3/24/2024 0 Comments Adobe cc 2018 anticloud![]() ![]() In short, they disserve citizens who demand cost-effective solutions for their hard-earned tax dollars. We believe such preference policies exclude choice, needlessly marginalize successful marketplace options, and curtail merit-based selections for state procurements. is a biased, open source only preference policy. The statement in question manages to twist the news that Massachusetts is calling for an ODF plug-in for Microsoft Office - an eminently sensible thing to do, which the open source world is keen to support - into some kind of act of desperation. With his customary sharpness, Andy Updegrove skewers a particularly nasty piece of lobbyist punditry. I doubt whether there will ever be a non-Microsoft program that supports fully its own XML format: there will be no choice, just lock-in under a different name. There are now a number of programs supporting ODF, with more coming through. What Microsoft glides over, of course, is that the choice is within the standard. Note the clever way that settling on one standard - rather like HTML, TCP/IP and the rest - suddenly becomes a way of "limiting choice". This campaign to stop even the consideration of Open XML in ISO/IEC JTC1 is a blatant attempt to use the standards process to limit choice in the marketplace for ulterior commercial motives – and without regard for the negative impact on consumer choice and technological innovation. To save you ploughing through all the MS prose, here's the key sentence: So the latest missive, entitled "Interoperability, Choice and Open XML" is actually about lock-in, lack of choice and closed XML. The trick to understanding them is to realise that they always mean the opposite of what they say. They are essentially corporate Freudian slips writ large, because they expose the real hopes and fears of the company, far from the more controlled environment of conventional PR. I just love it when Microsoft feels moved to write one of its open (sic) letters. Which, of course, is exactly what Microsoft is hoping to achieve with its sudden rash of generosity. In the latter case, all the benefits of open standards are lost, and the status quo is preserved. But the flaw in this argument is that choice has to occur around the standard, through competing implementations, not between standards. It's a shrewd move, because at first blush it's hard to argue against having choice. The point being, of course, that if you have lots of competing standards, then the one with the largest market share - Microsoft's - is likely to have the advantage. ![]() Given that it can't shut out ODF, and there is a danger that Microsoft's OOXML will not be selected alongside it, the company is now pushing very hard for as many standards as possible: the new mantra being "Choice is Good". So I think Microsoft has decided to cut its losses, and go for a very different approach. Indeed, it risks being locked out completely, as more and more countries opt for ODF only. Microsoft is now faced with the prospect of losing its monopoly in the office sector. And where governments lead, local business will follow. That strategy has failed: ODF is being chosen or is on the brink of being chosen by more and more governments around the world. Until recently, its approach was to try to block ODF at every twist and turn: the last thing it wanted was another standard - much less a truly cross-platform, open one - to join the club of approved formats. I think I understand what Microsoft is up to. The company on Monday is expected to announce that it is sponsoring an open-source project to create a converter between Ecma Open XML-a set of file formats closely tied to Microsoft Office-and a Chinese national standard called Unified Office Format (UOF). Recently I was bemused by Microsoft's espousal of ODF, and now here we have the company spreading more joy: ![]()
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