> Microsoft's goal is, by one means or another, to defeat free software > which it now considers a serious threat. Whatever they do, it will not > be a sincere standardization effort that offers no obstacle to free > software implementions.
This is just your opinion, Richard. Not a fact. Microsoft's goal is well documented in the "Halloween documents", Microsoft internal documents leaked to ESR in 1998 or so, and repeated threats made since then (including this year). The conclusion follows logically, and is confirmed by Microsoft's handling of Word format and OOXML. Competing is a good thing, and in my opinion it's good that Microsoft competes with us. This keeps us sharp and focused. Some people like competition and others don't, but competition is a mistaken model for this contest. Microsoft's goal is to subjugate users while ours is to liberate them. In an ordinary competition, one says "May the best man win", with "best" understood in practical terms, because morally the competitors are by definition equal. In our fight, freedom is best in moral terms, and the motto should be "May freedom win." I wish that freedom did not have such a powerful enemy, and we could simply relax and develop useful software with nothing to worry about. _______________________________________________ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list