Just finished reading an interesting article here. I knew that Microsoft was practicing the “embrace and extend” policy. That is they would take a particular format or standard and change one thing within the standard (making it non-standard), thus extending the standard’s capability for Windows. Reading this article makes my blood run cold. Microsoft should NOT control the internet any more than Ford should control the highways. Nor should Microsoft continue to try to change existing formats and standards to suit their own needs, which in all cases in the past means charging money for them. Some things should just be free. Document format standards should be free not proprietary; that goes for ALL documents: HTML documents, text documents, etc.

The Onion had an interesting satire at one time, which can only be accessed now by getting a subscription to their fine satirical “news” service. The “article” I speak of is titled “Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeros” and a reprint can be viewed here. While it was written in 1998, it seems that the satire has been proving to be more truth than poetry, as a friend of mine used to say.