NotALinuxStandard™

Inspired by want2bfree — thanx, kiddo!

The obvious example is DocX and Microsoft’s efforts to produce a reference standard for OOXML that actually, er, works. (It is generally agreed that the ISO version does not.) Well, obviously, that’s a terrible idea, because it’s not standard on Linux. Does Linux have a competing reference standard for OOXML? Of course it does, but nobody uses it. Not even the Loons. It’s been around for a couple of years, but the Loons are still preaching ODF, a Linux standard that nobody else in the whole wide world uses.

Well, that’s not quite true. Microsoft supports ODF. But not as the default, right?

Well, that’s not quite true, either. But you have to set it as default! Never mind, there’s probably LongPHPCodez™ for that.

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Edit Isn’t that rather pathetic, incidentally? You come up with this world-beating ODF thing, and yell at Microsoft to support it. And then Microsoft supports it. And the best thing you can come up with is “Why don’t you set it as default for our notional 1% of desktop users who notionally use the Linux desktop for OoWriting and notionally give a shit about the format?”

And Microsoft met them more than half-way. And it still isn’t good enough?

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This interesting blog makes it clear that OpenOffice has had support for the Microsoft version of OOXML since around 2008, but it’s been “intentionally crippled.” Why? “Because of politics.”

Yes, it’s Microsoft playing politics again. Except it isn’t. It’s the Loons playing politics. That’s right — they flat-out refuse to give you interop unless it conforms to a Linux standard.

The old argument used to be that “Voldemort™ locks you in” with things like the doc format. So Microsoft released a (very complicated) guide to the doc format. Which wasn’t good enough. So Microsoft went the ISO route. Which isn’t good enough, because it’s NotALinuxStandard™.

There are no Linux standards. Not even the fabled Linux Standard Base — not really.

However, the total absence of something doesn’t prove that people should ignore it and happily go on with their everyday lives. Because that would be unjust.