Microsoft pledges (yet again) that it wants to be interoperable
Summary: Microsoft's "significant" announcement on February 21 turns out to be not so significant at all. Microsoft is promising -- for the umpteenth time -- that it will share all the protocols and programming interfaces needed to allow interoperability between its products and others.
Microsoft's "significant" announcement on February 21 turns out to be not so significant at all. Microsoft is promising -- for the umpteenth time -- that it will share all the protocols and programming interfaces needed to allow interoperability between its products and others.
Why is Microsoft going through the motions yet again? It's all about next week. From February 25 to 29, ISO is slated to hold a long-awaited ballot-resolution meeting regarding whether or not Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) document format should be awarded ISO standards status.
On February 21, Microsoft pledged that it will adhere to four new "interoperability principles." The four:
1. ensuring open connections 2. promoting data portability 3. enhancing support for industry standards 4. fostering more open engagement with customers and the industry, including open source communities.
Yes, this is from the company who has been using threats of potential lawsuits to try to deter customers from using Linux (unless it is a brand of Linux whose vendor has signed a patent-protection agreement with Microsoft). A company which had to be forced by the European Commission to open up its server-communications protocols so that Samba and others could make their products interoperate with Windows. And a company that recently published its old Office document formats because doing so was a an ISO request.
Microsoft is really pulling out all the stops to make sure OOXML gets the ISO standards nod. Losing lucrative government contracts here and abroad that require "open" standards would be no financial joke for the company.
I believe there are individuals at Microsoft who understand that interoperability is important to customers. But until Microsoft shows a real change in its behaviors around interoperability, I see pledges like these as little more than the same-old rhetoric.
What about you? Do you see anything new or tangible in Microsoft's February 21 interoperability pledges?
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Talkback
false promises
Microsoft is reaching out..thats always good
ground rules
Overly critical and unbalanced...
critical
If you do see something, I genuinely am interested in hearing more about what you see.... Thanks.
critical reply
Microsoft may be in a good position to head down the OSS road, but people are watching their actions now, not listening to their marketing department on this front. They have made some significant strides in opening up certain properties, and this shouldn't be discounted, yet there are also a remarkable number of qualifiers in most of the MS "OSS" licenses that make people leery of adopting their interpretation of open source.
One question and its the only one that matters.
Message has been deleted.
Wrong again, its never happened.
Why would you get all bent out of shape for them agreeing with the FSF?
Message has been deleted.
Don't bother reading No_Axe
Not The Only Question That Matters
Some people may find such factual review offensive, but the facts about Microsoft's past record speak loudest of all.
Surprise look who is defending MS! need only threaten suits - NT
M$ doesn't need a lawsuit to get what they want
Why do you think Apple had such a small market share for so many years? Why do you think Netscape browser got all but shut down?
The main reason they started suing the open source creators was because bribery didn't work. They weren't in it to make money to begin with, so MS had to hit them where it did hurt - licensing.
The real question is...
The whole question of "media bias" has been severely overplayed over the past 30 years are so. Balance and objectivity have their place in news reporting, but the important things are that people get an accurate picture of what's going on, that any opinions expressed are supportable, given the data, and that the goal is to inform and discuss, rather than to persuade. Objectivity is thus a means to an end, not the end itself.
Balance vs Fact
are some things which are impossible to balance. The
facts clearly support one side or the other. Mary Jo hasn't
actually said that they won't, she's pointed out that they
haven't followed through in the past, and is there anything
different about this particular time.
I agree with you Mary, I don't think anything has changed,
and it seems plausible that they're doing all of this in an
effort to get the ISO stamp on OOXML.
Reaching out ...
Reaching out like a strangler... the post is overly realistic for you? - NT
To be critical is part of her job desciption and we have heard
To believe all this and NOT keeping pressure up, is like a strong belief in Santa Claus.
"Ebrace, Extend, Extinguish"! Reaching Out 4 What? ;)
Microsoft lives by their "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" Corporate Doctrine that goes back to their very roots. Once a theif always a theif. Back in the Mid 90's M$ claimed they wanted to be interoperable. They crippled OpenGL on Windows to make it look bad. SGI challenged them by optomizing OGL for Windows themselves. They proved OGL ran as good or better than DirectX.
In XP and Vista they were back to thei old tricks with a crippled version of OGL and forcing Developers to not offer a choice between the two API's.
But now the Open Source Community and people from around the Globe have gathered to re-write the Interoperability Bible of OpenGL with Longs Peak and Mt Evans not just equaling DX10, but far surpassing it!
OpenGL, OpenGL ES and the whole family of OpenKode and other new API's means we'll have many API's that will Scale Applications and Games with little loss in Quality from very big to very small on every platform. With OGL ES comes Write to memory with 4 to 1 on the fly compression! ...what does that mean? Think about it.....less memory required...
Here's an eye opener from yesterday at GDC of what's in store in this Premeir set of API's! .....watch history being made with things like OpenMax putting PS3, Window CE, Windows XP and Windows Vista streaming to shame across all devices from PC's to Cell Phones. Streaming Multi-media like we've never seen before..... INSTANTLY!!!
http://www.khronos.org/developers/li...%20Feb2008.pdf
OpenVG will make life "READABLE" with vectored fonts from the tinyest Cell Phone Screen to Macs, Windows and Linux. Even PS3 will open up a whole new world in i's READABLE XMB, and HOME very soon!
Joke: "Turn Abouts Fair Play" ***OpenGL Family of API's represents a redistribution of Wealth of Resources (once horded over by just Microsoft) now handed out to the Masses for us all to play with!*** It's going to be a whole new world where Steve Balmer comes knocking on the door to play and it gets it slammed in his face! ....what's that Balmer??? "Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers..... Extend, Embrace, Extinguish the competition and Developers, Developers, Developers .....duh hey no fair, I'm about to be Extinguished!!!
....as Bill Gates begins to realize MONEY isn't everything, kneels at his bed in later life to pray, can be heard pleading (as he glances back over each shoulder in paranoia), "...and please dear lord, don't let "Open Source" be the death of me ....and a remember all te millions I've donated???". Then the Lord answers back for the 1000th time, "...hmmm I don't recall"!!! (as the screen turns blue) ;)
(hehe ...reminds me of Gates back in U.S. vs Microsoft....