non-standard standards
Apr. 1st, 2008 02:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lordshipmayhemIf the counts that everyone is keeping across the Internet right now are accurate, Microsnot has managed to utterly destroy the International Standards Organization.
If they do so, they have also managed to completely FUBAR any attempt to avoid a massive Microsnot Office monopoly the likes of which we've never seen.
The issue: the 8,000 page proposed standard for MS OOXML document formats. There are enough hooks on those 8,000 pages to preclude anyone from legally using this format except MS Office 2007, or possibly converters for Office 2003 or XP, that was a joke, ha ha, fat chance. And of course cautious government bureaucrats the world around will fall on this with relief. They're nervous about choice, and prefer situations where they can point to a single "standard" that also involves paying money to someone who will be guaranteed to take the fall if the software corrupts the data. (BTW, read the End User Licence Agreement (EULA). Microsoft will refund you the cost of the software if it makes your data go bye-bye. So much for that "guarantee".)
It doesn't matter whose data you're talking about. Your private stuff. Your work's stuff. Your government's stuff. It will all belong to Microsoft. You will have to buy their software to read it, to manipulate it.
Ballot irregularities are unheard of in ISO history, but with this they've been reported in:
- Norway (Technical committee voted 80% against the spec. That was interpreted for the official vote as "Yes")
- Germany (Nobody allowed to vote "no", you can vote "Yes", or "Abstain", which we'll count as "Yes, but with reservations")
- Poland
- The Czechs
- Portugal
- South Korea
- Britain
- The Phillipines
- The United States
And elsewhere. I'm hearing less accounts of voting irregularity from Zimbabwe right now than from the ISO. Even with that, the vote just squeaked by.
At present, there are two formal complaints, in Norway and upcoming in Britain.
I have never felt more disgusted with humanity than I do right now.
If they do so, they have also managed to completely FUBAR any attempt to avoid a massive Microsnot Office monopoly the likes of which we've never seen.
The issue: the 8,000 page proposed standard for MS OOXML document formats. There are enough hooks on those 8,000 pages to preclude anyone from legally using this format except MS Office 2007, or possibly converters for Office 2003 or XP, that was a joke, ha ha, fat chance. And of course cautious government bureaucrats the world around will fall on this with relief. They're nervous about choice, and prefer situations where they can point to a single "standard" that also involves paying money to someone who will be guaranteed to take the fall if the software corrupts the data. (BTW, read the End User Licence Agreement (EULA). Microsoft will refund you the cost of the software if it makes your data go bye-bye. So much for that "guarantee".)
It doesn't matter whose data you're talking about. Your private stuff. Your work's stuff. Your government's stuff. It will all belong to Microsoft. You will have to buy their software to read it, to manipulate it.
Ballot irregularities are unheard of in ISO history, but with this they've been reported in:
- Norway (Technical committee voted 80% against the spec. That was interpreted for the official vote as "Yes")
- Germany (Nobody allowed to vote "no", you can vote "Yes", or "Abstain", which we'll count as "Yes, but with reservations")
- Poland
- The Czechs
- Portugal
- South Korea
- Britain
- The Phillipines
- The United States
And elsewhere. I'm hearing less accounts of voting irregularity from Zimbabwe right now than from the ISO. Even with that, the vote just squeaked by.
At present, there are two formal complaints, in Norway and upcoming in Britain.
I have never felt more disgusted with humanity than I do right now.