Translated, I'm saying that technology across software domains should be consistent. There should be a standard, however de facto, that works everywhere. Skills should be portable across those markets,... Everything should just work together, and development across all devices should be relatively straightforward to someone with experience in any one of them.
Standards? Works everwhere? Hey dude -- you're working for M-i-c-r-o-s-o-f-t... you know, the people who don't like standards, who won't use open standards (OpenDocument), tweak standards so they are not compliant (Kerberos), invent their own "standards" and not share them (MS-Word format), and then finally try to patent everything (FAT filesystem) so that other people (that would be us, the open source community) can't use it.
Maybe you should read your own article and think about those things, eh? Maybe a lot of people at Microsoft should think about those things...
Bill Gates: - they have this slogan that they are going to organize the world's information. Our slogan is that we are going to give people tools to let them organize the world's information.
It's not their primary "Do no harm" slogan, people...
Yeah, I don't have my Linux Fund card anymore, but I am surprised to hear that the project has fallen apart. Now that I'm a working stiff I finally had enough money to send some to the FSF and EFF, but I was thinking about giving the Linux Fund some money so that "worthwhile projects" could request money and get some piece of the pie.
Are there any legal hurdles to getting this money to projects over at Sourceforge? (if the Linux Fund group has not been active for several months, that may cause problems, methinks).
Some people have told me that DeCSS shirts are of questionable legality in the US, but I'm pretty darn sure that a DeCSS shirt is legal in the US, just like Dave Touretsky's (sp?) gallery of DeCSS descramblers.
Any law enforcement officer that believes otherwise can come and arrest me. Address will be furnished upon verification of law enforcement status and proper jurisdiction in New Hampshire.
P.S. Funny that I randomly chose to wear mine today...;-)
Combining Kev Vance's comment about a direct link to the movie and nstrom's comment about using the Nyud.net mirror, I give you a high-bandwidth direct link:
Microsoft is a 8 million pound Gorilla, but it is weakening. What about the Halloween documents? Support for Linux with virtual machine? Windows Starter Edition and un-End-of-life-ing Win98 because of pressure from Linux?
Microsoft is strong and has lots of money and lots of intelligent businessmen and computer scientists. But it's not the best fit for all situations (small company or school with Linux + FOSS can save a bundle). And it makes mistakes.
I've been trying to get in touch with Microsoft for several weeks, sending emails to their legal department and senior XML architect (Jean Paoli) regarding the licensing of their XML file formats. They have (conveniently) ignored me, but I'm going to keep on asking them (perhaps via certified mail?) until they give me an answer. I'm commited to helping people to migrate to open file formats and I'm doing some legwork to reveal if Microsoft's supposedly "open" formats actually are open.
Microsoft isn't going to go belly-up one day -- and I'm not sure I really want them to. I want a world where people can choose to use Linux, MacOSX, WindowsXP, or something else. I want to be able to use file formats without signing an NDA or having to reverse-engineer them. I want compatibility. I want to be able to use open source programs to access any and all government websites, tax documents, and laws -- because all that stuff will be store in documented, open formats and accessible through documented, open protocols.
We're not going to take down Microsoft. But we are going to get to a point where you don't have to have a copy of MS-Office to do business and people won't assume that people can run Windows.exe executables. At some point (hopefully somewhat soon), MS is going to have to interoperate with everyone else. And that's something worth working for...
Think not what FOSS can do for you, but what you can do for FOSS.;-)
...have addded eating out and traveling out of town which are lots of fun especially with a friend, and require no signing of digital signatures to do it.
Pay with cash, and fight having a National ID card.
I imagine that in 5 years there could be both a National ID card AND some restaurants that strongly encourage using a credit card (read: they'll make it a bitch to pay in cash). It's sad, but if we see that it's possible, maybe we can prevent that kind of locked-down future.
This AC has a point -- we talk about getting a refund when we purchase bundled copies of Microsoft Windows, but shouldn't we be asking Apple for the same kind of refund?
Sure, the Darwin core of OSX is free, but the Apple OSX operating system is as proprietary an OS as WindowsXP when it comes down to it.
I think that people speak more favorably of Apple than of Microsoft because (1) Apple is the underdog, (2) because Woz hacked on open hardware while Gates got upset about people sharing his version of BASIC, and (3) because Apple has played nicely (generally) with FOSS.
But bundled software is bundled software. If you purchase a Mac Mini with Panther and you are going to run Debian/NetBSD/etc... on it, I'd ask for a refund. Maybe not $120, but a certain amount.
Has anyone asked for a refund from Apple? Has anyone gotten a refund?
Collecting political information to put on your blog - $250/year for newspapers, etc...
Hosting costs - about $1000/year
Hosting your website outside of SanFran and telling the City Council they can f*** off - Priceless.
A.G. says Bezos misinterpreted them...
on
Book 'Em, Dano
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Although Bezos claimed that the AG "is the same organization that from time to time has advocated charging public libraries royalties on books they loan out," (from news.com.com)
the A.G. website has a slightly different story. Apparently the A.G. did investigate government-sponsored royalties, but funding issues and higher-priority concerns for the A.G. have halted their efforts.
I find it interesting that the A.G. promotes such a system, described as "...a small government-funded royalty paid to authors of books borrowed from libraries." I mean, how could you determine who gets royalties without keeping track of how many times each item gets checked out? Wouldn't that raise serious privacy concerns, not to mention issues of fraud and checkout-padding for certain books?
And then who gets to put media in the library? I mean I could put together some pamphlets about linux or FOSS, and then give them to my local library to put on the shelf. If my friends and I check them out (for free) every few days, we can get money back, right?
What would we do with websites? People coming into the library are increasingly doing so to access the Internet (especially in lower-income areas where most people do not have access at home). If someone does research online and finds good information on Wikipedia.org, shouldn't Wikipedia get some money for that? Who is to say that Britannica deserves royalties for its 3year-old Encyclopedia but Wikipedia doesn't deserve them for its own upkeep of hardware and bandwidth?
If this happens I can see people forming new "free libraries" -- not free for borrowing, but free from any monitoring or recording of who checked out what, when. I thought up a couple of neat ways to do this a while back as a way to 'get around' terms in the PATRIOT Act -- generally including public/private keypairs and money held in escrow (in the event that the materials were not returned). It would be a shame if people felt forced to go out and implement something like this.
Why have him fix Britannica's mistakes when he could be fixing and adding to an encyclopedia that will let him just go in and make the corrections himself;-)
I can do you one better: I know a guy who has an old red swingline. Yes, I said old. Apparently they used to make red staplers -- IIRC, it looks old enough that it could be from the 80's or even 70's.
When I saw it (and realized that it pre-dated the movie) I was astonished. I really need to go visit my friend and take some pictures so I can prove it!;-)
You should go make a page on wikipedia that has information about what regional porn servers are up or down.
Perhaps you could get Netcraft and Vivid Video to co-sponsor a page with up to date information on it -- just like what Netcraft does now. I suggest that you call it
That was something that I wanted for a couple of my projects (full text search on databases), but I hadn't yet bothered to go looking for what offerings there were for MySQL and PostgreSQL.
I didn't get around to posing a question of my own, but I was pretty sure that a few people raised similar questions. I'm surprised
Dear Martin Taylor,
Microsoft makes a number of software applications including Microsoft Office -- applications that store user data in many different file formats. Recently Microsoft announced that it had made several of its MS-Office XML file formats open. But it is unclear how "open" these file formats are.
Could you please answer the following?
1) Which file formats are open?
2) When there was a clarification about the licensing of the microsoft formats, Jean Paoli said "We are acknowledging that end users who merely open and read government documents that are saved as Office XML files within software programs will not violate the license." What does that mean? Can OpenOffice.org create files in these formats?
The licensing terms for these formats are really confusing. Could you please release them under something simple like the Distribution Terms on the Xiph codecs like Ogg Vorbis[1] ?
3) Does Microsoft agree that storing data in non-proprietary, open file formats is beneficial?
I've heard that open file formats would make interoperability between different programs on different operating systems much easier. I've also heard that open file formats would mean that it would be easier to recover archived data in the future -- because all you'd need was the file and the file format. Would you agree that this sounds like a good idea?
4) On the website for the Office 2003 XML Schemas, you state "The Schemas provide developers and representatives of business and government a standard way to store and exchange data stored in documents."[2]
But unfortunately only certain versions of Microsoft Office support the XML formats. In fact, many people out there are using Office 97, Office 98, or Office 2000 -- none of which support your XML format. In order to make your formats viable for information interchange, would you:
add XML support to older versions of Office (the versions you still support) ?
Make "saving to XML" the default for all versions of Office you ship?
--- --- ---
To be honest, I don't believe that Microsoft will answer these questions. But this is what I think needs to happen so that the Microsoft XML formats can be open standards for office formats.
Because if Microsoft doesn't want to step up to the plate and make the their formats the defacto standard, the OpenDocument/OASIS formats are ready to take that place.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyhow, those lines should look something like:
World standards day is today, the 14th. Posted on..
...the 15th.
Maybe we need some new standards?
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=5 5330
;-)
Well, looks like it's fixed now...
I was going to go do the math myself, but AC beat me to it.
MOD PARENT UP!!!
(maybe someone over at Novell could do this... please?)
Standards? Works everwhere? Hey dude -- you're working for M-i-c-r-o-s-o-f-t... you know, the people who don't like standards, who won't use open standards (OpenDocument), tweak standards so they are not compliant (Kerberos), invent their own "standards" and not share them (MS-Word format), and then finally try to patent everything (FAT filesystem) so that other people (that would be us, the open source community) can't use it.
Maybe you should read your own article and think about those things, eh? Maybe a lot of people at Microsoft should think about those things...
I wonder if Bill goes off any sweet jumps...
It's not their primary "Do no harm" slogan, people...
If only Apple's Bonjour was an IM protocol...
They're not even giving him a ticket in coach to get out to Redmond? Well, how about that for a warm welcome...
Yeah, I don't have my Linux Fund card anymore, but I am surprised to hear that the project has fallen apart. Now that I'm a working stiff I finally had enough money to send some to the FSF and EFF, but I was thinking about giving the Linux Fund some money so that "worthwhile projects" could request money and get some piece of the pie.
;-)
Are there any legal hurdles to getting this money to projects over at Sourceforge? (if the Linux Fund group has not been active for several months, that may cause problems, methinks).
(Oh, and hi Jeff
Who gets the money from those royalty payments?
(the law you linked to mentions payments, but not who receives the funds).
Some people have told me that DeCSS shirts are of questionable legality in the US, but I'm pretty darn sure that a DeCSS shirt is legal in the US, just like Dave Touretsky's (sp?) gallery of DeCSS descramblers.
;-)
Any law enforcement officer that believes otherwise can come and arrest me. Address will be furnished upon verification of law enforcement status and proper jurisdiction in New Hampshire.
P.S. Funny that I randomly chose to wear mine today...
Combining Kev Vance's comment about a direct link to the movie and nstrom's comment about using the Nyud.net mirror, I give you a high-bandwidth direct link:
L V/LVCleese_LG.flv
http://www.backuptrauma.com.nyud.net:8090/video/F
Microsoft is a 8 million pound Gorilla, but it is weakening. What about the Halloween documents? Support for Linux with virtual machine? Windows Starter Edition and un-End-of-life-ing Win98 because of pressure from Linux?
Microsoft is strong and has lots of money and lots of intelligent businessmen and computer scientists. But it's not the best fit for all situations (small company or school with Linux + FOSS can save a bundle). And it makes mistakes.
I've been trying to get in touch with Microsoft for several weeks, sending emails to their legal department and senior XML architect (Jean Paoli) regarding the licensing of their XML file formats. They have (conveniently) ignored me, but I'm going to keep on asking them (perhaps via certified mail?) until they give me an answer. I'm commited to helping people to migrate to open file formats and I'm doing some legwork to reveal if Microsoft's supposedly "open" formats actually are open.
Microsoft isn't going to go belly-up one day -- and I'm not sure I really want them to. I want a world where people can choose to use Linux, MacOSX, WindowsXP, or something else. I want to be able to use file formats without signing an NDA or having to reverse-engineer them. I want compatibility. I want to be able to use open source programs to access any and all government websites, tax documents, and laws -- because all that stuff will be store in documented, open formats and accessible through documented, open protocols.
We're not going to take down Microsoft. But we are going to get to a point where you don't have to have a copy of MS-Office to do business and people won't assume that people can run Windows
Think not what FOSS can do for you, but what you can do for FOSS.
Now we have AACS, which you could pronounce "A-A-C-S", or maybe "Aks" or "Axe".
Or we could all decide to use a soft "C" sound and just call them "Ssss" and "Ass".
;-)
Pay with cash, and fight having a National ID card.
I imagine that in 5 years there could be both a National ID card AND some restaurants that strongly encourage using a credit card (read: they'll make it a bitch to pay in cash). It's sad, but if we see that it's possible, maybe we can prevent that kind of locked-down future.
This AC has a point -- we talk about getting a refund when we purchase bundled copies of Microsoft Windows, but shouldn't we be asking Apple for the same kind of refund?
Sure, the Darwin core of OSX is free, but the Apple OSX operating system is as proprietary an OS as WindowsXP when it comes down to it.
I think that people speak more favorably of Apple than of Microsoft because (1) Apple is the underdog, (2) because Woz hacked on open hardware while Gates got upset about people sharing his version of BASIC, and (3) because Apple has played nicely (generally) with FOSS.
But bundled software is bundled software. If you purchase a Mac Mini with Panther and you are going to run Debian/NetBSD/etc... on it, I'd ask for a refund. Maybe not $120, but a certain amount.
Has anyone asked for a refund from Apple? Has anyone gotten a refund?
DNS registration - $10/year
Collecting political information to put on your blog - $250/year for newspapers, etc...
Hosting costs - about $1000/year
Hosting your website outside of SanFran and telling the City Council they can f*** off - Priceless.
Although Bezos claimed that the AG "is the same organization that from time to time has advocated charging public libraries royalties on books they loan out," (from news.com.com)
the A.G. website has a slightly different story. Apparently the A.G. did investigate government-sponsored royalties, but funding issues and higher-priority concerns for the A.G. have halted their efforts.
I find it interesting that the A.G. promotes such a system, described as "...a small government-funded royalty paid to authors of books borrowed from libraries." I mean, how could you determine who gets royalties without keeping track of how many times each item gets checked out? Wouldn't that raise serious privacy concerns, not to mention issues of fraud and checkout-padding for certain books?
And then who gets to put media in the library? I mean I could put together some pamphlets about linux or FOSS, and then give them to my local library to put on the shelf. If my friends and I check them out (for free) every few days, we can get money back, right?
What would we do with websites? People coming into the library are increasingly doing so to access the Internet (especially in lower-income areas where most people do not have access at home). If someone does research online and finds good information on Wikipedia.org, shouldn't Wikipedia get some money for that? Who is to say that Britannica deserves royalties for its 3year-old Encyclopedia but Wikipedia doesn't deserve them for its own upkeep of hardware and bandwidth?
If this happens I can see people forming new "free libraries" -- not free for borrowing, but free from any monitoring or recording of who checked out what, when. I thought up a couple of neat ways to do this a while back as a way to 'get around' terms in the PATRIOT Act -- generally including public/private keypairs and money held in escrow (in the event that the materials were not returned). It would be a shame if people felt forced to go out and implement something like this.
Somebody get that kid a Wikipedia account ASAP!
;-)
Why have him fix Britannica's mistakes when he could be fixing and adding to an encyclopedia that will let him just go in and make the corrections himself
The prop from the movie?
;-)
I can do you one better: I know a guy who has an old red swingline. Yes, I said old. Apparently they used to make red staplers -- IIRC, it looks old enough that it could be from the 80's or even 70's.
When I saw it (and realized that it pre-dated the movie) I was astonished. I really need to go visit my friend and take some pictures so I can prove it!
You should go make a page on wikipedia that has information about what regional porn servers are up or down.
;-)
Perhaps you could get Netcraft and Vivid Video to co-sponsor a page with up to date information on it -- just like what Netcraft does now. I suggest that you call it
Vivid Craft
(GoDaddy.com says that vividcraft.com is not taken yet!...)
neat.
That was something that I wanted for a couple of my projects (full text search on databases), but I hadn't yet bothered to go looking for what offerings there were for MySQL and PostgreSQL.
Further proof that Slashdot is all you need®.
Dear Martin Taylor,
Microsoft makes a number of software applications including Microsoft Office -- applications that store user data in many different file formats. Recently Microsoft announced that it had made several of its MS-Office XML file formats open. But it is unclear how "open" these file formats are.
Could you please answer the following?
1) Which file formats are open?
2) When there was a clarification about the licensing of the microsoft formats, Jean Paoli said "We are acknowledging that end users who merely open and read government documents that are saved as Office XML files within software programs will not violate the license." What does that mean? Can OpenOffice.org create files in these formats?
The licensing terms for these formats are really confusing. Could you please release them under something simple like the Distribution Terms on the Xiph codecs like Ogg Vorbis[1] ?
3) Does Microsoft agree that storing data in non-proprietary, open file formats is beneficial?
I've heard that open file formats would make interoperability between different programs on different operating systems much easier. I've also heard that open file formats would mean that it would be easier to recover archived data in the future -- because all you'd need was the file and the file format. Would you agree that this sounds like a good idea?
4) On the website for the Office 2003 XML Schemas, you state "The Schemas provide developers and representatives of business and government a standard way to store and exchange data stored in documents."[2]
But unfortunately only certain versions of Microsoft Office support the XML formats. In fact, many people out there are using Office 97, Office 98, or Office 2000 -- none of which support your XML format. In order to make your formats viable for information interchange, would you:
--- --- ---
To be honest, I don't believe that Microsoft will answer these questions. But this is what I think needs to happen so that the Microsoft XML formats can be open standards for office formats.
Because if Microsoft doesn't want to step up to the plate and make the their formats the defacto standard, the OpenDocument/OASIS formats are ready to take that place.
[1] http://xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/
[2] http://www.microsoft.com/office/xml/default.mspx