Re: [oiic-formation-discuss] PROPOSAL -- Name change for proposed TC

[marbux <marbux@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 11:57 PM, marbux <marbux@gmail.com> wrote:

Sorry for the accidental send  button. Picking up from the paragraph
that got cut off:

I've got a stack of circumstantial evidence a mile high that Sun cut a
deal late last summer for IBM to use the OOo 2.x+ codebase in IBM's
proprietary ODF apps. E.g., IBM committed 70 develelopers to the OOo
project and assumed the leadership of the ODF TC where it now has by
far more members than Sun. Does that make any business sense to you if
IBM did not acquire the rights to use the 2.x and later versions of
the OOo code base in its proprietary apps? It's the only way IBM can
stay interoperable with OOo.

That is only a taste of the evidence. There's tons more, including
evidence that pins the date of the deal to sometime in August or
September of last year. But the point is that when it comes to ODF,
IBM doesn't do FOSS in its own apps and Sun's dedication to the LGPL
obviously is less than total. I wonder how all the OOo code
contributors' will feel about Sun letting IBM use the OOo code base in
proprietary apps?


>> Glad you are here to keep people honest. This doesn't mean what you propose is the best for competition, but I'm paying attention.

Thanks. After all the character assassination by the IBM crowd since
we went public with the ODF interop bugs, I've had a fairly lonely
existence as an open standards and FOSS advocate. IBM and crew really
trashed our reputations and crediblity with false and misleading
statements that were widely disseminated.

It's been fairly comic though. I was oh-so-right-and-authoritative
when I set things in motion against Microsoft's XML formats with my
Groklaw article on the Massacusetts situation and right up until the
day I started insisting in public that Sun and IBM be held to the same
ethical and legal standard in regard to ODF. But now I'm supposed to
be incompetent and a Microsoft stooge. Interop bug reports on ODF are
Evil. ODF is Perfect and the only standard designed for
interoperability. Everyone must use ODF if they want interoperability.
Only a Microsoft stoge would claim otherwise. That's the way the story
gets told.

But now the same folk who spread the ODF interop myth far and wide and
did the smearing show up on this list accusing me of trying to delay
ODF interop. What a hoot! Like I was so incompetent that I didn't
bother to keep archive copies of their spreading of the ODF interop
myth and don't have every email I ever exhanged with them. Watch for
my response to Andy Updegrove when I get around to it if you're
interested. I've already dismantled his and Pam Jones' first smear
attacks on me. <http://www.universal-interop-council.org/node/4>.

I think I'll publish this rebuttal on the same site and post a link to
it in response to his smear against me on this list. The way OASIS
handles these formation meeting lists, the archives go away after the
TC is formed. At least that's what happened with ODF. Andy has this
adorable habit of of leaving himself wide open when he goes after me.
It makes me wonder if he's ever litigated a major case against
competent lawyers and won. :-)

Best regards,

Paul E. Merrell,, J.D. (Marbux)

-- 
Universal Interoperability Council
<http:www.universal-interop-council.org>