The decision has been made. Sweden is going to vote for Microsoft’s format (OOXML) as an ISO standard format.
I got the news here (after hearing about it from Micke), but a more detailed explanation can be found here (and that is in english too!).
Apparently you could just wals in to SIS (who has spent some time and money investigating wich standard would be best for everyone. That time and money was wasted.), buy a membership and the right to vote for 17000SEK (what is that, 1700USD?), then accept the bribery money from Microsoft and vote for their format.
And it was all according to the rules. Noone apparently saw this coming.
I’m not sure what this actually means for me. Probably that I will have to keep my Windows installation and keep making programs in Microsoft Visual Studio, since I won’t be compatible with our customers otherwise.
I just hope that I will never have to install Vista. It’s rejected by Microsoft fanboys for crying out loud!
But. Will it also mean that authorities will put all their documents on their websites in a format that my Open Office can’t read? Will I have to choose between buying Microsoft’s office or wait untill I can get my stupid forms by mail? Wouldn’t that be stupid?
OOXML is not about programming or development.
It’s about the Office and making sure that Office is the dominant solution for office-style applications, and also forcing the user to continually upgrade since Microsoft will be “improving” the format and thus making it incompatible with earlier versions of itself. It’s essentially the DOC-format but a lot worse.
If it’s established as a standard it will compete with genuine open XML-derivatives and since most corporations are fucking retarded they will of course go with Microsofts “open” formats instead. It’s essentially the old embrace-and-extend procedure that Microsoft has been doing for two decades.
Perhaps I shoul have explained what I meant. If you are locked to an operating system due to other standards, chances are you are going to use other products from the same company that locked you in. Because you don’t feel locked in. You feel like everyone else is just uncompatible…
I was thinking of kind of a butterfly effect I guess. And it will probably mean that other coorporations (our customers) will NOT change their operating system to GNU/Linux in the near future… =P
I always feel saddened when people don’t understand why open formats and standards are vastly superior to proprietary formats and standards.
Personally I don’t care if people prefer MS Bloatware or FOSS, as long as they understand the difference and why FOSS will eventually outnumber proprietary solutions.
But to blindly accept what Microsoft does and says, that is in my opinion just as bad as the people who back in the 30’s nodded and thought that the Nazi-party had some valid points — you have to remember that the source of the opinions isn’t exactly unbiased!
OOXML is a proprietary format linked to a company with a long, long history of predatory practices. It’s sad to see that institutions aren’t as objective and critical as they should be. The rules for the vote were clearly flawed if the only base for it was whether or not you had purchased yourself into it.
Well SIS was. But the new members (that I bet will never set foot there again (unless there is money from Microsoft to earn from it)) was not… Bleh. Stupid world. I’m going to bed. And I’m going into my nice fantasyworld where everything makes sence.
Yay.