Microsoft Supporting ODF? -- Close, But No Cigar

Microsoft Supporting ODF? -- Close, But No Cigar - I wish I could wholeheartedly applaud the Microsoft announcement about native support for ODF, but I can't. Of course, it's better to have native support for ODF, no matter what motives may have influenced Microsoft's announcement, and I'm glad about that for the sake of end users. But it hasn't happened yet. Was the word 'vaporware' not coined for Microsoft? In any case, I'm in the "I will believe it when I see it" category when it comes to Microsoft. They've earned my caution.

And I see danger signs for FOSS I'd like to share with you, so you can consider them. Once again, the problem is software patents. Internet News indicates that commercial Linux/FOSS vendors, and the GPL license that Linux comes with, will be excluded:

Microsoft, however, frames its latest moves as part of fulfilling a company-wide interoperability initiative that it announced in February.

Uh oh. Remember this from February, when Microsoft announced the availability of APIs?

Going forward, Smith said that Microsoft will enter into a covenant not to sue open source developers who use the open APIs for noncommercial applications. Commercial developers will still need to obtain patent licenses to use the code.

GPL developers can't obtain patent licenses. That would violate the terms of the GPL. Period.

Like Microsoft doesn't know that.

But, you say, Linux is GPL'd and that's Microsoft's primary competition. Can it be that
commercial vendors and the GPL will be exiled again from the "even" playing field everyone else gets to be on? Why yes. It appears so. Commercial Linux vendors need not apply. Or they can sell out. [Groklaw.net - Watch SCO get creamed by IBM]

I just don't understand Microsoft's strategy here. I guess its a delay approach, but a delay for what? Is their conduct within the ISO fast track process going to all of a sudden go from dubious (at best) to good? Is their incomprehensible standard all of a sudden going to be fixed after a delay? Is ODF all of a sudden going to go away?

The fact of the matter remains that ODF is the only implementable standard out there. It doesn't look like OOXML will ever be implemented by anyone other than Microsoft. It certainly won't be implemented in the world of GPL, which is where most governments are looking to move now anyways (Brazil, Netherlands, Germany, South Africa, etc... the list goes on and on). 

You would think that the designer of a "standard" should be able to implement right out of the shoot. Instead MS falls flat on its face yet again. How disappointing. With technology leadership like this, I'm utterly surprised that Yahoo didn't want to merge with them for a fraction of the offering price! er Not!

I've seen this kind of disjointedness in Microsoft for so long I shouldn't be surprised. They can't even get their act together enough to put out an OS and know what the hardware specs are (or at least tell the truth about it. Hello Vista Capable...er Incapable). Now it seems that their Office developers haven't been working on an implementation this whole time? Yeesh.