Swimming in the Pensieve

Some number of weeks ago, right after Bill Gates tickled his tonsils with his toes over the $100.00 Laptop, I made a passing comment in a conversation that, strategically, Gates’ opinions really had to amount to a diversion of sorts; to draw the public eye away from what microsoft has to consider the more threatening issue of the adoption of ODF for document storage and retrieval. If they weren’t designed as a diversion, then I have to accept that the man really is that stupid.

Gates has since taken it on the chops from various corners of the globe, and his circle of ‘fanboys’ has tightened itself around him, reveling in the camaraderie therein. However, the responsive vitriol did taper-off far quicker than I originally anticipated.

Concurrently, ODF made it through the ISO process, becoming an open standard; behind which several software manufacturers are rallying.

On 09 May, LinuxPipeline reported that the the ISC (Initiative for Software Choice) is accusing Massachusetts Of Pro-Open Source Bias, over the entire ODF issue.

So…who is the ISC, anyway?

The answer to that question is quite amusing.

The advent of the A+ (computer hardware) certification examinations was spearheaded by an organization named CompTIA. Early-on, the examinations did focus primarily upon hardware, hardware standards and specifications, and hardware interactions, diagnostics, etc. However, the CompTIA A+ examinations quickly morphed into probing only a candidate’s ability to attempt to trouble-shoot hardware issues using windoze–the absolute worst diagnostic tool available to the technical individual.

It was soon discovered that CompTIA was merely another front-organization for none other than microsoft, Corp. (somewhat after the fashion of the Business Software Alliance). This makes the A+ certification largely irrelevant to the technology purist, and nothing more than just another worthless microsoft certification.

I doubt that it will surprise you to learn that one of the CompTIA Public Policy Groups happens to be Initiative for Software Choice (ISC)–making the ISC a microsoft-funded ‘Public Policy Group’, along with all the other so-called ‘Public Policy Groups’ managed by CompTIA.

We can, therefore, conclude that statements issuing-forth from the ISC are just as flawed as those arising from microsoft-funded ‘independent studies’. The ISC is nothing more than a microsoft Policy Group. A shill, if you will.

At any rate, the LinuxPipeline story outlines the fact that Melanie Wyne, executive director of the ISC, is ‘blasting’ the Massachusetts Information and Technology Division; because they issued a Request For Plugin to provide ODF support for the microsoft office suite; claiming that the RFP is evidence that the Massachusetts policy of ODF standard is “a biased, open source-only preference policy.”

She went on to say, “The RFP reveals that the choice presented by the previous ITD bureaucrats – i.e., ODF-compliant desktops for state agencies are the only viable options for citizens to have access to their data in the future – was purposely exclusionary, being primarily designed to distort the competitive landscape.
In other words, it had little to do with access to documents, and everything to do with excluding proprietary software providers.”

Hold the phone!

The Request For Plugin was premised upon providing Open Document Format support for microsoft office…a proprietary software productivity suite, if you can call it that.

The way the whole argument about the Massachusetts ODF mandate (from microsoft’s side, that is) went down was the way it always seems to go-down when a microsoft exec is in the limelight: microsoft refused to support an open document format that they could have provided support for in something like 3 coding shifts–about 24 hours.

Microsoft twisted the Massachusetts ODF mandate from one of preserving the citizens’ access to their government documents in the future, by using an Open Document Format that no company controls; to a false rendition that followed the rhetoric of the government trying to unfairly promote Open Source Software. (If only politicians were that smart!) ^[1]

When microsoft was informed that they had a hand in the ODF standard, and could support ODF in microsoft office with the most trivial of efforts, microsoft only responded that they completely refused to support ODF, and would never support ODF. I imagine that the folks who own WordPerfect parroted the same party line because of some not too creative but all too common backroom threats from microsoft.

ODF is merely a document storage specification which is not owned or controlled by a commercial corporation, like microsoft. Anybody can use it! It has absolutely nothing to with which kind of software creates the document to be stored. It can be proprietary, closed source, software; or it can be Free/Libre Open Source Software.

Wyne, probably in obedience to orders, is arguing the equivalent of this: if I require you to send me plain text email, I am thereby requiring you to use the Open Source pine email client. Hardly! Even a crappy email client like Outlook can send email in plain text. Wyne is simply beating a straw man to death (and showing us her ignorance and lack of ethics at the same time).

This is, of course, not the first time that ISC has pimped for microsoft. Have a look here to see that the ISC is nothing but a microsoft puppet, attempting to sound authorative in their attempts to quash the spread of Open Source Software. If you want to laugh your posterior-off, please take a look at this ridiculous page on the ISC website.
But the story doesn’t stop there…not by a long-shot.

It was reported on Pamela Jones’ GrokLaw that Gary Edwards, of OpenDocument Foundation fame, announced that his group had finished testing a plugin that will “allow Microsoft Office to easily open, render, and save to ODF files, and also allow translation of documents between Microsoft’s binary (.doc, .xls, .ppt) or XML formats and ODF.”

Nice folks that the OpenDocument Foundation people are, they’re offering the plugin to Massachusetts.

TechWeb picked-up the story and ran with it, going on to tell folks about the many financial benefits of ODF. Funny…most of those reasons seem to be the verbalization of the destruction of the usual tools of extortion that companies like microsoft have been using with impunity for more than two decades. They finish-up with this precious gem: “The foundation has been in touch with Google about offering the plug-in as part of Google Pack, a bundle of desktop software offered by the search giant and Microsoft rival. Google, however, has not agreed to the idea and remains noncommittal toward OpenDocument, Edwards said.“

Now….I wonder if microsoft will threaten to sue somebody over the creation or use of the plugin, or try to deliberately sabbotage it through windoze update. Not like microsoft has ever used such scuzzy tactics against their competitiors {DR-DOS/Novell-DOS & WordPerfect}, right?

Edwards went on to justify the plugin, lamenting the general cluelessness of end users, “We’ve been having trouble getting end-users to see the value in open formats. The world is used to working with 35-different formats. IT management, archivists… [they] all get it, but the end-users don’t get it. With the plug-in, users can get it without any change, and then they’ll see how useful a universal format can be.”

Edwards wrapped things up by saying that he’s waiting for the “Microsoft ODF plugin to show up. Microsoft has said that if the demand is out there, they will produce it. If Bill Gates holds up a finger to judge the wind for ODF demand today, he’ll get his arm ripped off.” [Yes Virginia, there really is such a thing as Porcine Airlines!]

If such an ms-provided plugin makes it over yon horizon, you can bet that: there will be some sort of proprietary extension-spin put on it; it will cause ms word to crash (like it needs any more help to do that); or it will corrupt the data it’s supposed to save.

Microsoft isn’t finished kicking and screaming yet. From their perspective, users don’t call the shots, standards are meaningless, and you pay the price microsoft demands from you; while, at the same time, selling your rights to Redmond, and getting nothing of value for your money. ODF spells doom for one of their favorite vendor lock-in tactics.

It is strange how suddenly microsoft had a change of heart, isn’t it? Reminds me of a third-party patch that they were warning users not to install, not too long ago, while telling users to wait until they could figure out how to patch their own software.

^[1] The irony of this is positively lurid! Microsoft, the company which has used every dirty, illegal trick in the book, to obtain a monopolistic market position; is complaining that they might have to compete on something that is moving back in the direction of a level playing field. Even they have to realize that their products are so crappy and over-priced that the public, given a choice, will dump them like spoiled food.

Gates’ cosmically-proportioned ego has to be beating him up daily–like a Central Park mugger.