Slashdot Mirror
Weigh In On the OOXML Issue During Live Debate
lisah writes "Linux.com's Robin 'Roblimo' Miller will moderate a live debate today, Wednesday, December 5 at 1pm US EST (GMT -5), between the GNOME Foundation's press officer Jeff Waugh and fair competition advocate Roy Schestowitz. Both have strong — and opposing — points of view regarding GNOME's involvement with Microsoft's OOXML standard and vehemently defend their positions, so getting them together in the same virtual room ought to prove quite interesting. Although the broadcast will be archived as a podcast and available for free download, you can listen live as it's recorded and also call in to participate and ask questions."
This should be like the youtube debates, only more asinine.
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
"Those who do not wish to use proprietary software (Flash, MP3) to hear this conference over the Internet are also invited to use this call-in number. It will be active approximately 10 minutes before the live podcast begins."
Join the Free Software Foundation
"Look, GNOME and Microsoft are both in the business of restricting what users can do with their computers - we just have different approaches. So let's work together!"
Without trying to stir up a flamewar, it is things like this one that bug me, and have always bugged me about the GNOME project. Far more than the technical issues, as the project has clearly been producing a lot of high-quality software.
I see no reason why a project which was started as a direct response to another project perceived not to be completely Free (which was quite justified at that time) should have anything to do with certifying obfuscated formats made by monopolists or support their proprietary software platforms (see Mono) and pushes by some people within GNOME to make them a central part of the GNOME infrastructure. I don't understand experiments like Eazel, with big industry hotshots coming in to design proper interfaces for the masses who don't understand them, and there are other confusing examples. GNOME was originally a project with a political goal, so I don't understand how its politics have become so bizarre.
As an external observer who doesn't use much GNOME technology, but values the contributions that the project has done to the Free Software landscape, I have to wonder what the hell some people in there are thinking. I realise that there are many different viewpoints within the GNOME project and that this issue is likely not as grave as some are trying to make it, but there is simply no excuse for supporting OOXML in my eyes. None.
Does it strike anyone else as strange that GNOME (which, I understand, began as an alternative to KDE because of its reliance on non-free software) is apparently such an enthusiastic supporter of Microsoft technologies like OOXML and .NET?
.Net? No. OOXML? Yes.
.Net is a great framework. The fact that it is cross-platform (as long as you're careful with windowing toolkits) is also a bonus. Microsoft purposefully released specs for the framework and it seems to be fairly well specified based on the amount of support in Mono.
For the developer who wants to spend his time developing applications rather than worrying about memory management then
OOXML is a bit stranger for Gnome to get involved in. Surely it's something that apps like Open Office should be concerned about, not the desktop people? I'd rather they were putting their effort into improving some of the tools they do have rather than working in things they don't have to directly support.
.
Disclaimer: I use Linux, I even use Gnome (have done since Redhat 7.3), I enjoy the freedom and power of open source, and I do dual-boot Windows XP. I code my own projects in C# and don't hate things purely because they're MS, just because they're generally not as well specified or obviously flawed compared to alternatives.
I'll be listening in and I'm really hoping for a lively debate with lots of ad hominem attacks.
Jeff: "... and the document size is excellent!"
Roy: "Yeah, but tell me one thing: why should we believe someone who cheats on his wife?"
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
There's no smoking gun, but Miguel's own writings on the topic suggest that even GNOME was intended to be a playpen for him to start cloning Microsoft's technologies. From http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/gnome-history.html:
No fancy editing on my part - he really does go straight from describing his admiration for ActiveX to describing his work on GNOME - the GNU Network Object Model Environment.
Thank God other people wrested control of the project from him years ago.
I'm going to eat 3 animals today in your honor.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
And whose fault is that?
Answer: Microsoft, for not including a JRE in Windows. Apple has a JRE, you can just directly run a
(Also, I don't have a
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Answer 2: it is also Sun's for having JAR files that aren't necessarily executable and can't be differentiated from library JARs. .Net, on the other hand, has .exe for executable and .dll for library code (normally). To your basic user then that's far more accessible and understandable than these strange JAR files that sometimes run and sometimes don't.
.Net is perfect, but for a .exe application then it is much closer to what the vast majority of the public consider "the norm" and is much easier for them to run (e.g. no command line with class path to mess around with as it is generally all in the right places). I've also yet to see a JAR that shows its own icon like an exe does in Windows.
Even after I've installed Sun's JRE/JDK on Windows then JAR files end up with a "text file" icon. That's sure to confuse people and should be something that Sun have control over in their installer.
I'm not saying