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de lcaza calls OOXML a "Superb Standard"
you-bet-it's-not-out-of-context writes "A blogger on KDE Developer's Journal has found an interesting post by Miguel de Icaza, the founder of GNOME and Mono, in a Google group dedicated to the discussion of his blog entries. Six days ago Miguel stated that 'OOXML is a superb standard and yet, it has been FUDed so badly by its competitors that serious people believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with it.' In the same post he says that to avoid patent problems over Silverlight, when using or developing Mono's implementation (known as Moonlight), i's best to 'get/download Moonlight from Novell which will include patent coverage.'"
I notice in his Wikipedia article (which he apparently bemoans on the talk page) that he applied to work for MS on MSIE all the way back in 1997, although he says he tried to persuade his interviewers to liberate the code, so I guess one cannot hold that against him. There's nothing wrong with being MS-friendly. His being so anti-software-freedom is a problem though since the FSF gave him the 1999 Award for the Advancement of Free Software. Can they withdraw that or something?
I probably shouldn't feed the troll (de Icaza) but...what really shocks me about that exchange is not his extreme views, but his childishness, how transparent his trolling is and his inability to hold an argument. I love the way he attacks those who reply by suggesting their English isn't very good (when it is perfect) instead of addressing their concerns when his English is hardly perfect.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
I will agree with you that having two is suboptimal, but we have to support them both *anyways*, so its not like its a big deal.
No we don't. The whole problem with OOXML is that no one will be able to "support" it but M$, just like their old DOC "standard". Why waste time chasing their tail now?
M$ is weak, so it would be better to break their back and be done with it. There is nothing positive that anyone should say about buying yet another $400 Office Suite that does little more than the old one except open the new "superb" format. People hate having to put out the money and the way everything has changed in the interface. Most of all everyone hates the new format. I can continue in this way, but the bottom line is that Microsoft is an enemy of freedom. They must be destroyed because their goal is domination and they will never stop.
Ever see Bridge Over River KWai? You are building the enemy a better bridge. Sooner or later you will ask yourself about it.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Oh, I don't care about "threats" from patents. I just don't like crap. I also don't like a bunch of sissy whining because someone doesn't want to add someone group's dumb name on to the front of the name of something else. In general I like the FSF. They've definitely got the right idea a lot of the time. Copying mono isn't one of them, and neither is going around complaining that people don't say "GNU/Linux." The "GOLD" Linux is just fine.
It's nice that you want, like everyone else on slashdot, knows how to say "ad hominem." But that doesn't give your "argument" any more credibility. In fact, what was your argument again? That being a whining little bitch is nice or that copying, poorly at that, every piece of microsoft trash is the "wave of the future" for Free Software?
Using microsoft software has never gotten us very far and copying it has gotten us no where at all. All it does is lock us in to the low standard of quality they put forth and forever frame our ideas of what computing not only should be, but can be.
BTW, the period goes inside the quotation mark.
The Farewell Tour II