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Microsoft Apologizes To Rival
Geoffrey.landis writes "Microsoft apologized to rival software vendor Corel Corp. for saying that Corel's file format posed a security risk, and issued a set of tools to unblock file types that had been blocked by default in the December Office 2003 service pack. In his blog on the Microsoft site, David Leblanc says 'We did a poor job of describing the default format changes.' He goes on to explain, 'We stated that it was the file formats that were insecure, but this is actually not correct. A file format isn't insecure — it's the code that reads the format that's more or less secure.' As noted by News.com, 'it is the parsing code that Office 2003 uses to open and save the file types that is less secure.' Larry Seltzer at pcmag.com also blogs the story."
When I took a nap at lunch today, did I wake up in a parallel universe?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Hope you didn't lose any sales.
Heheh.
So boiled down, microsoft is saying that their software is the problem? That Office has "less secure" ways of opening formats than they could have?
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
This is like a newspaper reporting someone is guilty of a crime on the front page, then a year later a retraction is printed on page 57 when he's found innocent of any wrongdoing.
It took MS 4 years to apologize?
File formats that ARE insecure ... the ones that come to mind are .EXE, .COM, .SCR, .PIF, .CHM, .DLL, .VB* ... the list is long. ... with Microsoft's logic these aren't insecure. It's the program (Windows) that uses them. I would agree.
Oh, wait
Fortunately my various flavors of un*x boxes don't understand what to do with these...
I would love to read the letter Microsoft's legal department got over the December update.
Too bad that won't be made public.
Why would Microsoft enable a competitor, and, more ludicrously, apologize if there was no reason to? What's in this for Microsoft? Did Corel pay them a fee? Agree to cede a market? Threaten them with some kind of slam-dunk legal action that Microsoft was on the losing side of? We will probably never know.
oh gee, so sorry
we just didn't realize
we hope we didn't damage your business, we hate it when we do that to our competitors
we're soooooo sorry
hehehehehehhehehehe
...barring the legal profession, does anyone use WordPerfect anymore?
That's like saying to a corpse, "Oh, I'm so sorry I killed you; I hope you won't feel too bad about it."
Microsoft said something that didn't make me upset. hmm. in fact, it was the right thing to do! (i'm scared)
Microsoft apologized?!
Wait... uhmm...
So ... confused ...
*** BAM! ***
But seriously, does anyone really think this was an accident or expect this to be any better than it was before?
Tomato wedge sperm darts that are Republican.
'We stated that it was the file formats that were insecure, but this is actually not correct. A file format isn't insecure -- it's the code that reads the format that's more or less secure.'
Admitting FUD is uncharacteristic of Microsoft. Speaking the plain truth means Hell just froze over.
I'm at a loss for words....
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
/Vader voice
Well, I'm sorry. Turns out there were people living there. We did a poor job of identifying how many people would get hurt if their planet blew up.
Apologize to Google for calling their Checkout system insecure.
Corel still exists? Wow. Who knew?
David Leblanc admitted to hospital with chair-induced head injuries.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Likely the apology was a condition of some out of court agreement.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Uh, sparky, the assumption that Corel has anything of value to market and sell is a bit of a stretch. They have so mismanaged the brand that it is almost criminal what they did to their office products.
I was a big time WordPerfect user. I tried to stick around through their sale to Novell and lack of effort from them. Later, sold to Corel, the company sat on it and did nothing allowing Microsoft Word to over take it and take over Office Suite dominance. This is what turned MS into the big monster it is now.
Corel should be apologizing to the world.
They took a great product and took a dump on it. This would be like DC turning the Superman franchise over to Alexander Salkind...oh, wait, they did.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Yes... everything you know is a lie. There is a world behind this one. One in which Microsoft is not evil.
Whoa! I'm going to put all my passwords and bank account numbers online in the clear in a single plain ASCII text file from now on. Who needs encryption? Take that crackers! You thought you could steal my stuff, eh? Just you download that file from my blog and weep, bitches!
They must have meant Mike Rosoff.
expandfairuse.org
n/t
See! we apologized! Now leave us alone!
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
Kill, then apologize.
I wander if Corel can sue Microsoft for this?
I remember the /. posting about this topic last week, where everyone rightfully corrected them about file formats not inherently being insecure. There was the usually geejawing about "M$" being brutal thugs, and idiots, etc. etc. etc. Y'know, par for the course on this website.
However, the most entertaining posts on this website, are in cases where Microsoft admits error, or does something "good". We then get to see these same people do logical contortionist routines about how they must have been threatened legally, or baseless conjecturing about what must have been in it for them.
A lot of people here talk a lot about how Microsoft should listen more to the "geek" community. Places like this remind me of precisely why they don't bother.
Slashdot is generally pretty great for my daily fill of tech news. But man oh man, when it comes to Microsoft, any front of being unbiased is quickly cast off.
"kdawson" is probably the worst of the bunch, too.
- Scott
Now I can see, my assumption was wrong.
By default, these file types are blocked because the parsing code that Office 2003 uses to open and save the file types is less secure. Therefore, opening and saving these file types may pose a risk to you.
It's actually staffed by incompetent coders and management.
Again, I apologize and have updated my reasons for the ban.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
After a decade of trying to fix the insecure code used to read these file formats, Microsoft has finally hit on a workable solution: "Let's just disable it. Nobody needs it, right?" Right. I plugged those holes myself years ago - by turning to GNU/Linux and OO.org.
if you know you aren't gonna fix it you may as well disable it by default.
So they were wrong about one thing in 3 decades. Big deal.
"Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." --Eric Blair
'We stated that it was the file formats that were insecure, but this is actually not correct. A file format isn't insecure it's the code that reads the format that's more or less secure.' This is MicroSpeak for 'Our conversion filters are crap. They have always been crap. We don't care that they are crap. We can't be bothered to fix them because we can't be bothered to waste our time fixing crap. We also don't care that they are also insecure because they are crap. We shovel crap for a living and then blame everyone else because we smell like crap.'
All seven members of the human race who use Office to open Corel fucking Draw files are partying hard tonight.
Airplane Photos, Airline News, Planespotting Guides
This comming from the inventors of the email virus.
[After reading just the story title] It's about time! They laid me off back in '99 five minutes after we RTM'd Win2k, and they're only just now getting around to apologizing? Well, better late than never, I suppose.
[After reading TFA] It is refreshing to see such a direct and honest explanation and rationale. Even if it isn't exactly front page news, it's much better than the typical PR-filtered triple-speak that tends to get the press. A good reminder that the developers != the company.
Thanks, David. If more decision makers at Microsoft were to take a similar approach to problems, even if just internally, I think the corporate image could be improved. Whether there's time to turn the ship around before it hits the iceberg*, I don't know, but it would be an interesting thing to watch.
*Yes, I know the engine reversal and attempt to turn was what doomed the Titanic. It's a complex analogy, with layers of irony and humor.
...but we're going to continue to block your file formats by default on our systems. Those who want to use your file formats will need to go through the MicroSoft KB and find our designated fix for it, but we'll try to make that easier to use. Have a nice day!
Chris Mattern
Microsoft also announced a new head of sales and marketing for Office. Little is know if this new hire... however, people believe his name to be Davrus or Debross, something like that. We'll let you know after the press conference. The new president wants to make sure the everyone attends. Supposedly the name of the Corel plugin engine will be Lorec... a natural evolution of the original plugin.
My father has that in his My Documents-folder. It contains secret passwords.
"" How about taking the safety labels off everything, and let the stupidity-problem solve itself? """
Chuck Norris gets beaten up by the leave-britney-alone kid, and Bruce Schnier gets r00ted.... by Martha Stewart! Social engineering.
Because in Soviet Redmond, the chairs fear YOU!
Seriously, MS has apologized. To a competitor. On a technical subject. Holy friggin WOW. Since god now obviously exists, here's what I'm going to be praying for over the course of the next few years:
-Physics grant gets awarded to grad student who does not have lips wrapped tightly around String Theory schlong
-Dell admits that their computer cases are uglier than your face.
-Apple fanbois shut up. For good. (and I'm typing this on a macbook pro)
-America elects a Good president.
-Myspace creators realize the magnitude of their crime against human civilization and turn themselves in to local authorities.
-I stop wasting my time on slashdot.
When he's talking about Corel's file format it's ok to say "insecure," but when it comes to MS Office it's suddenly called "less secure." Wouldn't want to give the wrong impression now, would we?
Slagborr
A sieve is more or less a bowl.
I stop wasting my time on slashdot.
:-).
Look, that's really pushing credibility. No way.
Insert
We are the superior coders, COMPILE! COMPILE!
'Why aren't you dead yet ?'
Oh! I just realized that "in Bizarro Universe Soviet Union, rain falls down and people eat hamburgers." And so on.
Explains a lot, really.
You of all people should own stock in cheap-office-furniture companies.
Notice the quote from the Access Softek web site:
"Reverse-engineered Corel Draw files for conversion into WMF/EMF formats for the Microsoft Office Suite."
If I understand the summary correctly, they're not saying that the file format is insecure, but that their competitor's application is crap. How is this an apology ?
What a depressingly stupid machine.
In other words, 'shipped'.
In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
*THEIR* (Microsoft's) application is crap. Welcome to reality, Microsoft.
Go ahead. Click 'OK'. I dare you.
No. The format is not insecure. The most you could argue is that the software program which produced the data and allowed the user to embed code which require root privileges to execute is insecure. But wait! Didn't Microsoft code the application that produced the data?
Is the bash shell, or the Windows command interpreter for that matter, insecure because it allows me to write scripts that only function if I'm running it as root or administrator?
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
FAIL
How does Corel get spun as a "rival" to M$? Far as I know, WordPerfect had its day in the DOS era, when 5.1 was the best word processor alive, but now? I might as well claim that Mike Gravel is a rival to Barack Obama as say that Corel threatens M$. Can Quattro Pro be said to "rival" Excel? Yeah right, so can Apple's Numbers.
Development is programmable; Discovery is not programmable. (Fuller)