08.03.09
MediaWiki Replaces Microsoft Office While Microsoft’s Attack on ODF Continues at Wikipedia
Summary: The Internet wants to be free and so do computer users; Microsoft keeps standing in their way
BACK in 2007, Wikipedia embraced ODF. The software on which it is built, MediaWiki, happens to be used by Boycott Novell and one of Microsoft’s loyal users has just decided to abandon Microsoft Office in favour of MediaWiki. This is not particularly surprising and by all means it is another win for Free software. The following is a sort of eulogy for Microsoft Office.
I chose MediaWiki, the open-source software that powers Wikipedia. It was relatively easy to install on a virtual Linux server. Since everyone has read Wikipedia, the interface was familiar and so our users needed no training. Because Wikipedia managed to efficiently store—at the time of this writing—all human knowledge, speed and scalability weren’t a problem. Finally, the price (free) was acceptable.
[...]
So farewell, Microsoft Word. Don’t feel too bad—you had a long and prosperous run. We had more than twenty years of fun together. You added feature after feature after feature, and I learned how to avoid your crazy style changes whenever I deleted an invisible formatting command. Maybe if you just had “Reveal Codes”… nah, it wouldn’t have mattered. The world simply changed.
The Microsoft-faithful crowd keeps vandalising Wikipedia’s article on ODF, turning it in favour of Microsoft. We last saw this a few days ago, but it just doesn’t stop [1, 2, 3]. Who the heck is “SmackBot“?█
On abuse against ODF at Wikipedia:
- Microsoft Starts Attacking the ODF Alliance, Sends Paid Wikipedia Editors to ODF Article (Updated)
- OOXML BRM Convenor (Alex Brown) Joins the Pro-Microsoft Wikipedia Spinners
- Microsoft Folks Rewrite ODF’s History and Build Anti-ODF Social Network
- Fraunhofer Again Lobbies for Microsoft Lock-in
- Is Microsoft’s AstroTurf Against ODF Still On?
- Microsoft Accused of Anti-ODF Whisper Campaign
David Gerard said,
August 3, 2009 at 5:08 pm
SmackBot is a bot run by Rich Farmbrough, a long-time Wikipedia editor. It does simple corrections and format fixes. See the SmackBot user page for what it actually does.
The main barrier to MediaWiki for corporate use is no decent WYSIWYG editor. That said, FCK Editor (named after its author’s initials, not a rude word!) is getting really good. I’ve been closely watching the WYSIWYG situation for years and I’m really impressed how good FCK is getting with the horrors of wikitext.