and broken -- or, in mrchaotica's words, it is redundant, conflicting, and poorly-designed. You absolutely deserve every single flame, troll, protest, and dirty look that you get. I, and others like me, are going to do our best to make it at least as unpleasant for you to pass OOXML, as Microsoft would endeavor to make it unpleasant for you to not pass OOXML.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
There is a strong argument to be made that the ISO processes are hale and hearty, but that the persons who were using them were not sound. The personal attacks may well be justified.
It was the decisions of persons who put OOXML on the fast track, and otherwise let things get so badly screwed up. Perhaps they should be held accountable for their actions. That kind of accountability is central to the ISO standards governing quality control of processes.
But why is it even there? It makes no sense for anyone who doesn't have the backward compatibility issues that Microsoft has. A standard should be for everyone, not just one company.
Not a typewriter
You could cram any more genitalia references into your post?
you had me at #!
I agree. However, only if ODF is kicked back for the same thing. Both standards are clearly difficult to impossible to implement (hence no perfect implementations of EITHER exist).
It could be an interesting experiment. And while they're at it, they can do something about that bollocks RAND licensing thing.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Why do they need an ad hoc working group to maintain the standard? There's already a multi-billion-dollar corporation actively maintaining the standard. The effort seems redundant.
Take off every Sig. For great justice.
Now, in this case OOXML doesn't actually meet that critera. So it should have been kicked back to the dog slow process which involves working groups and what not to bring it up to a reasonable standard (no pun intended).
Don't let your unyielding hatred of Microsoft blind you to what is meant to happen.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
That's a reference to SCOX and it's attempt to get $699 from everyone who uses Linux.
Insightful is another possibility, but funny is MUCH more apt.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
...but getting rid of software patents involves dealing with various nasty corrupt governments and changing laws, which is hard to do. Ignoring corrupt ISO means..just ignoring them, easy to do.
They must have thought we stopped looking. I mean come on. We all saw it happen. It was pathetic. They destroyed any belief in their process. No one in their right mind would now look at them as having any relevance; and every standard will now be questioned. Their ethics are shot.
They want a cease fire because they are getting huge bad press and this is jeopardizing their ability to remain as any sort of functional organization. I almost sense a panic coming from them. What I don't understand is that it was obvious that we were watching and they went ahead with it anyway.
OOXML is not a standard. It is platform specific due to elements of the specification. That makes it somewhat less than open and therefore can't be considered an ISO standard. That alone should have ruled it out in everyone's mind and forced a 'no' vote.
As I said, it is pathetic.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
1) completely drop support for any document created before or
2) add a special case each time you change something, making an even more complete mess out of things. For one thing, ODF uses XML namespaces to tell which language a formula is written in. Handling the special cases becomes as straightforward as handling quirks vs. near standards vs. standards mode in HTML.
My comment was just an observation; and GP's was simply another. Neither of us has had to start insulting you or cursing... so who's getting "this bent"?
With this single stroke of corruption and stupidity, the ISO made itself irrelevant to the IT standards realm. Thanks ISO and goodbye.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Clarification:
Red Car -> ISO body (Judge Doom utters this line in Roger Rabbitt)
Two standards good, one standard better -> reference to Animal Farm
Embrace, extending and extinguish -> Microsoft's handling of the ISO standards-making process
The common thread among all these quotes is how downright sinister they are behind a gentle and seemingly caring facade; they're all working within the system to bring it down from the inside.
- Roey
If you want to debate, please try minding your language. It takes away from your argument when you feel you have to swear to emphasize your point.
It sounds like your argument is, "MS is the dominant suite, so it will set the standards." You realize that industry standards -- as opposed to defacto standards -- exists in order to prevent that very scenario from happening?
If by features you mean stuff like INK, which as already mentioned is included as a description inside OOXML, or things like autoSpaceLikeWord95, then I consider that a good thing.
BTW, autoSpaceLikeWord95 being deprecated isn't sufficient. Deprecated means it's been superseded by other functionality and shouldn't appear in new documents. However, as part of the standard an application still needs to be able to properly interpret it, and thus at the very minimum it should be stated what tags and settings apply the same functionality.
I'd love to hear what you mean by, "accessibility for the disabled." The only thing I can think of here that isn't simply an application feature is perhaps including an embedded audio of the entire document; but that's overkill. There are plenty of text-to-speech converters that operate on plain text, and hence those can be built into the application itself and simply interpret the text of the document. Switching to a larger text size -- a zoom feature or similar -- also has nothing to do with the document. In short, as my understanding goes, accessibility is a function of the application. However, if you care to give examples, I'd consider their merit.
ODF 1.2 has spreadsheet formulas and is being submitted to ISO. See here. Not ISO right now, perhaps, but still an open standard.
ISO Calls For OOXML Ceasefire
If I spat in someone's face at a bar and then realized he was three times my size, a heavyweight boxing champion, and very angry with me I might be calling for a ceasefire too! Especially when he stands up and asks someone to watch his drink for a minute.
You can't attempt to take the high road after you've crawled in the mud. Try again.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
No one else will create a commercial implementation, either due to the impossibility of following the "standard" or patent issues with the "standard".
MS will win the majority of these bids, or in reality, continue to be the vendor for these rollouts. We will be in the same shape as now. We will still be asked to exchange in Office formats because that is what "everyone else" is using. In the end, ODF does not gain any traction because MS is already in place.
Either that or government agencies and large corporations:
1) wake up and realize that in spite of OOXML being a "standard" that it really promulgates vendor lock in (which is the opposite of why you want a standard in the first place!)
2) care enough to do something about it
3) Have the Will to defy MS to do so (remember what happened to the government employee in Massachusetts?)
Which scenario do you expect to happen, truthfully?
Maybe in 10 - 20 years it may change, or there may be a "sea change" sooner if we reach a tipping point but I would tend to doubt that.
Excellent response to a clear incident of astroturfing. I completely agree. Unfortunately, MS shares a great deal of the responsibility that forced other industries to switch to Word. Fortunately, there are a few industries, like law, that have been far more resistant to the pressure MS has placed on them to switch.
INK has no business being part of a document format. It's an image format
Exactly wrong...
Ink is NOT an Image, this is why preserving it IMPORTANT.
This is the level of understanding that makes people 'create reason' to cut off their nose to spite their face.
Industry x bought a ton of MS software and so is dependant upon its quirks. Rather than do a Google search to determine that 'INK' is a proprietary clone of SVG,
Right here is where I and most other readers realize you are insane and have no freaking idea what you are talking about.
Since when does SVG handle pen pressure, angle, stroke speed, direction creation? When did SVG implement character recognition based on this data? Ink is more than an image or even the data stored that created the Ink, it is an ecosystem of handling the Ink in both graphical and textual contexts at the same time.
I work in health care technology and I have never heard of the INK standard. (A quick search shows that Google has never heard of it either...).
I call shenanigans. This may exist as some proprietary obscure standard (and it probably deserves to die).
Not sure how you could be in the medical field and never heard of TabletPCs, Ink, or EMR, heck maybe you don't work in the medical industry.
However, I would assume you knew how to use Google, but apparently that is outside your capabilities.
Here is the first five or so search results. Go educate yourself, at least learn WTF EMR is. Maybe you might want to do this before you post in the future before you jump into a converation that is apparently over your head and call someone a liar.
http://www.medicaltabletpc.com/
http://www.doctorsgadgets.com/forum/medical-tablet-pc-forum/
http://www.medscribbler.com/electronic_medical_records_tablet_pc_emr.html
http://www.softwareadvice.com/medical/tablet-pc-emr-medical-software-comparison/
http://www.funponsel.com/blog/archives/2007/02/22/c5-tablet-pc-medical-professionals-must-have/
If you want to debate, please try minding your language. It takes away from your argument when you feel you have to swear to emphasize your point.
Ok, not my argument, but this is the smallest minded comment I have read in a while.
If you think particular 'letters/words or sounds combined together in a specific order' is somehow bad or negates someone's intellect, then you should immediately go find a shrink and find out what the 'heck' is the matter with you.
BTW, autoSpaceLikeWord95 being deprecated isn't sufficient. Deprecated means it's been superseded by other functionality and shouldn't appear in new documents. However, as part of the standard an application still needs to be able to properly interpret it, and thus at the very minimum it should be stated what tags and settings apply the same functionality.
Exactly, and there ARE reasons for this. We already have 15 years of documents in Word format, that will NOT be converted because they are ALREADY archived for many reasons. This is also why there is deprecated functionality to 'interpret' WordPerfect file format contexts as well in OOXML that Word originally supported years and years ago, when WP was the standard being archived.
So we should just abandon all these documents, and all the WP documents because?
If you think you are going to get the FBI, or the CIA or any Large organization to open up all their archives and convert them to ODF (and lose features and formating), you are out of your mind.
MS at least 'understands' the need to preserve the need to read achived formats from this point in history back, and is trying to prevent the versioning mess from stoping from this point forward. Textual format prior to this already were fairly standardized.
If you go back to Office 2000 when MS moved to XML, you will find they did so for specific reasons to keep older formats viable and try to establish a standard format at that time. Just like they tried with RTF years and years before and like they did with XHTML, which did get accepted.
ODF is late the game and still doesn't support features word processors from 15 years ago were using, and we are not even just talking about Word, but how about placement features of AmiPro, or WordPerfect 5.5 and 6.0 features that ODF can't even preserve. How can anyone in their right mind want to stand behind a format that can't even preserve the textual context let alone the layout of their documents?
...has little bearing on the here and now and what they have become and what they are trying to protect. They've shattered what they stood for to placate the behemoth. Screw em, I don't care what they did. We can come up with another standards body and I know I'll keep ranking them over this issue and over including locked down patents as a "standard", that needs to change as well, that's disgusting. I just don't care how things used to be, this debacle is a serious and profound game changer, and unless they do a fast 180 and dump ooxml and publicly apologize and run some serious non joke and credible investigations on who influenced whom and how...they can go to hell as far as I am concerned.
Sorry, I am hardcore over this and microsoft's just insistence of turning to crap everything they touch. They should have been broken up, their stock made worthless, and the physical plant and assets sold at auction years ago over all the BS they have pushed. They've gotten off way too light for all their crimes. "Too big to fail" like those rip off thieving investment banks in the news who are getting bailed out by inflating the dollar to worthlessness.. nuts! I think companies like that aren't too big to fail, they are too big to be allowed to exist, yank their corporate charters, dang vampire corporations that can't be killed no matter what they do, it is hideous.
Every single solitary stinking time they get another chance to be righteous dudes they crap all over people. It's hardcoded into their corporate DNA or something. Now they have ISO looking like another one of their vomit puddles. You can defend them or the ISO process all you want, I'll condemn them. Like I said and I'll repeat, they make diebold blackbox hacked voting look like fair and honest elections. They make the MAFIAA look like benevolent honest businessmen. Just take a gander across the web at all the techboards, maybe 1% think this deal with them and ooxml is OK, the rest of the people are dissin them roundly because they deserve it, and now they are trying to justify their actions, just making things worse.
Microsoft "INK" is funny as it is a decedent from "Pen Windows" which was inferior to "Go Computing" at the time. Microsoft's monopoly allowed them to threaten OEMS and have them abandon support for Go's platform.
Nice theory, it doesn't support reality. I was a senior partner of an OEM company at this time that provided software and equipment for several pen computing markets. (One of our software projects from the time is still in use on the Space Station.)
First, today's INK from MS is only descended in terms of it is the same type of feature.
The INK technolgy is completely different, has different features, functions, and meets different standards based on the change in computing power and needs of TabletPC application innovations.
Go Computing? Really? Don't even try to argue MS used its monopoly, as people choose pen computing for Windows because they could USE THEIR EXISTING DOS AND WINDOWS APPLCIATIONS.
Have you even used the Pinpoint OS supplied by Go Corporation? It was crap... Grid would have been a better example as it was DOS based, but again, they failed because of the Windows Boom, BEFORE MS was even close to being a monopoly.
Nice revisionism, next time know you are trying to fool when making crap up...
http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/B/E/0BE8BDD7-E5E8-422A-ABFD-4342ED7AD886/InkSerializedFormat(ISF)Specification.xps
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Nice theory, it doesn't support reality. I was a senior partner of an OEM company at this time that provided software and equipment for several pen computing markets. (One of our software projects from the time is still in use on the Space Station.)
A little too vague, nothing to confirm or deny anything.
The INK technolgy is completely different, has different features, functions, and meets different standards based on the change in computing power and needs of TabletPC application innovations.
How is it different? How is "TabletPC" "innovation" different than Go Computing's Tablet?
Go Computing? Really? Don't even try to argue MS used its monopoly, as people choose pen computing for Windows because they could USE THEIR EXISTING DOS AND WINDOWS APPLCIATIONS.
The original Go computing was a unified memory space that used the virtual memory mapping of the 386/486 32 bit mode to make one large memory space. It was totally different and incompatible. And, unlike "PenWindows," it actually worked.
Have you even used the Pinpoint OS supplied by Go Corporation? It was crap... Grid would have been a better example as it was DOS based, but again, they failed because of the Windows Boom, BEFORE MS was even close to being a monopoly.
I used one of the first large form tablet computers and had digitizer instead of a mouse on my system.
When Go Computing was making headway, microsoft announce "PenWindows" and threatened toshiba, and toshiba had to drop support for Go. PenWindows disappeared from the SDK disks soon after Go was gone.
Nice revisionism, next time know you are trying to fool when making crap up...
I don't make stuff up that I post, you may have a different recollection of history than I, but one can only testify from their perspective. I probably still have my 1.44 Go SDk floppies.
Last I check, there were no calls to convert EXISTING, legacy documents to any new, open standard.
However, if your saying that the OOXML standard automatically includes these legacy documents -- ie, those documents are part of the standard -- then you still need to explain how those tags map, rather than just move them to the legacy section and leave them unexplained.
If they are left unexplained, then it still falls that Microsoft is the only company that can fully implement the standard in order to read the legacy documents, and ergo it is not an open standard.
Actually, I find it easier to take someone seriously when their argument doesn't have to resort to colourful metaphors simply to get their point across.
I'm sure using those particular "letters/words or sounds" while talking to a police officer, for example, would affect that persons opinion of you.
Not that I'm putting myself on that level, but if you're trying to say that it doesn't matter I believe it can be shown it does matter.
Similarly, I cringe whenever I notice a grammatical mistake in any of my posts.
"Last I check == Last time I checked"
Similarly, I cringe whenever I notice a grammatical mistake in any of my posts.
Wow, so you judge people on whether they run their posts through a word processor or just type on the fly, knowing that simple errors happen to all mortals?
It is nice to know I can disregard your comment based on your lack of properly using an apostrophe in [persons] since by your standards I should assume you are an idiot.
Maybe you should support OOXML and actually use Microsoft Word for your posts in the future, I'm sure it would alert you to these errors and your level of ignorance could be hidden from the rest of us.
*Smile*
P.S. If you think profanity would skew what an officer thinks of a person or would offend them, then you under estimate their intelligence as well.
Last I check, there were no calls to convert EXISTING, legacy documents to any new, open standard.
Then you haven't been paying attention for over nine years, as this is why Microsoft moved document formats around in 2000 because virtually the entire IT/Business community wanted legacy support standardized.
However, if your saying that the OOXML standard automatically includes these legacy documents -- ie, those documents are part of the standard -- then you still need to explain how those tags map, rather than just move them to the legacy section and leave them unexplained.
Ok, the person that posted above me, complained because the standard says they 'have' to implement these legacy import qualifications (which is NOT true) and hated OOXML for that reason. Now you argue these are not documented (which is also incorrect) and now you use it as a basis for you to hate OOXML.
So which it, people hate it because it has legacy readability support or people hate it because the legacy readability features are not required or documented?
Which version of the truth will you or someone go with next to support your 'personal' disdain for OOXML and try to create reasons to hate it to satisfy your emotion beliefs?
Hey, maybe you could argue you hate it because Dolly Parton didn't write it, and you only listen to her music and the rest sucks?
Geesh...
This was almost taken seriously until I saw this point... OOXML is a zip file too. Do your homework better, astroturfer.
ODF allows for extensions as well, you know.
There is a difference between compressing the entire document to minimize its footprint and creating references to tons of 'separate' zip content to try and provide a hack level of extensibility like ODF does.
I don't care if they RAR the freaking content, OOXML is one document structure that 'internally' stores even binary and extraneous data, it doesn't have to resort to packaging up what is not understood like ODF does into ZIP files and leaving it up to the developers to handle or even properly retain this information.
ODF and adding non-standard content via ZIP files is a hack at best, and goes HORRIBLY wrong when you try to create content in the ZIP files that tie back to the structure or text of the main document.
For example, imagine a Sound file that links to the text of the document, and if you play the sound file, you can reference the word spoken with the text in the document or INK. Now imagine this with ODF and you throw this into a crap developer's application that isn't bright enough to even consider this, and any modifications break the document completely.
This EXISTS and is used by tons of users everyday in the Windows and TabletPC world, yet it is 'magic' or outside the 'norm' for people here? WTH? If would be different if these were theories or conceptual uses, but this is stuff that people store and use in documents and have for five years or so now.
Contextual linking not only would apply to Sound, or Ink, but even simple things like revisions and markup, which is something that is even more widely used than freaking Ink.
If ODF is going to be a document standard, then they better become a freaking document standard and support what is in use today, including linked non-textual content.
How is it different? How is "TabletPC" "innovation" different than Go Computing's Tablet?
Go search for TabletPC on YouTube, you have no freaking idea how different it is, how the application paradigm changed with the concepts of TabletPCs or how it is used in Vista by anyone with a Wacom tablet.
There is a big difference in the platforms based on the computing power available alone, like instant and background recognition and seamless text/ink integration concepts (invented by the Word team around 1998) just to begin an explanation.
Go look at the surface computing and multi-touch technologies previed at TED a couple of years ago, these are concepts that also radically are and will change computing and user interaction and the TabletPC technologies and MS Ink were as big of a shift as well. (BTW -Yes the iPhone copied the multi-touch UI from the TED presentation almost exactly.)
When Go Computing was making headway, microsoft announce "PenWindows" and threatened toshiba, and toshiba had to drop support for Go.
This is made up crap. Give me a reference. because I remember the Toshiba support decisions a LOT differently.
Windows 3.x was picking up tremendous market share during this time, that no one predicted, and SEVERAL Manufactuers dropped Go because they didn't want to be locked into a non-standard OS like PinPoint when they could bring to market a better user product that ran all the current DOS and Windows applications in existence along with new Pen applications.
Pen Windows didn't die as soon as you think it did either. We were supporting Pen Windows users at GM and EDS up until 1996/1997.
I fail to see how killing OOXML will send people back to the 90s when, as of 2008, there aren't any implementations of it. Scientists and engineers will be quite happy to continue using TeX whether or not OOXML lives or dies.
Maybe the researchers and engineers I know are just more 'hip' than the average, as they like having a TabletPC they can jot down notations on instead of hacking together cryptic syntax to create the same formulas and expressions.
And this isn't 2008 technology, Vista has native Ink support going back to 2006, and TabletPCs (XP Based) have been around for five or six years...
So are you saying that an OOXML compliant application is supposed to be able to interpret the legacy formats?
To me, it sounds like your saying OOXML is necessary because it can interpret those formats. Then, you turn around and say it's not necessary to implement the very features that would interpret that legacy format. Which is it? You haven't really provided an answer.
In either case, can you please answer the question of what exactly autoFormatLikeWord95 means -- without referring to word95 in the answer.
I think you misread my comment. I specifically said I cringe when I notice a spelling or grammar error in MY comments.
:).
Spelling and grammar errors I'm fine with as I'm guilty of them too -- typos happen and are typically accidents. Only my own bug me.
Profanity simply rubs me the wrong way and requires a conscious choice to include it and adds nothing to the point being made. It may not be fair, but it was how I was raised: profanity is a sign of disrespect when you're trying to make a point.
I'm not quite sure how a document format supports proper grammar, as you seem to suggest. Seems to me that's a function of the application and can be implemented quite separately from the document format the application uses.
*smile*
My web browser includes a decent enough spell checker, and I could extend it with a grammar checker if I wanted to.
I actually have a few officer friends, BTW -- from speaking with them, they do prefer people to at least be polite to them. It makes their job easier. Of course, the tone of the profanity is more easily interpreted in speech, of course, as opposed to text
I don't usually pay much attention to Microsoft standards since they always tie you to their OS and this appears no different.
As far as INKs utility in health care, I would put it somewhere south of useless. When you need to capture health information, it needs to be semantically structured to be meaningful. Otherwise is it pretty much useless. Free text has been proven time and again to be extremely difficult (impossible) to convert to medically meaningful information. INK is one step below free text since it must be translated from pen strokes to free text (and then free text to semantically correct information).
BTW, my original post said nothing about EMR. I assume you were just trolling for cheap points there. For the record, I actually designed, programmed, and implemented an EMR (about 20 years ago) and currently work on implementing several other EMRs so I do have some knowledge of the subject. None of these use Microsoft Tablet PCs for obvious reasons.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
you have no freaking idea how different it is, how the application paradigm changed with the concepts of TabletPCs or how it is used in Vista by anyone with a Wacom tablet.
Again, you are not saying *what* is different, I see no appreciable difference in the table paradigms. Sure, 15 years is going to show some improvement, but "Go Computer" was functional 15 years ago while "Pen Windows" never worked.
Give me a reference. because I remember the Toshiba support decisions a LOT differently.
As anyone knows, it is hard to find details and references on this sort of thing, but it is well known, and a SOP or Microsoft to to use the carrot vs stick approach to threatening OEMs especially back then before the DOJ.
You may wish to believe something different, but I know what the Go people told us when their Toshiba deal fell apart.
Again, you are not saying *what* is different, I see no appreciable difference in the table paradigms. Sure, 15 years is going to show some improvement, but "Go Computer" was functional 15 years ago while "Pen Windows" never worked.
1) Do your own freaking research, I'm not your professor, I have enough people that I teach and have to worry about 'getting it'.
2) Go Computer was less function than Grid, and that was less functional than Pen Windows. The fatal flaw in all of them was Ink was non-existent except as a 'drawn' image. Recognition attempts were horrid, and on-screen keyboards were the only real interaction. (Here is a hint for your research on #1 - Today, on-screen keyboards are hardly ever used.)
As anyone knows, it is hard to find details and references on this sort of thing, but it is well known, and a SOP or Microsoft to to use the carrot vs stick approach to threatening OEMs especially back then before the DOJ.
This is NOT well known or even accurate. I have owned and worked with several OEM providers, one being a very large early Mail Order company that placed slightly behind Gateway and Dell. Our company that worked with pen computing in the early 90s was 'never' even approached by Microsoft, except when they would offer free demonstrations, ask for input on technology, or provide deployment tools.
Even the 'great' monopoly of Microsoft 'pressuring' OEMs is a HUGE freaking myth. Companies like Dell and Gateway, etc. all took advantage of 'excusivity' contracts to get OEM copies of Windows Cheaper. This started happening around the Windows 95 timeframe, and it was their decision to sign the contracts or NOT. IBM offered almost the SAME EXACT contracts for OS/2 at this time, as it was COMMON and still is COMMON to an extent to shove exclusive deals at better pricing.
This is also why you saw TONS of WordPerfect Office bundles in the Mid 90s, as they signed 'cheap' exclusive offers with Novell/Corel. However, MS never had 'exclusive' Office deals, and yet Office won the freaking war during this time frame as WP Office was crap, that could barely run 5 minutes without crashing or losing information.
So these companies picked up a 'good' deal from Microsoft, and they also were able to 'standardize' their technical support as they didn't have to worry about support OS/2 users, etc. It was a win/win for the OEMs, but screwed the consumers.
So who is to blame? The freaking greedy OEMs. Especially considering the OEM exclusivity deals with Microsoft for Windows only saved about $5 per copy of OEM Windows. Sure that adds up, but at what cost of screwing their customers and limiting their options? And again it made their driver and technical support much easier as they had a base platform to work with. (You know how Apple does now, and everyone loves them for it?)
Our OEM companies were forbidden by myself and active managers from doing exclusivity deals with Microsoft because we still offered consumer choice. Although 99.9% of all our systems were still Windows, based on consumer demand, we did have a few early *nix systems, DOS systems even, and of course OS/2 in the general consumer product lines. It cost our companies about $5 more per copy of Windows, but it was still worth it in the end, as we weren't ever tied or held hostage to Microsoft.
Microsoft also didn't try to force the exclusive deal down our throat, in fact it was only offered in general terms in a couple of meetings and in some OEM documentation, other than that our Microsoft connection people treated our companies like gold even without the exclusive deals, and even one of our smaller companies that bought OEM product from Merisel and Ingram Micro.
We had the same OEM relationship that Dell or any other OEM had, and could call on Microsoft at any time.
So I am tired of the fairy tale that MS forced exclusive contracts, or did anything outside the NORM. If it was bundling practices that made their success, then WordPerfect would be the sta
Do your own freaking research, I'm not your professor, I have enough people that I teach and have to worry about 'getting it'.
Because I disagree with you does not mean I am wrong or that I haven't done the research.
Go Computer was less function than Grid, and that was less functional than Pen Windows.
That is where we have seriously differing opinions. "Go Computing" worked, PenWindows did not. I used both, and with a little practice, Penpoint could read my writing and gestures. PenWindows was a joke.
Companies like Dell and Gateway, etc. all took advantage of 'excusivity' contracts to get OEM copies of Windows Cheaper.
This is absolutely 100% true, but you neglect that if they did not enter into these contracts, Windows would be more expensive and give their competition who did sign the agreements an advantage. This is the carrot and stick approach that I spoke of and is documented in court documents in the anti-trust trials.
We had the same OEM relationship that Dell or any other OEM had, and could call on Microsoft at any time.
I find it hard to believe that you say that with confidence because, as was evidenced in the anti-trust trial, that the OEM contracts were under NDA. How could you know?
So I am tired of the fairy tale that MS forced exclusive contracts, or did anything outside the NORM.
"NORM" in a competitive environment is different than when you have a monopoly player involved. The undue influence and pressure makes a huge difference, there is no competitor to turn to if you are being treated poorly, you shut up and take it. That's why exclusivity contracts are illegal for a monopoly. Also evidenced in the anti-trust trial.
I'm sure they were hurt and bitter, but it was ultimately Toshiba's decision, and MS didn't have enough of a Market share even in the general OS market at the time to do any type of 'pressuring'.
I'm not sure *when* you think the monopoly happened, but it wasn't merely the date of the anti-trust conviction, it was a long period of time leading up to it.
In my recollection, I think it was evident around the time that IBM AT came out. When the 386 came out, it was clear that no other ISV could compete, with profitability, against Microsoft's anti-competitive actions.
The whole reason free software competes is that there is no requirement of profitability for a large number of the system components. Most of the development is done by foundations and shared.
but you neglect that if they did not enter into these contracts, Windows would be more expensive and give their competition who did sign the agreements an advantage.
No, I addressed this issue specifically. Note where I say the incentives of the exclusive contracts ONLY saved the OEMs about $5 per copy at the most for Windows, and gave them NOTHING else.
The OEM connection and partner channels were the same, no matter if you were a mom and pop OEM, a medium size OEM, large OEM or someone like Dell that signed Exclusivity contracts. All companies had the SAME relationship channels, and having the 'exclusive' contract gave OEMs NO MORE access to MS or anything every other OEM in the world could not obtain. The exclusive contracts only allowed them to save money and later produce the media themselves, etc.
So, as a TINY company you would pay $5 more, and still had the same level of MS offering and support. PERIOD.
And all it took to become an OEM partner was to buy a SKU of Windows OEM (These were 5 Packs), and sign up as an OEM through MS or the distributor.
In my recollection, I think it was evident around the time that IBM AT came out. When the 386 came out, it was clear that no other ISV could compete, with profitability, against Microsoft's anti-competitive actions.
You need to go back and take another look at the dates here. Windows/386 was NOT successful at all, and Windows 3.x was successful in home markets. Windows didn't get business class adoption until Windows 3.1/3.11, as the Novel client software was still DOS based, and by the time it loaded and Windows 3.0, there wasn't much room left in the 1024K area, since Windows 3.0 was 16bit. Windows 3.1 had 'Windows' netware clients available, and Windows 3.11 had native networking built in. (Windows 3.1 was also 16bit, except for the 32bit HD access modes that would bypass DOS and BIOS completely for better Paging and Caching performance.)
The 386 had NOTHING to do with MS in either context, or timeframe, or in the ISV world. NT was and (is) Microsoft's 32bit OS, and it didn't gain real competitive success until NT 4.0 in 1996/1997.
The Microsoft 'activities' you talk about that were testified to by Netscape, etc all played out in the Windows 95 timeframe for the most part, as it wasn't until the 1994 timeline that Windows 3.x became highly dominent.
So I'm not sure why you are questioning my 'memory' of the MS monopoly case, but you are the one that has this off by MANY YEARS.
The only governemnt pressure against prior to this was the WP/Novell inquires started by Orin Hatch, also from Utah, and was a direct response to the loss of marketshare WP and Novell had taken, and they were NOT desktop OS vendors.
They also screwed themselves, as MS tried to work with both companies, and Lotus when Windows was gaining some home market popularity. MS begged WP to create a Windows version of their product, as they did Lotus, even going as far to offer developers from MS to work with directly with WP or Lotus for FREE to assist in the process at any capacity they thought would be useful. WP and Lotus had the market, and told MS to go pound sand.
It wasn't until this point that MS even went back to Word and Excel, as they originally didn't run on Windows 3.0 (being Windows/286 applications). The original ports were going to be basic, which they were, and didn't work any better. After WP and Lotus flipped off MS, they put money into Word and Excel as they knew Windows was going to need basic office tools if it was ever going to be successful. Hence the building of the complete 'Office Team' at Microsoft.
Sadly when WP did create a Windows version (late after losing and screwing over customers), they wrote their own 'printer driver' stack, and bypassed all the standard OS APIs for printing, and even by passed many of the OS Memory allocation APIs, etc. Then when their product crashed and worked horribly, they got Orin Hatch to bitch slap MS around in Washington.
So
So I will repeat...
"So which it, people hate it because it has legacy readability support or people hate it because the legacy readability features are not required or documented?"
To me, it sounds like your saying OOXML is necessary because it can interpret those formats. Then, you turn around and say it's not necessary to implement the very features that would interpret that legacy format. Which is it? You haven't really provided an answer.
Actually I did... These features exist in OOXML, are documented, but are not required for new applications to create content. So if the developer 'wants' to provide the ability to read 15 year old MS Word documetnts, they can, as MS has documented it fully and is providing the information for them, but NOT requiring it.
(People have yelled for MS to provide this information for YEARS, and now that they do, some people bitch because the information is 'there', and get on a rant thinking it is required for implementing the standard. Even Office 2007 itself doesn't transparently treat legacy document formats as OOXML, it converts them using the functions Microsoft documented.)
So like I said, people get pissed because MS didn't provide the information, and other idiots use it as an excuse to pretend OOXML is more complicated than it is and spread FUD about implementing converting 15 year old documents.