I left scale out intentionally. What's really at question here is if the companies joining the evaluation committees did so merely to vote for a preferred outcome (ballot-stuffing), or if they actually evaluated the proposed standards on it's own merits.
Since both sides have now accused the other of the same thing, that alone really should be enough justification to toss everything or start over until both sides are actually satisfied that things went smoothly -- and preferably with checks to ensure it actually does. A tainted vote is still a tainted vote, regardless of if you got the outcome you wanted or not.
Again, I work for IBM, but this is my own opinion.
Besides, it's littered with awful "explanations" like AutoSpaceLikeWord95. How do you AutoSpace like Word95? OOXML doesn't explain this. Asking anyone developing OOXML, and they'll tell you it's OK because it was moved to the deprecated part of the specification along with a few other hot-button tags like that.
Of course, there are two obvious problems with this:
1) It's still in the specification, so even if it's deprecated you still need to say what it does... WITHOUT relating to a particular application's implementation.
2) How is it that a brand-new standard specification contains deprecated options?
Microsoft's general manager of standards and interoperability Tom Robertson said that Microsoft, too, has been queried as part of the investigation.
He said that Microsoft will "fully cooperate" with any investigation from the Commission.
In response to the accusations of stacking committees, Robertson said that IBM and other competitors have done exactly what Microsoft is accused of doing. For example, an employee from Google, which opposed Open XML standardization, joined the Finnish national committee only three days before a vote.
"It seems that one of the main concerns that people have raised about the process is the broad-based participation in the standards body deliberation," he said. "I think it's ironic IBM is complaining about new members in national standards bodies when they have been working around the clock to get people to join."
Two wrongs do not make a right, and if IBM and other companies were wrong as he suggest, then so was Microsoft if they did the same, and it just goes to support the argument that the process was tampered with and the results discarded. By making that statement, he actually argued against his own position that everything went fine.
The end result will be that there's one application that processes OOXML "perfectly" (MSOffice)
I just wanted to amend your comments by saying that note even MSOffice implements the full "standard", so even that product is far from a perfect implementation.
A friend of mine commented to me that MS OOXML looks like they took the byte code of the DOC format, and made XML tags for each of their binary ones. That hardly makes it portable, let alone cross-product compatible.
... when you've stuff the board that made the decisions.
I'm pretty sure (I'd have to check the groklaw archives) that the board that decided to fast-track it was also filled with MS sponsored people. That is, MS was influencing the entire process from the get-go, INCLUDING the decision to have it fast-tracked.
I'm hazy on the details, but there was an outcry about how the decision to fast-track the standard was made.
Perhaps someone who knows the links offhand can post them here. It is still blaming the victim when the victim was abused from the get-go.
IANAL, but shouldn't this have been pretty easy to show for a jury, with just two questions, how they're either involved in deception or not?
1) Was Rambus involved in the standards process?
If not, then while there's an issue of if the patents should have been granted in the first place (and I don't agree with this, but think it's the case), I think they'd be in the clear as far as this particular jury would be concerned.... with the exception being if the patents were submitted AFTER the standard was published. However, there I'm not sure a would have have the power to say the patent itself shouldn't have been granted even though, by being a "standard" it shouldn't have (prior art).
However, if they were involved, then:
2) Were the patents in question granted or pending at the time the standard was being developed?
If yes, I'd say they did deliberately hide the fact that their patent(ed/pending) works were in the spec. If no, then by having worked on the spec they must have known those patents were already covered by the spec, and hence knew they'd be able to make a mint if they managed to get the patent after the fact... although that also calls into question the patent office for improper investigation.
This case, where company pushes for standards, waits for everyone to implement them, and THEN reveals that it has the patents on parts of the standard...
Or the MSXML case, where they're pushing for a standard that has been SHOWN to be riddled with patented parts (such as MP3, I believe), with a "promise" that they won't sue anyone who issues the (full) standard, which even their own product doesn't do.
That is the whole point of having this discussion.
Until the MSXML (sorry, not OOXML), the ISO process was working quite smoothly and was well respected. MS is the first company to purposely politicize the process and created, to use your words, "all the nonsense surrounding this vote." In particular, with how this "standard" was put on the Fast Track process instead of the normal ISO process.
I'm sure it's been beaten to death, but the Fast Track process exists to ensure small, quick, necessary standards are approved rapidly. A 6000-8000 page XML documentation specification, when a 700+ page XML document specification already exists (which was NOT fast-tracked, BTW), does not qualify.
What we have to hope is that by having discussions like this, somehow, someone or preferably someones in the ISO organization actually stand up and point out that the entirety of the voting for this format has not been up to specification and have the thing tossed BEFORE it turns the entire ISO organization into a laughingstock which can be bought for enough money. If they want to start over, fine, but don't fast track it, and put in safegaurds to keep the money out of it.
I believe DB2 manages more data than Oracle, whereas Oracle has more installations.
Disclaimer: I work for IBM. The thoughts posted are my own, and do not necessarily reflect those of IBM.
For the same reason PostgreSQL and MySQL aren't really competitors to Oracle.
There might be SOME crossover, but one database system (MySQL, PostgreSQL) is aimed at user performing simpler tasks (web forums, home users) which don't necessarily need all the features of the larger products (transactions, large numbers of simultaneous users, data integrity checking), whereas the other (DB2, Oracle) is aimed at business users who require those full-fledged features.
Now, I'm not saying that PostgreSQL and MySQL don't provide some of the features, but people will choose what best suits their needs. You won't see banks running PostgreSQL/MySQL on for their financial transactions, just like you most likely won't see DB2/Oracle running as the backend of your (run-of-the-mill) web forum.
Disclaimer: I work for IBM. These thoughts are my own, and may not represent those of the company.
Wasn't a troll... I really couldn't reach it for about an hour from 8:30 - 9:30 or so.
FYI to the other poster: I wasn't doing research; I wanted some quick info on an anime series, and thought I could actually count on/.ers to actually confirm if it was down or not.
Sorry for the threadjack, but is anyone else having problems accessing wikipedia? I'm on Markham, ON, but someone from England on another forum confirmed that they can't reach it either.
Slashdot Mirror
I left scale out intentionally. What's really at question here is if the companies joining the evaluation committees did so merely to vote for a preferred outcome (ballot-stuffing), or if they actually evaluated the proposed standards on it's own merits.
Since both sides have now accused the other of the same thing, that alone really should be enough justification to toss everything or start over until both sides are actually satisfied that things went smoothly -- and preferably with checks to ensure it actually does. A tainted vote is still a tainted vote, regardless of if you got the outcome you wanted or not.
Again, I work for IBM, but this is my own opinion.Of course, there are two obvious problems with this:
1) It's still in the specification, so even if it's deprecated you still need to say what it does... WITHOUT relating to a particular application's implementation.
2) How is it that a brand-new standard specification contains deprecated options?
Two wrongs do not make a right, and if IBM and other companies were wrong as he suggest, then so was Microsoft if they did the same, and it just goes to support the argument that the process was tampered with and the results discarded. By making that statement, he actually argued against his own position that everything went fine.
Note: I work for IBM, but this opinion is my own
I just wanted to amend your comments by saying that note even MSOffice implements the full "standard", so even that product is far from a perfect implementation.
A friend of mine commented to me that MS OOXML looks like they took the byte code of the DOC format, and made XML tags for each of their binary ones. That hardly makes it portable, let alone cross-product compatible.
... when you've stuff the board that made the decisions.
I'm pretty sure (I'd have to check the groklaw archives) that the board that decided to fast-track it was also filled with MS sponsored people. That is, MS was influencing the entire process from the get-go, INCLUDING the decision to have it fast-tracked.
I'm hazy on the details, but there was an outcry about how the decision to fast-track the standard was made.
Perhaps someone who knows the links offhand can post them here. It is still blaming the victim when the victim was abused from the get-go.
IANAL, but shouldn't this have been pretty easy to show for a jury, with just two questions, how they're either involved in deception or not?
1) Was Rambus involved in the standards process?
If not, then while there's an issue of if the patents should have been granted in the first place (and I don't agree with this, but think it's the case), I think they'd be in the clear as far as this particular jury would be concerned.... with the exception being if the patents were submitted AFTER the standard was published. However, there I'm not sure a would have have the power to say the patent itself shouldn't have been granted even though, by being a "standard" it shouldn't have (prior art).
However, if they were involved, then:
2) Were the patents in question granted or pending at the time the standard was being developed?
If yes, I'd say they did deliberately hide the fact that their patent(ed/pending) works were in the spec. If no, then by having worked on the spec they must have known those patents were already covered by the spec, and hence knew they'd be able to make a mint if they managed to get the patent after the fact... although that also calls into question the patent office for improper investigation.
This case, where company pushes for standards, waits for everyone to implement them, and THEN reveals that it has the patents on parts of the standard...
Or the MSXML case, where they're pushing for a standard that has been SHOWN to be riddled with patented parts (such as MP3, I believe), with a "promise" that they won't sue anyone who issues the (full) standard, which even their own product doesn't do.
That is the whole point of having this discussion.
Until the MSXML (sorry, not OOXML), the ISO process was working quite smoothly and was well respected. MS is the first company to purposely politicize the process and created, to use your words, "all the nonsense surrounding this vote." In particular, with how this "standard" was put on the Fast Track process instead of the normal ISO process.
I'm sure it's been beaten to death, but the Fast Track process exists to ensure small, quick, necessary standards are approved rapidly. A 6000-8000 page XML documentation specification, when a 700+ page XML document specification already exists (which was NOT fast-tracked, BTW), does not qualify.
What we have to hope is that by having discussions like this, somehow, someone or preferably someones in the ISO organization actually stand up and point out that the entirety of the voting for this format has not been up to specification and have the thing tossed BEFORE it turns the entire ISO organization into a laughingstock which can be bought for enough money. If they want to start over, fine, but don't fast track it, and put in safegaurds to keep the money out of it.
That last bit is hard, but it has to be done.
I believe DB2 manages more data than Oracle, whereas Oracle has more installations. Disclaimer: I work for IBM. The thoughts posted are my own, and do not necessarily reflect those of IBM.
Why isn't this a competitor of db2?
For the same reason PostgreSQL and MySQL aren't really competitors to Oracle.
There might be SOME crossover, but one database system (MySQL, PostgreSQL) is aimed at user performing simpler tasks (web forums, home users) which don't necessarily need all the features of the larger products (transactions, large numbers of simultaneous users, data integrity checking), whereas the other (DB2, Oracle) is aimed at business users who require those full-fledged features.
Now, I'm not saying that PostgreSQL and MySQL don't provide some of the features, but people will choose what best suits their needs. You won't see banks running PostgreSQL/MySQL on for their financial transactions, just like you most likely won't see DB2/Oracle running as the backend of your (run-of-the-mill) web forum.
Disclaimer: I work for IBM. These thoughts are my own, and may not represent those of the company.
Only until a shark decides to take a bite out of one. Then you'd just have electrically cooked shark guts all over the place.
Wasn't a troll... I really couldn't reach it for about an hour from 8:30 - 9:30 or so. FYI to the other poster: I wasn't doing research; I wanted some quick info on an anime series, and thought I could actually count on /.ers to actually confirm if it was down or not.
Sorry for the threadjack, but is anyone else having problems accessing wikipedia? I'm on Markham, ON, but someone from England on another forum confirmed that they can't reach it either.