As I understand it each PDF implementation is written by Adobe, no doubt from a single code base. Therefore it displays correctly on different devices.
If you want to implement OpenXml, you do not need to support the legacy bits as far as I understand. The only reason MS included it was to provide backwards compatibility with legacy versions of Office, something ODF could never deliver.
There is *nothing* in the standard than claims you must support a binary-encoded proprietory standard. That would be a nonsense.
There seems to be a raft of articles out there on OpenXml with false claims and they are repeatedly quoted here as fact. Since when did slashdotters start believing everything they read?
Rubbish. Post your evidence. Hopefully it will be substantiated with your own investigation, rather than giving support to yet more questionable 'research' on the topic.
I don't think his aim is to halt new distros. New distros are not likely to be embraced by the corporate sector, and this is the area MS have the most to lose from Linux penetration. I think he's just trying to convince the corporate sector to go with Microsoft or Novel Linux.
'Windows programmers will always use MS languages no matter what. Even if competing languages and IDEs are better (see delphi vs VB) they will still use MS products.'
More brilliant analysis.
'Windows developers by definition as MS fanbois.'
OMG it just gets better and better
'They flocked to C# because it was better then C++ and it was made by MS. It has nothing to do with whether C# was good or not. After all it was just a rip off of java and they could have switched to java years earlier.'
How do you know they have 'promised' to protect IP rights of media companies? And what does that really mean? Have you read the agreements? Maybe not such a remarkable statement after all.
Hmmm with language like that I can't help thinking you weren't going to like it no matter how it looked. It might not be to your taste but 'disgusting' is a bit of a stretch. Maybe it's change you have more of a problem with.
In my experience the new interface is actually faster.
Ah now I understand. Not sure why you would want to wait 19 seconds to see 500 plus comments but each to their own. I wonder what exactly is causing the delay with IE. Is the difference as much under the old comment format?
I can't understand that at all! In fact I've heard this before so I tried comparing FF and IE side by side and honestly they seemed the same. The only visible difference being that FF tends to jiggle the screen around more when there's lots of tables. Maybe you go to different sites than me?
In some ways Microsoft is forced to offer a higher security baseline than other vendors purely because of their attack surface. If there is a better way to prevent unauthorised code execution please share your insight.
If you took the time to do even a little research you would know that Vista has a huge number of improvements over XP. In my mind the comparison is simple - Vista is better than XP. Whether it offers enough for the average consumer to justify the switch right now is debatable.
I cannot find any evidence in either of those linked documents that MS withheld information about one of their API's for anti-competitive purposes. They seem to be largely opinion pieces. But please, show me where I am wrong.
So you're basing your comparison on whether the XML 'looks good' in unformatted text documents? Surely the ease of implementation or translation is more important than perceived readability? This in itself is highly subjective. Of the examples I've seen, I certainly wouldn't describe it as 'unreadable crap', and can't understand your objection. Maybe you should trying writing some XSL or similar and report back on your experiences, then we might get somewhere - for now it's conjecture.
IE dominated the landscape for many years and it didn't seem to have a huge effect on the progress of the internet. Arguably the creation of HTML created the most impact. Proprietory technologies such as flash have also made a huge impact.
With regards to CSS, its entire structure may well be wrong, but we wouldn't know, due to the politics and requirements of the parties involved. Would it be faster and more efficient if some parts were specified in a different way? Would it be more powerful as XML? etc. These questions are not likely to be answered. What we have now is an ever bulging CSS spec that's trying to accomodate everyone and moving beyond its original purpose.
I agree that XML is not that magic bullet. But it's better for this task than anything else we have.
Your comment relating the size of Microsoft's spec to the power of committees is laughable - and as usual with a slashdot post, totally unsubstantiated.
Have you considered perhaps that MS's Office format is larger simply because it may be more technically advanced, more descriptive and more feature complete than OpenDocument? Also that perhaps its size is due to the benefits of a collabarative design process rather than a comittee based process? Did you also consider that the document may have benefited from the fact that it has already been implemented by MS themselves?
All worthwhile assumptions, but I doubt the average slashdotter paused for a second due to built up anti-MS propaganda squeezing out all reaonable thought process.
There is considerable evidence however that committees for single industry wide open standards hold back technical progress. This is fine if the standard is simple and fexible enough not to warrant much change (such as comms protocols for example), but for anything else can be deadly (CSS for example).
To my knowledge it has never been proved that MS withheld information about an API for anti-competitive purposes. Stop propagating these myths. Every software company is guilty of questionable documentation, however in my experience MS often has excellent documentation - if you open your eyes and go looking for it.
When will slashdotters realise that one industry standard for something as variable as a word processing format holds back innovation? This is the age of XML - we should embrace multiple formats, implementations and the conversion between each, rather than stifling progress.
Every company/individual out there "steals" the ideas of others. The innovations and products from Microsoft have also been mimicked ad nauseum. Implying that MS somehow worse than others is blissful ignorance in itself.
Slashdot Mirror
As I understand it each PDF implementation is written by Adobe, no doubt from a single code base. Therefore it displays correctly on different devices.
If you want to implement OpenXml, you do not need to support the legacy bits as far as I understand. The only reason MS included it was to provide backwards compatibility with legacy versions of Office, something ODF could never deliver. There is *nothing* in the standard than claims you must support a binary-encoded proprietory standard. That would be a nonsense. There seems to be a raft of articles out there on OpenXml with false claims and they are repeatedly quoted here as fact. Since when did slashdotters start believing everything they read?
Rubbish. Post your evidence. Hopefully it will be substantiated with your own investigation, rather than giving support to yet more questionable 'research' on the topic.
'Maybe Microsoft planted the code in postgressql and now they want to spring a trap?' What absolute tosh.
You still haven't explained how and why. Ballmer making statements about patent infringment does not equate to "making money with lawsuits".
I don't think his aim is to halt new distros. New distros are not likely to be embraced by the corporate sector, and this is the area MS have the most to lose from Linux penetration. I think he's just trying to convince the corporate sector to go with Microsoft or Novel Linux.
It hasn't been proved, and thus it's heresay.
'Windows programmers will always use MS languages no matter what. Even if competing languages and IDEs are better (see delphi vs VB) they will still use MS products.'
More brilliant analysis.
'Windows developers by definition as MS fanbois.'
OMG it just gets better and better
'They flocked to C# because it was better then C++ and it was made by MS. It has nothing to do with whether C# was good or not. After all it was just a rip off of java and they could have switched to java years earlier.'
Now I can see why no-one bothered replying.
'They have pretty much comitted themselves to making money with lawsuits now'. That's a grand statement, can you explain how and why?
How do you know they have 'promised' to protect IP rights of media companies? And what does that really mean? Have you read the agreements? Maybe not such a remarkable statement after all.
Hmmm with language like that I can't help thinking you weren't going to like it no matter how it looked. It might not be to your taste but 'disgusting' is a bit of a stretch. Maybe it's change you have more of a problem with.
In my experience the new interface is actually faster.
Ah now I understand. Not sure why you would want to wait 19 seconds to see 500 plus comments but each to their own. I wonder what exactly is causing the delay with IE. Is the difference as much under the old comment format?
Oh very insightful. Thank you. Here's an idea - re-implement MS Office in VB and make millions.
Just because the footprint is larger does not mean it is not optimised. It could also mean that it has a more advanced and capable feature set.
'What we expect from an OS is pretty well-known and well-defined now' We? Who's we? Where is this defined? Is this some kind of standard?
I can't understand that at all! In fact I've heard this before so I tried comparing FF and IE side by side and honestly they seemed the same. The only visible difference being that FF tends to jiggle the screen around more when there's lots of tables. Maybe you go to different sites than me?
Is it all that suprising? More money for the memory upgrade and fewer support calls from the problems arising out of disk-thrashing responsiveness.
Seriously, you need to remove your blinkers.
A google search on 'graphics card aero' will give you plenty of advice - along the lines of a DX 9 capable graphics card.
In addition the Windows Upgrade Advisor possibly tells you. It will also highlight any devices/applications that are not supported.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsIn some ways Microsoft is forced to offer a higher security baseline than other vendors purely because of their attack surface. If there is a better way to prevent unauthorised code execution please share your insight.
If you took the time to do even a little research you would know that Vista has a huge number of improvements over XP. In my mind the comparison is simple - Vista is better than XP. Whether it offers enough for the average consumer to justify the switch right now is debatable.
Presumably IE7 blows on it purely because you're anti-IE, rather than any logical reason.
Did you actually try using it before 'turning everything off'?
I cannot find any evidence in either of those linked documents that MS withheld information about one of their API's for anti-competitive purposes. They seem to be largely opinion pieces. But please, show me where I am wrong.
Sorry about the late reply.
So you're basing your comparison on whether the XML 'looks good' in unformatted text documents? Surely the ease of implementation or translation is more important than perceived readability? This in itself is highly subjective. Of the examples I've seen, I certainly wouldn't describe it as 'unreadable crap', and can't understand your objection. Maybe you should trying writing some XSL or similar and report back on your experiences, then we might get somewhere - for now it's conjecture.
IE dominated the landscape for many years and it didn't seem to have a huge effect on the progress of the internet. Arguably the creation of HTML created the most impact. Proprietory technologies such as flash have also made a huge impact.
With regards to CSS, its entire structure may well be wrong, but we wouldn't know, due to the politics and requirements of the parties involved. Would it be faster and more efficient if some parts were specified in a different way? Would it be more powerful as XML? etc. These questions are not likely to be answered. What we have now is an ever bulging CSS spec that's trying to accomodate everyone and moving beyond its original purpose.
I agree that XML is not that magic bullet. But it's better for this task than anything else we have.
There are many things that OfficeXML can do that OpenDocument cannot do. See 'Advantages of Office Open XML formats over OpenDocument' in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_OpenDoc ument_and_Microsoft_Office_Open_XML_formats/
Have a read of Brian Jones blog http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/default.aspx or for a quick run down: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_XML for more information.Your comment relating the size of Microsoft's spec to the power of committees is laughable - and as usual with a slashdot post, totally unsubstantiated.
Have you considered perhaps that MS's Office format is larger simply because it may be more technically advanced, more descriptive and more feature complete than OpenDocument? Also that perhaps its size is due to the benefits of a collabarative design process rather than a comittee based process? Did you also consider that the document may have benefited from the fact that it has already been implemented by MS themselves?
All worthwhile assumptions, but I doubt the average slashdotter paused for a second due to built up anti-MS propaganda squeezing out all reaonable thought process.
There is considerable evidence however that committees for single industry wide open standards hold back technical progress. This is fine if the standard is simple and fexible enough not to warrant much change (such as comms protocols for example), but for anything else can be deadly (CSS for example).
To my knowledge it has never been proved that MS withheld information about an API for anti-competitive purposes. Stop propagating these myths. Every software company is guilty of questionable documentation, however in my experience MS often has excellent documentation - if you open your eyes and go looking for it.
When will slashdotters realise that one industry standard for something as variable as a word processing format holds back innovation? This is the age of XML - we should embrace multiple formats, implementations and the conversion between each, rather than stifling progress.
Every company/individual out there "steals" the ideas of others. The innovations and products from Microsoft have also been mimicked ad nauseum. Implying that MS somehow worse than others is blissful ignorance in itself.