In his recent blog post Jan van den Beld, former ECMA International Secretary General (1991 – 2007), writes about the hypocrisy of the anti-Open XML campaign. A campaign that has been raging for 14+ months and appears to be raging on even after the vote has been finalized and Open XML has been ISO ratified. Jan van den Beld presents examples of hypocrisy and of the allegations on corruption and foul play, which is currently being thrown against the 86% majority that has approved Open XML and thus disagrees with the anti-Open XML campaign crowd.

While reading it, two questions came into my mind. Does the goal justify the means? What is the goal of the anti-Open XML campaign anyway?

The first question is clearly a question of ethics. Personally I believe that no matter how you might feel about Microsoft or any other company or individual; no goal – however noble you might se it – justifies the means. Accusing someone, or in this case well renowned national standardization organizations and their many participants, of corruption is a strong accusation and something which should not the taken lightly.

To the second question I will let anyone decide for themselves what they believe motives the anti-Open XML campaign.

Here is an example from the blog post by Jan van den Beld:

More voices in the standards process are a good thing. This engagement should be above board and transparent. An IBM employee in Egypt sent a letter to the Tunisian national standards body claiming that Open XML doesn’t properly support Arabic. The first problem is a factual one: the accusation is false. The second, and more concerning from the perspective of transparency, problem is that the individual doesn’t identify himself as an IBM employee in the email. Instead, he says “I don't prefer to mention my company name as I'm sending this email on behalf of myself not my company.Why not be transparent and just state the name of his employer, particularly when that employer led the failed effort to oppose global adoption of Open XML?”

Here are also some of the recent examples from the anti-Open XML campaign that makes one wonder about the methods being used.