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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."
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.
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."
Yes. Rather than fixing their implementation, they just made it more difficult for users to use their implementation.
It just happens to be that some of their faulty implementations are for reading formats for competing products... You are not permitted to draw any inference from this fact.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Corel and Novel both have long histories of suing Microsoft successfully to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars (about 2 billion between the two of them). Clearly, MS was afraid of getting sued yet again.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
At this point it doesn't matter if they apologized, the damage is done: opening older Corel documents in Office 2003 is a PITA. Apologizing just gains points with the CTO type people, so there really isn't a downside. Too bad it doesn't dawn on them that before MS was letting them use a "less-secure" method of opening files....
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Read it carefully for the doublethink!
"A file format isn't insecure -- it's the code that reads the format that's more or less secure."
Read it again if you didn't catch it.
=Smidge=
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, the file format wouldn't be insecure. Your handling of it would be.
I hate printers.
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
Nothing parallel about this. Microsoft isn't going to stop blocking the competition's file formats by default, so you'll still need to edit your registry to be able to use them. They'll see about doing something to make it easier...Real Soon Now. Meanwhile, have this absolutely worthless apology! Nothing unusual about this...Microsoft has always been willing to talk sweet when it needs to calm things down a bit. Actually fixing the problem, particularly when the problem has been carefully orchestrated to kick the competition in the crotch? Not so much.
Chris Mattern
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