Sun, IBM Hide Behind "Document Freedom Day" to Attack Microsoft

An obscure web-based organization has declared March 26, 2008 Document Freedom Day [DFD], “a global day for Document Liberation with grassroots action for promotion of Free Document Formats and Open Standards in general… A "DFD Starter Pack" containing a flag, t-shirt, leaflets and stickers is in preparation and is planned to be sent out… to the first 100 teams that sign up.” The quote is from the group’s web site, Orwellian double-think, propagandistic capitalized nouns and all.

It is unclear whether the group plans on boycotting file cabinets around the world… or breaking them open with crow bars. There is no indication that they plan document burnings. But signs of what used to be called a front group when Orwell attacked totalitarianism are all over the web site. The document liberators that join a protest on March 26 in their DFD T-shirts are just pawns on the chess board. DFD in fact fronts for two major technology suppliers, Sun (JAVA) and IBM (IBM).

Sun and IBM, with the DFD group’s adolescent help, is currently attacking Microsoft (MSFT). Somehow, in best Orwellian revisionist terms, the DFD folks avoid the fact that IBM and Sun are no better (or worse) when it comes to standards. ‘Open Standards’ is really a political manipulation of language anyway. They are simply words certain technology junkies hurl at others to indicate displeasure over technical features and functions they do not like… and therefore believe no one else should be allowed to choose. The words ‘Open Standards’ themselves represent good old Orwellian double-think. After all, what good would a closed standard be?

More specifically, DFD day is a political-theater sideshow in a battle over the way the three technology companies’ respective next-generation office suites natively “save” word processing, spreadsheet and presentation files. Microsoft invented and uses the Open Office XML [OOXML] format; Sun (via a 2000 acquisition) invented and uses the Open Document Format [ODF] format; IBM has adopted ODF for one of its less popular Lotus office products. DFD is simply about Sun and IBM trying to recapture market share they have lost over the years because of inferior products.

Comments

[User 162757:]

"Orwellian double-think, propagandistic... signs of what used to be called a front group when Orwell attacked totalitarianism are all over the web site."

You are long on accusations and short on examples... Care to point to something specific on the website that supports your assertion?

"‘Open Standards’ is really a political manipulation of language anyway. They are simply words certain technology junkies hurl at others to indicate displeasure over technical features and functions they do not like… and therefore believe no one else should be allowed to choose."

Who is attempting to ban anyone from using Microsoft Office Open XML or any other feature or function they don't consider open? Microsoft is free to offer features and functions with hidden implementations all they want. And consumers are free to use them all they want, or to reject them. That does not make pointing out alternatives with plainly visible features and functions Orwellian or political.

"DFD is simply about Sun and IBM trying to recapture market share they have lost over the years because of inferior products."

You presume that Microsoft's office suite attained its market dominance by offering superior features and functions. It didn't. Have a look at past court rulings concerning Microsoft's market behavior around Internet Explorer and Windows itself. What ODF is about is leveling the playing field that Microsoft dominates through strong-arm tactics, rather than product superiority.

You also plainly try to attach IBM and Sun Microsystems to Document Freedom Day and to that web site's organization. I see plenty of links to external organizations on the website, including Linux user groups and well-known ODF promotional websites, none to IBM or Sun. A quick glance at the membership rosters for those promotional groups shows that they are not unilateral front groups for either company.

So, here's your chance to educate me, and other's you apparently consider brainwashed, about the evils of IBM's and Sun's support for ODF, their opposition to Office Open XML, and the virtues of Microsoft's products, protocols and file formats.

2008 Mar 11 01:13 PM

[User 162757:]

And in case you need some help locating some of the court rulings I referenced above, here is a link to the findings of fact by the United States District Court For The District Of Columbia in Civil Action No. 98-1232 (TPJ), The United States of America vs. Microsoft Corporation: www.usdoj.gov/atr/case...

"In contrast to other operating system vendors, Microsoft both refused to license its operating system without a browser and imposed restrictions — at first contractual and later technical — on OEMs' and end users' ability to remove its browser from its operating system. As its internal contemporaneous documents and licensing practices reveal, Microsoft decided to bind Internet Explorer to Windows in order to prevent Navigator from weakening the applications barrier to entry, rather than for any pro-competitive purpose...

"In an effort to thwart the practice of OEM customization, Microsoft began, in the spring of 1996, to force OEMs to accept a series of restrictions on their ability to reconfigure the Windows 95 desktop and boot sequence. There were five such restrictions, which were manifested either as amendments to existing Windows 95 licenses or as terms in new Windows 98 licenses. First, Microsoft formalized the prohibition against removing any icons, folders, or "Start" menu entries that Microsoft itself had placed on the Windows desktop. Second, Microsoft prohibited OEMs from modifying the initial Windows boot sequence. Third, Microsoft prohibited OEMs from installing programs, including alternatives to the Windows desktop user interface, which would launch automatically upon completion of the initial Windows boot sequence. Fourth, Microsoft prohibited OEMs from adding icons or folders to the Windows desktop that were not similar in size and shape to icons supplied by Microsoft. Finally, when Microsoft later released the Active Desktop as part of Internet Explorer 4.0, it added the restriction that OEMs were not to use that feature to display third-party brands...

"Although the restrictions also raised the costs attendant to pre-installing and promoting Navigator, senior executives at Microsoft were not confident that those higher costs alone would induce all of the major OEMs to focus their promotional efforts on Internet Explorer to the exclusion of Navigator. Therefore, Microsoft used incentives and threats in an effort to secure the cooperation of individual OEMs...

"Microsoft has largely succeeded in exiling Navigator from the crucial OEM distribution channel...

"Most harmful of all is the message that Microsoft's actions have conveyed to every enterprise with the potential to innovate in the computer industry. Through its conduct toward Netscape, IBM, Compaq, Intel, and others, Microsoft has demonstrated that it will use its prodigious market power and immense profits to harm any firm that insists on pursuing initiatives that could intensify competition against one of Microsoft's core products. Microsoft's past success in hurting such companies and stifling innovation deters investment in technologies and businesses that exhibit the potential to threaten Microsoft. The ultimate result is that some innovations that would truly benefit consumers never occur for the sole reason that they do not coincide with Microsoft's self-interest."

You reference Orwellian double-think, which was used to erase and rewrite history as well as to control the entire population. Tell me, in light of the direct quotes from the findings of fact by the US District Court, who is more likely engaging in double-think tactics, Sun, IBM and the US District Court, or Microsoft and you.

In "1984" the state never executed its enemies. Instead, it embarked on a relentless reprogramming campaign to make its enemies content. Once they were no longer at odds with the state, then they were executed.

One of Microsoft's primary tactics against its competitors, its enemies, is to enter into friendly agreements with them. Not long after, they are more often than not squashed out of existence.

2008 Mar 11 06:58 PM

[User 163164:]

@User162757 - if you're not willing to admit that the ODF Alliance is simply a SUN/IBM shill organization then they have clearly worked their magic on you. Good job them. You clearly spent a lot of time trying to attack the original author, but all you have actually done is prove his point I think.

2008 Mar 12 04:15 PM

[User 163610:]

User 163164- you think wrong.. read it again.

2008 Mar 13 09:57 PM

[Dennis Byron:]

User 162757--
Sorry, no you are incorrect. "Double-think.. was (not) used to erase and rewrite history." You are thinking of revisionism, of which there is also plenty when it comes to the blogoblatherers' embrace of Sun and IBM.

As I say, "double think" is the manipulation of language as in the meaningless term "Open Standard"--always propagandistically capitalized. Shouldn't all standards be open?

-- Dennis

2008 Mar 14 12:04 PM