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Jeremy Allison On Microsoft, OOXML and Standards
An anonymous reader writes "OOXML is already Microsoft's "de facto" standard as implemented in Office 2007, so when would any changes arising from the Comments Resolution meeting in February 2008 be put in place? According to Jeremy Allison's latest column, when last minute changes were suggested for the CIFS standard, which Samba exists to disentangle, "the response came back from Microsoft that although the fixes were valid, unfortunately the code was already written and was going to be shipped in the next service pack. End of discussion. It wasn't even in a shipping product yet, but the specification was determined to be unchangeable as they didn't want to change their existing code.""
"Today, ninety-two percent of desktops and now seventy percent of servers run the completely proprietary and non-standardized Microsoft Windows operating system." 70% of servers are running Windows? What year is this? Have I been in some kind of coma?
Palm trees and 8
Presumably that would mean that Microsoft couldn't legitimately claim that Office 2007 followed an ISO standard, which is the whole point of this exercise?
Well, I guess it wouldn't stop them from trying, or at least issuing confusing public statements on the subject.
Rich.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
"My own favorites were Cuba voting "yes" to the fast-tracking of OOXML, even though Microsoft is prohibited by the US Government from selling any software on the island that might even be able to read and write the new format, and Azerbaijan's "yes" vote, even though OOXML as defined isn't able to express a Web URL address in Azeri, their official language."
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
"Whether or not MS knows this...... or have they become so arrogant to be stupid?"
What does a file format in Office 2007 have to do with apps for Linux? Microsoft isn't going to write them. Mainstream companies aren't either. Your feelings towards Microsoft notwithstanding. What incentive does the commercial industry have to support yet ANOTHER operating system? Especially considering even Macs have trouble getting the apps they want, and the argument is even stronger there in moving to that platform instead of Linux.
Long ago, anyone could claim to be a doctor... eventually the government and other bodies stepped in and started requiring standards. Not so long ago, the same thing happened to dentistry. Similar things happened to architects, electricians, plumbers and many other professions that shape the quality of life, existence and industry in the modern world. Oddly, we have yet to establish such standards in software and information technology and yet it is precisely software and information technology that virtually every aspect of life in the modern world heavily depend on.
There have been many disasters caused by bad code, bugs or other glitches in systems and yet for some reason it's more important that development costs are saved by using crappy programmers with crappy programming practices. Thousands of people will have to suffer and die before things will change I guess... that's what it took for all those listed above.
So, if the metric shows Linux gaining ground its valid, but if the metric shows Windows dominating, the numbers are suspect? And we can find all sorts of explanations?
This is like the metrics for the Anthro Global Warming crowd. Any study that suggest geo, solar, and other causes is dismissed. Any bad math is dismissed.
Yes, MS is dominating and not really losing ground. Downloads of Linux are up, but that does not indicate use, it indicates curiousity. Everytime there is a significant release by any of the distro groups, I download it and build a VM out of it, but for use, we stick to W2K3, SharePoint, Office, Visual Studio, and the like. We have a few Unix machines, a few Linux machines, but those are what we call seagull servers. A contractor was contracted to develop a solution and they flew in, shit in our server room and we have to provide the support for this one off system. All because some congressman made a deal to funnel money to them. I love working for the Government. Meanwhile, we provide office and MS SQL (reports, AS, IS) supportable solutions that bypass these seagulls and provide more robust functionality.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Ditto Illustrator. CorelDraw runs on wine (gold supported for crossover...illustrator is only bronze). Xara has been open sourced on Linux. For simple labeling & format conversions that some engineers end up using Illustrator for, Inkscape & other F/OSS programs are surely sufficient.I hate to say it, but there is always a cost to upgrade and/or migrate.
The formula is simple
A. Take the sum of all license cost for sticking with MS Windows & an estimated cost for your apparent frustrations with the MS platform.
B. Compare this to the licensing cost for running on Linux (as there are certainly competitive commercial products if you find F/OSS to be lacking) & the frustrations you anticipate on that platform.
If AB, stick with A (but consider investing in apps that will work in both Windows and Linux & will ease a transition should B become cheaper).
If BA, switch. If you're smart: Allocate funding to fix the frustrations in the F/OSS apps you use (F/OSS developers will often listen to the needs of small corporate backers and/or you can use a "rend-a-coder" like service that is not directly affiliated with the project).
That's how software in the commercial world works. Software has to ship, and changing code at the last second means complete test runs which both pushes the schedules back as well as costing and organization a lot. Releasing patches is an expensive ordeal as well. It's not like you just can put up a .patch file and expect everyone to download, integrate it, and re-compile their app.
Of course a company isn't going to change their software at the last second. Just because something hasn't shipped yet doesn't mean it isn't done.
Have you take a look at these products?
http://www.varicad.com/VariCAD - supports DWG files via the http://opendesign.com/"Open Design Alliance"
http://fastcad.com/ fastcad - Created by none other than the original developer of AutoCAD, Mike Riddle. Apparently version 8 will run on Linux
note: I have only researched these products because I want to start a Linux solutions company. I have not used them myself (yet). Also IANAE (I am not an engineer)
Here's to the crazy ones
I have been following this lateest tatic of M$ to FUD the ISO, and I never heard this aspect of their unwillingness to follow their own standards, and of course, ship the clothes anyway.
I am going to let users know, and have them bail out of Office 2007 by the thousands.