ZDNet: Microsoft: We Were Railroaded in Massachusetts on
ODF
“Warning. If you read any further, you will find yourself at
ground 0.0 of the biggest battle the computer industry has ever
seen. It is where the biggest warriors from the proprietary
software world, the open standards world, and the open source world
are engaged in hand-to-hand combat. At least for the moment, the
open source and open standards worlds (the Rebel Alliance) appear
to have joined sides against the proprietary warlords, led by
Microsoft. Both on and off the field (where negotiators have failed
to broker a truce), the engagement has not been pretty. But this is
war. For the first time in the battle’s history, the Rebel Alliance
has dealt the warlords a stunning blow…”
Consortium Standards Blog: Microsoft Says “Maybe Someday” on
OpenDocument
“Has Microsoft drawn a line in the sand on OpenDocument support?
I had thought so when I wrote the Feature Article for the September
issue of the Consortium Standards Bulletin. Among other things,
Mike Pryke-Smith, Microsoft Office marketing manager, had been
quoted in June stating that Microsoft would not open its formats up
to a standards body, citing backwards compatibility issues as a
reason for wanting to keep formats under its control.“But apparently there is some flexibility on OpenDocument, and
in truth Pryke-Smith made this point last June in the same Computer
Business News Online article…”