Slashdot Mirror
A Set of RFI Responses for Sherlock Holmes
Andy Updegrove writes "In early May, Massachusetts issued a 'Request for Information' on plugins that could help ease the transition from a Microsoft Office based environment to one relying on ODF compliant software. Now the seven responses received have been posted by the ITD: six from vendors large and small — and one from Microsoft that purports to be informational, but in fact gives no information beyond what is already publicly available. Like everything else in the ODF saga, many of the responses are as much political as technical, with some delivering off-topic messages, one (from the ODF Foundation, strangely) refusing to disclose much at all, and several contradicting each other on the technical challenge of working with Office absent further code disclosures by Microsoft. All in all, they make for an intriguing read on multiple levels — offering more of an Easter egg hunt than informative offering. It will be interesting to see which, if any, of these offerings the Mass. ITD decides to utilize."
I understand how things like "levels &mdash offering" get left in comments, but aren't the stories notionally "edited" by an "editor"?
After reading all that, I suddenly have a new appreciation for our mod point system. Maybe Massachusetts should have submitted their request to "Ask Slashdot."
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Then there is the ODF Foundation's response, which somewhat surprisingly (to me, at least) begins awith the following Q& A:
1. What is the present state of efforts to create ODF plug-ins or converters for Microsoft Office, whether undertaken by respondent or others through projects with which the respondent is familiar?
This information is available under the terms of a confidentiality agreement.
I guess in the land of Microsoft, an open door and a closed door are the same thing.
Conversation between ODF advocates before they submitted their responses:
"Ok, let's see here... cryptic response?"
"Check."
"Stick something in there about penguins?"
"Check."
"Refuse to reveal any actual information?"
"Yep."
"Awesome. Finish it up with something about Bill Gates eating babies, and send it out."
"You got it."
It amazes me how Microsoft can be so ridiculously incompetent at some things, like ensuring Vista gets out on time, while managing to be perfect quality asshats around the world when it comes to bundling, IP, patents and competition. They did just enough here to appear cooperative. Same as they did with DOJ, same as they are doing with the EU.
For some reason, when it comes to being big giant anticompetitive liars, their mission is always perfectly executed. It is quite amazing, really.
(-1, MustBeNewHere)
It will be interesting to see which, if any, of these offerings the Mass. ITD decides to utilize
... which of the submitters is most willing to be shaken down -- you know, concessions paid for considerations given. Campaign contributions, promises of jobs to relatives, donations to "favorite charities" etc. The next most important attribute to consider is the perceived evils of the submitters. Clearly Microsoft will be dismissed outright on general principals. Consideration must be given to the affirmative action record of the submitters. What is the ratio of the CEO's salary to the workers' salaries? What is their record as regards unions. Which political party do they support? Finally, only after all of these important questions have been answered will consideration be given to technical merit, cost, likelihood of success and proven track records. With any luck it won't have to come down to those nasty tiebreakers, because those are much harder to determine. If it did however, they would then hire some well-connected, very expensive consultants (i.e. friends/relatives of the ruling class) to sort through the technical issues.
Having lived in MA most of my life, let me describe the selection process that will be used. First, which of the companies has significant ownership by MA pols or relatives or friends of MA pols? Since MA is a one-party state there is non-existent oversight on these matters. If that does not determine a clear winner, we move on to the next most important criteria
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
I think an example of what they had in mind when they made the RFI would be a VB Macro converter.
I have some spreadsheets written by a coworker to automate some procedures. They have Visual Basic Macro's for some of the processes.
I'd like to be able to open these with OpenOffice and have them function in the same way as with Excel. But I don't want to devote the time to learning how to rewrite the macros.
SRR
Is it too much to ask that an article with the headline "A Set of RFI Responses for Sherlock Holmes" actually be about RFIs written as if by Sherlock Holmes, or a set of responses written as if by prospective clients of Sherlock Holmes?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
I'm pretty sure it would not be construed as such. Remember that firing software across international borders as a missile payload was considered a loophole in ITAR that technically allowed strong cryptography to be legally exported by those means (at least as far as ITAR was concerned. I'm sure there are other laws against lobbing missiles over international boundaries somewhere). I think we can use that opinion to back the idea that software binaries delivered via missile do not require the inclusion of source code for the recipient.
If it takes more than 20 minutes, engineers in MA say "screw it - put in a rotary!"
Then they throw down their pencils and head for Dunkin Donuts.
Oh wait - I may be thinking of another roadmap...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Apparently the RIF responses are nothing to do about much.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen