Microsoft Windows Discriminates Against ODF, FSF Denounces Microsoft for ODF Abuse

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2009-06-10 08:42:43 UTC
Modified: 2009-06-10 08:57:30 UTC

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

Comments

A Wiki Admin

2009-06-10 23:39:30

The nice thing is that all the evidence is there and public. Microsoft can edit; they cannot remove (public) Wikipedia editing logs and page histories. FUD doesn't work well when you can't hide your activites. It just needs a nice lawyer and another go round the European Courts... I wonder how much they would be good for this time in terms of media and legals? :)
Needs Sunlight

2009-06-10 10:31:12

WTF is all the OOXML promotional material doing in the ODF article?

pcolon

2009-06-10 12:05:58

MSFT seems to be psychotically desperate now. It doesn't matter what crap they use to break the GNU/Linux ecosystem; It's not working and their desperation is readily apparent for all to see in spite of their followers and paid press/blogger spins.

Roy Schestowitz

2009-06-10 12:12:33

Be aware that that Microsoft is paying bloggers and people in social networks to promote Windows.

pcolon

2009-06-10 12:23:17

Yes, have been pointing that out to the members of our lab team. It seems these people (ghettoblaster, hAl, etc.) are trying to make Wikipedia as irrelevant like Brown and Jesper did with ISO.
twitter

2009-06-10 14:58:47

The only thing M$ can do to fight ODF and free software is break Office and Windows. Break Windows and blame the competition, this is an old trick that's not working as well as it did back in the days of DRDOS and CompuServe. The more they do it, the faster they lose.

The simple solution is to dump M$. Because they continue to prove their malice, "Mixed environments" should be viewed as worse than an all M$ environment no matter how many features are lost. No feature added to M$ Windows by a "third party" can be counted on because M$ will eventually sabotage it. I've been using free software exclusively for close to ten years now. The trouble saved by escaping M$ malice far outweighs the few times I've had to find a Windows box to cooperate with some ignorant institution or other. I think I've only had to do that once in the last three years. My case is not isolated as massive migrations such as Lowes, IBM, the French National Police, West Point and many other prove.

The sooner the world gets away from non free software, the sooner the malice will end. Only non free software people bother with sabotage like this. You don't find schools, doctors and lawyers doing these kinds of things to their peers. RMS pointed out early that NDA's were like an agreement to "be a bad person" and that non free software was unethical at its very foundation. We should not be surprised when non free software companies behave in an unethical manner. The sooner non free software is over, the less damage their poor ethics will do to society at large.

Moo

2009-06-10 15:25:52

The sooner non free software is over, the less damage their poor ethics will do to society at large.
I agree with the sentiment. I am also pessimistic about ever meeting this standard. As long as society is ignorant and willing to trade their freedom for power and convenience, we will always have digital colonial masters abusing their power over society.

David Gerard

2009-06-10 19:16:45

Various relevant people at Wikipedia and Wikimedia are aware of this, FWIW. There are various apocalyptic scenarios we'd rather didn't come close to consideration.

David Gerard

2009-06-10 19:18:25

(In particular, some people seem unaware that people do in fact see all and know all, and are merely extremely conservative in what action is taken, preferring to lead perpetrators to more sensible action.)

Roy Schestowitz

2009-06-10 19:23:09

I saw your comments today in Groklaw (regarding Wikipedia). FWIW, hAl[bert] gets his treatment.

David Gerard

2009-06-10 19:35:57

*facepalm* So much for verb. sap.

manul

2009-06-11 05:18:18

Here is some fresh news:

Federal Anti-Monopoly Service Russia opened a case against six major notebook producers (namely Acer, Asus, Toshiba, Hewlett-Packard, Samsung and Dell), following consumers' complaints that they were being forced to buy Microsoft's Windows operating system along with new computers.

genuine announcement (in Russian) http://www.fas.gov.ru/news/n_24601.shtml google translate http://translate.google.ca/translate?pr ... ry_state0= Moscow Times: http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/600/42/378477.htm

Microsoft Windows Discriminates Against ODF, FSF Denounces Microsoft for ODF Abuse

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