Basically they say: "If you want to switch your computers to Windows, we'll give you a free license plus give you $100 per PC to cover the cost of labor to install it.", when the labor costs about $1 per PC. Who can pass up such a deal? One thing that's usually not factored in is Brazil (and other emerging market economies) are very nationalistic (prefer home grown vs imported). Add the cost of localization of software packages (with OSS they can do Portuguese localization themselves) and a government that realizes they can use OSS to get better/cheaper/faster economies of scale and it's not that hard to pass up a Microsoft 'deal'.
I am not amused. Far from it in fact. I was responding to the following except from a grandparent post satirically, before it was modded -1 troll.
It's actually kind of amusing to see people get so worked up. ODF is still a standard, and OOXML becoming one doesn't actually change that. I never meant to present a fallacious either/or argument, only indicate the entire process given where we saw it was going and how it has ended up so far as a waste.
I have contributed here and there to some open source projects, but I haven't had the time to in a while, so don't worry, your software's safe. For now.;).
The opportunity cost lost to what I consider more worthy causes, by spending time on Slashdot pales when compared to the impact decisions like supporting OOXML have globally.
We all could do better, I agree (and thank you for reminding me). The time, energy and money spent to push OOXML through was a waste and the additional time, energy and money that's going to be used to keep it going will be an even bigger waste.
I never claimed to be holier-than-thou, but when people place their trust in you as a standards body, if you ignore it, it costs the people who trusted you one way or another.
I don't see from the article where they admitted that they made it a standard too early. The most they are doing is getting a group together to keep track of all the defects they find and getting another group to keep the ECMA and ISO versions in sync. Business as usual for maintaining the 'standard'.
Except OOXML already is the standard, or at least the spiritual successor to it. Microsoft Word is how 90% of the world creates their documents. And that's right where we want to be 20, 30 or even 50 years from now.
Here we have the company responsible for that 90% (if not more!) wanting to open up their file format and make it an ISO standard, giving the wider global community some sort of say in the process, for the first time ever. Not quite. They didn't want to open their file format, but they wanted to make it an ISO standard. They also wanted to give the global community a pat on the head to let them think that they had some sort of say in the process.
There is absolutely no reason to oppose OOXML's adoption as a standard. It already *IS* the standard and any attempts to block it are just idiots sticking their head in the sand. There is absolutely no reason to oppose ODF's adoption as a standard. It already *IS* the standard and any attempts to block it are just idiots sticking their head in the sand.
Let me repeat that: the vast majority of human beings on this planet that need to create a document in a word processor do it with some version of Microsoft Word. Period. This is *FACT*. Any move toward putting that file format into an open standard is a good move. You seem to be confused. There is a difference between a de facto standard (in this case due to a monopoly) and a derived standard (usually created and documented from technical input from known experts).
Complaining that the first version has technical flaws is just as useless. The ISO can address that with revisions. I would agree with you if it wasn't already a 'standard'. Think of other standards that you use which, if they were adopted before they addressed technical flaws, would have disastrous impacts. Want to play with the standard for electrical transmission? How about the standards that even let you use the Internet?
Some of those "flaws" are directly related to preserving the ability of a word processor to open older documents and render them properly (think un-translatable languages. will archaeologists be able to open a 100-yr old Word document in the future? 500 year old? I hope so, because that will be a regular part of the job...). So our brand new standard has to cater for the current de facto format's ability to be backward compatible with a monopolist's software package?
What would have been really great is if we had a whole bunch of other standards and incorporated them into a brand new standard! Too bad we didn't think of it before OOXML.
If you've ever read Joel's article about the file formats, you'd understand that there are some behaviors that simply can't be described other than to say "here is the piece of code that produces that output". No, still don't understand. And by the way, can you show me where Microsoft said 'here is the piece of code that produces that output' for all the binary blobs they're spewing out? Thanks!
Microsoft didn't care back then - I doubt you would have given a rat's ass in the 80s either under the same circumstances and with the same disk and memory limits. We know a lot more about software development now. Including not to tie ourselves to 80's file formats. Oops. Seems not.
As far as I'm concerned, anyone who opposes the adoption of OOXML can go piss up a rope. As a developer I'm more than happy to have, for the first time ever, some readily available documentation on the file format and a standards body that will at least try to take care of the standard, whether they ever succeed or not. Well, I'm glad one of us is happy. Actually, no I'm not. If you think the OOXML file format documentation will actually help you, go read it and come back.
It's amusing to see that because of the actions of a single software company, money that could have been spent on something like finding cleaner sources of energy or battling rising food prices, will now be spent on trying to support OOXML.
ODF is a standard, implementable by any third party and independent of the implementor's software. OOXML's inclusion as a 'standard' now also has the effect of influencing ODF's openness via 'cross-standard initiatives'.
The ISO process was abused, clearly. OOXML does not meet the minimum definition of an open standard and that is enough to show the process was abused.
You're assuming Microsoft will actually follow the standard in its entirety. The moving target is for the people who want to inter-operate with Microsoft, not the other way around.
ODF should embrace any missing functionality using existing standards (like flowcharts drawn using SVG). To embrace OOXML will cause it to implode upon itself.
If Microsoft really wanted to eliminate their lock in and work on an open standard, they would have worked to extend ODF. That wasn't profitable for them, so they didn't do it.
We do have many programming language standards, but all of those standards are well defined. They do not include something that only one complier from one company knows just how it works!
Something is either open or not. You can't have it both ways. Microsoft realizes this, and realizes it can (through sheer complicated technicality) give the impression of being open, while being closed. It seems they are still fooling some of the people some of the time.
There were a number of defects in the OOXML 'standard' and there is yet another working group charged with rationalizing the issues who (because of the vagueness of the 'standard') need to get the ECMA people in to 'advise' them if they could change something or not. That does not sound like they're in control.
One has to wonder who they think they're fooling. Microsoft has no obligation to implement any changes the ISO group may advise, but through the ECMA, the ISO would have no real choice.
To add further insult to injury, they're setting up yet another group to work on 'cross standard initiatives' - i.e. let's try to make ODF as useless as OOXML as a standard.
The ISO didn't have control of OOXML from the beginning. If they believe anything they do will give them control, they are sadly mistaken.
Anyone who thinks having videos as flvs will keep the majority of people from "stealing" content clearly hasn't done a search for "save flv" on google. It's a pity no-one out there coded up an open source flash player though. It would save lots of time and trouble.
You can also try using a vmware based Tor browsing appliance if you're really paranoid (segmented from host machine, routes traffice through Tor, doesn't save anything on the virtual disk when shutdown), like the one I'm seeding http://www.mininova.org/tor/408257.
And for anyone who wants to try a preconfigured Tor-based Firefox VMware appliance (making your surfing not only anonymous, but segmented from the host machine) you can find a torrent at http://www.mininova.org/tor/408257.
This is no different to not letting someone view a website because they're not using Internet Explorer. Once you put something up on the 'net it should be available to everyone or available to no-one. A website should not care (content wise) where their visitors are coming from and no matter how you may consider this being self-censorship, it flies directly in the face of free information flow on the Internet. This is another reason why networks like http://tor.eff.org/ Tor exist. The less you know about who is coming to your site and how, the less effect your freaky censorship will have on me.
Although in beta, the pure java LGPL'd SwingWT http://swingwt.sourceforge.net/ attempts to replicate the Swing API (and it's huge) using SWT code. You distribute your platform specific swt library with your build, make sure it's in the searchable path (./binlib for example) and you're good to go. The AWT api is replicated as well.
We have something that would work better than torrent files for p2p in the browser - dijjer. It requires a Java Runtime Environment but there are extensions which make it easier to use in Firefox. Dijjer downloads content in-order (unlike bittorrent) and there's nothing to configure once your web server supports the range header. I was working on a dijjer applet and extension a while ago, but I got too busy to develop it further. The slashdot effect for webpages could be mitigated using a combination of Dijjer and MAF to distribute archive copies of the page as long as its popular.
Re:Donde este la DHTML?
on
Netscape 6
·
· Score: 1
The DHTML is *there*. Netscape is uses the Mozilla rendering engine and supports FULLY the w3c DOM. The thing is DHTML up to recently has only tested for and used Browser-specific DOM code... Which Mozilla doesn't support (and so by extension NS6)... DHTML is possible (there's full w3c css1 and partial css2 spec I think ) in fact go ta Mozilla's home page and I think there are example pages in the NGLayout section...
DHTML is gonna be standard and kewler than ever.:).
I tend to agree with the above post. With the new *TOTALLY* standards compliant browser that not only supports the CSS1 spec (which IE5 doesn't fully support due to "backward compatibility issues") but the CSS2 spec among other kewl 'net standards. It's seems to be more logical to number it 6.0 if it supports the next generation of standards that was supported by IE 5.0...
Hmmm... I wonder... If one drank enough of this stuff would ya skin eventually turn luminescent after a while?... I can see kids going nuts over glow-in-the-dark kool aid...
Slashdot Mirror
I am not amused. Far from it in fact. I was responding to the following except from a grandparent post satirically, before it was modded -1 troll. It's actually kind of amusing to see people get so worked up. ODF is still a standard, and OOXML becoming one doesn't actually change that. I never meant to present a fallacious either/or argument, only indicate the entire process given where we saw it was going and how it has ended up so far as a waste.
I have contributed here and there to some open source projects, but I haven't had the time to in a while, so don't worry, your software's safe. For now.
The opportunity cost lost to what I consider more worthy causes, by spending time on Slashdot pales when compared to the impact decisions like supporting OOXML have globally.
We all could do better, I agree (and thank you for reminding me). The time, energy and money spent to push OOXML through was a waste and the additional time, energy and money that's going to be used to keep it going will be an even bigger waste.
I never claimed to be holier-than-thou, but when people place their trust in you as a standards body, if you ignore it, it costs the people who trusted you one way or another.
There were better ways to spend that money.
I don't see from the article where they admitted that they made it a standard too early. The most they are doing is getting a group together to keep track of all the defects they find and getting another group to keep the ECMA and ISO versions in sync. Business as usual for maintaining the 'standard'.
What would have been really great is if we had a whole bunch of other standards and incorporated them into a brand new standard! Too bad we didn't think of it before OOXML. If you've ever read Joel's article about the file formats, you'd understand that there are some behaviors that simply can't be described other than to say "here is the piece of code that produces that output". No, still don't understand. And by the way, can you show me where Microsoft said 'here is the piece of code that produces that output' for all the binary blobs they're spewing out? Thanks! Microsoft didn't care back then - I doubt you would have given a rat's ass in the 80s either under the same circumstances and with the same disk and memory limits. We know a lot more about software development now. Including not to tie ourselves to 80's file formats. Oops. Seems not. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who opposes the adoption of OOXML can go piss up a rope. As a developer I'm more than happy to have, for the first time ever, some readily available documentation on the file format and a standards body that will at least try to take care of the standard, whether they ever succeed or not. Well, I'm glad one of us is happy. Actually, no I'm not. If you think the OOXML file format documentation will actually help you, go read it and come back.
It's amusing to see that because of the actions of a single software company, money that could have been spent on something like finding cleaner sources of energy or battling rising food prices, will now be spent on trying to support OOXML.
ODF is a standard, implementable by any third party and independent of the implementor's software. OOXML's inclusion as a 'standard' now also has the effect of influencing ODF's openness via 'cross-standard initiatives'.
The ISO process was abused, clearly. OOXML does not meet the minimum definition of an open standard and that is enough to show the process was abused.
You're assuming Microsoft will actually follow the standard in its entirety. The moving target is for the people who want to inter-operate with Microsoft, not the other way around.
ODF should embrace any missing functionality using existing standards (like flowcharts drawn using SVG). To embrace OOXML will cause it to implode upon itself.
OOXML is not standardized. It's 'standardized'.
If Microsoft really wanted to eliminate their lock in and work on an open standard, they would have worked to extend ODF. That wasn't profitable for them, so they didn't do it.
We do have many programming language standards, but all of those standards are well defined. They do not include something that only one complier from one company knows just how it works!
Something is either open or not. You can't have it both ways. Microsoft realizes this, and realizes it can (through sheer complicated technicality) give the impression of being open, while being closed. It seems they are still fooling some of the people some of the time.
There were a number of defects in the OOXML 'standard' and there is yet another working group charged with rationalizing the issues who (because of the vagueness of the 'standard') need to get the ECMA people in to 'advise' them if they could change something or not. That does not sound like they're in control.
One has to wonder who they think they're fooling. Microsoft has no obligation to implement any changes the ISO group may advise, but through the ECMA, the ISO would have no real choice.
To add further insult to injury, they're setting up yet another group to work on 'cross standard initiatives' - i.e. let's try to make ODF as useless as OOXML as a standard.
The ISO didn't have control of OOXML from the beginning. If they believe anything they do will give them control, they are sadly mistaken.
Anyone who thinks having videos as flvs will keep the majority of people from "stealing" content clearly hasn't done a search for "save flv" on google. It's a pity no-one out there coded up an open source flash player though. It would save lots of time and trouble.
Firefox on Ubuntu and you have a vmware appliance you can get from http://www.mininova.org/tor/408257.
You can also try using a vmware based Tor browsing appliance if you're really paranoid (segmented from host machine, routes traffice through Tor, doesn't save anything on the virtual disk when shutdown), like the one I'm seeding http://www.mininova.org/tor/408257.
And for anyone who wants to try a preconfigured Tor-based Firefox VMware appliance (making your surfing not only anonymous, but segmented from the host machine) you can find a torrent at http://www.mininova.org/tor/408257.
This is no different to not letting someone view a website because they're not using Internet Explorer. Once you put something up on the 'net it should be available to everyone or available to no-one. A website should not care (content wise) where their visitors are coming from and no matter how you may consider this being self-censorship, it flies directly in the face of free information flow on the Internet. This is another reason why networks like http://tor.eff.org/ Tor exist. The less you know about who is coming to your site and how, the less effect your freaky censorship will have on me.
As an aside I recently started seeding a Linux based Tor Virtual Appliance. You can find it linked in the Tor wiki http://wiki.noreply.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter if you're interested.
Although in beta, the pure java LGPL'd SwingWT http://swingwt.sourceforge.net/ attempts to replicate the Swing API (and it's huge) using SWT code. You distribute your platform specific swt library with your build, make sure it's in the searchable path (./binlib for example) and you're good to go. The AWT api is replicated as well.
We have something that would work better than torrent files for p2p in the browser - dijjer. It requires a Java Runtime Environment but there are extensions which make it easier to use in Firefox. Dijjer downloads content in-order (unlike bittorrent) and there's nothing to configure once your web server supports the range header. I was working on a dijjer applet and extension a while ago, but I got too busy to develop it further. The slashdot effect for webpages could be mitigated using a combination of Dijjer and MAF to distribute archive copies of the page as long as its popular.
The DHTML is *there*. Netscape is uses the Mozilla rendering engine and supports FULLY the w3c DOM. The thing is DHTML up to recently has only tested for and used Browser-specific DOM code... Which Mozilla doesn't support (and so by extension NS6)... DHTML is possible (there's full w3c css1 and partial css2 spec I think ) in fact go ta Mozilla's home page and I think there are example pages in the NGLayout section...
:).
DHTML is gonna be standard and kewler than ever.
Chris.
I tend to agree with the above post. With the new *TOTALLY* standards compliant browser that not only supports the CSS1 spec (which IE5 doesn't fully support due to "backward compatibility issues") but the CSS2 spec among other kewl 'net standards. It's seems to be more logical to number it 6.0 if it supports the next generation of standards that was supported by IE 5.0...
Hmmm... I wonder... If one drank enough of this stuff would ya skin eventually turn luminescent after a while?... I can see kids going nuts over glow-in-the-dark kool aid...
vDom 1.4.1