Comments

• Stephane Rodriguez

  2007-03-24 13:58:02

  What I find interesting is that Novell is trying an exclusive support for VBA macros (again, whatever that means in practice), Microsoft themselves are moving away from VBA macros :
  
  - With Office 2007 documents, file names must end with "M" instead of "X" otherwise macros are disabled.
  
  - When run on Windows Vista, unsigned VBA macros won't run. Getting VBA macros signed costs 500$/year.
  
  - Licensing Microsoft VBA run-time costs 150,000$/year.
  
  - Microsoft wants to decouple macros and sell licenses of VSTO (Visual Studio for Office) and server licenses (Excel services for instance). Of course, that's not without an agenda. Licenses of VSTO create further lock-in (not just to Windows, but also .NET at the same time). And server licenses are orders of magnitude more expensive than client apps.
  
  Long story short, Novell appears to be the "idiots utiles" of the Microsoft agenda. One would think people like Miguel were a bit smarter.

• Chris

  2007-03-25 15:17:01

  I never really understood why Novell released their own edition of openoffice. If they were truly committed to helping the project, they would add their features to the main project instead of making their own version.
  
  Not to mention that the newest openXML plugin for Office 2007 only works on the Novell edition of openoffice.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2007-03-25 15:29:24

  Chris, the implications are actually worse than that. See the following discussion:
  
  http://boycottnovell.com/2007/03/06/novell-helps-ooxml/
  
  "Promoting a Competitor to Openness, on Behalf of Your New Partner"

• Stephane Rodriguez

  2007-03-26 06:50:31

  "If they were truly committed to helping the project, they would add their features to the main project instead of making their own version."
  
  One has to wonder why they are doing that while Microsoft IS moving away from VBA macros (read my post above, the agenda is to get customers to run arbitrary .NET code on the server). But VBA in general is just a wrapper on top of Windows. VBA imports WIN32, OLE, COM, ActiveX basically all Windows stuff. It is a mistake for Novell to go down that path because they'll end up shipping a Windows-only build of OpenOffice.
  
  "Not to mention that the newest openXML plugin for Office 2007 only works on the Novell edition of openoffice"
  
  It's a bit worse. The quality leaves much to desire (a number of features were left out since day one, and a number of feature "translations" are actually destructive). Oh, by the way, it only supports Word documents at this point. It does not stop Micro-vell to make announcements at least a year before it makes sense.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2007-03-26 11:37:19

  I never thought that the timing of Novell's announcement was a coincience. It almost coincided with Lisa Rajchel's bizarre decision to fast-track OOXML, despite overwhelming opposition. Strings are being pulled here.

• Stephane Rodriguez

  2007-03-26 18:07:33

  Roy,
  
  Here is the reason why Lisa Rajchel allowed the 5-month ballot to proceed : http://lnxwalt.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/packing-the-court-at-the-iso/
  
  In addition, there are many more Microsoft employees in ISO national bodies : there are 3 Microsoft employees in France national body alone.
  
  The whole ISO fast-track ballot and voting is a farce.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2007-03-26 23:53:21

  Excellent. That's all we needed to know. Lobbying yet again.
  
  Q&A: Former Mass. CIO feels 'bittersweet pride' after battles with Microsoft, legislature
  
  ,----[ Quote ] | As CIO of Massachusetts from February to November last year, Louis | Gutierrez had to endure most of the brunt of Microsoft Corp.'s political | wrath over a state policy calling for the adoption of the Open Document | Format for Office Applications, or ODF -- a rival to the software vendor's | Office Open XML file format. | | [...] | | Do you see any reason for there to be two standards? If you were | starting blank-slate, there certainly would not be value to creating | two separate standards. Over time, it has sometimes been useful to | have the competition of two standards to keep both sides honest. | But I don't see particular value in the long-term co-existence of | two separate standards. `----
  
  http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9012760&source=rss_news50
  
  From the previous CIO....
  
  ,----[ Quote ] | Quinn: Almost to a person, to anybody involved or who knows about | the ODF issue, they attributed the story to Microsoft, right, wrong | or otherwise. Senator Pacheco may be a bully but I do not believe he | is disingenious and would stoop to such a tactic. Senator Pacheco and | Secretary Galvin's office remain very heavily influenced by the | Microsoft money and its lobbyist machine, as witnessed by their | playbook and words, in my opinion. | | Quinn: I believe that the ODF decision will stand. I believe MS | will continue to do anything and everything it can to stop it. And I | know my seat wasn't even empty and they (MS) took another shot at | the title, to no avail. This horse is out of the barn and I see no | way for it to go back in. Remember, all we are asking for was and is | for Microsoft to commit to open and the standards process; so | everyone looks really bad if the plug gets pulled at this juncture. `----
  
  http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060119232859729
  
  MA Governor-Elect Names MS Anti-ODF Lobbyist to Technology Advisory Group
  
  http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20061128161343183
  
  The Sorry State of Massachusetts
  
  http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=2006111603531029
  
  Microsoft offers schools in Mass. free software [to stop ODF adoption]
  
  http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-6090196.html?part=rss&tag=6090196&subj=news
  
  Microsoft plays Massachusetts Senate card
  
  http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=32515
  
  Politics and tech companies: follow the money
  
  http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061110-8194.html
  
  Years of deadlock on EU patent bring some new thinking
  
  http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/08/business/patents.php
  
  Leaked letter warns of open source 'threat to eco-system'
  
  http://www.techworld.com/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=7109
  
  Study: open source needs official support; Lobbyist disagrees with "flawed" conclusions http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061017-8011.html
  
  Report Says Nonprofits Sold Influence to Abramoff
  
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/12/AR2006101200889.html
  
  Open Source Foes In Bed With Abramoff
  
  http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/12/2036223&from=rss
  
  EU official joins consultancy serving Microsoft
  
  http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?view=CN&storyID=2006-10-03T134311Z_01_L03693228_RTRIDST_0_TECH-MICROSOFT-OFFICIAL.XML&rpc=66&type=qcna
  
  US ambassador to the EU was former Microsoft lobbyist
  
  http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34706
  
  US politicians go to bat for Microsoft
  
  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/26/microsoft_eu_political_lobbying/
  
  Changing the Report, After the Vote
  
  http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/09/01/commission
  
  Microsoft playing three card monte with XML conversion
  
  http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=959