Gates says 'open' a favorite word

[Fenyx]

Imagine waking up to find this in akregator:

http://news.com.com/2061-10805_3-605...2013&subj=news

Gates noted that the new group, to be known as the Open XML Formats Developer Group brings together three of his favorite words--"open," "XML," and "developer."

It's almost like what Microsoft's Bill Hilf said before:

http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/...2?OpenDocument

Hilf is director of Microsoft’s platform strategy applications group, the technical team that works with Linux and other open source initiatives. “We’ve been in open source software for years”, he said, over an audio-conference link aided by slides.

Doesn't that just make your day?

Oh, and for those who are following the ODF vs OpenXML battle for standards recognition, here's a scoop from Groklaw:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?s...60321163230297

I wonder if maybe Microsoft is worried it's still not fast enough to beat ODF, because the company has just joined the group in the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) that decides if ODF is ready to move forward in the ISO process.

Imagine that? And this is after, time and agian, MS has refused to cooperate with ODF in anyway.

Microsoft has stepped up from its usual FUD tactics, to a more subtle, but potentially more dangerous, EEE strategy.

Be afraid... be very, very afraid.

[askrieger]

Re: Gates says 'open' a favorite word

They were still in FUD mode when they mobilized several impoverished charities serving the blind to fight the Massachusetts initiative to mandate the use of office software meeting ODF standards by claiming that Oo.o was not compatible with Braille readers or text to voice s/w that worked with M$ Office. They also got the state government head of IT thrown out because he had accepted free trips to open source conferences to discuss the Mass. initiative. But the state is going ahead with it anyway.

[Fenyx]

Re: Gates says 'open' a favorite word

Found an interesting read through Linux.org. It's an interview with Bill Hilf, the man in charge with the Open Source Lab in MS. I'm not going to post my comments/thoughts so that you could read the article with no biases. You decide what to believe.

http://www.computerworld.com.au/inde...0;fp;16;fpid;0