Bonum Certa Men Certa

Responses to GNOME Foundation's OOXML Statement

Early weekend's reactions

From BJörn Lindqvist:

Re: GNOME Foundation Statement on ECMA TC45-M Participation



BJörn Lindqvist Sat, 24 Nov 2007 19:11:47 -0800

On Nov 24, 2007 8:27 PM, Jeff Waugh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > There is no "neutral game" being played here. Concerns were raised that the > GNOME Foundation's participation in EMCA TC45-M suggested that we supported > OOXML becoming an ISO standard. Thus, the answer was simple: We do not.

Well except that our representative on that committee supports OOXML becoming an ISO standard... Please stop the charade, getting involved in the process was a stupid mistake to begin with and continuing to do it while the hypocrisy shines through is just boneheaded. How on earth can offering constructive criticism, feedback and helping develop a specification NOT be supporting it??


From Alan Cox

Re: GNOME Foundation Statement on ECMA TC45-M Participation



Alan Cox Sat, 24 Nov 2007 09:09:57 -0800

> Don't change the subject. The statement I quoted is trollish. There is > no need to say we are shooting at our own feet repeatedly. Especially > without any argument (I do not mean just text in an email). The > announcement was not neutral.

The perception from outside is very clearly that you are active participants and its being used in that way.

That would appear to be "shooting at own feet"

Perhaps you'd care to critique the relevant points instead of jumping up and down like a small child going "ner ner na ner ner"

Alan


From Rui Miguel Silva Seabra

Re: GNOME Foundation Statement on ECMA TC45-M Participation



Rui Miguel Silva Seabra Fri, 23 Nov 2007 16:45:32 -0800

Hi,

Funny then, that even after nothing being done by GNOME on TC45 since July (previous to OOXML vote on September 2) ECMA is still claiming GNOME participates in the disposition of comments:

http://www.ecma-international.org/news/TC45_current_work/First%20group%20of%20662%20proposed%20dispositions%20of%20comments%20posted.htm

Yes, the language is deceptive. Careful readers will notice they don't plainly say it, rather they insinuate it. It's one of the main tactics of lying with the truth.

Since the Foundation clearly wouldn't lie about not doing anything since July, here's more evidence of people abusing the role of GNOME Foundation on ECMA's TC45.

The more you guys keep playing the neutral game, the more you'll get abused like this. Don't cry about people who criticize the Foundation's "unconditional support" for OOXML, you're pointing guns at your own feet (and in fact just took another shot).

Rui


I've also received the following by E-mail from a reader who shall remain anonymous:

It's hilarious how he [Jeff Waugh] keeps harping on about contacting him first before publishing anything about Gnome ... like you're not entitled to an opinion without his say so. He wants your questions and dissent driven underground, so it becomes just a private conversation between you and him, thus keeping all those dirty little secrets safe.

I've been following the vast amount of dirt being dug up on Gnome, Novell, OOXML, Waugh, de Icaza, and others over on BN today (your "brainstorm" and link to the Groklaw article were particularly enlightening), and I must admit that even *I* was surprised at how deeply corrupted all the various parties really are. It's much, *much* worse than I originally imagined.

[...]

As for Gnome ... I've read enough just *today* to convince me that I don't want it anywhere near any of my systems ... any more than I'd taint them with Sues€® Linux. I had major problems with Fedora 8, that I'm still working my way through, but once I do finally deploy it across the network, you can be sure that one of the very *first* things I do is wipe Gnome off those systems, even if (as is the case) it means sacrificing some of the GUI configuration utilities shipped by Red Hat and Fedora (they use Gnome/Gtk libs). I'm rather wary of Enlightenment (even though it is excellent) because it rather stupidly (IMHO) uses the BSD license, so I'll be switching to XFCE for now, and possibly KDE at a later stage.

I've been a Gnome user since ... forever, but today it ends. The friendly little Gnome has grown up to become a nasty big Troll.


I was actually very sad to hear this, but we must let such open messages give the impression and justification that BoycottNovell.com is crowd, not a couple of blokes ranting.

One thing I can tell you is that BoycottNovell.com received an unusual level of traffic yesterday (quiet readers, i.e. no comments left). I haven't checked to see where exactly they all come from, but maybe this indicates that we've touched a gentle spot, which I believe we did. There was no trolling or baiting involved. We were merely pointing at various Web sites that show GNOME's role in ECMA, among other things.

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