This link has been bookmarked by 1 people . It was first bookmarked on 09 Feb 2008, by Gary Edwards.
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09 Feb 08
Gary EdwardsIf ever there was a discussion thread of consequence at the OASIS ODF TC, the "Enhanced List Proposal" donnybrook is it. This is where the ODF interoperability nightmare burst into the daylight of a showdown vote. The interop issues were clear. OpenDocument TC members voted between interoperability and/or application specific innovation. Application specific innovation trumped interoperability. Again.
And what a sad day it was. The thing is, the recent ECIS antit trust action against Microsoft comes at the request of IBM and Sun. They allege that Microsoft is violating standards requirements for interoperability, and has launched a series of corrupt activities to push through a non interoperable standard. They are right. Microsoft is guilty. The problem is that Microsoft can easily point to Sun and IBM activities at OASIS ODF, and make the same allegation! Using this thread as evidence!</p>\n\n<p>Furthermore, this thread is evidence that if Microsoft had tried to implement ODF, their efforts to establish interop would have been met with the same response from IBM and Sun that the OpenDocument Foundation received. Or so they could argue.
Houston, we have a problem.
IBM and Sun could have fixed the ODF interop problems at any time during the past five years. Yet, the world is waiting. Meanwhile, this will full negligence and lack of desire to address pressing market needs for full interop has served to hold the door open for OOXML. And now these negligent acts look to be the basis of a Microsoft counter claim.
Oh well ..-
Oh, my. Both IBM and Sun voted for the proposal that broke the Foundation's plugin that was going to add full-fidelity native ODF file support to Microsoft Office. So it's sounding to me like at least two of the TC members who voted for the Sun/KOffice proposal didn't check in with the ECIS lawyer before they broke interoperability with Microsoft Office. Do you think Microsoft won't use this evidence in the DG Competition antitrust proceeding, Michael? Let's see, you guys are prosecuting Microsoft for not supporting ODF in Microsoft Office while you block Microsoft Office from supporting ODF. Yeah, I think DG Competition is going to hear about this one from Microsoft. They'll probably hear about what you said about compatibility being a trade off too. Oh, yeah. Microsoft's lawyers are going to love this. Look at the ECIS public statement about interoperability's importance.
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