Sometimes I read a particularly insightful post, and then find out it's by Twitter (I usually find this out because the next post is usually "twitter, why don't you shut up with your 5 sock puppets";-)). I find it a bit scary that he/she uses multiple accounts and seems to be always angry (at Microsoft usually), but I have to admit that sometimes his/her comments are just completely right on target, providing clarity to the discussion at hand.
It takes skill to detect, dissect and criticize a flawed argument, and all comments of the form "just ignore him, it's only twitter" don't really detract from that.
On the other hand, if I am clear-headed enough to detect him/her spouting crap, I'll gladly mod him/her down if I happen to have mod points.
I figure if you have this kind of skill with words, you should use it for good, and not to poison the minds of your fellow people.
To get hydrogen inside a buckyball, you actually have to synthesize the buckyball with hydrogen in there (at least, at this point. No one has a better way to do it).
Can't the H2 tunnel in through the center of one of the hexagons (I mean minimum of the potential energy surface)? Or am I talking stupid now..
Well, the article said that it was most likely only the *number* of projects that was growing exponentially, whereas their *size* (or in your words fat-, ugly- and unmanageable-ness; I know what you mean) was growing something more like quadratically.
Umm.. ooh I know! because then we'll have a heavily-guarded supply of Plutonium? As well as some mountain full of waste that will be radioactive for 10k years.
Who's going to pay for guarding that, making sure it stays stable after earthquakes and floods, etc., for 10000 years? Can I remind you that agriculture was invented about 10000 years ago; no need to saddle up the next 400 generations of our descendants with the environmental trouble caused in the 21st-22nd century. To put it in perspective, maybe in a few hundred years the CO2 levels and global temperature will be going down to current levels already, if we start reducing now. Then those people will wonder why they have to keep guarding that nuclear waste for the next 9500 years...
AFAIK it's not about the compiler per se, but about the libgcc library.
From/usr/share/doc/libgcc1/copyright:
gcc/libgcc2.c (source for libgcc) has the following addition:
In addition to the permissions in the GNU General Public License,
the Free Software Foundation gives you unlimited permission to
link the compiled version of this file into combinations with
other programs, and to distribute those combinations without any
restriction coming from the use of this file. (The General Public
License restrictions do apply in other respects; for example, they
cover modification of the file, and distribution when not linked
into a combine executable.)
Everybody who cares to look already knows that ODF is about IBM's business AND the pubic good.
Yeah, but.. " Microsoft executives have accused the rest of the world of leading the campaign against their initiative to have Office Open XML approved by the International Organization for Standardization. " doesn't have the right spin.
I've downloaded and looked at the MSOOXML spec and I thought it was some kind of insult. I seriously invite everyone who has ever read a spec, and who still doubts how bad this one really is, to download the 38 Mb PDF file from.. oh wait.. it's not there anymore..
now probably from ECMA-376 and you probably want the ZIP file "ECMA-376 part 4" (warning, 32 Mb) and also get the 2000+ pages of errata from ECMA which the countries have to read in the next 2 weeks before they get to have a final vote at the ballot resolution meeting.
You want the file titled "Office Open XML Part 4 - Markup Language Reference.pdf".
A copy of the 2200 page PDF file of criticisms can be downloaded from here.
Frankly, you can get a good laugh out of all the stuff about 1900 and 1904 date systems (response 43, I quote CH-0007
"Software bugs should be fixed, not exported by ISO standards to the programs of competitors."
) and the mathematically wrong CEILING function (response 30 p. 121),
But I believe this is the one "killer question" that the BRM should consider discussing for those 5 days:
Response 31 on p. 122 (211) to questions BE-0001, CH-0013, CL-0001, DE-0119, KR-0001, NZ-0003, PE-0010, ZA-0003
Basically, AFAIK, the comments are "We already have ODF, why do we need OOXML?" and the proposed solutions are
of the gist "Develop OOXML starting from ODF".
This is ECMA's response:
Proposed Disposition
There are currently several XML-based document formats in use, each designed to address a different set of
goals or requirements. These include ISO/IEC IS 26300 (ODF), China's UOF, and ECMA-376 (DIS 29500 Open
XML). All these formats have numerous implementations in multiple tools and multiple platforms (Linux,
Windows, Mac OS, hand-held devices).
The Ecma Response Document from the Fast Track 30-Day contradiction phase for DIS29500 addressed the
question of harmonization by explaining the differences between the ODF and Open XML formats as follows:
"... one must recognize that creating a single "merged" format to address the user requirements of both
ODF and OpenXML is a much more difficult goal--one that is hindered by fundamental obstacles
comparable to what one might encounter while merging HTML and ODF or HTML and PDF. This is
because of sheer difference of scope, feature and architecture. Ecma believes that one format cannot
simultaneously meet the requirements that would come from the merge of the two formats and the
stringent requirements of backward compatibility that drive the design of OpenXML.
First, while both formats share the high-level goal, to represent documents, presentations, and
spreadsheets in XML, their low-level goals differ fundamentally. OpenXML is designed to represent the
existing corpus of documents faithfully, even if that means preserving idiosyncrasies that one might not
choose given the luxury of starting from a clean slate. In the ODF design, compatibility with and
preservation of existing Office documents were not goals. Each set of goals is valuable; sacrificing either
at the expense of the other may not be in the best interest of users.
Second, the resulting differences are not merely variances in scope that could be resolved by adding
capabilities to one or the other. They are structural and architectural in nature
With OOXML, one can use Notepad or just about any productivity software like Microsoft's rival OpenOffice, to open a file that's saved in Microsoft Word document. OOXML, Microsoft says, is backward-compatible and future-proof...meaning, it can open all previous and future versions of Microsoft document formats.
but I wonder if people (i.e. policymakers) in the Phillipines would believe this.
Maybe this explains the presumed wine & dine:
The Philippines is one of the countries that voted "no", which partly explains why we were invited to attend the press briefing.
If MS Windows is dominant, then maybe that also implies that people tend to believe what Microsoft says, because they're used to using their products and the brand name is familiar. I find it difficult sometimes to keep faith that policymakers and journalists the world around will listen to their own voice of reason instead of claims like "it can open all previous and future versions of Microsoft document formats. Would you like to visit us so we can explain this to you?".
With many businesses already using Microsoft Office products (Maybe not 2007), wouldn't it be in the best interest for everyone to teach kids what the working environment actually uses? Sure OpenOffice and Linux is used, but 90% of OEM machines use Windows and Office.
How about this for a counter-example:
The kids use MS Office at school ("learning what the working environment actually uses") or they use KOffice or OOo or Google docs or Lotus Symphony which also gives them generic Office program experience
The kids use whatever their parents can afford or prefer at home
The kids' homework renders perfectly(*) at home and at school because it's in the one, standardized, office document format
(*) I mean 100% guaranteed and verifyable, not reverse-engineered
IMHO the ONLY reason why this is not feasible is, as is mentioned in the BECTA report (PDF), par. 5, that Microsoft seems to have deliberately made it unusually difficult to load and save ODF, and impossible to set it as the default file format.
What I mean is, I think the use of a standardized document format to transfer homework from home to school and vice-versa is more important than which office package the kids learn to use (at home or at school). Although I agree with a previous poster that it is probably better to learn that there are different ones, and that it's not that difficult to learn a new one after you've understood the basic concepts.
Also you have to take into account that when the pupils graduate, the "working environment" might have moved on to other software, or still be using software from 20 years ago that those kids haven't ever used either. I guess it's different if you grew up in a time where there were multiple different small computer systems that kids could see (Apple II, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum) or where there's only Microsoft and that's all there'll ever be because "everyone has to learn it".
Unfortunately, we've been down this road many times before. A large Microsoft customer wants to renegotiate its Windows licenses, but Microsoft won't cut the price. The customer threatens to dump Windows and go all Linux, and then Microsoft gives substantial discounts on what the customer actually wanted all along.
This sounds like nothing more than another contract renegotiation with Microsoft.
The angle is very different here though IMHO: from the report, I got the idea that it was more about the fact that Microsoft refused to support ODF properly like all other file formats that they do, which makes it more difficult for kids that have different (=cheaper?) computer systems at home to write their homework and just read them in on the school computers. Look esp. at the table on par. 5.13: it seems like Microsoft are really taking the piss of their customers.
A partial quote:
(...)
Can the document format be set as the default file format in Office 2007? OOXML: yes ODF: No. Virtually every relevant file format except ODF can be set as the default file format. The user must remember that Office 2007 treats ODF differently every time they want to save a file using ODF.
Does 'File open' work as normal? OOXML: yes ODF: No. The normal 'File open' command will not open an ODF file correctly. The user must use a special 'ODF open' item in the file menu. Failure to do this results in the appearance of a screen that makes the ODF file look as though it contains unintelligible, corrupt or encrypted text.
(...)
Can I double click on the file and automatically open the relevant Office 2007 application? OOXML: yes ODF: No. As with 'File open', doing this results in the appearance of a screen that makes it looks[sic] as if the ODF file contains unintelligible, corrupt or encrypted text.
(...)
From a programmer's perspective, I thought it would be easier to implement it just like all the other file formats, not make a special case for it. That takes EXTRA EFFORT. Therefore, there must be a reason that this effort was expended in MS Office 2007.
This makes it look different because Linux isn't mentioned at all; it's about a reasonable feature request by a customer (please consider supporting this standard file format) which is implemented, but implemented so lackadaisically as to imply a deliberate insult. Why should you upgrade if (a) there is no great business case to upgrade yet and (b) it's not cheap and (c) your software vendor is publicly urinating on your head.
We're talking about the flagship product of one of the world's largest software companies; it's not as if they don't care about these details. Sigh.
Well, that link he's referring to looks bona-fide and on topic. I guess this proves that known trolls can make informative comments as well.
Go on, read the report, it's interesting:
From the executive summary it seems that Microsoft's stubborn refusal to read/write ODF is coming back to roost (is that the correct idiom?). The report is'nt really very negative but says there's no strong case to buy this new expensive software (MS Office 2007).
there were interoperability concerns regarding Office 2007; and Microsoft
should urgently provide 'native' support for the OpenDocument format (ODF)
<slightly-offtopic-rant>
Imagine a world where everyone can always read each other's documents, no incompatibilities or "you must buy the newest version of your office program".
It just saves everyone a bit of bother, this is not difficult to understand. Instead all I hear around me is comments how "Open Office ate the MS Word document that people e-mailed me" instead of the other way around.
</slightly-offtopic-rant>
<wildly-offtopic-rant>
I can't wait until that situation changes, until we're in the IMHO "lower-energy-cost" of these two bi-stable states. There's some "activation energy" movement though, recently (well, here in Europe).
Hey, what do you think of this comparison I just came up with (I'm having a bad cold and can't think straight today so please bear with me a bit longer):
If that RedHat employee runs the blog "microsoftnews.com", using the logo colours of Microsoft, and gives the impression of being "stern but fair" in their (manifold) criticism, then I'd say you have a point.
I haven't read olpcnews.com often but I thought it was VERY well written. It took me over 15 minutes to get a nagging feeling that something was very wrong with what I read (and I hadn't heard of the site before, I found it while googling for OLPC; olpcnews.com sounded more appropriate than "laptop.org"). I think it is quite difficult to impart on your readership the feeling that a project is well-meaning but delusional ("trust me, I've worked in the third world" - ffs).
What annoys me personally is to find this anti-OLPC criticism site BEFORE finding the project website; it really doesn't bother me too much that this Wayan person tries to wipe the floor with the OLPC project; in case it's fair criticism it can be used to improve and strengthen the project, and else, well everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
But I think it's really bad that he chose to deck out the website in OLPC-XO green and white and doesn't have a clear disclaimer saying he's working for a direct competitor, because it may confuse some of the readers (say, oh, ministers of education) that this is a more or less independent source of information.
BTW if you made an anti-Microsoft site microsoftnews.com, using Microsoft's logos and colour schemes, run by a RedHat employee, I think you'd get sued by Microsoft for trademark infringement (Mike Rowe Soft, anyone?). But maybe I've seen too many American lawyer drama's.
P.S. it seems microsoftnews.com is still available, I just checked to see if it was a RedHat-run covert operation;-)
Decriminalization means recognizing that a social issue is in a "grey zone", where the government (and possibly majority of the people) thinks it's bad, and wants to keep it illegal, but at the same time recognizes that the cure is probably (much) worse than the disease. The word you're looking for is probably "legalization".
I take it you mean Stirling engine. I don't really know; it's been decades since I learnt thermodynamics and I've forgotten most of it... The diagram on the web page does look like a Super Soaker to me, though.
I don't nearly know enough about XML yet, but I thought that MOOXML isn't "really" XML, because it uses bitmaps instead of attributes with text values for certain parameters such as selection of Unicode code pages: Groklaw collection of technical objections to MOOXML
Now that this format war is so heated, it would be really advantageous to *verify* all the different vendors' implementations of ODF and MOOXML, by using that DTD you mention to validate that it's "really" correct, and send in bug reports when any text processor vendor doesn't meet the standard, so they can correct their implementation. I thought this was a significant advantage of using XML for any document format, be it Docbook, ODF or anything else.
That said, I just unzipped OpenDocument-v1.1.odt and passed its contents.xml through xsltproc with a small XSL stylesheet consisting of just the xmlns: elements mentioned in content.xml's header. xsltproc spat out the readable contents of the 738-page document as UTF-8 text; does that mean it's OK?
Can anyone please do the same to a large MOOXML document and post the results! That would be a nice comparison on the merits.
We already have enough FUD here.
If you go to e.g. a library sale you can quite easily pick up half a dozen nice books for 0.50 - 1.00 a piece so that divides your cheapest book for £ 5 by a factor of 10, say. The trick is, I think, to just wait several years until you can get a book you want for really, really cheap on Charing Cross Road in London. Then again, I'm Dutch so YMMV.
Slashdot Mirror
Sometimes I read a particularly insightful post, and then find out it's by Twitter (I usually find this out because the next post is usually "twitter, why don't you shut up with your 5 sock puppets" ;-)). I find it a bit scary that he/she uses multiple accounts and seems to be always angry (at Microsoft usually), but I have to admit that sometimes his/her comments are just completely right on target, providing clarity to the discussion at hand.
It takes skill to detect, dissect and criticize a flawed argument, and all comments of the form "just ignore him, it's only twitter" don't really detract from that.
On the other hand, if I am clear-headed enough to detect him/her spouting crap, I'll gladly mod him/her down if I happen to have mod points.
I figure if you have this kind of skill with words, you should use it for good, and not to poison the minds of your fellow people.
Thanks for your response. And hey, don't berate DFT (because it doesn't use Slater functions?), at least it's cheap :-)
Let me get this straight: you have the right to vote, but not for one of the smaller political parties?
Well, the article said that it was most likely only the *number* of projects that was growing exponentially, whereas their *size* (or in your words fat-, ugly- and unmanageable-ness; I know what you mean) was growing something more like quadratically.
As long as that imaginable task involves a depressed prince in Helsingør?
Ever heard of Kalkar?
Who's going to pay for guarding that, making sure it stays stable after earthquakes and floods, etc., for 10000 years? Can I remind you that agriculture was invented about 10000 years ago; no need to saddle up the next 400 generations of our descendants with the environmental trouble caused in the 21st-22nd century. To put it in perspective, maybe in a few hundred years the CO2 levels and global temperature will be going down to current levels already, if we start reducing now. Then those people will wonder why they have to keep guarding that nuclear waste for the next 9500 years...
From /usr/share/doc/libgcc1/copyright:
Amazing! That's the same as the code lock on my suitcase!
Yeah, but.. " Microsoft executives have accused the rest of the world of leading the campaign against their initiative to have Office Open XML approved by the International Organization for Standardization. " doesn't have the right spin.
I've downloaded and looked at the MSOOXML spec and I thought it was some kind of insult. I seriously invite everyone who has ever read a spec, and who still doubts how bad this one really is, to download the 38 Mb PDF file from .. oh wait.. it's not there anymore..
now probably from ECMA-376 and you probably want the ZIP file "ECMA-376 part 4" (warning, 32 Mb) and also get the 2000+ pages of errata from ECMA which the countries have to read in the next 2 weeks before they get to have a final vote at the ballot resolution meeting.
You want the file titled "Office Open XML Part 4 - Markup Language Reference.pdf".
A copy of the 2200 page PDF file of criticisms can be downloaded from here.
Frankly, you can get a good laugh out of all the stuff about 1900 and 1904 date systems (response 43, I quote CH-0007
) and the mathematically wrong CEILING function (response 30 p. 121),
But I believe this is the one "killer question" that the BRM should consider discussing for those 5 days: Response 31 on p. 122 (211) to questions BE-0001, CH-0013, CL-0001, DE-0119, KR-0001, NZ-0003, PE-0010, ZA-0003
Basically, AFAIK, the comments are "We already have ODF, why do we need OOXML?" and the proposed solutions are of the gist "Develop OOXML starting from ODF". This is ECMA's response:
ZDnet Asia about MSOOXML
I had to laugh at the quote
but I wonder if people (i.e. policymakers) in the Phillipines would believe this.Maybe this explains the presumed wine & dine:
If MS Windows is dominant, then maybe that also implies that people tend to believe what Microsoft says, because they're used to using their products and the brand name is familiar. I find it difficult sometimes to keep faith that policymakers and journalists the world around will listen to their own voice of reason instead of claims like "it can open all previous and future versions of Microsoft document formats. Would you like to visit us so we can explain this to you?".
That's odd.. I'm having a Slashdot deja-vu moment.
(*) I mean 100% guaranteed and verifyable, not reverse-engineered
IMHO the ONLY reason why this is not feasible is, as is mentioned in the BECTA report (PDF), par. 5, that Microsoft seems to have deliberately made it unusually difficult to load and save ODF, and impossible to set it as the default file format.
What I mean is, I think the use of a standardized document format to transfer homework from home to school and vice-versa is more important than which office package the kids learn to use (at home or at school). Although I agree with a previous poster that it is probably better to learn that there are different ones, and that it's not that difficult to learn a new one after you've understood the basic concepts.
Also you have to take into account that when the pupils graduate, the "working environment" might have moved on to other software, or still be using software from 20 years ago that those kids haven't ever used either. I guess it's different if you grew up in a time where there were multiple different small computer systems that kids could see (Apple II, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum) or where there's only Microsoft and that's all there'll ever be because "everyone has to learn it".
Speaking of Debian, how about Debian Edu/Skolelinux.no? Anybody know how that's working out for schools?
From a programmer's perspective, I thought it would be easier to implement it just like all the other file formats, not make a special case for it. That takes EXTRA EFFORT. Therefore, there must be a reason that this effort was expended in MS Office 2007.
This makes it look different because Linux isn't mentioned at all; it's about a reasonable feature request by a customer (please consider supporting this standard file format) which is implemented, but implemented so lackadaisically as to imply a deliberate insult. Why should you upgrade if (a) there is no great business case to upgrade yet and (b) it's not cheap and (c) your software vendor is publicly urinating on your head.
We're talking about the flagship product of one of the world's largest software companies; it's not as if they don't care about these details. Sigh.
Bless you for making that comment. The world has changed. Makes me feel old..
Um. Dare I say it.. profit?
Go on, read the report, it's interesting:
From the executive summary it seems that Microsoft's stubborn refusal to read/write ODF is coming back to roost (is that the correct idiom?). The report is'nt really very negative but says there's no strong case to buy this new expensive software (MS Office 2007).
<slightly-offtopic-rant>
Imagine a world where everyone can always read each other's documents, no incompatibilities or "you must buy the newest version of your office program". It just saves everyone a bit of bother, this is not difficult to understand. Instead all I hear around me is comments how "Open Office ate the MS Word document that people e-mailed me" instead of the other way around.
</slightly-offtopic-rant>
<wildly-offtopic-rant>
I can't wait until that situation changes, until we're in the IMHO "lower-energy-cost" of these two bi-stable states. There's some "activation energy" movement though, recently (well, here in Europe).
Hey, what do you think of this comparison I just came up with (I'm having a bad cold and can't think straight today so please bear with me a bit longer):
Which is better for the kids in British schools? If you're still in doubt or American, read this nice explanation: link.
</wildly-offtopic-rant>
I haven't read olpcnews.com often but I thought it was VERY well written. It took me over 15 minutes to get a nagging feeling that something was very wrong with what I read (and I hadn't heard of the site before, I found it while googling for OLPC; olpcnews.com sounded more appropriate than "laptop.org"). I think it is quite difficult to impart on your readership the feeling that a project is well-meaning but delusional ("trust me, I've worked in the third world" - ffs).
What annoys me personally is to find this anti-OLPC criticism site BEFORE finding the project website; it really doesn't bother me too much that this Wayan person tries to wipe the floor with the OLPC project; in case it's fair criticism it can be used to improve and strengthen the project, and else, well everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
But I think it's really bad that he chose to deck out the website in OLPC-XO green and white and doesn't have a clear disclaimer saying he's working for a direct competitor, because it may confuse some of the readers (say, oh, ministers of education) that this is a more or less independent source of information.
BTW if you made an anti-Microsoft site microsoftnews.com, using Microsoft's logos and colour schemes, run by a RedHat employee, I think you'd get sued by Microsoft for trademark infringement (Mike Rowe Soft, anyone?). But maybe I've seen too many American lawyer drama's.
P.S. it seems microsoftnews.com is still available, I just checked to see if it was a RedHat-run covert operation ;-)
Decriminalization means recognizing that a social issue is in a "grey zone", where the government (and possibly majority of the people) thinks it's bad, and wants to keep it illegal, but at the same time recognizes that the cure is probably (much) worse than the disease. The word you're looking for is probably "legalization".
Maybe someone from Philips can comment?
Why was this modded flamebait btw?
Now that this format war is so heated, it would be really advantageous to *verify* all the different vendors' implementations of ODF and MOOXML, by using that DTD you mention to validate that it's "really" correct, and send in bug reports when any text processor vendor doesn't meet the standard, so they can correct their implementation. I thought this was a significant advantage of using XML for any document format, be it Docbook, ODF or anything else.
That said, I just unzipped OpenDocument-v1.1.odt and passed its contents.xml through xsltproc with a small XSL stylesheet consisting of just the xmlns: elements mentioned in content.xml's header. xsltproc spat out the readable contents of the 738-page document as UTF-8 text; does that mean it's OK?
Can anyone please do the same to a large MOOXML document and post the results! That would be a nice comparison on the merits. We already have enough FUD here.
You mean, like this? They got the 2006 Ig Nobel prize for this.
If you go to e.g. a library sale you can quite easily pick up half a dozen nice books for 0.50 - 1.00 a piece so that divides your cheapest book for £ 5 by a factor of 10, say. The trick is, I think, to just wait several years until you can get a book you want for really, really cheap on Charing Cross Road in London. Then again, I'm Dutch so YMMV.