Because ODF is XML-based, there are fast standard techniques to verify whether a given document is 100% ODF compliant or not. This would mean that a lot less "cheating" is possible than with a difficult-to-implement binary format.
To be fair, the same would hold for Office Open XML (that's what Microsoft calls their format -- i wonder why), so if that also becomes a standard you'd be able to choose:-) On groklaw I read a discussion on the legal and technical merits of both: (DISCLAIMER: its written by people from the OpenDocument fellowship, so it's understandably biased towards ODF) http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200511251 44611543
About your point "why can't MS be forced simply to license...":
AFAIK there are no limits under patent law to what the licensor (mr. Amado) can ask
for a license. He also isn't obliged to sell a license to MS if e.g he doesn't like them;
after all, he has been granted a monopoly (for 20 years) to use his "invention".
If he decides to charge e.g. $200 per copy of Microsoft Office, what is Microsoft to do?
their only recourse is to either tell their customers to downgrade to a new version of MS Office
with that "invention" excised, or pay Amado a lump sum of several billion dollars.
Welcome to patent law. Now do you see why software patents are such a bad idea?
Here are some related stories I found on groklaw, about J.A.W.S, Freedom Scientific, and accessibility APIs:
I remembered they had a discussion about exactly this topic on 26 October 2005
unzip -p mydocument.odt content.xml | sed -e 's/<[^>]*>//g' | festival --tts
It's not that good for daily use, but hey I wrote it in 1 minute:-).
Using it for.ods spreadsheets and.odp and.odg graphics is left as an exercise to the reader though:-(
You need the following programs installed: unzip, sed, festival, and a festvox diphone database
for your language. On debian-like linuces (Debian, Knoppix, Ubuntu) try
apt-get install unzip sed festival
I think this will install a male american voice database by default, which for english
text should be OK.
I'm not sure what to make of your comment; of course I agree that justice should be done, but Microsoft is not
on trial anymore -- that was in 2004, and they were convicted, and their *punishment* is to redress the anticompetitiveness by providing *workable* interface documentation, so that I can sell a brand X server that can talk
without any problems to your 10000 MS Windows clients, or a brand Y client that can cooperate fully with your MS Windows
server system. I think its a very fitting punishment (but IANAL).
The 2M fine that everyone is now speaking about is because after 2 *years* they are still dragging their feet; see it
as if you get fined by the taxman and you postpone paying so long that they put an extra fine on top of it to get you
moving.
Actually, now that I think of it they're still on trial, because in April they will plea at a higher court that the verdict was not fair.
I think this is a straw man argument, because the "commercial software industry"
is a very very tiny subset of the world's industry. If I own a car tyre company,
I don't care that I can't sell my software, as long as it runs my administration
and/or production process (and cost very little, and has no vendor lock-in, and
I can hire multiple different consultants if I want anything changed, etc. etc.).
As I see it, you're spot on.
I haven't followed the discussion on the FSF site; but on
www.groklaw.net there has been some discussion of exactly this facet.
I believe there is a real example of a "tivo" video recorder
that does precisely this digital restrictions management thing,
but you'll have to read further on groklaw or www.fsf.org
because I can't recall all the details. And the devil is in the details,
as they say.
On the consortiuminfo.org page I found this detailed analysis of the legalese of Sun's
pledge and Microsoft's covenant not to sue users of Office 2003 XML:
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/newsblog/blog.php?ID =1762
IANAL but as I understand it Sun made the pledge officially to the standards consortium OASIS, for all future versions of OpenDocument, and Microsoft put it on their own website, for Office 2003 XML, with
an added notice
"Microsoft will also be offering this same covenant with respect to the forthcoming specifications for the "Office 12" schema specifications."
It's all a bit complicated for me but I like Sun's version better.
It's always good to have choice in the software you install *ON* your operating system.
About your analogy: that's a good one.
So tell me: if you *BUY* a house, you want to replace the ugly aluminium kitchen sink with
a nice steel one, and you discover it's bolted to the walls and pieces of it
are wrapped around your gas water and electricity pipes so you'd have to saw them through
to tear the thing out; how do you feel about your analogy now?
I rest my case.
all of these were reversed and undone within a few months of the end of those respective wars,
so... after "Terrorism" has surrendered in this current "War", legislation that curtails the freedoms of americans will probably also be reversed?
Oh well, that won't take long..
In a word: yes.
The EC didn't *want* the source code, they were even smart enough to explicitly mention they only demanded documentation, not source code (look it up if you don't believe me).
Apparently Neelie Kroes, the commisioner for competition, is as surprised as you and me
about why Microsoft suddenly offer *this* as an anti-competition remedy. I just hope she's adamant to stick to the ruling of march 2004 because that actually made sense.
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer nor an economist. Can anyone think of a reason why opening up the source code can be regarded as a remedy, instead of just publishing the interface documentation??
* As regards interoperability, Microsoft is required, within 120 days, to disclose complete and accurate interface documentation which would allow non-Microsoft work group servers to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers. This will enable rival vendors to develop products that can compete on a level playing field in the work group server operating system market. The disclosed information will have to be updated each time Microsoft brings to the market new versions of its relevant products.
To the extent that any of this interface information might be protected by intellectual property in the European Economic Area(6), Microsoft would be entitled to reasonable remuneration. The disclosure order concerns the interface documentation only, and not the Windows source code, as this is not necessary to achieve the development of interoperable products.
"
So, this is not about Microsoft's precious source code or trade secrets *AT ALL*.
It is all about interface documentation to ensure interoperability in a heterogeneous computer network (i.e. so that a computer not running Microsoft software can still communicate with the computers that do, e.g. using Samba).
It may be the case that Microsoft's statement from today seems to imply that they
are doing something relevant, but it is *NOT* a reply to the original *DEMAND*, which was
"just tell us how computers can communicate with computers running MS-Windows".
Source code is not the same as documentation! A meaningful reply to the demand would
be a document with the full interface protocol, that's all... no source code necessary.
It has turned into a major political FUD-fest, but one of the more important
details is IMHO that Microsoft *chose* not to support their customer (Massachusetts)'s wish
to open and save files in OpenDocument format, and instead they questioned why their
customer made such a silly decision and who did they think they were anyway.
Read the articles on groklaw (http://www.groklaw.net/); most news you read about this will be biased one way or another, but groklaw always also has the bare facts.
Disclaimer: I don't like MS and I like groklaw.
(apologies for following up on myself)
Now that I read a bit more, it sounds more like CVS (as another poster already mentioned).
I just checked the CVS Changelog and it goes back to 1993.
Slashdot Mirror
Disclaimer: I don't know much about XML
:-)1 44611543
C onstraints
Because ODF is XML-based, there are fast standard techniques to verify whether a given document is 100% ODF compliant or not.
This would mean that a lot less "cheating" is possible than with a difficult-to-implement binary format.
To be fair, the same would hold for Office Open XML (that's what Microsoft calls their format -- i wonder why), so if that also becomes a standard you'd be able to choose
On groklaw I read a discussion on the legal and technical merits of both:
(DISCLAIMER: its written by people from the OpenDocument fellowship, so it's understandably biased towards ODF)
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20051125
And this is what I could find on validation on the W3 consortium website (as I said, I don't know anything about XML):
http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-1/#concepts-schema
AFAIK there are no limits under patent law to what the licensor (mr. Amado) can ask for a license. He also isn't obliged to sell a license to MS if e.g he doesn't like them; after all, he has been granted a monopoly (for 20 years) to use his "invention".
If he decides to charge e.g. $200 per copy of Microsoft Office, what is Microsoft to do? their only recourse is to either tell their customers to downgrade to a new version of MS Office with that "invention" excised, or pay Amado a lump sum of several billion dollars.
Welcome to patent law. Now do you see why software patents are such a bad idea?
It's nice to read that I'm not the only programmer who is daunted by C++ :-)
Thanks!
a Fortran -> C -> Java programmer
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200510261 321191#c372840
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&si d=20050925165302314&title=See+the+interesting+set+ of+OPPOSING+comments%2C+result+of+disinformation+c ampaign%3F&type=article&order=&hideanonymous=0&pid =361787#c362023
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200510261 321191#c373108
Disclaimer: I've never used JAWS, I'm not disabled, and I don't use Microsoft.
It's not that good for daily use, but hey I wrote it in 1 minute :-).
Using it for .ods spreadsheets and .odp and .odg graphics is left as an exercise to the reader though :-(
You need the following programs installed: unzip, sed, festival, and a festvox diphone database for your language. On debian-like linuces (Debian, Knoppix, Ubuntu) try
I think this will install a male american voice database by default, which for english text should be OK.
The 2M fine that everyone is now speaking about is because after 2 *years* they are still dragging their feet; see it as if you get fined by the taxman and you postpone paying so long that they put an extra fine on top of it to get you moving.
Actually, now that I think of it they're still on trial, because in April they will plea at a higher court that the verdict was not fair.
What! Are you implying that the Circular Transportation Device is not a novel invention! (in Australia at least): http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/30/10725 46531129.html
http://www.top500.org/lists/2005/11/basic (see column 3).
Maybe like entry #141, the University of Nottingham.
(I don't want to be a fanboi but) this kind of shows that while people say "Linux is not ready for the desktop" it is ready for certain other tasks that you need computers for:y stem_Family.
http://www.top500.org/lists/2005/11/l/Operating_S
After looking at distrowatch.com, I'd say yes it is #1: http://distrowatch.com/ (I still prefer Ubuntu's "parent" Debian though).
I think this is a straw man argument, because the "commercial software industry" is a very very tiny subset of the world's industry. If I own a car tyre company, I don't care that I can't sell my software, as long as it runs my administration and/or production process (and cost very little, and has no vendor lock-in, and I can hire multiple different consultants if I want anything changed, etc. etc.).
As I see it, you're spot on. I haven't followed the discussion on the FSF site; but on www.groklaw.net there has been some discussion of exactly this facet.
I believe there is a real example of a "tivo" video recorder that does precisely this digital restrictions management thing, but you'll have to read further on groklaw or www.fsf.org because I can't recall all the details. And the devil is in the details, as they say.
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/newsblog/blog.php?I
IANAL but as I understand it Sun made the pledge officially to the standards consortium OASIS, for all future versions of OpenDocument, and Microsoft put it on their own website, for Office 2003 XML, with an added notice It's all a bit complicated for me but I like Sun's version better.
It's always good to have choice in the software you install *ON* your operating system.
About your analogy: that's a good one.
So tell me: if you *BUY* a house, you want to replace the ugly aluminium kitchen sink with a nice steel one, and you discover it's bolted to the walls and pieces of it are wrapped around your gas water and electricity pipes so you'd have to saw them through to tear the thing out; how do you feel about your analogy now?
I rest my case.
so... after "Terrorism" has surrendered in this current "War", legislation that curtails the freedoms of americans will probably also be reversed? Oh well, that won't take long..
In a word: yes.
The EC didn't *want* the source code, they were even smart enough to explicitly mention they only demanded documentation, not source code (look it up if you don't believe me). Apparently Neelie Kroes, the commisioner for competition, is as surprised as you and me about why Microsoft suddenly offer *this* as an anti-competition remedy. I just hope she's adamant to stick to the ruling of march 2004 because that actually made sense. Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer nor an economist. Can anyone think of a reason why opening up the source code can be regarded as a remedy, instead of just publishing the interface documentation??
""
So, this is not about Microsoft's precious source code or trade secrets *AT ALL*. It is all about interface documentation to ensure interoperability in a heterogeneous computer network (i.e. so that a computer not running Microsoft software can still communicate with the computers that do, e.g. using Samba).
It may be the case that Microsoft's statement from today seems to imply that they are doing something relevant, but it is *NOT* a reply to the original *DEMAND*, which was "just tell us how computers can communicate with computers running MS-Windows".
Source code is not the same as documentation! A meaningful reply to the demand would be a document with the full interface protocol, that's all... no source code necessary.
It has turned into a major political FUD-fest, but one of the more important details is IMHO that Microsoft *chose* not to support their customer (Massachusetts)'s wish to open and save files in OpenDocument format, and instead they questioned why their customer made such a silly decision and who did they think they were anyway. Read the articles on groklaw (http://www.groklaw.net/); most news you read about this will be biased one way or another, but groklaw always also has the bare facts. Disclaimer: I don't like MS and I like groklaw.
Well, I don't use MS Windows so I don't know much about it, but I seem to remember reading something strange about an exploitable *colour* on MS Windows systems: http://secunia.com/advisories/16004, http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CAN- 2005-1219
I don't like it, what about the risks of catastrophic CO2 escape?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos
(apologies for following up on myself) Now that I read a bit more, it sounds more like CVS (as another poster already mentioned). I just checked the CVS Changelog and it goes back to 1993.
How about Gopher?? AFAIK there was one global top-level node, in Minnesota I believe?
Really! Office Open XML! ("MOOX") I wonder how Microsoft came up with that name? :-)
0 5/11-21EcmaPR.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/nov
is this what you mean:
3 FS
Q MP
2 NB
OOo_2.0.0_LinuxIntel_install.tar.gz
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:SD36UE42IMPAKVUXAXRF3FQH4QYM2
also for the source:
OOo_2.0.0_src.tar.gz
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:MBWGXEM4K24HSEIZCHOZ7AUV5B7JH
and for MS Windows:
OOo_2.0.0_Win32Intel_install.exe
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:DD3CA4757LNNLEMGSQIN5JMPK23B6
OK then, here comes my first slashdot contribution..
Q MP
3 FS
2 NB
is this what you mean:
OOo_2.0.0_src.tar.gz
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:MBWGXEM4K24HSEIZCHOZ7AUV5B7JH
OOo_2.0.0_LinuxIntel_install.tar.gz
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:SD36UE42IMPAKVUXAXRF3FQH4QYM2
OOo_2.0.0_Win32Intel_install.exe
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:DD3CA4757LNNLEMGSQIN5JMPK23B6