When adults act like kids or how Microsoft sullys the standards process
In a mere eight days (March 29, 2008), the vote for the fast-track of ECMA-376 will have to be concluded. In the APAC region, the Participating (“P” member countries) countries are Australia, New Zealand, China, India, Korea, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore. Back in September 2007, Australia and Malaysia abstained, while Singapore voted to approve, and the rest, voted to disapprove.
So, will there be a change in votes, come eight days? India, has chosen to lead the pack and say that they still disapprove (much kudos to Venky for this information).
I’ve largely not followed the debate, but seeing Doug Mahugh’s blog posts, and how he seems to act rather immaturely, I can only hope that PIKOM, and naturally SIRIM look at the previous abstain vote, and decide to change it to a disapprove. Naturally, that’s not the only reason (that in itself will seem childish) – its just that the OOXML specification seems largely incomplete, despite the 8,000+ pages that exist out there (I’m including edits in the specification in that number).
Now, back to the real point of this. I challenge an adult to read, the following entries, and tell me if Doug doesn’t seem childish:
- PIKOM Meeting in Malaysia – Note the misinformation on the “IBM’s side”. It seems that Microsoft views that everyone anti-OOXML must be from IBM (its not only this blog post, I’ve spoken to Microsofties who utter the same corporate line). How untrue. This is not an IBM agenda against Microsoft – please wake up. Please do read the comments, because its really useful to the entire blog post
- An “open standards” meeting in Malaysia – This one takes the cake, clearly. I simply love the conspiracy theory on how Doug was removed from the meeting. Problems with Yoon Kit and Ditesh not showing up on time, and them waiting 30 minutes? Sure, it was bad form to be late, but being late happens everywhere, even in the US, Doug. I’m surprised that he also adds Madam Tan (from MAMPU) into the conspiracy mix. Its just an amusing read, something that maybe you’d have read in a Nancy Drew novel, when you were eight.
Naturally, one must read Yoon Kit’s response to all this childishness. Its interesting (but not surprising) to see that Microsoft goes through great lengths, to sully the standards process. But Yoon Kit brings up an interesting point.
Can someone, not from the nation, participate in a standards discussion, with having the nation’s interest at heart, over their companies interest? I believe its generally impossible. Its similar to applying to go work in the military/army – the requirements are simple, in that you have to be a citizen of said nation. After all, in war, where do your loyalties lie?
Anyway, the next eight days will be interesting. But if you’re to look at the antagonist behaviour in that blog post, I am just so glad that no matter what happens in the next eight days, MAMPU has opted to drop Microsoft Office from their stable of machines by year’s end, and the government agencies can only follow suit, and back ODF. Naturally, I’m hoping from an abstain to a disapprove, but I shall not count any eggs before they hatch (this analogy seems weirder, during the Easter vacation).
And… if you believe the Microsoft FUD about OpenOffice.org 3.0 supporting reading/writing of OOXML, and support should equate to a standard, that is an untruth. OpenOffice.org needs to support file formats that are out there in the wild. It supports reading from WordPerfect 5.1 documents (via libwpd), does that make WordPerfect’s document format a standard? No.
The opinions here in no way reflect the opinions of my past, present, or future employers. Standard blog disclaimer applies to this post.
Technorati Tags: brm, ecma-376, ooxml, odf, india, doug mahugh, standards, document formats, pikom, sirim, yoon kit, opendocument, microsoft
Hi Colin,
As you’re probably aware from the post you linked to above, Yoon Kit had suggested that Microsoft should attend the TC4 meeting through our relationship with IASA. He now says that he meant another Microsoft employee should attend instead of me, but his suggestion was on a thread on the topic of me getting together with him, so I attended the meeting.
Yes, he got me rather angry and annoyed when he claimed my attempt to take him up on his offer was somehow inappropriate. I’d have not bothered to attend if I knew he was opposed to me doing so.
As for the PIKOM meeting, CJ Ang of PIKOM sent an email on Tuesday last week to Hasan Saidin of IBM and Dr. Dzahar Mansor of Microsoft, asking each of them to invite a 5-person delegation of their choosing to argue for and against the DIS29500 standard. The fact Hasan invited various people from other companies (as did we) doesn’t change that fact.
– Doug
Doug,
You can try to twist and turn but the facts are as clear as daylight.
My email to Oliver states that :
1) Microsoft should try to ask SIRIM for permission for Microsoft’s voice to be heard
2) IASA’s representation in TC4 could be an avenue – send Aaron Tan, so Microsoft’s PoV is directly represented (not by a “proxy” like Yuk Wai).
http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/03/the-elephant-in.html
Did your Microsoft Malaysia team even try to get the OK with SIRIM/DSM the presence of a vendor at TC4? Never in my emails did I say I invited you, nor do I even have the ‘power’ to invite you in the SIRIM process.
Regards,
yk.