01.19.11
Posted in Europe, Formats, OpenDocument, Standard at 11:56 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Exciting news from Latvia, confirming that the country is indeed committed to decisions which were made regarding free access
MANY congratulations go to the Latvian people, some of whom regularly send us mail with valuable input and an appeal for help in the form of coverage that sheds light on what goes on there. Techrights covered Latvia in posts such as:
Now we have some more good news from Latvia:
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I’m in Latvia today speaking at the Latvian Open Technology Association annual conference – my slides are online. The speaker before me was from the government and made an important announcement; that from now on, all government departments in Latvia must accept documents in ODF.
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The fifth ODF Plugfest will take place in Maidenhead (UK) in the Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, on February 24/25th 2011.
In addition to these important updates from Phipps and Galoppini, recently we mentioned that the Document Foundation had joined OpenDoc Society. The future looks bright for ODF. █
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08.21.10
Posted in Deception, Formats, Marketing, Microsoft, Office Suites, Open XML, OpenDocument at 8:31 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft describes its proprietary, binary-only formats in the context of a “plugfest” — a term implicitly reserved for ODF events
THE TERM “plugfest” — at least when it comes to document formats — has a connotation to do with ODF. Last year we showed how those plugfests got ‘infiltrated’ (Microsoft’s term [PDF]) by Microsoft employees and partners, who sought to change the agenda there [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13].
One of the vicious campaigners against ODF, Microsoft’s Mahugh, is now co-opting the term “plugfest” by using it to describe discussion about Microsoft’s proprietary document formats.
Former Open XML evangelist Doug Mahugh announces a “Binary Format Plugfest” for October 18/19
We have given many similar examples where Microsoft hijacks words to paint OOXML, for example, as something “open”, which also sounds a little like “Open Office”. These are not coincidences; these are merciless marketing tricks. █
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07.27.10
Posted in Formats, ISO, Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument, Standard at 4:21 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“If thought can corrupt language, then language can also corrupt thought.”
–George Orwell
Summary: Microsoft and its proponents/minions are still pushing an old propaganda line by claiming that Windows and OOXML will bring “choice”
THE NEWS is aflood with reports that IBM comes under scrutiny in the EU. Little is being said about the fact that IBM is being attacked SCO-style by Microsoft and its “satellite proxies” (IBM's words). We care about this because IBM’s mainframes run GNU/Linux — a fact that people like Florian Müller could not care less about (and this matters because “FlorianMueller” is the one who also pushed the news into Slashdot with his own convictions and bias). See the conversation in the previous post where Müller admits using Vista 7 (he seems like a permanent Windows user) and does not care so much if his stance is helping Microsoft. He’s apathetic to it. He also spins/subverts the word "choice" in the same way Microsoft does (same with the word “openness”*). It’s done just as Microsoft Malaysia did it to ODF and other branches of the company do under all sorts of situations. It’s a language game. Standards are about limiting choice at some level of granularity in order to ensure that different implementations work well with one another. Microsoft’s hypnosis strives to confuse people about choice; it’s about office suites, not formats.
Rob Weir has just informed his peers and supporters of ODF that Microsoft is restricting choice (abolishing and harming ODF’s status) using language games.
Microsoft’s talking points go something like this:
If you adopt ODF instead of OOXML then you “restrict choice”. Why would you want to do that? You’re in favor of openness and competition, right? So naturally, you should favor choice.
You can see a hundreds of variations on this theme, in Microsoft press releases, whitepapers, in press articles and blogged by astroturfers by searching Google for “ODF restrict choice“.
This argument is quite effective, since it is plausible at first glance, and takes more than 15 seconds to refute. But the argument in the end fails by taking a very superficial view of “choice”, relying merely on the positive allure of its name, essentially using it as a talisman. But “choice” is more than just a pretty word. It means something. And if we dig a little deeper, at what the value of choice really is, the Microsoft argument falls apart.
So let’s make an attempt to show how can one be in favor of choice, but also be in favor of eliminating choice. Let’s resolve the paradox. Personally I think this argument is too long, but maybe it will prompt someone to formulate it in a briefer form.
Glyn Moody remarks on this post by calling it a “nice debunking of a sneaky Microsoft trope about choice” and he also shares this word of warning about a new Google Docs “format”.
“I’m having trouble searching for just ODF formats, Did Google remove the ability?”
–AnonymousI asked Weir about it and he said that he “Can’t tell much from the screenshot. Not clear that it is a format. Maybe Punch is an app? Or internal test system?”
As a reminder, Google officially opposed OOXML when Microsoft was corrupting standards bodies all over the world, but Google never showed much active support for ODF, either. Google has been mostly passive and there are recent examples where Google exlcuded ODF support and was criticised for it (although not in a major way).
One person has just mailed us to say: “I’m having trouble searching for just ODF formats, Did Google remove the ability?”
“In general I’m losing it for Google,” said this person to us, “they support OS [open source] only when it suits them. They [are] really not our friends.”
Google Docs is of course proprietary. █
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* When Microsoft says “openness” it never means “Open Source”. In cases where Microsoft is excluded or chooses to be excluded it advocates “choice” as means/route to depart from standards and embrace proprietary offerings instead.
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06.01.10
Posted in Deception, Formats, Marketing, Microsoft at 5:05 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The access to data in high traffic sites such as Facebook and Twitter enables Microsoft to suppress opposition and inject its points of view, products, formats, etc.
MICROSOFT is an unpopular company. Its bad reputation is well deserved and earned. About a week ago, people complained in Twitter that Microsoft was harassing them even in their own houses. It was causing a lot of noise and there are other recent incidents we could cite (like trashing/polluting the streets with promotional “MSN” butterflies — a case in which the local authorities were also called to intervene).
Office drones around Soho’s Golden Square have complained to the council about the racket caused by Microsoft’s ongoing attempt to attract more users to Hotmail through the medium of dance.
Hotmail is dying, but that’s not today’s subject.
Back in the old days, controlling the press was easy because the number of channels/newspapers was limited and there was an editorial hierarchy for each publisher. Then came the Internet and blogs. Microsoft has realised that taking down other people's blog posts is something it can manage to do in order to guard a reputation, but keeping track of billions of short messages is nearly impossible. That would be microblogging. So Microsoft signed some deals with Twitter and Twitter’s CEO came over to Microsoft a couple of weeks ago. As part of Microsoft’s AstroTurfing efforts, its PR department had developed some tools with which to spy on people and observe trends in Twitter. That was a year ago. Microsoft uses Twitter for its AstroTurfing, as we demonstrated in some of the following posts:
Microsoft Nick says that Microsoft has gone further. It developed more tools for use in Twitter:
Microsoft announced the alpha preview of a social-networking initiative, Project Emporia, being developed through its FUSE Labs. The application gives users the ability to browse information on Twitter most relevant to their needs, and refine their experience through a “like/dislike” recommender system. Since its inception in October 2009, FUSE Labs has pursued the development of social connectivity, real-time experiences and rich media software and services.
Another area where Microsoft wants and needs to control minds would be Facebook.
“Facebook Obliterates Rivals in Google List of Top Sites,” says one headline from IDG and there are other signs that there is still “mindshare” in that site. To quote Microsoft on “mindshare”:
“Mind Control: To control mental output you have to control mental input. Take control of the channels by which developers receive information, then they can only think about the things you tell them. Thus, you control mindshare!”
–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]
Microsoft has already attempted to acquire Facebook. At the moment, Facebook and Microsoft seem to be allies and it’s possible that Microsoft will borrow more money and attempt to buy Facebook again.
Zuckerberg already helps Microsoft in many ways (giving them data, Office market share, spreading Silver Lie, etc.) and some days ago we found this new article:
Ballmer on Facebook privacy: Zuckerberg one of ‘good guys’
Google and Facebook are the ones grappling with high-profile security and privacy problems these days, but Microsoft has been there before, many times, and the issues were clearly on Steve Ballmer’s mind during a talk this past week on the company’s Redmond campus.
Of course Microsoft takes Facebook’s side. Microsoft too is in the business of profiling people [1, 2, 3]. Facebook has not really changed anything or even apologised since the controversy began. Microsoft supports Facebook’s position probably because it continues to receive copies of Facebook’s data (the more the merrier — the same data which made people furious). To quote an article from last week, with emphasis added: “CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook fixing privacy tools”
The latest flap came last month, when Facebook announced new features that send user profile information in bulk to companies such as Microsoft, Yelp and Pandora. That prompted four U.S. senators – led by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. – to demand Facebook pass along data only if users agree to it.
The original article had the title “Facebook simplifies its privacy controls” (but does not actually resolve the issue).
In the case of Twitter, there is a Bing deal that gives Microsoft the company’s whole data feed. These companies share their databases. See this recently-leaked Microsoft handbook to find out how it facilitates compliance with government requests for personal data (snoops). █
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05.31.10
Posted in Deception, Formats, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft, Open XML at 7:36 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The latest publicity stunt around Microsoft Outlook and how Microsoft dodges its promises of OOXML compliance
MICROSOFT is a funny company. It’s not so good at hiding its intention and the result is quite embarrassing sometimes.
Last week Google announced that it had produced an Outlook migration tool (and more than that [1, 2]), which isn’t too surprising because Free software has been able to achieve this for a long, long time (Microsoft’s file formats were reverse-engineered).
“Adobe did the same thing with Flash after gnash had already reverse-engineered much of Flash with ActionScript.”Watch Microsoft as it emits spin in its press release about an Apache-licensed tool for Outlook data access (which was already possible anyway). Might this be Microsoft’s attempt to spin a defeat as generous gifting? Now that Microsoft’s lock-in is cracked Microsoft would love to pretend that it was all just planned and the result of Microsoft’s goodwill. That’s quite probable. The de facto PR agents of Microsoft sure make it seem that way. After it had already been reverse-engineered, Microsoft pretends to have given it away, eh?
Microsoft did exactly the same thing with .DOC and its relatives. After years of these formats being interpretable by other office suites (thanks to hard work on reverse engineering) Microsoft just dumped documentation which explained how to reproduce the results of hacking. Too late, no? Adobe did the same thing with Flash after gnash had already reverse-engineered much of Flash with ActionScript. Adobe gets the upper hand (PR) while offering nothing of value. They all pretend to be opening up for PR purposes and it’s fooling even Free-software friendly Web sites. Why not explain what Microsoft is really doing here and why? In response to some of this spin, Pamela Jones wrote in Groklaw: “Hey, I have a great idea. Why doesn’t Microsoft do this for OOXML, so ODF can be fully and seamlessly compatible, being standards and all, supposedly? Oh, and Google Docs, too? What? You say Microsoft only gives access to things that benefit their business? Oh. OK.”
If Microsoft’s weird variant of OOXML was ever replicated, Microsoft would then claim credit for it, right? But let’s not hold our breath. The goalposts have already moved; Microsoft is still not complying (in the compatibility sense) with its very own OOXML, and it’s already moving away from OOXML into a new lock-in: Fog Computing. “Microsoft prefers cloud over OpenXML,” says the headline of this new article which starts as follows:
Microsoft will base support for the final OpenXML standard on customer demand. The market leader at this point prefers to move its clients to cloud computing, said Stephen Elop, president of Microsoft’s Business Division. He considers cloud offerings a good extension of the desktop software that Microsoft currently sells.
“OpenXML can be implemented for a range of applications,” Elop told Webwereld in an interview. “Some are characterized as strict and some are more broad in scope. We do our best to expand the standard in collaboration with the standards bodies and implement it ourselves. We have taken major steps, but in some areas more work needs to be done.”
Microsoft recently faced criticism because the new Office 2010 productivity suite didn’t implement the strict ISO-approved version of OpenXML but a version that had been rejected.
Forget about implementing OOXML (which is not possible anyway). Microsoft’s implementations of it are mutually incompatible and Microsoft itself is ignoring OOXML. The plan remains to just make Microsoft Office compatible with Microsoft Office (which it isn’t, unless it’s the same version at all ends), which makes OOXML just a red herring. █
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05.25.10
Posted in Formats, Google, Microsoft, Office Suites, Open XML, OpenOffice at 4:26 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Office Web Apps and different versions of Office are failing to work together
WE PREVIOUSLY showed that a corresponding version of Microsoft Office for Mac is not compatible with Microsoft Office for Windows [1, 2] and different versions are also mutually incompatible. Microsoft never implemented OOXML, either. In short, it is a mess and Microsoft wants everyone to buy the latest version of Office all the time, merely to be able to communicate with other people and exchange information. The following new article from the ‘Microsoft press’ says: ‘McLeish noted that the free consumer version of Office Web Apps will have some limitations. “You can’t create a table of contents, use mail merge, and many other advanced features,” she wrote. “And there would still be compatibility issues of using Office 2003 in conjunction with a newer version, such as the loss of Smart Art or other newer features only available in Office 2007 or Office 2010.”‘
“So Microsoft software isn’t compatible with itself.”
–Pamela Jones, GroklawGroklaw remarks on it by saying: “So Microsoft software isn’t compatible with itself. It’s been bragging that Google Docs isn’t seamlessly compatible. But neither is its own Office 2003, I gather.”
For what it’s worth, Google wants to sell its own proprietary software [1, 2] at the expense of Microsoft Office (Google no longer provides funding to OpenOffice.org, only to its fork, Go-OO).
In response to the problems Office is having, Microsoft has resorted to more viral marketing and aggressive tactics. The Washington Post writes about the Office EULA, reminding readers of the unnecessary pains imposed by proprietary software.
Reader Jean has a problem: she installed Office 2003 on her brand new Windows 7 system, and every single time she runs it, a pop-up forces her to accept Microsoft’s End User License Agreement (EULA).
Dang it, Microsoft, she accepts already! She accepts!
This EULA may no longer hold water in the UK, not as far as liability is concerned [1, 2, 3]. So anyway, why would people actually choose Office? Because “everyone else is using it”? █
“In one piece of mail people were suggesting that Office had to work equally well with all browsers and that we shouldn’t force Office users to use our browser. This Is wrong and I wanted to correct this.”
–Bill Gates [PDF]
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04.02.10
Posted in Courtroom, Deception, Formats, ISO, Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument, Standard at 1:13 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“ISO is dead for software standards. Do you need an official funeral?”
–Benjamin Henrion, FFII
Summary: This past week of Document Freedom brings even more abysmal news for Microsoft’s corruption-riddled response to ODF (OpenDocument Format)
LAST NIGHT we wrote about attempts being made by Alex Brown to pass the blame to Microsoft, having actually helped Microsoft be where they are. What a fox. Does he really believe that people will forget what he did to promote OOXML while serving as a supposedly-independent participant [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21]? Tim Anderson, a longtime Microsoft booster, has mentioned Brown’s mea culpa and so did Andy Updegrove, who apparently foresees failure for OOXML.
In reviewing my RSS feed this morning, I found this interesting blog entry by Alex Brown, titled Microsoft Fails the Standards Test. In it, Alex makes a number of statements, and reaches a number of conclusions, that are likely to startle those that followed the ODF-OOXML saga. The bottom line? Alex thinks that Microsoft has failed to fulfill crucial promises upon which the approval of OOXML was based. He concludes that unless Microsoft reverses course promptly, “the entire OOXML project is now surely heading for failure.”
Wow.
Andy Oram points out in the comments: “The OOXML battle is no joke; it had serious repercussions throughout the public setting. Microsoft launched its OOXML campaign in the mid-2000s at a time when several countries and US states (notably the state Andrew and I live in, Massachusetts) made real efforts to move to ODF for the public good. The fake standardization of OOXML helped Microsoft’s propaganda campaign to keep MS Office in government use, although I’m sure it wasn’t the critical factor. The movement failed and history has moved on. Microsoft avoided the loss of customers and the PR boost open source could have achieved had ODF gotten into government agencies. Now the question is whether desktop office tools will be replaced by Software as a Service, so there’s little point in refighting the old battle. But open formats are more important than ever, and the new power of the movement for transparent government can correct the historical grievance.”
“The fake standardization of OOXML helped Microsoft’s propaganda campaign to keep MS Office in government use, although I’m sure it wasn’t the critical factor.”
–Andy Oram, O’ReillyAs we pointed out before, fragmentation issues already plague OOXML (there have always been too many Microsoft implementations, none of which complied with the specifications). These are further exacerbated by the i4i case [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12], which revealed that Microsoft had hidden software patents affecting OOXML.
Some sources have spoken about a potential appeal in the i4i case (or a settlement), but OOXML seems to be dead in the water at least as a ‘standard’ because the i4i ruling is final, based on Reuters.
A federal appeals court denied on Thursday Microsoft Corp’s request that a full panel of judges rehear arguments in its long-running patent dispute with a small Canadian technology company.
One of the more troubling patent rulings in the past year involved a Canadian company, i4i, that held a patent (5,787,449) that appears to broadly (very broadly) cover editing a custom XML document, separate from the presentation layer of a document.
The 5th anniversary of ODF is less than a month away. From Rob Weir’s Web log:
We’ll be hitting a significant date next month. It was on May 1st, 2005 that Open Document Format (ODF) 1.0 was approved by OASIS.
I hope we can all take time to reflect on far we’ve gone, with the specification itself, with the quality and diversity of implementations and with world-wide adoption.
A lot of coverage about “Document Freedom” has appeared over the past week (included in our daily links), which is evidence of continued momentum for a real standard that everyone can use and many vendors have already implemented. According to this new gem from Glyn Moody, Tim Berners-Lee refuses to accept Microsoft Office files.
We all knew that Sir Tim was a total star, choosing to give away the Web rather than try to make oodles of billions from it. Some of us even knew that he contemplated using the GNU GPL for its licence, before being persuaded that placing it in the public domain would help it spread faster.
Tim Berners-Lee is also against software patents. █
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02.12.10
Posted in Formats, Free/Libre Software, GNOME, GNU/Linux, ISO, Microsoft, Novell, Office Suites, Open XML, OpenDocument at 11:29 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: More of the usual gameplay from people who have made a career out of helping Microsoft expand its circles of influence/dominance
MICROSOFT’S “Insider Friend, ‘the Fox’” Alex Brown [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21] is “Looking at the pubic review text of #ODF 1.2 pt 1″ and saying that “some bits still very ropey”
What an unsurprising statement coming from the man who essentially conspired to help Microsoft corrupt ISO’s integrity while he marketed OOXML around the UK.
“ISO is dead for software standards. Do you need an official funeral?”
–Benjamin Henrion, FFII
Moreover, just very recently Alex Brown was seen defending Microsoft’s deviation from ODF [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] — a deviation which is only fragmenting and complicating everything.
Brown is joined by Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza. They are acting like Microsoft reps, to whom Simon Phipps (Oracle) replies with: “My view is that ODF should now just transclude the OOXML formula spec, but that’s probably controversial”
“To an outsider, it would probably seem clear that de Icaza is a Microsoft employee or partner who wishes that ODF just went away.”De Icaza seems very eager to keep smearing ODF, which is a threat to the top cash cow of the company whose board he serves (CodePlex Foundation board). A little conflict of interests there, no? Anyway, he is linking to his colleague Morten Welinder, who is dissing ODF and closing comments, possibly in order to prevent rebuttals from being posted. Rob Weir responded to de Icaza by saying: “The spec that vendors are implementing is linked to from the ODF TC’s homepage. Novell is on the TC. You know this.”
Maybe he’s playing dumb. After all, he also has loyalties to Microsoft, not just Novell. And guess who else is linking to de Icaza and his colleague (the ODF smear)? That’s right, it’s more noise which feeds those at Microsoft who participated in the corruption of ISO and various standards bodies around the world. They quote de Icaza as though he’s their special buddy (which he is, as he even helped bug resolution in OOXML). To an outsider, it would probably seem clear that de Icaza is a Microsoft employee or partner who wishes that ODF just went away. Why are other Microsoft agents like Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza linking to that same post, which is damaging to ODF and not even factual? It’s stuff like this, which makes the question rhetorical.
Miguel de Icaza writes in response to the call-out: “Another Rob Weir swing from Bombastic troll when discussing OOXML to nuanced and apologetic when it comes to ODF”
He’s starting to sound just like another one of those Microsoft employees who are smearing Weir (sometimes by creating smear blogs or calling for resignation).
Weir responds with: “ISO approval is not my success metric for ODF, but rather adopters, users and implementors. By those measure I’m pleased.”
“[I]t seems that Morten isn’t following the ODF development at all.”
–Jomar SilvaAddressing the actual source of the FUD, Morten Welinder criticises formula handling in ODF even though a lot of office suites (excluding Microsoft Office) successfully implemented ODF support for formulas that are also interoperable. Weir showed this using a table and several sample files about a year ago.
It is worth adding that the ODF smear comes from the same group (Gnumeric) that was helping OOXML get past ISO. We wrote about this at the time [1, 2], specifically when there were complaints about GNOME engaging or in general terms helping Microsoft in that regard (Jody Goldberg from Novell got actively involved for example).
Jomar Silva, who is a key person in ODF, says that “it seems that Morten isn’t following the ODF development at all. Simply pathetic !”
Let’s remember what these people are pushing for at ODF’s expense. OOXML is utterly flawed and it annoys so many users of Microsoft Office, based on this new analysis at INC.com: [via Bob Sutor]
For those using older versions of Microsoft Word, or other non-Microsoft word processing software, the new .docx format can be a real pain. It has caused dissension in some workplaces. How to cope with conflicting Microsoft Office formats.
It’s a funny article to read. Microsoft’s own customers loathe OOXML.
ODF is also important because it offers “equal opportunities”, as advogato.org put it:
It is possible to get people to listen if you want to instil Free Software principles, but they have to have a “handle” against which they are forced to act, within the organisation that they work. Or, if they agree with you in principle, but are otherwise hog-tied, they need that “handle” with which to justify their actions to their superiors.
Using the words “Discrimination” and “Equal Opportunities” in the same sentence seems to do the trick.
Jan Wildeboer says that “The ODF TC peeps should really read this gem,” which accurately dissects some of the deception from Microsoft and its promoters. Here is Miguel de Icaza hugging Jeff Atwood from Microsoft. The photo below (from Marcus Griep) is a very recent one and the description of de Icaza’s talk at this event (filled with Microsoft employees and content) goes as follows:
Miguel also showcased MonoTouch, building a simple program in MonoDevelop on Mac OSX, and demonstrating it in the iPhone simulator. Including lots of pro-Linux banter and some pokes at Richard Stallman, Miguel kept the audience interested and amused, which is exactly what the last presentation in an 8-hour day needs.
Yes, it’s the same guy we have come to know ever since he compared Stallman to George Bush. What does that make it his darling Microsoft? Either way, it’s nice of him to ridicule Stallman in front of an apparently Microsoft-dominated audience. It must be a new and entertaining pastime for them. █
From Marcus Griep
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