IBM’s Rob Weir makes it clear… he wants war

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re: IBM’s Rob Weir makes it clear… he wants war

Jesper Lund Stocholm — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 17:59:41 GMT

Mike,

"You offer no evidence for IBM "packing the NBs with their allies""

Well - I didn't think that it was necessary ... what you are referring to as facts is also just hearsay.

"How can you possibly compare that to Microsoft's behaviour in, for example, Sweden where they had 20+ of their business partners sign up to the MOOXML committee at the last minute"

It is interesting that you say this - because what would you consider "appropriate effort" when joining an NB and voting? When joining on the last day is - in your view - not sufficient ... what is sufficient?

Btw: Please check out http://idippedut.dk/post/2007/08/Ja%2c-man-tager-sig-jo-til-hovedet.aspx where I wrote about the incident in Sweden. It is in Danish (sorry) but the last sentence says:

"Microsoft Sweden, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves"

Maybe you can have someone translate the article ... somone like Leif Lodahl, perhaps.

http://lodahl.blogspot.com/

/Jesper

:o)

re: IBM’s Rob Weir makes it clear… he wants war

Mike Brown — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 04:17:49 GMT

@Jesper,

Yet again, I say to you that lobbying and rallying allies, and offering up a large number of comments on a spec are perfectly legitimate tactics, however much you don't like them. (You offer no evidence for IBM "packing the NBs with their allies").

How can you possibly compare that to Microsoft's behaviour in, for example, Sweden, where they had 20+ of their business partners sign up to the MOOXML committee at the last minute, so turning the Swedish vote into a farce?

Microsoft even admitted the attempted bribery - a strong word, but really, what else can you call it? - of their Swedish partners to do this, after being exposed by a leaked email. (The company explained this away as the fault of a single local employee, who had contravened the company's policy). And yes, they also told the Swedish committee of the mistake, at the time. But they didn't ask any of their allies to resign from their new voting positions, did they?

Cheers,

-Mike

re: IBM’s Rob Weir makes it clear… he wants war

Jesper Lund Stocholm — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 13:25:35 GMT

Rick,

Thanks - it must be like joining a - not so secret - lodge :o).

Slandering aside - it's kindda fun ... otherwise I wouldn't be doing it. I am also happy to take "the Christian approach" and turning the other cheek, since it fosters humbleness towards the process.

It is also comforting to me to know, that not the entire OSS-community is as rabbit and aggressive as the most prominent members of the anti-OOXML-lobby. I have been so lucky to work with quite a few of them in the work I have been doing for the Danish National IT- and Telecom Agency and they have all - even though we might differ in opinion when it comes to the "one-or-two-formats"-discussion - been interested in taking the pragmatic approach and trying to deal with how to fix the problems of our customers.

It has been a really good experience.

:o)

What are you implying?

Rick Jelliffe — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 20:21:36 GMT

Jesper: Congratulations. You now join the enormous list of people slandered by these bullies. It happens to anyone who disagrees with them.

Unfortunately, now their enthusiasm for the mud bucket has lead them to the logical position where almost the entire world is corrupt: ISO, every NB who disagrees with IBM, every NB who change their vote to yes after a successful BRM, and so on.

So why are they so keen to alienate participants in the process if they want their position to prevail? The only answer I can come up with is that the bullies have little real interest in standards or the actual result. Their thing is all about marketing their brand (whether the brand is Open Source or IBM) and blackening the other guy's brand. If ISO's process is fair and allows through an MS-derived technology as a standard regardless of its source, just as with other standards, then ISO needs to be mauled as part of this attack-dog marketing. Attack dogs only see things in black and white, and they want everyone else to do so too.

So don't be resentful, it isn't personal: these guys don't care about people. Just as anyone who comes to a different conclusion to them is ipso facto corrupt, anyone who complains about being attacked by them is "bleating."

When I get death wishes, it clearly shows the kind of environment that Weir and co have been happy to foster.

(I am fortunate to have friends in the ODF camp who are utterly dismayed by this kind of behaviour, by the way.)

re: IBM’s Rob Weir makes it clear… he wants war

Christian — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 18:07:09 GMT

I don't want to make an argument about NSF, I just want to get this file format description, I don't care about any standardization. Of course this is off-topic!