It could also have to do more with creating jobs for that area. Either way it's shameless pork.

Standards are created to make sure something, like software, can output a verifiable item that others can use. If you have a standard that says to do certain things, but makes no mention of others, you don't just copy your competitor. You follow the standard or wait for it to get updated.

Microsoft followed a standard and because OpenOffice or anyother program can't actually open it always, you blame the company for following the standard set out?

Sure they could use that code or inspect the ODF files, but you miss the point everyone here is making: The standard is what Microsoft follows, not the competitor's method of implementation.

Again, they followed a broken standard, just because OpenOffice and others copied eachother doesn't mean Microsoft or others should. You follow the standard otherwise what is the point?

Oh look, I can click on your name too and recount how many comments you posted. You seem to support Mac/Google/OpenOffice and love to bash people of opposing views. I don't care that you like open source, in some cases I do as well, but I use and work with Microsoft products daily and reading comments that always blame Microsoft is sickening. Microsoft and Open Source have their problems, quit pretending that OS is perfect and Microsoft is the anti-christ. They are no different than any other corporation (Google? Sun? IBM? Don't be evil, yeah, right).

If the standard is strict like other open standards, and they still fail to be compatiable, I wouldn't "apologize" for them.

Actually, if you read another comment on this article, you'd see that other applications actually didn't handle the standard all that well like you claim.

"Free code". You do realize that many of those "free" code samples are licensed that would require Microsoft to open source Office or portions of Office. This is about a standard that was weak and failed to state everything clearly. Asking any company to follow it is insane. Microsoft could of copied OpenOffice, but even OpenOffice wasn't perfect. Who do you follow, your competitor or the standard? I'd follow the standard.

To me, this is all whining by the anti-Microsoft folks. When Microsoft supports ODF 1.2, and if they goof up, then complain.

ODF 1.1 was to vague and to somehow blame Microsoft because they followed a poorly written spec and had to make judgement calls to fill in the blanks just seems sad.

The blame still rests on the ODF standards. If people want to have interopability between applications then set strict standards otherwise this will continue happen.

Yes, a little, but do you expect them to break down how OpenOffice does it? Could cause legal issues. "How did you (Microsoft) know to save the formulas at X? It's not in the standard, only we (OpenOffice) save there.."

I think Microsoft saw a standard that had loopholes and instead of match the existing product's method, followed the standard and used their own way of storing it.

That the standards created for the ODF formats are no where near perfect.

In fact, the ODF specification for spreadsheets doesn't state where formulas should go in a document. Something OpenOffice and Microsoft handle very differently. Because of these loopholes it's possible for software deveopers (Not just Microsoft) to do what they think is best instead of follow the standard.

What the OpenOffice and Open Source communities should be doing is working to resolve these loopholes so Microsoft and other developers can follow.

My castle built of Web Design books is almost complete! I was getting worried I couldn't finish the second guest house and 3 story arcade, phew.

Right when you think it's dead, they find a way to keep it alive!

I think you are on to something... hmm... maybe we need a foundation, possibly called United Annoymous of Social Sites or U-ASS for short with an familar fee of 14.99 per month.

Present and accounted for

You do realize that during a somewhat recent (Last 2 years) hacker convention, Vista/IE was only exploitable AFTER another product was installed (Adobe). The whole "Blame IE" mantra is really annoying and has lost most of it's merit. FireFox has critical security flaws just like IE.

The real solution? Use SpyBot, your favorite browser (If it happens to be IE, use IE7Pro with Adblocking, which is free), use your antivirus program (Which probably wont protect you entirely), and the most important part? Check what links point to and if you trust the site you are on.

Safari, Firefox, and Opera**

So the beta of IE8 fails, the stable releases of Safari,Firefox, and Safari fail, just not as bad as IE8.

And to clarify, I've never had problems with production websites, not a browser test website.

When Microsoft releases a browser update that passes the Acid2 test, a major complaint against Microsoft, the "I bet you can't pass Acid3! -mocking gestures-" comes out from zealots.

So people should have a choice, but IE should go and die? Doesn't sound like a choice to me.

I don't know about you, but the only website I've ever had problems with in IE was .... Slashdot.

FYI - People can use any browser they want right now - All possible because there is at least one browser already installed on Windows.