"OOXML which was submitted by Microsoft to ECMA, and by ECMA to ISO, has literally crawled through the needles eye."
Michiel was even so kind as to post the ISO results before ISO takes their official position tomorrow. Now I know the society is called 'OpenDoc(umentformat) society', but to actually open documents to the general society which ISO hasn't even released, that would seem to be somewhat inappropriate. Is this the kind of respect for ISO I can expect from that society?
"After a year of discussion and repairs it still receives the very minimum of support"
The report states 75% approval of Open XML, with the minimum of 66.66%. That to me is not minimum. The report states 14% disapproval of Open XML, with the maximum of 25%. That to me, is not minimum at all. Not a land-slide majority, but a majority none-the-less.
Sigh...
Still that negativism, and twisting of news. We can chuck it up with the news about Germany and Norway.
The EU was one of the government entities that requested that Microsoft's formats be submitted to standards bodies. Your and Egyedi's (the idiot that you cite) complaint is a total joke. Also, the WTO has no authority over what ISO approves as a standard. Let's get real here.
EU has no authority over the ISO. ISO is an independent body that can do what it wants according to its own rules, not the EU's rules. EU member countries, independently of the EU, went along with those ISO rules and voted according to those rules. EU can investigate whatever they want but they have no authority to tell the ISO what to do. And it's not like the EU is an impartial body, as they are on record as despising Microsoft with a passion (though it would be highly hypocritical of the EU to do anything on this matter since it was the EU that requested that Microsoft submit its XML formats to standards bodies in the first place).
Let's get real: OO.o et al cannot compete with MSO on features, so they decided to compete on "Our format is a standard". Microsoft then submitted its own format as a standard, so OO.o again has to compete on features. You guys are pissed off about it. 99.999% of you have read not even a single page of the OOXML spec, yet condemn it. Also, 99.999% of you have read not even a single page of the ODF spec, yet worship it. If ODF was from Microsoft and OOXML was from OO.o/Sun, your attitudes would be the exact opposite of what they are today and you darn well know it.
First, find some authoritative body to vote that "it's not fair to need to eat", then we can talk. Until then, find an analogy that has some basis in reality.
Taking your model to its logical conclusion, let's say I'm the CEO of HIJ, and I layoff my entire software development team and sit back and just use the OSS that DEF, et al, develops. So DEF, et al, invests time and money to create OSS software that I use for free. You brag about having "better" software than XYZ at lower cost, but I have the same software you do but at ZERO cost.
Then, more and more companies observe what I'm doing and follow my example, and soon almost no company is investing in software at all, as we all rely on DEF, et al, to provide our software for us.
I know that OSS folk hate to be compared with Communism, but Communism's inherent flaw is that there's no incentive for people to excel when everyone gets the same benefits. Excellers get the same benefit as slackers, so everyone becomes a slacker, and the economy goes down the drain. Business sharing all of their software with their competitors leads to the same outcome.
The problem is that the "option" is mislabeled as "Update Safari" rather than "Install Safari" even if you don't have Safari already installed. If Joe Blow doesn't have Safari installed, but sees in iTunes update an "option" to "Update Safari" (rather than "Install Safari"), he'll think that he already has Safari installed and go ahead and make the "update" to it, when what's actually happenning is that he's installing Safari, not merely updating it. Apple is tricking users into installing Safari under the guise of merely "updating" it.
The second problem is that the option to "Update Safari" (which really means "Install Safari") is pre-checked, another no-no for non-critical software installs. Google is by far the worst offender of this, with their paying many software companies to bundle Google Toolbar and Google Desktop on the back of unrelated software packages, with the option for these being pre-checked. Hell, Java security updates offer Google Toolbar and Google Desktop as pre-checked options, something that should NEVER happen for security updates, period. (Yahoo is also an offender by packaging Yahoo toolbar with Adobe Acrobat/Reader, but Yahoo does it much less than Google).
Sorry, but this is bullshit, as is to be expected from Rob Weir. Jií Kosek, the Czech Republic's expert, disagrees. He has switched from NO to YES due to OOXML's fixes, and he's unbiased (quite unlike Rob Weir). Here's what he has to say on the matter: http://xmlguru.cz/2008/01/ecma-response-to-czech-ooxml-comments
Read that post and you see that nearly every one of the Czech Republic's objections has been addressed (the only one not satisfactorily addressed was the Czech Republic's complaint that part of the spec has redundant info). Let me quote:
ECMA already provided proposed resolution for 75 comments (out of total 75 Czech comments). This means that 100.00% of Czech comments were handled by ECMA.
90.67% of comments were satisfactory resolved.
8.00% of comments were resolved only partially.
1.33% of comments were not satisfactory resolved....... In fact I was really surprised how many "green boxes" are there at the end. I was expecting that ECMA will properly address only part of our comments. The vast majority of Czech comments was addressed by ECMA so it is time to say yes to OOXML.
Rob Weir is not an objective source, period. Cite an objective source if you want your criticisms to carry any weight outside of the "I Hate Microsoft" crowd.
So what? The reason that Flash applets killed of Java applets was that Microsoft bundled Flash with XP. So Flash has no right to complain about optional Windows Updates when they used the bundling train to displace Java.
"Do you thing proprietary software has a chance in hell? It just is not sustainable to have every business, school, and government paying 1 provider of software for an operating system."
I question whether programmers giving the fruits of their labor away for free is "sustainable" in the long term. Enrollment in CS courses is already on the downward trend, as salaries are cut because so many are willing to work for free. I don't see quality software being made for free as sustainable over the long term.
"100 years from now, who knows what the trend in computing will be? Maybe most people won't even have general-purpose computers. Maybe they'll just have boxes with a dozen killer apps built into hardware for better reliability, because the "do it in software first" stage of development will be considered "done"."
This would be a step backwards. I remember the dedicated word processor computer/appliances from the early 80s, and don't want to go back to that, period.
I rather like IE7's lack of menu. I've found that I don't use the menu at all, so why have it? It's cleaner to just have the Page and Tools drop-down.
Also, I don't understand the fawning over Safari. Safari is garbage, IMO. On my Mac I always use Firefox over Safari, and don't even get me started on how absolutely horrible the Windows version of Safari is (the beta of that was released a long long time ago, and we've not heard a peep from Apple about it since; have they abandoned that monstrosity?).
You guys gloating over this can't see the forest for the trees. Microsoft has calculated a bell-curve, plotting strength of activation vs usershare and revenue.
At one end of the curve is maximum-strength, impossible to crack activation scheme, which also shows low user share for Windows as cheapskates flock to Linux. At the other end of the curve is zero-activation which shows high windows share but zero revenue as everyone just pirates it. In the middle is medium-strength activation, where it's good enough to curtail casual piracy but not so good as to force dedicated pirates/cheapskates to Linux.
Everytime a crack is found for Windows activation, that's the same as Linux taking a shot in the gut, as it just takes away one of Linux's advantages (in fact, it's *main* advantage, being free as beer).
The products you mentioned (Firefox, linux, etc) are provided for free, so of course obtaining them for free wouldn't be stealing, and you know that (nobody could really be as stupid as you're pretending to be).
But if you obtain goods/services outside the terms under which the provider provided those goods/services, then you have obtained the goods/services in an unauthorized manner. The colloquial term for such action is "stealing" (e.g. "Stealing a kiss" is a colloquial phrase that refers to obtaining a kiss without prior authorization). And downloading music offered for payment without making such payment is obtaining the music without authorization, which would therefore fall under "stealing", colloquially speaking.
I realize that actions that may be *colloquially* referred to as "stealing" might be *legally* called something else, but the underlying sin is the same - obtaining goods/services without authorization (for example, payment).
Intellectual dishonesty at slashdot knows no bounds. Here, let's make it easier for you to understand by removing the red herring regarding the possibility of hearing a concert while outside of the venue. Let's take the example of sneaking into a movie theater and enjoying a movie for free. Do you consider that merely "trespassing" or something more? Is it not making use of a product/service without payment? And if so, is that not a form of "stealing"?
Now, I know that people around here are very pedantic regarding the definition of "stealing", so if that term bothers you, then how about "cheating"? Is sneaking into a movie theater not "cheating" the theater? And is not pirating music "cheating" the creator? Slashdotters don't want to call such activity "theft" or "stealing" because that makes them sleep better at night ("Well, at least I'm not a thief!"), but even they would have to admit that the term "cheating" is applicable (they can't honestly say, "Well, at least I'm not a cheater!"). And make no mistake, cheating is immoral.
As I write this, the parent post is modded as -1. This is absurd, as the post is spot-on. It's also well written, contains no personal attacks, foul language, or anything "bad" that would warrant a -1 moderation. There is absolutely Zero justification to mod down this post. But since it goes against slashdot doctrine, it gets modded down into oblivion. Pathetic.
"Average time between the installation of an XP system and the moment of system compromise is ~ 45 seconds. I forget the source, but it's been backed up by numerous other tests. Service Pack 2 supposedly increases the security, but not by much. I doubt Vista fares much better."
You'd be wrong. A couple of years ago, a study were performed using XP, XP SP1, XP SP2, OSX (Panther, I think), and some version of Red Hat. In the study, the computers were connected to the net and timed to see how long each would be compromised. XP and XP SP1 were compromised within seconds (like 12 or so, IIRC), but XP SP2, OSX, and Red Hat systems ran for two weeks without being compromised, at which point the test was ended. The study showed that XP SP2 was attacked orders of magnitude more than OSX and Red Hat, but the attacks failed.
The Gates Foundation can operate however it pleases. If you don't like it, then let the heads of SourceForge Inc (owners of slashdot), Google, Apple, Red Hat, Ubuntu, or some other slashdot-approved entity start their own foundation and they can operate it more in keeping with slashdot's principles.
(Of course the only slashdot "principle" here is "Gates = evil"; a foundation run by ESR or Steve Jobs (yeah, that'll be the day) that operated in the exact same manner as the Gates Foundation wouldn't be ripped over and over on slashdot.)
IIRC, if one *distributes* over $1000 worth of copyrighted works over an 18 month period, then it's a criminal offense in the US. And that doesn't mean $1000 worth of separate works, it could be just a single 99 cent song that you make available over p2p that 1011 people download over 18 months (distributing a 99 cent song to 1011 people is equivalent to distributing $1000.89 worth of works).
I don't know about criminality regarding *receiving* (rather than distributing) copyrighted works. It may be that *receiving* over $1000 worth of copyrighted works over 18 months is also criminal, but I can't recall.
"But now I see that he, too, is a copyright monger, he just wants the copyrights for himself rather than for the label."
That's funny, I thought that the slashdot position was that while artists do deserve payment, labels don't, and it's the latter that justifies piracy. And if only the labels were removed as middle-man, then slashdotters would have no problem paying the artists and would be against piracy. Guess that was a bunch of bullshit. I already knew that, but I am indeed surprised to see you so forthrightly admit it.
Sorry, but this is bullshit. Quoting from zmotula's post: "...see the post by the guy who evaluated the OOXML specification for the Czech Normalization Institute. This means that Czech Republic is most probably going to vote for OOXML when the time comes."
Read that post and you see that nearly every one of the Czech Republic's objections has been addressed (the only one not satisfactorily addressed was the Czech Republic's complaint that part of the spec has redundant info). Let me quote:
ECMA already provided proposed resolution for 75 comments (out of total 75 Czech comments). This means that 100.00% of Czech comments were handled by ECMA.
90.67% of comments were satisfactory resolved.
8.00% of comments were resolved only partially.
1.33% of comments were not satisfactory resolved....... In fact I was really surprised how many "green boxes" are there at the end. I was expecting that ECMA will properly address only part of our comments. The vast majority of Czech comments was addressed by ECMA so it is time to say yes to OOXML.
Slashdot Mirror
http://blogs.code-counsel.net/Wouter/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=46 4/1/2008
"Crawling through the needle's eye"
Taken from the mailing list of the 'open' doc society:
"OOXML which was submitted by Microsoft to ECMA, and by ECMA to ISO, has literally crawled through the needles eye."
Michiel was even so kind as to post the ISO results before ISO takes their official position tomorrow. Now I know the society is called 'OpenDoc(umentformat) society', but to actually open documents to the general society which ISO hasn't even released, that would seem to be somewhat inappropriate. Is this the kind of respect for ISO I can expect from that society?
"After a year of discussion and repairs it still receives the very minimum of support"
The report states 75% approval of Open XML, with the minimum of 66.66%. That to me is not minimum. The report states 14% disapproval of Open XML, with the maximum of 25%. That to me, is not minimum at all. Not a land-slide majority, but a majority none-the-less.
Sigh...
Still that negativism, and twisting of news. We can chuck it up with the news about Germany and Norway.
Posted at 6:22 PM by Wouter van Vugt
The EU was one of the government entities that requested that Microsoft's formats be submitted to standards bodies. Your and Egyedi's (the idiot that you cite) complaint is a total joke. Also, the WTO has no authority over what ISO approves as a standard. Let's get real here.
EU has no authority over the ISO. ISO is an independent body that can do what it wants according to its own rules, not the EU's rules. EU member countries, independently of the EU, went along with those ISO rules and voted according to those rules. EU can investigate whatever they want but they have no authority to tell the ISO what to do. And it's not like the EU is an impartial body, as they are on record as despising Microsoft with a passion (though it would be highly hypocritical of the EU to do anything on this matter since it was the EU that requested that Microsoft submit its XML formats to standards bodies in the first place).
Let's get real:
OO.o et al cannot compete with MSO on features, so they decided to compete on "Our format is a standard". Microsoft then submitted its own format as a standard, so OO.o again has to compete on features. You guys are pissed off about it. 99.999% of you have read not even a single page of the OOXML spec, yet condemn it. Also, 99.999% of you have read not even a single page of the ODF spec, yet worship it. If ODF was from Microsoft and OOXML was from OO.o/Sun, your attitudes would be the exact opposite of what they are today and you darn well know it.
First, find some authoritative body to vote that "it's not fair to need to eat", then we can talk. Until then, find an analogy that has some basis in reality.
You bash Microsoft and praise Apple products (iPod, iPhone), yet Apple was nowhere on the list at all. How do you explain that?
Taking your model to its logical conclusion, let's say I'm the CEO of HIJ, and I layoff my entire software development team and sit back and just use the OSS that DEF, et al, develops. So DEF, et al, invests time and money to create OSS software that I use for free. You brag about having "better" software than XYZ at lower cost, but I have the same software you do but at ZERO cost.
Then, more and more companies observe what I'm doing and follow my example, and soon almost no company is investing in software at all, as we all rely on DEF, et al, to provide our software for us.
I know that OSS folk hate to be compared with Communism, but Communism's inherent flaw is that there's no incentive for people to excel when everyone gets the same benefits. Excellers get the same benefit as slackers, so everyone becomes a slacker, and the economy goes down the drain. Business sharing all of their software with their competitors leads to the same outcome.
The problem is that the "option" is mislabeled as "Update Safari" rather than "Install Safari" even if you don't have Safari already installed. If Joe Blow doesn't have Safari installed, but sees in iTunes update an "option" to "Update Safari" (rather than "Install Safari"), he'll think that he already has Safari installed and go ahead and make the "update" to it, when what's actually happenning is that he's installing Safari, not merely updating it. Apple is tricking users into installing Safari under the guise of merely "updating" it.
The second problem is that the option to "Update Safari" (which really means "Install Safari") is pre-checked, another no-no for non-critical software installs. Google is by far the worst offender of this, with their paying many software companies to bundle Google Toolbar and Google Desktop on the back of unrelated software packages, with the option for these being pre-checked. Hell, Java security updates offer Google Toolbar and Google Desktop as pre-checked options, something that should NEVER happen for security updates, period. (Yahoo is also an offender by packaging Yahoo toolbar with Adobe Acrobat/Reader, but Yahoo does it much less than Google).
Jií Kosek, the Czech Republic's expert, disagrees. He has switched from NO to YES due to OOXML's fixes, and he's unbiased (quite unlike Rob Weir). Here's what he has to say on the matter:
http://xmlguru.cz/2008/01/ecma-response-to-czech-ooxml-comments
Read that post and you see that nearly every one of the Czech Republic's objections has been addressed (the only one not satisfactorily addressed was the Czech Republic's complaint that part of the spec has redundant info). Let me quote:
Rob Weir is not an objective source, period. Cite an objective source if you want your criticisms to carry any weight outside of the "I Hate Microsoft" crowd.
So what?
The reason that Flash applets killed of Java applets was that Microsoft bundled Flash with XP. So Flash has no right to complain about optional Windows Updates when they used the bundling train to displace Java.
"Do you thing proprietary software has a chance in hell? It just is not sustainable to have every business, school, and government paying 1 provider of software for an operating system."
I question whether programmers giving the fruits of their labor away for free is "sustainable" in the long term. Enrollment in CS courses is already on the downward trend, as salaries are cut because so many are willing to work for free. I don't see quality software being made for free as sustainable over the long term.
"100 years from now, who knows what the trend in computing will be? Maybe most people won't even have general-purpose computers. Maybe they'll just have boxes with a dozen killer apps built into hardware for better reliability, because the "do it in software first" stage of development will be considered "done"."
This would be a step backwards. I remember the dedicated word processor computer/appliances from the early 80s, and don't want to go back to that, period.
from Opera, the same folks from whom they stole tabbed browsing.
(BTW, all apps that have tabbed windows stole the concept from Excel to begin with.)
I rather like IE7's lack of menu. I've found that I don't use the menu at all, so why have it? It's cleaner to just have the Page and Tools drop-down.
Also, I don't understand the fawning over Safari. Safari is garbage, IMO. On my Mac I always use Firefox over Safari, and don't even get me started on how absolutely horrible the Windows version of Safari is (the beta of that was released a long long time ago, and we've not heard a peep from Apple about it since; have they abandoned that monstrosity?).
What happened with all of the predictions from Google fanboys that Google Checkout was going to destroy Paypal by now? :p
You guys gloating over this can't see the forest for the trees.
Microsoft has calculated a bell-curve, plotting strength of activation vs usershare and revenue.
At one end of the curve is maximum-strength, impossible to crack activation scheme, which also shows low user share for Windows as cheapskates flock to Linux. At the other end of the curve is zero-activation which shows high windows share but zero revenue as everyone just pirates it. In the middle is medium-strength activation, where it's good enough to curtail casual piracy but not so good as to force dedicated pirates/cheapskates to Linux.
Everytime a crack is found for Windows activation, that's the same as Linux taking a shot in the gut, as it just takes away one of Linux's advantages (in fact, it's *main* advantage, being free as beer).
"However, I have a hard time seeing it as cheating the movie's creator, which is what it sounds like you're trying to argue here."
Hello? I clearly said that it's "cheating the theater".
The products you mentioned (Firefox, linux, etc) are provided for free, so of course obtaining them for free wouldn't be stealing, and you know that (nobody could really be as stupid as you're pretending to be).
But if you obtain goods/services outside the terms under which the provider provided those goods/services, then you have obtained the goods/services in an unauthorized manner. The colloquial term for such action is "stealing" (e.g. "Stealing a kiss" is a colloquial phrase that refers to obtaining a kiss without prior authorization). And downloading music offered for payment without making such payment is obtaining the music without authorization, which would therefore fall under "stealing", colloquially speaking.
I realize that actions that may be *colloquially* referred to as "stealing" might be *legally* called something else, but the underlying sin is the same - obtaining goods/services without authorization (for example, payment).
Intellectual dishonesty at slashdot knows no bounds.
Here, let's make it easier for you to understand by removing the red herring regarding the possibility of hearing a concert while outside of the venue. Let's take the example of sneaking into a movie theater and enjoying a movie for free. Do you consider that merely "trespassing" or something more? Is it not making use of a product/service without payment? And if so, is that not a form of "stealing"?
Now, I know that people around here are very pedantic regarding the definition of "stealing", so if that term bothers you, then how about "cheating"? Is sneaking into a movie theater not "cheating" the theater? And is not pirating music "cheating" the creator? Slashdotters don't want to call such activity "theft" or "stealing" because that makes them sleep better at night ("Well, at least I'm not a thief!"), but even they would have to admit that the term "cheating" is applicable (they can't honestly say, "Well, at least I'm not a cheater!"). And make no mistake, cheating is immoral.
As I write this, the parent post is modded as -1. This is absurd, as the post is spot-on. It's also well written, contains no personal attacks, foul language, or anything "bad" that would warrant a -1 moderation. There is absolutely Zero justification to mod down this post. But since it goes against slashdot doctrine, it gets modded down into oblivion. Pathetic.
"Average time between the installation of an XP system and the moment of system compromise is ~ 45 seconds. I forget the source, but it's been backed up by numerous other tests. Service Pack 2 supposedly increases the security, but not by much. I doubt Vista fares much better."
You'd be wrong.
A couple of years ago, a study were performed using XP, XP SP1, XP SP2, OSX (Panther, I think), and some version of Red Hat.
In the study, the computers were connected to the net and timed to see how long each would be compromised. XP and XP SP1 were compromised within seconds (like 12 or so, IIRC), but XP SP2, OSX, and Red Hat systems ran for two weeks without being compromised, at which point the test was ended. The study showed that XP SP2 was attacked orders of magnitude more than OSX and Red Hat, but the attacks failed.
The Gates Foundation can operate however it pleases. If you don't like it, then let the heads of SourceForge Inc (owners of slashdot), Google, Apple, Red Hat, Ubuntu, or some other slashdot-approved entity start their own foundation and they can operate it more in keeping with slashdot's principles.
(Of course the only slashdot "principle" here is "Gates = evil"; a foundation run by ESR or Steve Jobs (yeah, that'll be the day) that operated in the exact same manner as the Gates Foundation wouldn't be ripped over and over on slashdot.)
IIRC, if one *distributes* over $1000 worth of copyrighted works over an 18 month period, then it's a criminal offense in the US.
And that doesn't mean $1000 worth of separate works, it could be just a single 99 cent song that you make available over p2p that 1011 people download over 18 months (distributing a 99 cent song to 1011 people is equivalent to distributing $1000.89 worth of works).
I don't know about criminality regarding *receiving* (rather than distributing) copyrighted works. It may be that *receiving* over $1000 worth of copyrighted works over 18 months is also criminal, but I can't recall.
"But now I see that he, too, is a copyright monger, he just wants the copyrights for himself rather than for the label."
That's funny, I thought that the slashdot position was that while artists do deserve payment, labels don't, and it's the latter that justifies piracy. And if only the labels were removed as middle-man, then slashdotters would have no problem paying the artists and would be against piracy. Guess that was a bunch of bullshit. I already knew that, but I am indeed surprised to see you so forthrightly admit it.
Quoting from zmotula's post:
"...see the post by the guy who evaluated the OOXML specification for the Czech Normalization Institute. This means that Czech Republic is most probably going to vote for OOXML when the time comes."
Read that post and you see that nearly every one of the Czech Republic's objections has been addressed (the only one not satisfactorily addressed was the Czech Republic's complaint that part of the spec has redundant info). Let me quote:
"AndAlso" and "OrElse" are used by other languages such as SML, so it's not like some horrible thing that only Microsoft uses.