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."

Comments

Mea Culpa

[MrCopilot]

I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to Microsoft, I was under the assumption that they were staffed by uninformed and relentless monopolists. I therefore vowed not to use, recommend, install, or otherwise service their products.

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.