Bad grace

You will know, as I know, and you will be heartily sick, as I am heartily sick, of the whole Open Document/Microsoft commotion. That's the one in which a load of companies get together to build a document format which will be impervious to lock-in, obsolescence and restrictions - and Microsoft stays aloof, because of its superior abilities in matters such as lock-in, obsolescence and restrictions. You may have noticed how Microsoft's name is so often quoted when these problems are discussed. Why the ODF people thought they could go it alone is anybody's guess.

Further proof that Microsoft knows more about these things than the average bear can be found here, where the magnitude of the Open Document Format's incompatibility with Microsoft's worldview is such that despite its best efforts, Microsoft has been unable to integrate it properly with Office. Instead of having it as just another file format, to be opened, saved, converted, whatever, it has been shoehorned into its own strange, confined, ugly little world...

If only the ODF people had listened to the users, as Microsoft had. If only they had the best, brightest and most experienced designers and programmers, as Microsoft has. If only they'd just listened to Microsoft, none of this interoperability, lock-in avoidance and anti-obsolescence would have happened in the first place.

I mean, it's not as if Microsoft is keeping anything secret to somehow avoid interoperability. Is it?