The vote is coming up in ISO again, now, isn't it?

I wonder if this announcement's tree-hugging hippie crap goodwill feeling will last long enough for that, without them having to actually put any documentation up (because "it takes some time to organise and review everything for public consumption") before the vote?

Wasnt the story that 'years ago' when companies had m$ forced to reveal some other 'inner workings' , at first m$ fought it.

However in the long term it was very very very good for m$ , because there own teams suffered with the lack of information. So documenting everything for others actually helped m$ against it's competitors.

Years later, developing using m$ is just so much better than any other systems due to it's staggeringly good documentation.

"Ballmer should have stopped there but went on to say something about Microsoft being "on the receiving end" of some standards work instead of leading it."

Sounds interesting.

Long after details of MicroSoft's file format releases have faded,

I'll be cherishing the turn of phrase "puke in a gibbon", which as

far as the Internet is concerned originated here.

"Microsoft has been pretty open for years"

For very small values of "open".

"We have learned that documents and data have lifetimes that span well beyond the lifetimes of any applications used to produce them."

No shit. I knew that already back when Windows was still at version 1. I still have some old data laying around on my hard drive that I originally created on a 48k Spectrum, for God's sake. Some of it is even vaguely important to me, enough so that it's been migrated through another half dozen computers running an assortment of operating systems, and got converted into something readable on the newer systems when that became possible.

What took Microsoft so long to figure out this blazingly obvious fact?

"All in all, it's funny to see how slowly a company like Microsoft moves."

Nothing new here though. Microsoft have a long history of nearly missing the boat on new developments, only to throw vast reserves of man-hours and money into playing catch-up. Last time it was the Internet that caught them fiddling with their todgers. This time, apparently, it's interoperability with the competition.

what does 'puke in a gibbon' mean?

"Microsoft will publish most of its major protocol data and license the protocols at a reasonable fee."

In the past, when talking about monies coming into the Corporate coffers (as opposed to those flowing out), Microsoft has always defined "reasonable fee" as "easily afforded by a national budget. Like that of Kuwait, Dubai, or Switzerland, for example"

Yes, you're right. Office 97 compatibility has been a thorn in Microsoft's side for a long time now.

I expect MS to be about as open as it's Office of Compliance has been agreeable with the DoJ.

In other words, lots of PR, lots of seminars about what will be coming shortly, and no hard data of significance.

Hopefully, I'll be proven wrong. But to some extent, I think not.