Microsoft… again

Here’s another Groklaw article on recent Microsoft tribulations. This really is starting to get disgusting. It’s not that I hate Microsoft, I don’t. What I hate is their attitude, and their business practices. Everyone else - I mean everyone - makes software that interoperates with other vendors. Microsoft, even after a billion dollar fine, won’t. Everyone else uses open, industry-accepted standards. Microsoft doesn’t. Many other vendors open up their code. Microsoft tried to make some vague gesture to, but makes it incompatible with GPL’d code (okay, okay, I know about ZFS…) and says developers can only use it in non-commercial projects. So they open a few things up to hobbyists, and want a pat on the back. It boils down to how they treat customers and developers. Not very well. I don’t like that. I’m not going to start on the technical aspects of Windows, though it seems to be getting better, a baby step at a time. But the bottom line is that Microsoft actively tries to turn the software industry into a facist dictatorship, where you do it Microsoft’s way, or you’re taken out back and shot (ok, bought up and then shut down).

Anyway, from the blog of Zeheda Bhorat, Open Source Programs Manager at Google,

Google believes OOXML would be an insufficient and unnecessary standard, designed purely around the needs of Microsoft Office.

How can it be that the ISO - the International Organization for Standardization - would actually consider a second, competing standard for document formats. And one that’s as flawed as OOXML? These guys are the ISO. They practically run the world, at least technically. Why don’t they have the balls to look Microsoft in the eye and say, “Hey, moron. We already have a document format standard. It’s called ISO 26300. If you want to have anything to do with the ISO, which sets standards, you can take your 6,000 page specification, put it through a crosscut paper-burning radiation-producing shredder, pay the $320 for a copy of ISO26300, and implement it!”