Published May 22, 2007, this comment was written in the aftermath of List Enhancement Proposal donnybrook at the ODF OASIS TC.
It was at the height of our List Enhancement battle with Sun that OASIS stepped in their threat to boot the OpenDocument Foundation. OASIS carried out that threat in May. The lesson we learned is clear and unequivocal. Opposition to Sun, in either the marketplace (da Vinci) or in the OASIS ODF TC, can be quite hazzardous to your health.
Not that this comes as any surprise. Nearly five years ago in 2002, when i first joined OASIS to work on OpenDocument, it was clear that OASIS was a big vendor consortia. While OASIS does have an affordable "Lawn Jockey" program, Sun is clearly calling all the shots on the OASIS ODF TC. This is why ODF is bound so tightly to the OpenOffice feature set.
Still, we thought the "Lawn Jockey" loophole could be used to balance out the interests and control of the OASIS big vendors. We were wrong. And it took near five years for the obvious to finally sink. Well, "sink in" thanks to the OASIS hammer and boot.
It was at the height of our List Enhancement battle with Sun that OASIS stepped in their threat to boot the OpenDocument Foundation. OASIS carried out that threat in May. The lesson we learned is clear and unequivocal. Opposition to Sun, in either the marketplace (da Vinci) or in the OASIS ODF TC, can be quite hazzardous to your health.
Not that this comes as any surprise. Nearly five years ago in 2002, when i first joined OASIS to work on OpenDocument, it was clear that OASIS was a big vendor consortia. While OASIS does have an affordable "Lawn Jockey" program, Sun is clearly calling all the shots on the OASIS ODF TC. This is why ODF is bound so tightly to the OpenOffice feature set.
Still, we thought the "Lawn Jockey" loophole could be used to balance out the interests and control of the OASIS big vendors. We were wrong. And it took near five years for the obvious to finally sink. Well, "sink in" thanks to the OASIS hammer and boot.
~ge~