08.01.09
Posted in Apple, FUD, Interoperability, Microsoft, Office Suites, Open XML, OpenDocument, OpenOffice, Standard, Wikipedia, Windows at 6:23 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft caught failing with OOXML/MSO, Wikipedia mischief noted again, and more wins for OOo and ODF
“E
specially for those brainless ** who maintain that supporting the “de facto standard” means the best interoperability imaginable,” Richard Rasker says and shares this report from The Register, which aligns with what we already know (that the Mac version of Microsoft Office is not compatible with the Windows version).
Microsoft’s recently released Service Pack 2 for Office 2008 for Mac makes it impossible for many users to open Office files created on PCs.
“Yup, sounds like Microsoft to me,” adds Rasker. “And to think that Microsoft Office is actually their only reliable cash cow apart from Windows. One might expect a little better trial and testing before inconveniencing people like this, now mightn’t one?
“And to think that Microsoft Office is actually their only reliable cash cow apart from Windows.”
–Richard Rasker“Anyway, I think I’ll stick with OpenOffice for the foreseeable future. It simply works, no strings attached. Not to mention the fact that those brainless ** from Redmond have failed to produce a viable version of Microsoft Office for Linux for what, the past decade? ‘Proves that they’re just **, deserving every bit of scorn loaded on their sorry backsides.”
The OpenOffice.org team has meanwhile come up with an interface prototype for future versions of the software, which will be released by Oracle. One of their engineers explains:
The prototyping phase, to create a new user interface for OpenOffice.org, has ended last week. See our monthly project Renaissance status presentation for July and try the prototype yourself (Java 6 required). It is not only about Impress, we are working on a UI for the entire OOo. You will be asked to give feedback when closing the prototype. Make use of it!
Microsoft is obviously nervous about OpenOffice.org because it mentions the "P" word. Microsoft is also very nervous about ODF, which it fought like fire (Microsoft still fights against ODF in more subtle ways [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]). Looking at the past 2 days alone, watch how unfamiliar people are stripping off remaining Microsoft criticism from the ODF article in Wikipedia [1, 2]. How familiar a sight. See for example:
The latest malicious edits in Wikipedia are pretending that it doesn’t matter what Microsoft does to Wikipedia and what the ODF Alliance says about Microsoft’s behaviour. It gets whitewashed and John Drinkwater reverses it thusly (by calling it “vandalism”). From the first correction:
Revision as of 19:47, 31 July 2009 (edit) (undo)
Johndrinkwater (talk | contribs)
m (Undid revision 305273577 by 200.156.24.98 (talk) revert vandalism)
From the second correction:
Revision as of 21:30, 31 July 2009 (edit) (undo)
Johndrinkwater (talk | contribs)
m (Undid revision 305237624 by 201.51.5.110 (talk) why remove this?)
In other news, somebody claims that “PSPP now supports output on ODF format!”
No wonder Microsoft is so nervous. █
“It’s a Simple Matter of [Microsoft’s] Commercial Interests!“
–Microsoft on OOXML
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07.01.09
Posted in Formats, FUD, IBM, Microsoft, OpenDocument, Wikipedia at 3:56 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft carries on smearing ODF in public while pretending to support it
Microsoft is still changing ODF’s history and daemonising ODF using Wikipedia. We wrote about that in:
Rob Weir has already complained about this. It is part of Microsoft’s ongoing attack on ODF [1, 2] — an attack which it is defending by buying journalists lunch (now confirmed to us by the journalist) so that is can carry on breaking ODF interoperability [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] without public scrutiny.
Weir has just published another rant about Wikipedia, so obviously he keeps track of the continued manipulation by Microsoft — one that we too are seeing because all edits are visible.
I have a mental model of how Wikipedia works and behaves. This may not reflect reality, but it is how I, as an end-user, expect Wikipedia to behave. I think these are reasonable expectations regarding things like standards of proof and balance and that if the real Wikipedia differs substantially from these expectations, then we have a problem.
[...]
Does anyone know whether the above statements have any basis in the aspirations or actual practice of Wikipedia editors and admins? Sadly, my recent reading of some articles suggests that these reasonable expectations are routinely flouted and bear little resemblance to reality.
It’s obvious what Microsoft must be thinking.
“All those haters…”
But to characterise opposition as “anti-Microsoft” is like describing the police as “anti-criminals” and thus “irrational haters”. Microsoft’s behaviour speaks for itself. █
“Their documents display a clear intent to monopolize, to prevent any competition from springing up. And they have used a variety of restrictive practices to prevent that kind of competition.”
–Judge Robert Bork, former US Supreme Court nominee (on Microsoft)
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06.10.09
Posted in America, Google, Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument, Vista, Wikipedia, Windows at 3:42 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: New ODF developments and observations
A reader has just sent us a pointer to the following:
Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:58:15 -0500
From: Wade Smart <wade at wadesmart.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Subject: [users] Windows Vista Search doesn’t find ODF files….
Gordon wrote:
> I have two documents, one a .odt and one a .doc. (They are the same
> document, just different formats).
> If I search using Vista Advanced Search by Modified Date, (they both
> have the same Modified Date) ONLY the .doc file is shown.
>
>
> ———————————————————————
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe at openoffice.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: users-help at openoffice.org
>
20090609 1157 GMT-5
I have noticed that too. A little preferential treatment maybe?
Wade
This just shows how much Microsoft likes ODF, does it not? Microsoft has fought against ODF all along [1, 2] and now it is trying to fragment it with its pseudo-ODF (MSODF [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]).
At the same time, Microsoft is subverting Wikipedia's article on ODF in order to hide the effect of its actions. Just looking at the past couple of days, there are many edits from the usual suspects, e.g.”Ghettoblaster” [1, 2] and Albert Zonneveld (most people know him as "hAl"). Look how hard he has been working in tandem with “Ghettoblaster” in the past couple of days, all to glorify Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] (and not just in the article on ODF by the way).
The Microsoft proponents are editing so quickly that those correcting them with messages like “suspected advertisement in promoting microsoft’s product, please provide valid source” are being overridden vainly and swiftly. When it comes to “Ghettoblaster”, here is a person trying to correct his/her promotion of Microsoft and another one correcting an insult of OpenOffice.org.
How about interesting edits that state: “(Undid revision 295165923 by user:HAl how is it not relevent that Rick Jelliffe has admitted recieving money from Microsoft to edit wikipedia, and demanding a sources for unsourced fact)”
For more information about what the Microsoft folks have been doing in Wikipedia (to the ODF article alone), see:
What Microsoft is doing gets noticed too. Make no mistake. Microsoft "technical evangelists" (TEs) and staff are participating in this from a distance. We offered proof.
The FSF has meanwhile joined wide opposition to what Microsoft is doing to ODF. The headline states, “Microsoft Office tries to break ODF.”
Just a quick update to our OpenDocument campaign, with news that Microsoft Office has added support for ODF, but in a state that leaves it incompatible with every other ODF capable application out there, including OpenOffice.org and KOffice.
Microsoft has many reasons to be afraid of ODF (which is interoperable). Brazil makes more obvious moves to ODF and as Tony Manco puts it, “open office brasil (BrOO.org) adopts odf and uses more foss software like firefox. [...] BB accepted foss since 2001. 60% of there computers use Linux [...] the rest use another os but have OOo and Firefox installed.”
In other very interesting ODF news, there is more support for this standard from Google.
Google Translator Toolkit currently only allows users to upload HTML, Microsoft Word, OpenDocument Text, Rich Text and Plain Text documents up to 1MB for translation. Alternatively, it’s possible to enter the URL of a file on the web, select a Wikipedia article or a Knol for translation.
Google was among those publicly opposing OOXML, which is proprietary. █
“It’s a Simple Matter of [Microsoft’s] Commercial Interests!“
–Microsoft on OOXML
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06.05.09
Posted in FSF, GPL, Microsoft, Search, Wikipedia at 4:05 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Where “copies” means ‘pirates’ there is a certain sign of weakness
MICROSOFT hardly believes in unrestricted sharing, so the following case of legitimate copying by Microsoft Bong[sic] is not only an admission of defeat (neglect of Encarta) but it is also a case of Microsoft linking to a GNU licence, which is just so ironic. Microsoft owes Richard Stallman some credit.
We all know that Google’s search engine likes to push Wikipedia links to the top of its results pages. But Microsoft has gone a step further.
[...]
Microsoft doesn’t appear to be editing Wikipedia pages and it’s linking back to the GFDL license, so it would seem that Redmond is free to reproduce the content and even serve ads against it. “An inherent part of our license structure is that downstream commercial uses are allowed,” one longtime Wikipedian tells The Reg. But the GFDL isn’t easily navigated – even for the sharpest legal minds.
GNU is not UNIX and Bing is not Google, but there is more to it than just a playful recursive acronym. Goblin from Boycott Novell reminds us of the meaning of the word “Bing” (he is a Brit by the way).
Bing – “–noun British Dialect. a heap or pile.”
Bing is really quite a pile of something [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] (not a Dogpile). It also piles up other people’s resources. █
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06.03.09
Posted in Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument, Standard, Wikipedia at 11:08 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“The negative impact of standards for competition are mostly caused by a biased endowment with resources available for the standardization process itself. Therefore. even when the consensus rule is applied, dominant large companies are able to manipulate the outcome of the process, the specification of a standard, into a direction which leads to skewed distribution of benefits or costs in favor of their own interests.” –Prof. Dr. Knut Blind, Fraunhofer
SOME months ago we wrote about the incestuous relationship between Fraunhofer Fokus-DIN-Microsoft. This passionate love affair bears fruit.
Together with Fraunhofer FOKUS, Microsoft is working to streamline the process of exchanging data among organizations leveraging disparate systems. This is why technology industry experts participating in the Document Interoperability Initiative (DII) forum have stressed the need for independent resources set up to offer both testing and validation of files based on IS29500 and ECMA-376 standards implementations. The new tools and website produced by Fraunhofer FOKUS will come to fill this need.
Fraunhofer has made it clear (repeatedly in fact) where it puts its chips. Earlier in the week (and last week) we also showed examples where Microsoft rewrites the history of ODF in order to injure the standard. See for example:
Albert Zonneveld (“hAl”) keeps censoring Wikipedia for Microsoft today. How kind. █
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Posted in Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument, Standard, Wikipedia at 6:46 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft’s attempts to shun ODF continue unabated, with endorsers from Microsoft itself
Microsoft has become exceptionally transparent in its anti-ODF activity as of late [1, 2, 3, 4]. It’s not just technical fragmentation of ODF which Microsoft causes [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] in order to reduce interoperability. It is actual out-in-the-open smearing of opposition to Microsoft’s proprietary OOXML, which Microsoft has been breaking many laws for.
“Looking at Wikipedia, we mostly see new changes from the usual Microsoft folks, such as edits from Ghettoblaster, from “hAl” ( Albert Zonneveld), and from Alex Brown too (he is strongly pro-Microsoft).”Looking at Wikipedia, we mostly see new changes from the usual Microsoft folks, such as edits from Ghettoblaster, from “hAl” (Albert Zonneveld), and from Alex Brown too (he is strongly pro-Microsoft). Who are they kidding? These changes are not invisible.
At the same time, Microsoft + Ecosystem is founding an “ODF” area from which to smear ODF. Wouter is starting an online pro-Microsoft tribe, but it is more like unprofessional tripe from people who pretend to be dissociated from Microsoft. All the usual Microsoft folks (Alex Brown, Jesper Lund Stocholm and so on) are soon joining. Even prominent Microsoft employees immediately join in. Of course they are joined by their likes, e.g. SharePoint developers. Yes, they are joining places that go under the “ODF” heading. Why the fear? Like the frantic talk about “Linux”? It’s obsessive. Only later some other people join in, probably in attempt to add balance. In response, Rob Weir also jokingly creates an equivalent group for the opposite direction.
Why is Microsoft so afraid of ODF? And why does it still pretend to have befriended ODF? And if it claimed truthfully that “ODF ha[d] truly win”, then why does it spend so much time smearing it with endorsement and encouragement from Microsoft “Technical Evangelists” (paid cheerleaders and conductors of AstroTurfs), even managers like Gray Knowlton? There is no “New Microsoft”. █
“Pamela Jones [...] has told Infoworld that Microsoft will be the next SCO Group”
–Heise
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06.01.09
Posted in America, Deception, FUD, Interoperability, Microsoft, OpenDocument, Wikipedia at 5:32 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Nice spin
Summary: New (but familiar) people join Microsoft’s cause against ODF interoperability
LAST NIGHT we saw that Alex Brown, the BRM convenor for OOXML, had joined the anti-ODF cat fight. He has also just become a Wikipedia editor for the article on “OpenDocument”. Any conflict of interests where his relationship with Microsoft comes into play? This morning we found some more mischief in Wikipedia. This carried in in the afternoon (a lot more activity than usual). Here is a removal of Microsoft’s self-referencing smears against ODF and some edits from the vehemently pro-Microsoft “Ghettoblaster“. Joining him again is Rick Jelliffe, to whom Microsoft previously offered money for Wikipedia edits.
“Most people would not suspect a thing because they don’t understand who is involved.”It’s truly fascinating to see how many people or entities serve Microsoft from the outside. Most people would not suspect a thing because they don’t understand who is involved. History matters. Take Black Duck Software for example. Few people know that the genesis of this company is a Microsoft employee. Black Duck Software is currently being used to usher Microsoft into open source software, despite and against the wide opposition to it*. We wrote about this twice before [1, 2] and we also worry somewhat about SourceForge, which has just acquired some former Microsoft employees.
Microsoft’s activity aside, as was pointed out this morning, Ecuador embraces ODF and IBM is happy about it.
What prompted me to realize this just today? I receive the ODF Alliance Newsletter regularly in my inbox. Today, I noticed the following:
(note that while the URL is in Spanish, the translation can be seen here thanks to Google)
ECUADOR CHARTS PATH TO ODF ADOPTION
More ODF in the news:
i. Audit report on Government’s accessibility raises RTF Vs ODF debate
A recent audit of government documents found there is room for improvement in making government documents accessible. The ANAO is suggesting that the government uses RTF or HTML instead of PDF formats to make its documents more accessible online, but Linux users say better still would be to opt for Open Document Format (ODF).
ii. Standards for Change
I will be happy to work on all this with my colleagues at the OASIS, and also with you, members of the broader Internet community: Citizens, small and large businesses, government, developers, and others. If you are a voting member of the OASIS consortium, don’t forget to cast your ballot this month, it is important.
It will be interesting to see how Microsoft will try to sneak into this one. The monopolist is more likely to send one of its faithfuls into the opposition’s panel. Just watch how they tried to expel Rob Weir and how they hijack ISO [1, 2]. █
____
* Such opposition is very much justified because Microsoft is suing open source software. It has already sued a European company over software patents and Linux.
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Posted in FUD, Microsoft, OpenDocument, Standard, Wikipedia at 6:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft — as a group of people — resorts to shooting down all opposition to its subversion of ODF interoperability while Rick Jelliffe, who makes a living from Microsoft contracts, changes Wikipedia to reflect on Microsoft’s convictions
YESTERDAY we saw a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional attacking ODF while joined by a Microsoft "Technical Evangelist" and familiar Microsoft cronies [1, 2, 3]. They are all employees or appendages to this company and they are paid for this in all sorts of ways.
Things intensify even further today. Microsoft folks start discrediting the ODF Alliance. Where does it come from? A Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (see the sidebar) and part of the “Microsoft Regional Director Program”. What a surprise.
“Where does it come from? A Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (see the sidebar) and part of the “Microsoft Regional Director Program”.”Rick Jelliffe, to whom Microsoft offered money to edit Wikipedia, is now tilting the article about OpenDocument in Microsoft’s favour. Here are today’s edits from him [1, 2, 3, 4]. He is joined joined by at least a couple of edits today from another known shill, Albert Zonneveld (aka "hAl").
Microsoft hates ODF and it is trying to destroy it [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. But it never does such things directly, by its very own admission. █
“It could be argued that Microsoft’s unethical Technology Evangelism (TE) practices are “old news”—i.e., that Microsoft stopped using these questionable TE practices long ago. This is very unlikely to be the case, for at least three reasons.”
–James Plamondon, former Microsoft shill (aka ‘Technology Evangelist’)
Update: First thing in the morning we also find no less than 6 edits [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] from a pro-Microsoft user who goes by the name “Ghettoblaster“. We have previously shown that this is likely a Microsoft person of some kind.
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