'Software Choice' scheme a clever fraud
Microsoft's new "Software Choice" campaign is all for your right to choose... as long as you choose Microsoft. It's too bad that Intel and the U.S. Government couldn't see through the rhetoric. [The Register]
Wonderful piece that attacks Microsoft and it's shallow attempt to attack the movement to open choices. The most salient point is that we need to free ourselves from being tied to one single platform. The path lies in freeing us from file format hell incompatibilities. If all file formats were required to be open, then you would create an environment where software producers would have to create value in their products, rather than locking out choice.
I am not an Open Source savant. I see the need for a healthy environment, one where all are able to compete and create. Microsoft and "Big Content" do not support this kind of freedom. They want the corporations to control what we do and how we do it. I want real freedom. The freedom to choose, but not is an ecosystem that is dominated by one company that can cut off the oxygen to whomever it chooses. I applaud Bruce Perens and his "Sincere Choice" site.
One example of how MS has strangled the industry is with it's Office 'standard'. MS uses the file format as a tool. A tool that has only slightly loosened now that they are using XML. What we need is a simple solution that cuts through so many of the issues. Let's call it the "FreeDoc" standard. An xml-based open schema that defines documents. A schema that Microsoft could not own and would be required by government edict to adhere to. No software could be purchased that did not adhere to this standard. No MS lock-ins, no MS lock-outs, just an open standard that all would use. You want to own the market, then make a better mousetrap...mj
10:19:40 AM 
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