Business
MS Awarded "Best Campaigner Against OOXML"
Microsoft itself is the surprise winner of the FFII’s Kayak Prize 2007, offered by the FFII in its call for rejection of Microsoft’s OOXML standards proposal.
The software monopolist is honored as “Best Campaigner against OOXML Standardization.” FFII president Pieter Hintjens explains, “We could never have done this by ourselves. By pushing so hard to get OOXML endorsed, even to the point of loading the standards boards in Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy, and beyond, Microsoft showed to the world how poor their format is. Good standards just don’t need that kind of pressure.”
The FFII Board says the monopolist can collect its prize of 2,500 Euros, minus the cost of registering the noooxml.org domain, 12 euros. FFII vice-president Alberto Barrionuevo explains, “we ran a cheap campaign, mostly through that single website. So we’re happy with a token reimbursement of our costs. Several of the Kayak prize nominees told us they did not want any financial reward for their work. So if Microsoft does not send someone to the award ceremony, we’ll give the money to the Peruvian earthquake fund.”
50,000 people from almost a hundred countries have signed the FFII’s petition against OOXML to date. Hintjens concludes, “OOXML is not yet dead, even though it’s been seriously discredited. Microsoft has one last chance to fix the design flaws and patent problems, and present a clean proposal next February. We think they will make cosmetic fixes and then push all the harder. It’s exactly the worst approach and will alienate many governments, possibly spelling the end of their global office monopoly.”
