Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Leaves U.N. Standards Group
pk2000 writes "Microsoft withdrew from a United Nations software standards group for commerce. 'Unfortunately, for now, we have made the decision to stop participating in U.N./Cefact for business reasons and this serves as notification of our immediate withdrawal from all U.N./Cefact activities.' This might be connected to Microsoft's intention to build up its patent portfolio. Currently it has about 5,000 patents and seeks to at least double this number by the end of 2005."
Exactly. Thats why Windows NT was seperate from Windows 9x. When they merged at XP the seperation of buisness and consumers was lost. You may say that home and pro keep them seperate but home is just a crippled version of pro.
If you have nothing useful to say post as AC.
It's already the top news on FFII
Here's how the scam allegedly worked: Saddam sold oil to his friends and allies around the world at deep discounts. The buyers resold the oil at huge profits. Saddam then got kickbacks of 10 percent from both the oil traders and the suppliers of humanitarian goods. Iraqi bean counters, fortunately, kept meticulous records. Coincidence. If you wondered why the French were so hostile to America's approach to Iraq and even opposed to ending the sanctions after the 1991 Gulf War, here's one possible explanation: French oil traders got 165 million barrels of Iraqi crude at cut-rate prices. The CEO of one French company, SOCO International, got vouchers for 36 million barrels of Iraqi oil. Was it just a coincidence that the man is a close political and financial supporter of President Jacques Chirac?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I've been involved a little bit with the UN's EDIFACT body, and I believe the whole idea of the UN responsible for technical standards is fundamentally flawed.
Its primarily a political body, and really, politics have no purpose in what is supposed to be a technical arena.
That's why EDIFACT has lost out to other non-UN bodies now that XML has come to the forefront. Nobody is going to the UN on purpose these days.
So I say good to MS for stating the obvious.
Power sockets are a standard for power distribution. Solar, coal powered, etc are methods of power generation. Even the solar panels on my roof supply me with power through standard power sockets.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Can't speak for other countries, but the Australia/US FTA can be dissolved unilaterally on six months notice and agreement to pay reparations as decided by an independant board.
YLFIp.s. - plug, plug, UNSW students can read all about it in the upcoming issue of "tharunka".
One god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
And then fails to pony up.
Bottom line? The money owed to the UN is in the form of promisory notes that the US has failed to pay. Mostly because of situations like with the WHO where certain religious groups have recoiled at the fact that the WHO supports education on things like birth control and abortion for women in the third world and have pressured Congress and Senate into stopping funding for the WHO as a whole until those education programs are cancelled. That this also interferes with things like disease prevention and control, public medical research that would end unencumbered by patents and similar benefits seem to be completely outweighted by the need to deny women in the third world education about and access to birth control and abortion.
Similar situations exist across a broad swathe of UN organizations who have already made budget and project commitments and used funds according to the promised contributions from the US, and then dicovered that the money were not forthcoming after all.
That's the sense in which the US owes money - because they said they did. Not because the UN asked.
FUD. Microsoft left one working group, which deals with Web Services; that is what your second link refers to. Microsoft are still members of the W3C's CSS Working Group (and quite a few others). And as far as prior art goes, the method described in the patent is basically the same as the way Microsoft Word applies styles, which potentially dates back to 1983.
Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
But if 90% of the world is using MS products, then it is the UN that won't be able to do business with them
There are many US courts and government organizations that still require electonic reports and submissions be in Word Perfect X.X format. A simple "save as" Wordperfect version from MS Word does not convert them correctly for many of them either.
Same holds true for non WYSIWYG things like data structures, databases, charts, forms etc.. They require a specific format from a very specific program.
The ultimate goal should be an open standard, not one companies standard. Today, and more so years ago, an open standard did not exist. Maybe that will change.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.