Fishing License

[Lyvim Xaphir]

On Fri, 2006-05-12 at 12:58 +0100, David Fletcher wrote:

> 
> What I found to be very amusing indeed is that
> 
> 1) $soft is not going to support ODF in $soft Office, presumably to 
> force people with existing office format files to continue paying tribute.

That's correct.

> 
> 2) Now that ODF has been ratified as an ISO standard, $soft has 
> submitted it's own XML format to ISO. How the hell do they think they 
> can justify a double standard for document formats? We don't have 
> multiple standards for the kilogram, metre or second for example. 
> That, I think, is what standards are all about.

You are missing the point.  This is not a new tactic, they have been
doing this for years; witness what they tried to do with html.  They are
fully aware that adhering to the standards would be to your benefit,
allowing you the luxury of choice.  What they truly seek to do is to
DENY you the luxury of choice.  The only way they can do that is by
creating their own standards, which A) nobody else is going to use or B)
nobody else is going to be *able* to use.

It's nothing less than a war being waged against the Linux community.
This is just one level of this war, there are many levels; like the
propaganda level.

> 
> 3) The ODF Alliance has apparently produced a plug-in that works with 
> all 32 bit issues of $soft Office, that enables Word, Excel and 
> PowerPoint to do File-Load and File-SaveAs with ODF. Which nicely 
> negates whatever $soft is trying to achieve in 1). I wish I could 
> have seen Bill's face when he heard about that one!
> 

You can bet that he's got laywers working on it right now.