06.13.08
Posted in News Roundup at 7:05 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
GNU/Linux
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Posted in Deception, Europe, Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument at 5:49 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
More downplaying of Microsoft’s abuses. Alex says:
Denmark has not appealed. What appears to have happened in Denmark is that an open source lobby group has written a letter to the Danish Standards body. That is not “Denmark protesting”.
Many people in Denmark did protest (see the rant below for example, along with coverage on Denmark here). Need the opposition come out to the streets too? Watch this space because, as a few source pointed out, Alex Brown is bound to have some influence inside ODF.
“37 letters with exactly the same words. Some of the senders didn’t even care to remove the ‘Type company name here’ text.
Simular letters has been circulating in Denmark as an e-mail from the Danish MD Jørgen Bardenfleth to customers and business partners.
I call it fraud, cheating and disgusting. If I wasn’t anti-Microsoft before, I am now. Disgusting !”
–Leif Lodahl
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Posted in Asia, Europe, Free/Libre Software, GPL, Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument, OpenOffice, Standard at 5:30 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
To those keeping abreast of ODF news, here are some articles of interest. Remember that open standards, not brute-force market penetration with binary codecs (i.e. short-term compromises and concessions), are likely bring Free software to the mainstream desktop. GNU/Linux must compete based on its own merits rather than the ability to successfully mimic (and this depend on) other parties, in which case it becomes another Mac OS X.
ODF = Free Software; OOXML = Non-Free Software
Here is a very long article from ETYTimes. In concludes with:
Thus, as it may seem to many, it’s not a matter of choosing between ODF and the ISO-approved OOXML anymore — it’s a choice between open and closed source technologies now. What will customers like the government choose?
Of course, OOXML was made incompatible with Free software. As Groklaw pointed out a couple of days ago while citing the Red Hat settlement, “those who claim the GPL isolates itself from standards bodies’ IP pledges are wrong. It is possible to come up with language that satisfies the GPL and still acknowledges patents, and this is the proof. That means Microsoft could do it for OOXML if it wanted to. So who is isolating whom?”
One Standard to Rule Them All
Here is another interesting article from The Inquirer.
ONLY ONE STANDARD type of electronic document will survive the struggle for supremacy between convicted monopolist Microsoft and the Open Source movement, said the world’s leading standards regulator.
[...]
The ISO’s decision in April, along with fellow aedile the International Electrotecnical Commission, to award Microsoft’s OOXML document standard an international certification was tarnished by something of a revolt led by supporters of ODF, a standard that had already been certified. Amidst international appeals, a street protest, law suit and a European Commission anti-trust investigation, the New York state government said the two standards were both as bad as each other.
[...]
OOXML’s role in shoring up Microsoft’s dominant market position is not only the subject of an EC investigation, but the subject of a long-running disagreement with the UK’s education sector and the substance of appeals made to the ISO about its certification. NY state said that Microsoft itself had suggested the ISO merge OOXML and ODF into one format, on the eve of the ISO meeting that endorsed the software giant’s standard.
Microsoft was unavailable to comment. So was the IEC.
This suggests that Microsoft was never supposed to have gone its separate way. It should have embraced the already-existent standard. It was invited, but it declined. It turned down an offer to establish an industry standard because it relies on vendor lock-in.
The High Cost of Justice
It’s still sad to find that the price of justice stands in the way of UKUUG. Should the system not correct its own abuses at its own expense?
Chairman for the group Alain Williams was clearly disappointed to announce the group does not have enough money – they need about £50,000 ($98,000US) – to cover the costs of their action. The UKUUG was looking for the High Court to consider that the British Standards Institution (BSI) had no grounds to vote in support of Microsoft at the International Standards Organisation.
Google for the International Standard
Google seems to be doing some promotional work, this time for OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org Training at Google New York
On June 5, 2008, a new model of technology training was tried out. It was inspired by the “unconference” and “camp” models of technology conferences, and we called it an “untraining.” It was designed to be created by the participants, where they would work together to learn what they needed to know.
OpenOffice.org Can Make ODF a de Facto Standard
Here is another interesting observation. This ought to explain why Microsoft fights so aggressively for large markets such as the one in India (possibly costing it its leadership.
As Schwartz writes, “Where is OpenOffice.org deployed in the greatest numbers? In places where saving $300 per desktop is meaningful.” If you take this view, as emerging markets become an increasingly important customer base for the technology industry, open standards such as the ODF (Open Document Format) used by OpenOffice.org will almost certainly become de facto standards, as well.
ODF Alliance and Europe
Last but not least, let’s remember that the European Commission sidles with open standards now. It expresses this preference very openly. The Managing Director of the ODF Alliance has responded to this.
“The end is near for the era of public information being locked-in a closed format,” said Marino Marcich, Managing Director of the ODF Alliance, in response to Kroes’ comments made June 10th in a speech before OpenForum Europe. “The OpenDocument Format, with its status as the only internationally recognized open standard document format with a wide range of supporting applications, is a critical tool for governments to help end the era of lock-in.”
The future, overall, seems bright for ODF. █
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Posted in Free/Libre Software, FUD, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, OpenDocument at 4:43 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Ammunition in exchange for dough
We have been warning about Forrester for the past few months [1, 2]. This firm has done a great deal of Windows Vista advertising recently. By all means, they do it in sophisticated ways — wearing suits and equipped with ‘reports’ — yet it does not make them much more than sophisticated marketers in practice. Case of point:
“Analysts sell out – that’s their business model… But they are very concerned that they never look like they are selling out, so that makes them very prickly to work with.”
–Microsoft, internal document
Critical observations about analysts/consults are by no means unique. Just watch what Cringely thinks of the likes of them (analysts in general). He spoke about this recently. Let us go back to 2005 for a case of point:
Commentary: Getting the Facts, Forrester-style
[...]
Still browsing through Microsoft’s Get the Facts campaign website, and I think I found one of the primary reasons Microsoft is hammering on the “You’ve already bought us once, why not more?” theme. Take a look at this Forrester chart, available here in its original report, posted (and paid for) by Microsoft.
Recently, Matt Asay has been suspecting that Forrester is doing it again. He cites the report above.
Back in 2005, Microsoft was paying Forrester for anti-Linux research. I assume that this report, referenced at the top of this post, is more of the same. But even in the midst of FUD there is real data that can make open-source vendors better.
The Gartner Group, a close ally of Microsoft, has done something similar to Forrester does here. It last did this just a couple of few weeks ago. In its key report it pretty much ignored open source.
According to Asay’s update (‘correction’), Forrester denies that money was exchanging hands this time around, but benefits/incentives needn't be immediate. In many cases, it’s like paying in advance or receiving ‘mass discounts’. We have already seen how the Burton Group was granted consulting contracts for slandering ODF [1, 2, 3]. █
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Posted in Europe, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Windows at 4:24 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Might this be ‘open source’ the Microsoft way?
When BECTA first uttered the words “open source”, people were rather shocked. This agency has been one of the most open source-hostile ones out there (some would say an anti-Christ of Free software), despite great pressure to change its ways. For background, consider previous coverages (with many external references) in:
Transparency in procurement is something which is desperately needed in the UK. The public services have an abysmal track record with things like secret "Memorandums of Understanding" or secret deals that BECTA signs with Microsoft behind taxpayers’ backs (part of the deal is that it must remain secret, just like in the case of OEMs).
This brings us to this morning’s news.
Open source snub in UK schools
THE OPEN SOURCE community was bitterly disappointed today after the UK appointed an unknown consultancy to run an historic programme of advocacy in schools.
[...]
“They’ve chosen the worst possible candidate because [Alphaplus] have no open source experience whatsoever,” said Taylor. “The project is about open source in schools. Unless you have open source people in there, its nonsense,” he said.
[...]
The Sirius bid was backed by Red Hat, the pioneering open source software cowpowayshen, and pulled in million of Euros of development backed by the European Commission.
Another sidelined bid by The Learning Machine, an open source schools specialist, was backed by Canonical, the organisation behind Ubuntu, the ground-breaking open source operating system.
Yet another, was put forward by Open Source Software Watch, a not-for-profit organisation that already co-ordinates open source development in the Higher Education sector. OSS-watch pulled Eduforge, the world’s largest repository of open source educational software, into its bid, along with one of the backers of Moodle, an open source software system that made great advances in the education sector around the world.
Having looked at the Web site of Alphaplus, there are reasons for concern. There are quite a few warning signs, but Alphaplus deserves the benefit of the doubt for the time being. Their whole Web site is Windows and Flash (i.e. can’t view pages unless some opaque binaries are used). There’s no sign of Free software and GNU/Linux, let alone “open source”.
Hopefully — just hopefully — this is not a farce in the making.
“It’s all about marketing and the Microsoft ecosystem exploits this too.”Let us hope that this is not one of those parties who call "Open XML" "open source" and prefer things like “shared-sourced” .NET. Open source can be quite meaningless unless those who assess it actually understand that it’s about the licences and vendors, not just some badge. Lately, Microsoft has been faking a lot of open-source things in order to exploit loopholes and enter some contracts. It’s all about marketing and the Microsoft ecosystem exploits this too.
Speaking of Microsoft’s escapades in “open source” territories, remember SourceForge? The CEO has just announced his resignation. He is being replaced.
As was asked earlier in the IRC channel: “Can we find out how the new guy feels about .NETness and Microsoft ‘open source’ licences? There have bee[n] concerns about the Microsoft sponsorship recently and now the CEO quits.”
In light of the SourceForge moves we have been seeing (e.g. Microsoft sponsorship), have a look at the comments here. This is hopefully not a sign of a new era. Microsoft will try to assimilate and steal to the very same disruption it strives to eliminate. █
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Posted in Novell, OpenSUSE at 12:17 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
For background and context, see this previous post.
Later came the following message, which was posted by the administrator of Free Software Daily:
“And to those who think they can get away with multiple accounts: I know who you are! I suggest you stop now so that I don’t have to start banning IPs. If you can find some real friends to support your opinion great but don’t bring all of your pretend friends along to the debate.”
An OpenSUSE Board member had a couple of OpenSUSE submissions hit the front page of the site (which is rare). Just a few hours ago the following announcement came up in the OpenSUSE mailing lists. It came from a Novell employee, Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier, who is also the Community Manager of OpenSUSE.
[opensuse-announce] openSUSE Marketing Team
Do you have a passion for Linux and a desire to promote openSUSE?
Would you like to paint the world’s desktops openSUSE green? If so,
the openSUSE marketing team wants you!
[...]
Interesting. █
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06.12.08
Posted in News Roundup at 3:28 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
GNU/Linux
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