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Microsoft makes more code public - International Herald Tribune

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 02:45:03 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

"Today's announcement is still all about the rest of the world interoperating with Microsoft on Microsoft's own terms, not the other way around," said Thomas Vintje, a lawyer representing the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, a Brussels-based group representing Microsoft competitors like Adobe, Nokia and Oracle, which brought one of the new complaints that led to the current EU commission investigations of the company. "The world needs a permanent change in Microsoft's behavior, not just another announcement," he said.

Tags: anti-trust ecis eu odf ooxml

Posted by: garyedwards

EC on Microsoft Interoperability Declaration: Is It April Fools’ Day Already? | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 00:26:35 -0000

Thomas Vinge, the counsel for the ECIS, comments on Microsoft's most recent restatement of their enduring commitment to interoperability and transparency.

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

“We have heard high-profile commitments from Microsoft a half-dozen times over the past two years, but have yet to see any lasting change in Microsoft’s behavior in the marketplace,” ECIS Legal Counsel and Spokesman Thomas Vinje said in a statement.

Tags: ecis interoperability microsoft odf ooxml

Posted by: garyedwards

Wizard of ODF: The Foundation on Interop and the List Proposal Vote Deadline

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 06:05:55 -0000

If ever there was a discussion thread of consequence at the OASIS ODF TC, this 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 wha ta 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 interoeprability, 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 Microsof tcan easily point to Sun and IBM activities at OASIS ODF, and make the same allegation! Using this thread as evidence!

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 recieved. 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 willfull 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 llook to be the basis of a Microsoft counter claim.

Oh well ..

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

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.

Tags: anti-trust ecis foundation odf ooxml opendocument openxml

Posted by: garyedwards