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The Anti-ODF Whisper Campaign
eldavojohn writes "Groklaw is examining the possibility of an anti-ODF whisper campaign and the effects it has had on the ODF and OOXML Wikipedia articles. In the ODF article, Alex Brown bends the truth to make it seem like no one is supporting ODF, and that it is a flawed and incomplete standard. From the conclusion, 'So what is one to do? You obviously can't trust Wikipedia whatsoever in this area. This is unfortunate, since I am a big fan of Wikipedia. But since the day when Microsoft decided they needed to pay people to "improve" the ODF and OOXML articles, they have been a cesspool of FUD, spin and outright lies, seemingly manufactured for Microsoft's re-use in their whisper campaign. My advice would be to seek out official information on the standards, from the relevant organizations, like OASIS, the chairs of the relevant committees, etc. Ask the questions in public places and seek a public response. That is the ultimate weakness of FUD and lies. They cannot stand the light of public exposure. Sunlight is the best antiseptic.'"
It might be useful to acknowledge what software DOES actually support ODF--including pretty much all of the more popular office and word processing suites [from Wikipedia]:
That doesn't sound like "no one" to me.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It really shows how desperate a company is when they have to get the FUD written so they can refer to it as tho it were fact. Its just like "get the facts" which was show up as paid for information. How many times have we seen information come from Microsoft that states the truth but they leave out the relevant parts that make it the complete opposite of what they say. Rob Weir gives an example of Microsoft have 15 proposals for ODF 1.2 and Microsoft says none of them made it into ODF 1.2. All was true but they failed to say they withdrew so it wouldn't hold 1.2 up. So what they say may be true but one still can't believe what they. I can't anyway and I think more and more people worldwide are starting to see thru them.
Sunlight is the best antiseptic.
Exactly. Watch the history of the Wikipedia article. Now that light has been shed on the issue, I'll bet the article becomes extremely accurate by the end of the day.
I'm sorry, you haven't even credibly established that there even is a 'whisper campaign against odf' in the first place. Just because someone edits wikipedia and doesn't agree with you doesn't mean they're a paid anti-odf shill from Microsoft.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard that ODF documents created in, say, OpenOffice weren't entirely compatible with AbiWord. Granted, I haven't had the chance to try this out myself.
Also, from what I hear, OOXML is even worse, since it seems to be deliberately broken.
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If people tell each other that Microsoft sucks, and that Microsoft products are buggy and easily penetrated, would you say there is a 'whisper campaign' against Microsoft?
If people say that republicans are dishonest assholes, is that a 'whisper campaign' against republicans?
In short, how do you define 'whisper campaign'? Is it simply "when people we don't like speak negatively about something we like without being purely factual"?
So where is Alex Brown's Wikipedia page? One needs to be created so that every Slashbot can update it every second of the day to say that he is a Microsoft marketing agent.
What defines accurate?
I love how ambiguous this all is. It really comes down to is "Bob doesn't think this but Rob does" How does the average person on the street know when accurate has been reached?
One could say that the accuracy of the article will suffer even more based on the bias of the site this article was submitted to.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
if it's needed to get a sale.
You should see the quark stars vs. peon stars crowd. Hooboy, I wouldn't touch that with a 3.048 meter pole.
I'm not at all saying that the wikipedia article is accurate... but I'd hardly say consulting the people who are behind the standards are the best ones to get an honest view of its stability, completeness, and real-world support. That's like turning to Larry Ellison and asking if Oracle is the best database in the world. Of COURSE he's going to pimp his own goods. I'd prefer to see people pointed to an independent third-party. Whether that be a forum full of users, or large corporations who have standardized on it in the business sector.
Good luck finding that in the average Slashdotter's subterranean dwelling...
It is a "whisper" campaign because if the same things were said out loud the speaker would be open to ridicule. Open to ridicule - because the comments are completely untrue, and the speaker is being deceitful.
If you speak out openly against someone or something and take whatever criticism comes - and rebut or retract, then it is not a whisper campaign.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
The latest published standard version of ODF (1.1) is flawed - perhaps the most frequently mentioned flaw is that it does not define a syntax for spreadsheet formulas. An ODF 1.1 compliant spreadsheet application can thus generate ODF 1.1 compliant spreadsheet documents that are incompatible with other ODF 1.1 spreadsheet applications.
When completed, ODF 1.2 will fix this flaw and others. But ODF 1.2 is not yet finished.
Eh, you have bad karma because you deliberately post inflamatory comments without any basis. It actually takes a fair amount of work to get as many negative mods as you've gotten, I'm sure you're mother is proud.
But then again, you're just a fanboi, who seems not to comprehend the topic at hand so I'm not going to benefit you by getting modded down.
Seems like they would enjoy some Sc(...)tology treatment, maybe?
Weir's tests of MS's ODF implementation made a big point of the fact that if you saved a spreadsheet in OO, and read it with Office, it was not fully functional (you get the cell values, but not the formulas, so it becomes a static snapshot of the data).
Yet Lotus Symphony has almost exactly the same problem. Weir got around that by using a beta of a future version of Symphony that fixes the problem.
By the way, GNU/Linux sucks: it doesn't support most Bluetooth and wifi adaptors, webcams, iPods and other hardware. The Flash implementation sucks (yes, that is Linux's fault as it works perfectly on every other platform). Also, upgrades to the most popular distros lead to regressions in graphics and sound.
/quote>
Obviously, flash works perfectly on openbsd for SPARC 64
...Ask the questions in public places and seek a public response. That is the ultimate weakness of FUD and lies. They cannot stand the light of public exposure. Sunlight is the best antiseptic...
The problem is the time it takes to recognize the FUD and eliminate it all to often is too late and the damage has been done.
Bad information spreads quicker then good information because good information is usually boring and doesn't generate hits\traffic on the invisible series of tubes we call the Internet.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
MS is evil. Wikipedia is edited by shills. This is news?
will i still be able to open these files in VI?? if not, im willing to try EMACS as a workaround, but only if i can virtualize it like my other operating systems.
Good people go to bed earlier.
And then sending that information to national standards committees to argue against the adoption of ODF, and to other government officials. Yes, I think that when you use this mechanism to deceive governments (or any other customers for that matter) it is scandalous. Marketing/spin is one thing. But outright lies and deception is something else, don't you think?
If you take as a criteria for a "good standard for office documents" that it have a number of interoperable implementations and provides all generally-required functionality, ODF clearly meets that standard, MSOOXML as clearly fails it on lack of interoperable implementations.
Neither standard is perfect, and there are bugs in the various ODF implementations, but it's obviously usable, as it's being widely used. Not even MS Office actually uses OOXML as documented.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
All scandals involving Wikipedia are super-serious. Just ask The Register.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Since when does something have to be super serious to warrant a post to /.? Seriously?
It actually takes no work at all. All one has to do is make a positive remark about Windows and BAM! -1. My mother is very proud that I think for myself and don't blindly "hate the man" just because it's the cool thing to do. I've outgrown that paranoia. I'm the fanboi? Sif. I comprehend what's going on here just fine - look at the mod! Just because you're so smart doesn't mean you're in the majority. I work on a Mac btw. I use Windows sparingly and have a linux machine that I loaded just to do it to see what all the fuss was about. I'm an anti-fanboi and that's the reason for the attitude. So your critique has missed its mark. Given the environment this is oh so expected.
Alex Brown clearly has no personal integrity. He makes biased rulings at international meetings to unfairly give his handler an advantage. Nothing he does or says can be believed or trusted. Alex Brown, under the guiding hand of Microsoft, brought the ISO system to it's knees and it's still broken. Maybe it's time to go after him personally.
I remember that the Budweiser article read like a marketing brochure one time, but it appears to have been cleaned up. The worst offender I've seen is the Debeers. I went there once after reading an article about successful marketing of diamonds for wedding rings in Japan, and was shocked to find that it didn't even have a history page (it now does). Revisions of the article from it's early days gave me a pretty good idea of it's history. You can see a great deal of controversy via it's talk page.
Earlier today I created the hAl Microsoft Topic Ban incident on Wikipedia's Conflict of Interest Noticeboard, highlighting some of the particularly troubling points in the contributions of a user called hAl (who reveals little beyond liking beer). It seems I'm not the first to stumble on this apparent Microsoft shill, but hopefully I'll be the last (at least on Wikipedia) as with any luck he'll land himself a topic ban having been blocked 4 times already.
Sam
yes! completely agree. and my thoughts on odf in my sig:
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
me too! some bad karma for me too!
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
It actually takes no work at all. All one has to do is make a positive remark about Windows and BAM! -1. My mother is very proud that I think for myself and don't blindly "hate the man" just because it's the cool thing to do. I've outgrown that paranoia. I'm the fanboi? Sif. I comprehend what's going on here just fine - look at the mod! Just because you're so smart doesn't mean you're in the majority. I work on a Mac btw. I use Windows sparingly and have a linux machine that I loaded just to do it to see what all the fuss was about. I'm an anti-fanboi and that's the reason for the attitude. So your critique has missed its mark. Given the environment this is oh so expected.
Well, you're right that there's an definite anti-windows attitude here, which means poorly supported comments about windows are more likely to get modded down than similarly deserving comments about Linux. I think you'll find, though, that if your comments are relevant and you back them with evidence you'll get modded up - or at least not modded down.
When someone makes an off-topic comment about Linux, just ignore it instead of answering and getting modded down, and things will balance out when you have mod points to use on poorly supported and off-topic Linux comments!
"Ask the questions in public places and seek a public response."
Would Groklaw fit your criteria?
Last week Wikipedia banned IP addresses associated with the Scientology, maybe they ought to ban IP addresses associated with Microsoft.
Not that I'm against world domination by US corporations :-)
Haven't you heard? Balmer is planning on moving the company out of the country if they can't continue to cheat on their taxes they way they can now, by routing the money offshore.
Does this bit of information change your opinion in any way?
--bornagainpenguin
Have a Virgin Mobile USA smartphone? Give VMRoms.com a try!
As far as I can tell, the problem here is that the article is not bending the truth to match the usual reality-distorted pro-ODF bias expected by slashdot users and other FSF goons.
Let's start with this statement:
In the ODF article, Alex Brown bends the truth to make it seem like no one is supporting ODF, and that it is a flawed and incomplete standard.
It seems to be like he doesn't fail to bend the truth. It's a flawed and incomplete standard, in some ways it is vague, in others it's simply inconsistent.
Let's take tracked changes for instance, a feature in ODF 1.1 which pretends to be complete. The reality is that the standard is so vague and broken that the most popular implementation, Google Docs, ignores the standard entirely, implementing changes in their proprietary system. Microsoft simply solves the problem by disabling the functionality in order to avoid future breaking.
http://blogs.msdn.com/dmahugh/archive/2009/05/13/tracked-changes.aspx
Let's not talk about ODF 1.2 either, since its only a working draft.
So Microsoft was somehow able to do a perfect by the letter implementation of the ODF 1.1 (the current standard) spec, and yet they haven't got full interoperability with OpenOffice? It sounds an awful lot like Sun took a very liberal interpretation of their vague standard and are now standing by their wonky mess of source code (Ooo) as the standard-- similar to Solaris and POSIX. Thats unacceptable, ODF passed the standards bodies, not OpenOffice.org.
The fact that Microsoft could create one of the only correct implementations of the ODF standard and still break interoperability suggests that the ubiquity of this standard is largely overstated:
http://adjb.net/post/Notes-on-Document-Conformance-and-Portability-4.aspx
There are arguments to be made on the subject of digging through Sun's source code to make this vague standard work, but then ODF violates the FSF's very quote bashing MS-OOXML:
"For any standard it is essential that it is implementable by any third party without necessity of cooperation by another company"
Source: http://fsfe.org/documents/msooxml-questions
So, you can't make interoperable ODF without referencing OpenOffice because it is vague and incomplete... but it's not a complete standard unless you don't have to rely on the assistance of a certain corporation (Sun) to implement it properly?
It sounds to me like ODF is locking functionality to Sun's software the same way DOC locks functionality to Microsoft Office. MS-OOXML may be wordy, but it turns out that you need a lot of words to make a complete office standard. ODF is a paper tiger, end of story. The problem slashdot points out here is simply a lack of reality-distorting pro-ODF bias... this "whisper campaign" might be the seeping shadow of "reality" in the reality of writing a complete and interoperable standard escapes Sun--leaving them with something terse but heavily marketed with a vicious and aggressive activist campaign by angel advertisers who fancy themselves freedom fighters.
"You obviously can't trust Wikipedia whatsoever in this area. [...] But since the day when [somebody] decided they needed to [...] "improve" the [...] articles, they have been a cesspool of FUD, spin and outright lies, seemingly manufactured [...]"
How is this different from any other Wikipedia article out there?
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Across the US and EU .Gov/.Mil "Open" is co-opted by corporatist (anti-Capitalist) for lying, scamming, hooking, and injuring "Open" market reputation, customers, products, businesses, foundations.... It is very misleading, and should be at least a crime of anti-trust or fraud for MS-Gates and others to use the capitalized term "Open" to imply any product or model qualities/values. A local military CIO ... (2008) even implied that I was Doctor Frankenstein for recommending the use of "Open" architectures and products for building... long-lifecycle data/content solutions.
Five years ago, when I went looking for "Open" products and businesses on Yahoo/Google..., I easily found what I was looking to purchase/use. Over the last couple years it is a real problem to find the high-quality low/no marketing budget "Open" products by project/product name with all the "Hook-ware" (proprietary/share/free-ware) crap/BS using "Open", even when I use GNU/BSD, Linux... and "-microsoft" as part of the web-search the proprietary and/or share/free-ware would dominate web-page/s position. I now stick to sourceforge and a couple other reputable websites when looking for "Open" products and "Open" companies/foundations.
"Open" is a specific quality-trademark, which I look to be associated with GNU, BSD, MIT... Public Copyrights Licensing not "Hook-ware" scams. "Open" is, for many folks globally, a marketing trademark for personal/cultural creativity and synergy, and apt and agile commerce/innovation. Corporatist are using "Open" to damage "Open" businesses/foundations market competition/share, and harm "Open" competitors' valuable reputations.
Strong capitalist, (meritocracy) anti-entitlement, cultures do require that when a capitalized "Open" is used for marketing products/businesses that "Open" as used is a "TRADEMARK" in global technology market sectors of economies. "Open" needs law and legislation to prevent marketing fraud and product reputation infringement.
We need laws to protect fair market competition, businesses, and customers seeking the quality, value, and legal security guaranteed by "Open" Public Copyrights Licensing in software, hardware, services, architecture, solutions, content, music, business models.
!HAVEFUN!
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Wikipedia needs to put some accountability in place. The whole anonymous editing was nice. For 3 years.
Now we have a really valuable resource being polluted by people acting deceptively in their own interests. We need to move to linking specific people to Wikipedia accounts. The organization is large, and trusted, and can do this without harming anyone. We need the accountability.
".Gov/.Mil...qualities/values...data/content...Yahoo/Google...purchase/use...low/no...project/product...proprietary/share/free-ware...crap/BS...GNU/BSD...and/or...share/freeware...companies/foundations...personal/cultural...commerce/innovation...competition/share...products/businesses"
Not sure if this post is a joke/jest, but it's definitely obtuse/hard-to-follow.
The one the Reservoir Dogs left at home because he was too boring.
I actually had profs in College up here in Ontario that would not accept documents submitted from Open Office, I'm not joking. All of my labs were done using Open Office because I prefer it over MS Office and it works on Linux my plateform of choice. We had to submit electronic copies of the labs to the professor to be checked for stolen work, well it turns out my prof couldn't open any of my labs.
I was in Computer Eng program and when I tried to defend my point that a Comp Eng prof should be skilled with computers he shot it down saying, "Well.... no I should know how to use Windows and MS Office and then some circuit software". I was pissed and ended up converting all the documents to PDF just so I could pass.
People who are all Open Office is horrible really don't understand it, it's a better office platform because it's supported on more OS's then MS office, future more a college who doesn't support it and yet has a Comp Eng program really makes there selfs look bad.
synopsus: All slashdot readers who support ODF are guilty of distorting reality. The FSF are all goons. ODF is flawed and incomplete and only Microsoft has ever produced a compliant implementation. mod me up interesting :)
davecb5620@gmail.com
IF you're going to argue that Word has every feature a user might need, that it is Turing complete as a pixel to page layout engine, you also need to deal with the halting problem: is there a finite, deterministic interaction with Word that achieves the desired outcome? If not, the end states that Word purports to implement are computationally intractable for a mere mortal to obtain.
Word is a state machine. The user must cajole the state machine to the desired end state by Twisteresque feats of clicking and tapping. I generally find Word to consist of more snakes than ladders.