Microsoft on Interoperability (with sideswipes to IBM)

February 16th, 2007 gier

There was this one time, at this organisation called the Organisation for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) where a bunch of people from various places would gather on and offline to discuss e-business standards. These people were/are from the likes of BEA, Adobe, IBM, Dell, Boeing, Nokia, General Motors, Red Hat and Microsoft. See their Sponsor Organisations page for the list.

Upon visiting their site, the first thing you’d think of may be, “I wonder if I can download “Don’t Look Back In Anger” in mp3 format?” If that was so, then you have to have another think which would probably go, “Hmm … I think this ain’t about Oasis, the band.” Followed by, “Wow! These dudes have a lot of standards.”

In amongst those standards is one called Open Document v1.0 (plus another one below it, v1.1). Long before it became Open Document v1.0 (now generally referred to as ODF), it was called the OASIS Open Office XML Format or something similar[1]. The way these guys work in developing the standards is by having Technical Committees (TC), and for the pre-ODF standard, a bunch of those guys got together in a TC to do it. The TC included Sun Microsystems, National Archives of Australia, Boeing and a bunch of other people[2]. One rather conspicuous absence in the TC was Microsoft.

So, after some time, their Open XML thingy became the ODF which then became the ISO 26300 standard. You don’t have to pay anyone to use the standard, nor ask for permission. Take it, use it, implement it, whatever.

Our friends from Microsoft, who elected from the very beginning to NOT join that TC, then got very stroppy. They campaigned, complained, whinged, lobbied and generally made a nuisance of themselves to whoever would listen that the ODF/ISO 26300 thingy is not good. This mealy-mouthed whingeing had recently culminated in a open letter on the 14th of February, more or less aimed at IBM. In that letter, two Microsoft GMs complained that their efforts to have their own open XML standard is being undermined by IBM (and other paragraphs to justify Microsoft’s actions and how much love they’ve been getting from everyone else, apart from IBM — which, by the way, used to recommend Microsoft Windows XP for their desktops and Thinkpads back in the day when they used to sell them).

The long and the short of it is that Microsoft is upset that IBM is fully supporting ODF which was developed within a TC that they (i.e. Microsoft) chose not to be in and that IBM is not giving them love by supporting the Microsoft document standard. In other words, after choosing to not co-develop a single standard that everyone can use (for free, without having to pay anyone, without having a reverse engineer anything, that is perpetually available, etc.), Microsoft in now upset that some people are choosing to not support ANOTHER standard (which is free, without having to pay anyone, without having to reverse engineer anything, that is perpetually available).

After all, from Microsoft’s perspective, any standard that is not their standard is not very interoperable, since they have elected not to use it. It would mean that their customers cannot interoperate with other people’s customers. In Microsoft’s universe, there wouldn’t be any interoperability issues … because everyone would be using their software. Because every customer is Microsoft’s customer.

And there are all these bunch of people in this organisation which they themselves are a member of that is trying to stop them. “Not fair,” says Microsoft. “We want everyone to play with our toys only.”
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[1] I don’t recall exactly and am too lazy to wind through the old mailing list archives.

[2] I really can’t remember now, since this thing started in 2002.

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