The butterfly effect takes Microsoft OOXML by storm

As of May the19th,  members of ISO (who ratified OOXML as an ISO standard) had only 12 days left to appeal the decision. No country seemed to be willing to budge when sudden, a tiny, almost imperceptible breeze started to blow: one of Microsoft butterflies had moved a wing.

• May 19, 2008 Jason Matusow, Microsoft director of corporate standards, publishes his view about open source on his personal blog: The politics of OSS still overshadow the benefits of collaborative development

• May 19, 2008 4:36 PM PDT. Matt Asay (citing Matusow's post) in Open Road, comments briefly about his friend Jason, in a Today's must reads post.

• May 19, 2008 9:48 PM PDT Milking The GNU (citing Matt Asay's Open Road) publishes Microsoft: don't get me started about (South) Africans a detailed and satirical comment about Jason's otherwise outrageous post

• May 21,2008 Alastair Otter (citing MTG) from South African magazine Tectonic, publishes South African don't understand OSS - Microsoft   and soon gets more than 22,000 views.

• May 21, 2008 The same day Alastair's story makes it first on Digg with nearly 1,000 votes.

• May 23, 2008  05:24 AM PDT Andy Updegrove breaks the news: South Africa has officially filed an appeal protesting the approval of OOXML by ISO..

• May 28 The Shuttleworth's foundation (go Ubuntu) launches a call in support of the South African Bureau of Standards in its challenge of the OOXML ratification process

• May 29, 2008 3:02 PM PDR  Andy Updegrove breaks the news again: Brazil too has  just filed an appeal to ISO approval of OOXML.

• May 30, 2008 4:00 AM PDT  PC world reveals that India has ... followed suit.

• May 31, 2008 2:00 PM EDT  Groklaw is reporting that Computer World Denmark has a scoop: Denmark too is filing a complaint regarding ISO's approval. (The official deadline for those appeals is end of May).

 

Will Jason get an offer from the FSF or from the OSI? I wonder ... will they let him blog?
 
Update (June 3rd): Venezuela is appealing as well.

 

Comments

[Roy Schestowitz]

Yup. I noticed too that you were part of the chain reaction. Good job.

[LOL]

The Mumbai ILUG and their members had sent emails to the NBs asking them to complain about the corruption. Lot of people did send email (including me). Maybe that had some influence on India official complain.

[mtg]

Indeed, without people actively doing things it wouldn't be possible to achieve anything.

Blogs just act as a (timely in this case) reminder ... ;)

[Andrew]

I'm bookmarking this! (please don't change your link :D )

[Matt Asay]

Pierre:

I've known Jason for six years. You caricatured his position unfairly. It may be easy because, "Hey! He works for Satan!" but it was not accurate or fair, however much traffic it earned you or others.

I haven't always been the best about treating people with civility on my blog, but I'm trying to do better. It advances no honorable cause to try to catch people in their mistakes.

In Jason's case, his position is a reasonable one: that governments should not legislate technology preferences. I have come to disagree with this position but it's hardly the contemptible argument you made it out to be.

Perhaps if you knew Jason you would have been more inclined to be fair with him. Perhaps each of us could spend a little less time and a bit more time seeking first to understand.

[mtg]

@Matt

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Jason might be a great guy but he accepted to be in the difficult job of being the open source representative in a company that doesn't really have a track record of acting in the best interest of free software and open source.

Even if you give him the benefit of the doubt (i.e. he is really making his best to change things from the inside) it doesn't really excuse the condescendent tone. So I felt completely free to write on the same mode.

As to the government intervention, this is just another policy, really the same that companies or governmental organizations have applied for years. Only instead of being the result of an intense lobbying organized by software giants (Microsoft is not alone here), this time it seemed much more genuine and favored FOSS. All the better, times are changing.

As a person I can only regret if I have in anyway jeopardized your personal relationship with Jason.

But as a blogger whose views are often similar to yours, I can only wonder how you could have quoted his post without noting the the tone and the irony lying in what he had written.

Pierre

[Super Dude]

>> "You caricatured his position unfairly"

I read that post, I think it was extremely entertaining and fair. Presenting it that way really brought out a lot of points, a lot of information and links thrown in as well. Can you rebut any of the points? I don't think so.

If this has really reversed OOXML wow - congrats! This is what blogging is all about.

[david solomon]

I think it possibly should reverse the OOXML anyways .....nice article btw !

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