Bonum Certa Men Certa

Have Yourself an OpenDocument Christmas

...or whichever holiday is celebrated this winter

”The smear campaign against the site and its message is simply bound to fail.“There is a fair bit of stuff going on at the moment. Just before Christmas arrives, plenty of last-minute news is arriving. I've just returned from a Christmas dinner, so I'm feeling quite full and I'm definitely not sober, but let me try to catch up with ODF news. Don't mind the types, whose frequency is increased by my poor (or non-existent) proofreading habits, never mind the alcohol.

The front page of OpenOffice is linking to us at the moment, so all those skeptics (yes, that includes you too, Jeff) should realise that our views are taken seriously. The smear campaign against the site and its message is simply bound to fail.

In ComputerWorld, the following new article on the role of StarOffice has just appeared.

Sun's retreat from the enterprise arena will let IBM take a stab at Microsoft Office.

The beta of Symphony garnered 250,000 registered downloads in its first two months. By contrast, OpenOffice.org is being downloaded about 1 million times a week.


Considering this high pace, ODF is definitely going to get its claws on many people's documents. Meanwhile, The Register writes about the 'standards war' and cares enough to mention story which the mainstream press is 'kind' enough to ignore.

Microsoft's partners in Sweden, for example, were given "marketing incentives" in return for paying to join the national standards body. This "ballot stuffing" ploy, which Redmond claimed was down to the actions of one over zealous worker rather than company policy, backfired after Sweden invalidated its vote because of voting iregularaties after it was discovered someone had been allowed to vote twice.

The draft specification was amended in light of criticisms and will now be resubmitted for a further standards vote. Groklaw has published an informative article that highlights concerns about Redmond's possible influence on the February vote, worries about the lack of discussion over patent issues or public accountability, and a run-down on the more colourful incidents in the on-going saga.


A somewhat misleading headline was chosen for this article. OOXML is not an open office standard. It's not open and its not a standard (ECMA is a coin-in-the-slot exercise). Moving on, check out this update on the exciting news from Norway, which merely joined another country where Microsoft played very dirty.

So, now two European (I know Norway is not truly part of the EEC but, like Switzerland, it is in Europe) countries have mandated Open standards for electronic documentation. I wonder how stupid the UK’s National Archive feel now? Or perhaps, because their management are Microsoft puppets, they didn’t really have a say in the first place…


Indeed, they are (Microsoft puppets). We covered this here before. It's rather amazing how many positions of power Microsoft has quietly conquered and then used to make decisions that favour itself (and lock citizens in). We last mentioned the BBC (aka MSBBC) just a few days ago.

In other OOXML-related news, Glyn Moody, whose Linux Journal article we mentioned only yesterday, receives an open letter from a prominent KDE developer.

Dear Glyn Moody:

I found how you trotted out an age old and long since dealt with issue, namely the licensing of Qt1, as a way to discuss what you consider to be "the growing tensions between the KDE and GNOME camps" to be tasteless and ironic. If you want to help mend fences (we need all the hands we can get), the last thing to do is drag long-since dealt with issues that have been irrelevant for years back to the surface.

A cynic might think you were trying to deflect the issues that have arisen around OOXML and the negative attention it has resulted in for GNOME by kicking the someone else's dead horses. Personally, I think you were just being a bit clumsy while trying to make the point that everyone falters now and again and that nobody gains from conflict within our shared house. I think your intentions were good but unfortunately the road to hell, as they say, is paved with good intentions.


Aaron Seigo is right in this case, but Glyn didn't mean to cause any harm. He was probably just trying to keep the article balanced, even if it involved some artificial things and plenty of imagination.

Spread ODF

Recent Techrights' Posts

Quality Comes First (Techrights Search)
It's generally working already, but we wish to polish it some more
Techrights Party Countdown
Late next week we'll be holding a party near our home
European Parliament and Council Directive on Privacy is Vanishing
"edited / censored some time more recently"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?
How Will António Campinos Respond to the EPO's 'Cocainegate'?
That's the same thing we saw and still see when the press deals with enablers and partners of Jeffrey Epstein
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part IV: There Cannot be Free Software Without Free Press and Free Information
One day, one can hope, more people will recognise that for Software Freedom we need free press and free thinkers
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part III: Principled Stance Is Never Cheap
Protecting the truth and insisting that the general public is made aware of things that really happened isn't cheap
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part II: Because Scarcity of Accurate Information Breeds Collective Ignorance
we too will strive to share information that's aggressively suppressed
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: More New Arrivals at Geminispace, xkcd on "Document Forgery"
Links for the day
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part I: Defence of the Truth
This year we make a very strong, firm statement for truth, even if that means explaining our work to the top media judge in the country
Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete