"Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"

[henke54]

Rob Weir has an eye-opening report on how the Microsoft-stuffed committee implementing fixes to OOXML is extending the "standard", which turns out to be not exactly standard, to better conform to Microsoft Office 2007, and without following usual procedures. That is utterly backwards. Normally, vendors work to make their products conform to the standard, and it's very unusual for a "standard" to be made to conform to one vendor's proprietary product. I want to reproduce the article here, because it is an object lesson, a timely one.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?stor ... 2810072196

[Hagar de l'Est]

Wow! Hadn't thought of that. Was it part of the plan from the beginning???

That's quite nasty.

[henke54]

That's quite nasty.

Talking about 'nasty' :

But make no mistake, if the real version 2 of the European Interoperability Framework is anything like the one discussed above, with its pathetically devalued definition of openness, and its espousal of the risible “openness continuum”, it will represent a huge setback for the use of free software in Europe, and a major boost for closed-source software producers and the patents they all-too often claim there - even though software cannot be patented “as such” in Europe.

So now might be a good time to start making a noise about this and spreading the word just in case the EU *is* on the brink of making such an ill-advised move....

http://www.computerworlduk.com/communit ... &blogid=14