[Linux-aus] [Osia-discuss] Tax office - Open Source policy

[Paul Wayper]

On 07/09/09 16:24, Daniel Pittman wrote:
> No, not at all.  What Sridhar is almost certainly referencing here is the way
> that ISO tolerated Microsoft railroading, stacking, and otherwise abusing the
> process of defining their own OOXML standard as an ISO standard.

A standard that Microsoft has also said they do not intend to adhere to nor to 
keep in the future.

OOXML was Microsoft's way of gaining the "ISO standard" badge for MS Office as 
a direct competition to ODF being an ISO standard.  The whole process from 
start to finish was a way of getting back on the table with government 
departments and organisations that said "we won't accept anything that isn't 
an open standard, e.g. ISO".  Now that they've got it, they couldn't care less 
about it, it's just another sticker on the box.

It says a lot that Microsoft is now working on building ODF support for MS 
Office, after years of them saying that ODF was 'technically inferior' and 
'couldn't support all the features of [their own formats]'.  And it says a lot 
that ODF compliance is now checked by a large and increasing body of reference 
documents, rather than just a "does it load" check.

Have fun,

Paul