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I care if there is more than one standard. It is a matter of choice. At the point that governments make policy that procurements require a product have a standard's status, having a choice of standards is a matter of having competitive products. As you pointed out, there are a range of positions and people in this debate, but at the extremes, the anti-OOXML forces consistently take the point that there should only be one standard, thus no choice. That these are the same people who put "Open" in the name of their candidate is not just a little bizarre. The anti-MS part of this is old grudges amplified by years of repetition. When Tim was caught in the same meat grinder of being a paid consultant to Netscape and MS protested, he was quite publicly angry and possibly still is. When similar charges came to your door, Rick, your treatment was a quite a bit worse publicly. Tim, you know that to be true. So let's back the heck away from the anti-MS FUD tactics. IMO, the issue of importance here is whether or not our customers will have choice in their products. This is evolving toward one of three attractors (not a good thing given the chaotic orbit): 1. The policies change with respect to procurements and standards lose some clout but maintain some respect. 2. Standard submissions quit being politicized by the business competitors as a mean to fix the competition. ooXML goes forward even if later. 3. Standards become a bigger joke and the weight of market share is felt in its full impact. ooXML goes forward but as a keiretsu standard on the same footing as ODF. A betting man will take the third position. The ultimate outcome then is that standards are weaker and the web is wilder. len From: Rick Marshall [mailto:rjm@z...] for the record my view is that i don't care if there's more than one standard - there's often more than one standard for the same job - take screw threads for instance - whitworth (the original), af, metric for starters. the important things is we all know what they mean and how to get and/or build a tool to do the job with them. i'm more concerned by the attitude (policy?) of this is now a standard but we're the only ones who can use it. that's not a standard. the other thing that popped up in this discussion that worries me is that ms seems to be publishing new standards for dates etc as part of this one rather than using existing standards. this raises lots more questions and possible objections.
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