Microsoft's Behavior in the Standards Process for OOXML

I have been reading for weeks now, that Microsoft is manipulating the ISO standards process to get OOXML approved, and I find what I am reading to be disturbing and ethically wrong! Microsoft seems to promote a culture within the company that says, "Don't explicitly break any rules, but use any leverage possible to get what we want". This reminds me of many discussions I have had over the course of my career about the legality of something versus whether what was being done was ethical. The law doesn't cover all aspects, and doesn't define ethics in and of themselves. It's up to individuals and the leadership of companies to define what is and what is not ethical, and apparently Microsoft uses only the law to determine its ethical values. This is a real shame, and is truly a sad state of affairs for a company with so much power in the software industry to behave the way they behave. So what have they been doing that is so bad?

Well, let's enumerate everything I have seen:

• Using individual countries standard body's rules to add new members that are Microsoft business partners, so they can stack the vote in their favor.
• Preventing new members to these same countries body's that they know will not vote to approve OOXML.
• Using the rules, within the voting process, to make it so that the comments do not get forwarded with the vote to the JTC1 committee of the ISO.
• Giving misleading information about the JTC1 committee process, so that countries will not vote "No, with comments", and instead will vote "Yes, with comments".
• By the way, if a country votes "Yes, with comments", Microsoft is not committed to actually fix any issues raised by the comments. They can simply address the comment by logging that nothing will be done.
• Giving misleading information about the voting deadlines, thereby possibly preventing some countries votes from being counted.
• Telling certain countries that Microsoft's educational programs in their country would be adversely affected if they didn't vote yes.
• Calling heads of government agencies to pressure their representatives to vote yes.

While no one has done anything illegal, at least not that we know of yet, Microsoft is crossing an ethical line that shouldn't be crossed.

Instead of being able to sell OOXML as a standard worth considering on its merits, they are subverting the standards process, albeit within the rules, which are very lose, because they know that the standard does not really meet the requirements to become an official ISO standard without that subversion (see my previous post on whether OOXML is open or not).

If OOXML, becomes an ISO standard, it will forever damage the standards process that we rely on to create a truly competitive landscape in the market. Microsoft may have won, but we have all lost, because we will never again be able to trust any standards produced through this process again!

Glimmer of Hope for Desktop Linux?

In the last week or so, I have read three different articles that talked about different government agencies that are banning Microsoft's Vista operating system, along with other Microsoft products in some cases. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is the latest, and this follows the US Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

So, what makes this a glimmer of hope for desktop Linux. Well, at least in one of those cases, the FAA, is seriously looking at a combination of Linux desktops with Google's new enterprise applications as a replacement for Windows and Microsoft Office! When you combine this type of interest with other government initiatives to adopt open standard file formats, you can see a glimmer of hope that the Microsoft lock is being broken by some large government agencies.

You could say, so what! It's only some public sector organizations! What makes this a glimmer of hope, in my mind, is the carry over affect it could have on the private sector.

If enough government agencies start adopting open technologies like Linux and ODF, then the private sector companies that have to do business with them will have to adopt technologies that inter-operate. This in turn loosens the grip that Microsoft has on a larger portion of the market.

I sincerely hope that these government organizations aren't just bluffing to get concessions out of Microsoft. With large scale adoption of open technologies, such as Linux and ODF, we will all be better off. True competition on the market for desktop operating systems and applications could become a reality someday.

Is OOXML Open as Microsoft Claims?

Microsoft recently posted an "open letter", complaining that IBM is not in favor of open standards, and that they are all hypocrites. It is noted that IBM was the only one to vote no in the ECMA process for the standardization of OOXML. I find this to be disingenuous to say the least.

Microsoft claims that OOXML is open because of its acceptance as an ECMA standard. In my opinion, that hardly makes it open. The rules by which ECMA standards are created are very loose indeed, and I don't blame IBM one bit for voting against it. I just can't believe that everyone else involved didn't vote no too!

File formats have become an interesting topic of conversation, ever since ODF (Open Document Format) came on the scene. Before ODF became an OASIS and ISO standard there were no open standards for office document formats. With Microsoft controlling the majority of the market for office productivity applications, their proprietary file format has been lock-in heaven for them, and lock-in hell for their customers.

ODF threatens to break that lock-in, and free customers to choose alternatives, without the problems associated with proprietary file formats (lost formatting, can't edit with a different application, etc.). So, Microsoft had to act to protect its franchise, because they simply are afraid to, or maybe they can't, compete on the quality of their implementation of office productivity software. Of course, it would also commoditize the market, and drive down prices. With Office being almost half of Microsoft's profits, that's a hard pill to swallow.

With that as the backdrop, is OOXML truly open?

The short answer is an emphatic NO!

The reason for this is simple. The specification clearly references proprietary Microsoft Office technology that cannot be implemented by anyone other than Microsoft. Truly open standards, need to be able to be implemented by anyone that desires to do so, and this is simply not the case with OOXML.

Without the ability for competing products to implement the file format, Microsoft can claim to have an open standard file format, and keep the lock-in they have enjoyed for years. As they say in the Guiness commercials, "brilliant!".

Of course, I hope the ISO will put an end to this charade, and vote this down as an ISO standard. That is the only just thing that can happen. If Microsoft gets away with this, Microsoft will have won again, and the joke is on us.

What's the old saying? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!

Well, if the ISO members are fooled into accepting OOXML as a standard, it will not only be the shame of the ISO members, but a shame on the entire world!