Forwarding the other side of the story since it does not seem to be copied to the list
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mayank Prakash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 1:41 AM Subject: Re: [ilugd] An Open Letter to Wipro, Infosys and TCS To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] This is such junk. ISO has okayed the standard - what part of "International Standards Organisation" does the author not understand ! How many academia of IIT, IIM and IISc have contributed to development of any world standards! If so called 'academicians' of these three institutes truly believe that their standard is better than the one approved by ISO, the BIS can be approached to 'standardise' their standard in India. To make the argument that because the 3 IT companies employ graduates from these 3 institutions, they should support the IIT-IIM-IISc standard is illogical, irrational and flies in the face of scientific enquiry. ISO is recognised across by the world by all countries and is known to be precise, neutral and objective. The fact that their standards are recognised globally is an attestation to their expertise. If the IIT-IIM-IISc believe that their standard is superior, let them make an objective case in its support. The rest of this email is pure rhetoric, and makes slanderous references by implying that the 3 companies are acting against national interest because they did not support an 'Indian' standard. This smacks of jingoism and intolerance for difference of opinion. Without going into the merits of which standard is superior, I refuse to accept the reasoning of this petition. This is a crude attempt to disguise a technical and scientific issue as one with national overtones, and does not contribute to scientific discussion. Mayank Prakash > > > > > 6th April 2008 > > This letter is to express our deep disappointment over your open > support to the OOXML format forced through ISO by Microsoft. Being the > top IT giants and thus the representatives of the IT industry in the > country, it is a great shock to us that you do not stand with academia > of the country and its representatives like the IITs, IIMs and IISc in > supporting the Open Document Format (ODF) which is a true Free and > Open Standard already recognised as an ISO Standard. Considering that > a major portion of your employees come from such institutions, it is a > wonder to us that you have decided to go ahead with this decisions. We > would like to hear your explanation with respect to these points > :-(quoted from www.noooxml.org/petition) > > 1. There is already a standard ISO26300 named Open Document Format > (ODF): a dual standard adds costs, uncertainty and confusion to > industry, government and citizens; > > 2. There is no provable implementation of the OOXML specification: > Microsoft Office 2007 produces a special version of OOXML, not a file > format which complies with the OOXML specification; > > 3. There is information missing from the specification document, for > example how to do a ´autoSpaceLikeWord95´ or > ´useWord97LineBreakRules´; > > 4. More than 10% of the examples mentioned in the proposed standard do > not validate as XML; > > 5. There is no guarantee that anybody can write software that fully or > partially implements the OOXML specification without being liable to > patent lawsuits or patent license fees by Microsoft; > > 6. This format conflicts with existing ISO standards, such as ISO 8601 > (Representation of dates and times), ISO 639 (Codes for the > Representation of Names and Languages) or ISO/IEC 10118-3 > (cryptographic hash); > > 7. There is a bug in the spreadsheet file format which forbids any > date before the year 1900: such bugs affect the OOXML specification as > well as software applications like Microsoft Excel 2000, XP, 2003 and > 2007. > > 8. This standard proposal was not created by bringing together the > experience and expertise of all interested parties (such as the > producers, sellers, buyers, users and regulators), but by Microsoft > alone. > > With this decision, the impression you are making on your future > employees in the academia is not a very pretty one. In fact, the > development of OOXML receiving ISO´s approval has devalued our > confidence in the standards setting process itself. We hope that you > will put self-profit behind our country´s needs, change your decision, > and stand with the rest of the country on this issue. > > > PS: > Please forward this to the groups you are in... > > > > > > _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- [email protected] http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Next Event: http://freed.in - February 22-24, 2008 Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
