I think Micro$oft is claiming that if OOXML is NOT declared a standard,
a large black hole will devour the Earth. Or maybe it will rain for 40
days and 40 nights. If they DO make OOXML a standard, it will alleviate
Global Warming, bring Peace to the Middle East, and enable the Tooth
Fairy to raise her rates to $5 per tooth.
In other words, typical Micro$oft FUD.
From everything I have read (everything except M$ press releases, that
is) OOXML is a terrible, awful, hideous "standard" filled with junk like
"this function should format like the 1996 3.7.1.8beta2 release of
Foosoft's Foowriter" when Foosoft went out of business in 1997 and the
last known copy of Foowriter source code was erased in 1999. SERIOUSLY,
from all I have heard, it is FILLED with "specifications" that fail to
specify anything. It was created using handwavium and balonium!
It is so vague, it leaves LOTS of room for M$ to say, "Oh, well, what we
meant was ..." and then do things any way they like while still claiming
to "conform" to the standard. Which, of course, is just what they want
-- the ability to change things periodically so everyone has to buy
their new release! They DON'T WANT a standard at all, but the next best
thing is as many contradictory and confusing pseudo-standards as possible.
Jim Hartley
William Case wrote:
Hi;
I have been following this thread with some interest.
I have a curiosity question.
On Thu, 2007-09-13 at 21:00 -0400, James Knott wrote:
John Meyer wrote:
Harold Fuchs wrote:
The problem for Microsoft is that many governments and other
institutions around the world are insisting on using ISO standards. If
OOXML is not an ISO standard, it'll be ineligible. Since MS refuses to
use ODF, the only way they can sell to those organizations is to have
OOXML declared a "standard". It's quite obvious from the published
spec, that OOXML is simply an incomplete description of the way MS has
done things and is tightly tied to Windows and MS Office. It also
contains many significant bugs, such as claiming 1900 is a leap year.
It's beyond me why a new standard should carry around such baggage.
Putting aside the obvious benefits to Microsoft of having OOXML declared
an ISO standard, can or does Microsoft make any claim that there is an
additional benefit to the user when using OOXML? If so, how true might
that claim be?
--
Teen Angel - a ghost story - http://teenangel.netfirms.com
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