IIS5 had many security problems, but you need to deal with the present day. IIS6 has had a nearly flawless record since it was released in 2003. And IIS7 builds on that record and adds more modularity and much greater performance (the beta of IIS7 blows away IIS6 and Apache). Nowadays, the only thing Apache really has going for it is price and Microsoft-hatred (on the part an ever-shrinking segment of the IT community).
"Is there any compelling reason _not_ to use apache?! o.O"
Security, for one. Since MS released IIS6 in 2003, it's had a nearly perfect security record, much better than Apache's record since 2003. IIS6 security record since 2003 3 flaws, none serious, all patched
But Apple fanboys like to pretend that OSX is "secure by design", and "inherently secure". If so, why does Apple have to remove functionality to fight off a worm? Shouldn't the "security by design" thwart the worm? I speaking facetiously, but Apple fanboys are very smug and need to understand that OSX isn't "inherently secure", that Apple's programmers are not infallible gods.
ODF is based on OO.o 1.0's proprietary XML format. As such, it has no moral high ground to claim that it's a perfect app-neutral format. Now, being based on OO.o's previous XML format, that means that ODF is essnetially OO.o 2.0's format. Others may choose to imlement it, but make no mistake, this is OO.o 2.0's format, not an app-neutral format.
What governments want, isn't ODF, it's for the office suite that they choose to use to support a publicly specified format (so document archives are presereved). The easiest way to do that, isn't to force everyone to use the format of OO.o 2.0, a suite with 5% marketshare. Certainly it makes no sense to force the sutie with 90% share to adopt the format of the suite with 5% share as its default format. The easier thing to do is for the suite with 90% share to publicy specify a standard for its own formats. And MS did that.
I'd rather you be honest that the goal here was to forbid government use of MS Office, pure and simple. You invite MS to use ODF, knowing that it's essentially inviting the suite with 90% share to adopt the format of a suite with 5% share as its native format. That would be the tail wagging the dog. So that invitation was disingenuous, to say the least, and was done for no other reason than a PR stunt. Then you attempt to talk governments into mandating the use of ODF based on the fact that it's an open standard and therefore will allow documents to be comprenended forever, regardless of what software is in use. You do this knowing that MS won't adopt ODF as its native format (for "tail wagging dog" reason I stated above), so you are essentially trying to talk governments into forbiding use of MS Office. MS responds by openning up its own formats, something that you never dreamed that they would do, and essentially torpedoes your whole strategy. And governments recognize that MS openning up its own formats is saner than forcing MS to use OO.o's format. So now governments have a public spec for the suite that they choose to use, and they still get to use MS Office's features to boot.
"Not being locked in was the point of the entire endeavor."
I thought the point was to maintain the ability to comprehend documents years into the future by saving those documents in a public spec.
Not to mention that the real point of the endeavor was to codify into law the use of a document built for OO.o's feature set, lacking the ability to handle MS's feature set, thereby prohibiting government use of MS's extra features. Basically, codify into law OO.o's feature set. OO.o can't compete with MS on features, so let the law render the feature set competition moot, at which point OO.o can compete on "free as in beer".
I did some early work with it when it was still Windows Media Photo. It's genuinely a good format. I just hope it doesn't get bogged down in politics and legal wrangling.
I won't speak to the potential for "legal wrangling", but regarding "politics", if this does get bogged down in politics then you can bet that it'll be the anything-but-Microsoft folks that are to blame. Hell, this very subthread starts with a post saying that this format should be rejected just because it comes from Microsoft, regardless of the merits and regardless of how liberal the license is. In other words, the format should be rejected on the basis of politics. The same BS that goes on in the ODF vs OOXML debates (the reality is that 90% of that debate is politics BS, not technical merits).
*sigh* Why don't you put the blame where it lies? GPL!! GPL is incompatible with many, many licenses, even many of those certified as "open" by OSI. GPL is the most "unfriendly" when it comes to playing with other licenses. Loosen up on GPL's rigidness a bit and the problem goes away.
Where'd you get the idea that ODF is "vendor-neutral"? It's based on OO.o 1.0's XML format and was therefore designed with OO.o in mind (i.e. it's based on OO.o's feature set, internal code structure, etc). And OO.o has the only "full" implementation, which is why OO.o is serves as a "reference" implementation. When implementing ODF support, if you come to a place in the spec that is unclear, you simply try to do whatever OO.o does. And the various ODF-compatible apps aren't even 100% compatible with each other.
ODF is simply a standardized version of OO.o's XML format. Just as OOXML is simply a standardized version of MS Office's XML format. Neither one is more "vendor-neutral" than the other. Neither one was built from the ground-up as a "pure" app-neutral format. Both are directly descended from the previous XML formats of their respective apps.
It's not just the grammar checker. I hate to break it to you, but OO.o is a pretty horrible program. Nobody would use it if it cost even $10. Free as in beer is its one and only virtue, among dozens and dozens of its vices.
ODF is based on OO.o 1.0's XML format, which was also OO.o 1.0's default native format. So it was just easier to create ODF, the default native format for OO.o 2.0, based on what OO.o 1.0 was already doing.
EMF isn't hard to support on a non-Windows platform. Mac apps have been supporting EMF for years. There are many available libraries that allow conversion between Windows EMF/WMF and Mac PICT/Quartz2D available. Stop FUDing.
And VML isn't tied to Windows. It's implementable on any platform. It's hardly used by anyone anyway (not that SVG (the result of merging VML and PGML) is used much either, for that matter).
Re:Unresponsiveness and inaction on /.'s part...
on
Microsoft FUD Watch
·
· Score: 1
The commenters are calling this article out for the drivel that it is, but that doesn't excuse the slashdot editors accepting this article in the first place.
Well, hell, try reading anything from FSF, like GPL3!!
Re:Oh wow what a worthless site
on
Microsoft FUD Watch
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· Score: 4, Insightful
"This is just such an unexceptional article, it's surprising that it was linked."
Not surprising at all. The quality threshold slashdot editors use for any anti-Microsoft article is extremely low. I'm not surprised at all that they accepted this vacuous drivel. In fact, I would've been surpised had they rejected it. Remember, this site uses a borg icon for "Microsoft" topics and a broken window pane icon for "Windows" topics. All other topic category icons are "neutral", devoid of editorial spin. So slashdot doesn't even have any pretense of objectivity when it comes to Microsoft, they proclaim their anti-MS bias with each and every MS and Windows article by using those icons.
I stopped reading here: "FOSS just wants their freedom. They don't want to have to be shit upon by a criminally convicted monopolistic company that has a reputation of stealing other's intellectual property."
Microsoft has never been "criminally" charged with anything, let alone "criminally convicted". Learn the difference between civil law and criminal law.
Since you can't even understand that simple concept, or can but still choose to toss around the false "criminally convicted" rhetoric, it's safe to assume that the rest of your post has no credibility and isn't worth reading.
Microsoft, like any other software company will release the source of the software of their own choosing.
You guys worship IBM, right? Has IBM open sourced AIX? Notes? Smart Suite? In fact, I'd dare say that Microsoft has released more code for more projects than has IBM. They've rleased more code than has Sun. They've released more code than has Google.
"As a 24 year veteran of IT, I worked for WordPerfect, Lotus, Aston Tate, Fox Software, Novell, IBM, At&t... "
For a "24-year veteran of IT, you sound remarkably immature. You sound like a self-rightious know-it-all 12-year old. I imagine the reason you've worked at so many places is that you couldn't hold down a job because your coworkers couldn't stand working with such a whiner.
Second, I can't help but notice that nearly every place you've worked got its butt kicked by Microsoft. Is that why your're so bitter wrt Microsoft? Tired of losing to them all the time? Well, maybe you should look in the mirror. You've lost so many times to Microsoft at so many different places; the common denominator is that these companies that lost to Microsoft had YOU has an employee. Maybe YOU were the problem. Given the drivel you spouted, revealing your lack of intelligence, that would make sense.
Did it even once cross your mind that just maybe OO.o isn't as good? Oh, I forgot, slashdot doctrine is that OO.o is perfect in every way and MS Office is utter garbage.
I hate to tell you this, but for many, the whole point of using OSS is "free as in beer", and damn the "free as in speech" nonsense. Given that "free as in beer" is a major motivation for OSS users, they're not going to "STOP BEING DAMN CHEAPSKATES". If they have to pay money, they may as well pay for commercial software that generally is more polished, easier to use, and more functional than the corresponding OSS knock-offs.
Slashdot Mirror
Giving up on security? You might want to check out IIS6's security record.
Apache security record since 2003
34 vulnerabilities, 3% serious, 9% unpatched, 3% partially patched
IIS6 security record since it was released in 2003
3 vunlerabilities, none serious, all patched
IIS5 had many security problems, but you need to deal with the present day. IIS6 has had a nearly flawless record since it was released in 2003. And IIS7 builds on that record and adds more modularity and much greater performance (the beta of IIS7 blows away IIS6 and Apache). Nowadays, the only thing Apache really has going for it is price and Microsoft-hatred (on the part an ever-shrinking segment of the IT community).
"Is there any compelling reason _not_ to use apache?! o.O"
Security, for one.
Since MS released IIS6 in 2003, it's had a nearly perfect security record, much better than Apache's record since 2003.
IIS6 security record since 2003
3 flaws, none serious, all patched
Apache 2's security record since 2003
34 flaws, 3% are serious, 9% are unpatched, and 3% only partially fixed
That said, I'd guess that most that choose IIS over Apache do it for reasons of ease of use.
"ooxml is not a documented and freely implementable standard. your argumentation is therefore in all cases false."
a ndards/Ecma-376.htm
It's documented right here: http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/st
And it's freely implementable. Hell, there numerous pieces of sample code at http://openxmldeveloper.org/ showing how to read, write, and manipulate OOXML files.
Try coming up with arguments that aren't so readily disproved next time. You guys make this too damn easy.
But Apple fanboys like to pretend that OSX is "secure by design", and "inherently secure". If so, why does Apple have to remove functionality to fight off a worm? Shouldn't the "security by design" thwart the worm? I speaking facetiously, but Apple fanboys are very smug and need to understand that OSX isn't "inherently secure", that Apple's programmers are not infallible gods.
ODF is based on OO.o 1.0's proprietary XML format. As such, it has no moral high ground to claim that it's a perfect app-neutral format. Now, being based on OO.o's previous XML format, that means that ODF is essnetially OO.o 2.0's format. Others may choose to imlement it, but make no mistake, this is OO.o 2.0's format, not an app-neutral format.
What governments want, isn't ODF, it's for the office suite that they choose to use to support a publicly specified format (so document archives are presereved). The easiest way to do that, isn't to force everyone to use the format of OO.o 2.0, a suite with 5% marketshare. Certainly it makes no sense to force the sutie with 90% share to adopt the format of the suite with 5% share as its default format. The easier thing to do is for the suite with 90% share to publicy specify a standard for its own formats. And MS did that.
I'd rather you be honest that the goal here was to forbid government use of MS Office, pure and simple.
You invite MS to use ODF, knowing that it's essentially inviting the suite with 90% share to adopt the format of a suite with 5% share as its native format. That would be the tail wagging the dog. So that invitation was disingenuous, to say the least, and was done for no other reason than a PR stunt.
Then you attempt to talk governments into mandating the use of ODF based on the fact that it's an open standard and therefore will allow documents to be comprenended forever, regardless of what software is in use. You do this knowing that MS won't adopt ODF as its native format (for "tail wagging dog" reason I stated above), so you are essentially trying to talk governments into forbiding use of MS Office.
MS responds by openning up its own formats, something that you never dreamed that they would do, and essentially torpedoes your whole strategy. And governments recognize that MS openning up its own formats is saner than forcing MS to use OO.o's format. So now governments have a public spec for the suite that they choose to use, and they still get to use MS Office's features to boot.
At http://openxmldeveloper.org/ there are already numerous Java samples on manipulating OOXML files.
"Not being locked in was the point of the entire endeavor."
I thought the point was to maintain the ability to comprehend documents years into the future by saving those documents in a public spec.
Not to mention that the real point of the endeavor was to codify into law the use of a document built for OO.o's feature set, lacking the ability to handle MS's feature set, thereby prohibiting government use of MS's extra features. Basically, codify into law OO.o's feature set. OO.o can't compete with MS on features, so let the law render the feature set competition moot, at which point OO.o can compete on "free as in beer".
Peter Quinn was corrupt. I'm GLAD to see his career destroyed.
I won't speak to the potential for "legal wrangling", but regarding "politics", if this does get bogged down in politics then you can bet that it'll be the anything-but-Microsoft folks that are to blame. Hell, this very subthread starts with a post saying that this format should be rejected just because it comes from Microsoft, regardless of the merits and regardless of how liberal the license is. In other words, the format should be rejected on the basis of politics. The same BS that goes on in the ODF vs OOXML debates (the reality is that 90% of that debate is politics BS, not technical merits).
*sigh*
Why don't you put the blame where it lies? GPL!! GPL is incompatible with many, many licenses, even many of those certified as "open" by OSI. GPL is the most "unfriendly" when it comes to playing with other licenses. Loosen up on GPL's rigidness a bit and the problem goes away.
"The question to OpenOffice.org community is: why?"
Free, as in beer. That's why.
Where'd you get the idea that ODF is "vendor-neutral"? It's based on OO.o 1.0's XML format and was therefore designed with OO.o in mind (i.e. it's based on OO.o's feature set, internal code structure, etc). And OO.o has the only "full" implementation, which is why OO.o is serves as a "reference" implementation. When implementing ODF support, if you come to a place in the spec that is unclear, you simply try to do whatever OO.o does. And the various ODF-compatible apps aren't even 100% compatible with each other.
ODF is simply a standardized version of OO.o's XML format.
Just as OOXML is simply a standardized version of MS Office's XML format.
Neither one is more "vendor-neutral" than the other. Neither one was built from the ground-up as a "pure" app-neutral format. Both are directly descended from the previous XML formats of their respective apps.
It's not just the grammar checker.
I hate to break it to you, but OO.o is a pretty horrible program.
Nobody would use it if it cost even $10. Free as in beer is its one and only virtue, among dozens and dozens of its vices.
ODF is based on OO.o 1.0's XML format, which was also OO.o 1.0's default native format. So it was just easier to create ODF, the default native format for OO.o 2.0, based on what OO.o 1.0 was already doing.
EMF isn't hard to support on a non-Windows platform. Mac apps have been supporting EMF for years. There are many available libraries that allow conversion between Windows EMF/WMF and Mac PICT/Quartz2D available. Stop FUDing.
And VML isn't tied to Windows. It's implementable on any platform. It's hardly used by anyone anyway (not that SVG (the result of merging VML and PGML) is used much either, for that matter).
The commenters are calling this article out for the drivel that it is, but that doesn't excuse the slashdot editors accepting this article in the first place.
"Try reading anything from IBM".
Well, hell, try reading anything from FSF, like GPL3!!
"This is just such an unexceptional article, it's surprising that it was linked."
Not surprising at all. The quality threshold slashdot editors use for any anti-Microsoft article is extremely low. I'm not surprised at all that they accepted this vacuous drivel. In fact, I would've been surpised had they rejected it. Remember, this site uses a borg icon for "Microsoft" topics and a broken window pane icon for "Windows" topics. All other topic category icons are "neutral", devoid of editorial spin. So slashdot doesn't even have any pretense of objectivity when it comes to Microsoft, they proclaim their anti-MS bias with each and every MS and Windows article by using those icons.
I stopped reading here:
"FOSS just wants their freedom. They don't want to have to be shit upon by a criminally convicted monopolistic company that has a reputation of stealing other's intellectual property."
Microsoft has never been "criminally" charged with anything, let alone "criminally convicted".
Learn the difference between civil law and criminal law.
Since you can't even understand that simple concept, or can but still choose to toss around the false "criminally convicted" rhetoric, it's safe to assume that the rest of your post has no credibility and isn't worth reading.
Microsoft, like any other software company will release the source of the software of their own choosing.
You guys worship IBM, right? Has IBM open sourced AIX? Notes? Smart Suite?
In fact, I'd dare say that Microsoft has released more code for more projects than has IBM.
They've rleased more code than has Sun.
They've released more code than has Google.
"As a 24 year veteran of IT, I worked for WordPerfect, Lotus, Aston Tate, Fox Software, Novell, IBM, At&t ... "
For a "24-year veteran of IT, you sound remarkably immature. You sound like a self-rightious know-it-all 12-year old. I imagine the reason you've worked at so many places is that you couldn't hold down a job because your coworkers couldn't stand working with such a whiner.
Second, I can't help but notice that nearly every place you've worked got its butt kicked by Microsoft. Is that why your're so bitter wrt Microsoft? Tired of losing to them all the time? Well, maybe you should look in the mirror. You've lost so many times to Microsoft at so many different places; the common denominator is that these companies that lost to Microsoft had YOU has an employee. Maybe YOU were the problem. Given the drivel you spouted, revealing your lack of intelligence, that would make sense.
Did it even once cross your mind that just maybe OO.o isn't as good?
Oh, I forgot, slashdot doctrine is that OO.o is perfect in every way and MS Office is utter garbage.
I hate to tell you this, but for many, the whole point of using OSS is "free as in beer", and damn the "free as in speech" nonsense. Given that "free as in beer" is a major motivation for OSS users, they're not going to "STOP BEING DAMN CHEAPSKATES". If they have to pay money, they may as well pay for commercial software that generally is more polished, easier to use, and more functional than the corresponding OSS knock-offs.
Actually, it sounds like he's describing any number of legit businesses.
"I smell a new vector for adware / spyware / trojan infections here...."
That's your upper lip.