HUMOR: Rejecting OOXML in New Zealand

Against the software monopoly's sophist public appeal (PDF), the Kiwis give good parody.

Microsoft:

Supporting Open XML as an ISO standard is a good thing for New Zealand. It means the ownership of this standard will be in the hands of an independent, well recognised international organisation.

The Maori Software Underground:

Being unable to interfere in matters of commerce is a good thing for New Zealand. It means the ownership of [insert your favorite standard here from the NZ Sincerity Machine] will be in the hands of an independent, well recognised international organisation where you can't touch it.

This new tactic of public appeal just about seals Microsoft's fate: public appeal is generally okay, but their submission is so cockeyed that they've blown up the old ambiguous international standards process and will never be able to use it to their advantage again...on XPS, XAML, OOXML or any of the proprietary devices they've submitted to the notorious coin-drop standards expediter, Ecma.

UPDATE (8/30/2007):
New Zealand has voted "No, with comments"

Comments

[dario]

loved this:

http://holloway.co.nz/sincerity-generator/

[Wesley Parish]

Of course, Microsoft's problem in New Zealand is compounded by the anti-trust case, which was very well covered in the NZ media and which proved Microsoft was a scavenging monopoly ("predatory monopoly" implies they actually did some serious work, whereas the habit of waiting until someone else establishes a marketplace then stealing it, is the work of a scavenger. Read Schiller "Serengeti Lion" and Kruuk "Spotted Hyena". U of Chicago Press.).

And New Zealand has had to put up with our own monopoly, TelecomNZ, which is not only a monopoly, it is offensively and grotesquely so, and also lacks the wit to invest in maintaining its infrastructure.

So, NZers have good reason to vote No. We understand only too well how useless a monopoly is.