Long read, but a very good explanation of what happened with the MA ODF requests and Microsoft.
Posted on 10/17/2005 10:04:34 AM PDT by ShadowAce
Long read, but a very good explanation of what happened with the MA ODF requests and Microsoft.
Too effin long to read in one FR session.
I'd miss the remainder of the WOT by the time I finished.
Bookmark.
On a public forum such as this with a number of non-technical readers, maybe less detail would get more readership.
That said, MS attempted to extend it's monopoly into the document standards, but the bottom line is that MS formats are secret and not open source. MS HATES standards that they cannot control and corrupt, that's what their anger is about.
The article got a major part of the issue correct - the MS monopoly stifles innovation and destroys jobs. The Mass. decision begins to address this.
Still sounds like europoodles or maybe some old Politburo discussion. The commune mentality will hurt them in the long run. If I want to use Excel and I'm an analyst in an important agency, it is a moronic decision for some political doofus at the state capital to decide that I have to use some open source garbage instead.
And this is different from collusion in what way?
Seriously, I skimmed for while and then skipped to the end because this thing is at least three times as long as it needs to be to make the point. The parts I read reek of anti-Microsoft bias.
OK, so the author doesn't like Microsoft. Fine with me - choose what you want to use. But making it sound as if one state government action portends the end of the world as we know it is just the sort of stuff anti-Microsofties have been recycling for years. Meanwhile Microsoft just keeps on selling software and making a lot of money.
I have my own reasons to be dissatisfied at times with Microsoft. On the whole, I find them the best alternative out there, albeit with plenty of warts. But viewing the purchase of software as a galactic battle means somebody is taking something far too seriously.
That has long been sort of true. But if it's that bad, why do so many products read and write those formats?
Microsoft consented to do an XML format with a published spec in the next version, to satisfy people like those in Mass. (The current version exports to an XML format, but the next product will use XML native).
As for Microsoft stifling innovation and destroying jobs, that's poppycock. Hundreds of thousands of people have jobs because of Microsoft. And the old charge of "stifling innovation" is a standard complaint of those who didn't get their pet ideas adopted by the masses.
I hate it when a story confuses open standards with open source. The two co-exists independently. Just because a piece of software is open source, that does not make its file formats open standards. Similarly, just because a file format is open standard, does not mean that only open source software can read the file format.
HTTP is a great example of something that is an open standard, yet both proprietary and open source browsers can work with it.
Of course, Microsoft could easily fix that by meeting consumer demand and adding ODF support.
When I was in the Army at trench-level, we'd be ordered to do things I thought were stupid. "What the hell are the officers thinking?" The extra work or hardship seemed meaningless. Then I started working at battalion, then division, then command headquarters, and I realized that there can be goals more important than the convenience of the guy in the trench. You have to make sure he can still get his job done, but it has to be done in a certain way because of the larger goals.
That was argued nowhere in the article.
This is a chronicle of how Microsoft found itself on the outside looking in when MA chose to utilize the ODF to an extent that Microsoft didn't support it .
Recent information out of Bellvue suggests Microsoft is reevaluating support for ODF in Office 12.
Forms consumers are anxious to leverage the ODF in their data harbors. A lot of money is being spent to make forms the ubiquitous recordset.
Because like WordPerfect before, it is a de facto standard that must be reverse-engineered for compatibility, and you need that compatibility for people to use your software. I guess Microsoft realized that obfuscation of the format doesn't work, so got some patents to protect it instead.
Microsoft consented to do an XML format with a published spec in the next version, to satisfy people like those in Mass.
They did it because XML is a big part of their overall strategy, and aside from doing proprietary things with XML (thus blowing the whole point of it), they have some good ideas. See what SQL Server 2005 does with XML -- pretty cool.
>> larger goals
The largest here is to appease M$FT competitors who are handing $$$ to the politicians...
The largest is to finally reverse a trend, that the government is beholden to its vendors, and therefore the people.
Whew!!!! Thanks for breaking it down...bless you.
So basically, the State of Massachusetts is again making decision contrary to the interests or view of their citizens. For being a monopoly themselves (they co-opted democracy for their own convenience), they just don't like competition from another monopoly.
You're right--it would be. But that's not what's happening here. MA is the customer. It is requiring certain elements to be present (or not present) in future IT document formats for its own use.
How is it contrary to the interests of its citizens?
Huh? They are putting state documents in a format that anyone has the right to create software for *INCLUDING MS* please explain to me who this is against the interest of their people?
For being a monopoly themselves (they co-opted democracy for their own convenience), they just don't like competition from another monopoly.
MA in no way owns ODF so what exactly are they being a monopoly of?
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