[OpenISO] RTF vs OOXML

[Norbert Bollow]

Henrik Sundberg <storangen at gmail.com> wrote:

> Interesting comparison:
> http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/12/those-who-forget-santayana.html

Thanks for posting this link.  That's definitely an important point.

Suggested text follows.

I've also written up a related point about the anticompetitive effect
of introducing a seconf document format standard; suggested text is
further below.

--snip---------------------------------------------------------------
Microsoft's attempt to essentially unilaterally dictate office
document standards is an abuse of their dominant position
====================================================================

Problem description:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Normally standardization is conducted by means all interested parties
participating in a discussion of the desired features, so that all
interested parties have an essentially equal opportunity to develop
products implementing the standard.

By contrast, OOXML is simply documentation of the document format that
Microsoft's products already use, and there is no indication that
Microsoft would intend to make the details about future versions of
OOXML available to competitors before Microsoft is ready to release
their own implementation of the new features for public beta testing.

Expected impact:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To the extent that OOXML is accepted as a standard, all of Microsoft's
competitors will be encumbered with a permanent economic disadvantage.

Possible solution:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Reject all claims about OOXML in some way being a standard, and take
legal action, on the basis of national and international competition
law, against Microsoft as well as against Ecma and all other
organizations which are guilty of aiding and abetting Microsoft's
anticompetitive actions.

--snap---------------------------------------------------------------

and the other point:

--snip---------------------------------------------------------------

Harmfulness of having competing office document standards
=========================================================

Problem description:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It is generally beneficial to have a choice between multiple tools for
any given given purpose, because different tools are likely to be
optimized for different purposes.

While in some areas of standardization it is beneficial to have
several competing standards, with each of the being optimized for a
specific set of application cases, that is not the case in the area
of document formats.

If there are two document format standards, tools will have to either
support only one, or they have to support the complexity of both plus
the the complexity of dealing with the fundamental differences between
the two.  Microsoft certainly hopes that due to their dominant market
position, the tools developers will focus on OOXML.

Expected impact:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To the degree that Microsoft's push for the acceptance of OOXML as a
standard is successfull, it will result in seriously increased costs
of software development and support among all businesses which do not
submit to Microsoft's desire that OOXML should be the preferred
document format.

Possible solution:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Reject all claims about OOXML in some way being a standard, and take
legal action, on the basis of national and international competition
law, against Microsoft as well as against Ecma and all other
organizations which are guilty of aiding and abetting Microsoft's
anticompetitive actions.

--snap---------------------------------------------------------------

Greetings,
Norbert.


-- 
Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch>                      http://Norbert.ch
President of the Swiss Internet User Group SIUG    http://SIUG.ch
Working on establishing a non-corrupt and
truly /open/ international standards organization  http://OpenISO.org