A Few Facts As Antidote Against Microsoft’s anti-ODF FUD Campaign

“First, I’d like to show you who voted Yes to approve
OpenDocument v1.1 as an OASIS Standard in January of 2007. ODF v1.2
is already being adopted by some now, of course, as development has
continued, but Microsoft chose to stick with v1.1, so let’s do the
same. I think you’ll find the list dispositive as to who is sincere
in this picture. Next time you read some criticism of ODF, then,
you can just take a look at the list and ask yourself what it tells
you. And if you are a technical person, here’s ODF v1.1, so you can
compare any claims of deficiencies. Here’s Groklaw’s chronicle of
the OOXML/ODF saga, where you can find many resources, including a
chronology of events from 2005 to the present.

“ODF v1.1 is the version that Microsoft chose to “support” in
its latest Office SP2, which Rob Weir pointed out doesn’t seem to
actually achieve interoperability, when others — even Clever Age,
which Microsoft funded — do. In fact, it seems to be moving in the
opposite direction. Rather than fix the problems that have surfaced
by responding to what is essentially a bug report, Microsoft
chooses to attack the messenger and ODF, going so far as to call
for Rob Weir to step down as co-chair of the ODF Technical
Committee. Is the penalty for disagreeing with Microsoft a smear
campaign and loss of a job? I remember what Tim Bray told us
happened to him:

“”In 1997, as a result of signing a consulting contract with
Netscape, I was subject to a vicious, deeply personal extended
attack by Microsoft in which they tried to destroy my career and
took lethal action against a small struggling company because my
wife worked there.””

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