MICROSOFT is going down. It is no longer controversial or laughable a claim. It is supported by evidence. The company to gain from it is not Apple (not anymore anyway [1]), it is a variety of companies that build products on top of GNU/Linux and Free software — companies such as Google, Red Hat, and Jolla.

The market share FUD against GNU/Linux has not stopped, not even with Android being so dominant. As Pogson points out, the FUD can even be seen in Wikipedia, where there were OOXML advertisements (disguised as articles) after Microosft had been paying people to distort Wikipedia. Microsoft has entirelt unaccountable large PR agencies editing Wikipedia. That’s how bad it is. They’ll get paid to vandalise pages (as in, add promotional spin), whereas volunteers who fix/add balance to pages will get nothing but a headache (the former group, the shills, has patience and persistence).

Regarding GNU/Linux adoption rates, which based on our sites are very positive (Tux Machines traffic almost doubles in two months), Wikipedia still cites Microsoft-connected entities like the now-disgraced
Net Applications (the Net Applications article in Wikipedia links to Techrights‘ criticisms though). This ought to say how reliable Wikipedia has really become on matters such as GNU/Linux. Several years ago the articles about GNU/Linux cited articles of mine (I had not edited such pages), but over time these citations were removed. Pogson says “Wikipedia seems more a campground for paid shills and such. No interest without enough finances to hired dedicated campers to squat on pages are going to get past those that have. Some areas are without corporate interest or political controversy but on the pages that are, OCD wins. And M$ can make any technology or related technology issue into a political fight. I usually shoot down Wikipedia’s credibility by refering individuals to specific pages where they themselves have domain expertise. Then I ask them to extrapolate to the pages where they know little.”

Not many people can defend against claims that Wikipedia is being distorted by PR agencies and out-of-control employees who won’t disclose conflicts of interest. I myself had found and reported many incidents as such, but I just can’t be bothered anymore. Be cautious of Wikipedia. I only fix the occasional typos I come across; for divisive issues or products (monetary interests) I don’t even visit Wikipedia. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. ‘Haunted Empire’ Profiles Apple After Steve Jobs as a Company on the Decline

Summary: Nokia the latest casualty of Microsoft entryism and the “Elop effect” makes it into Wikipedia

BACK in October there was an article titled “How Stephen Elop Destroyed Nokia” and Wikipedia now has an article about the “Elop effect”, which is another term coined after a Microsoft mole destroyed a company (as Belluzzo did about a decade ago).

There seems to be no turning back for the Microsoft-occupied Nokia, which became somewhat of a patent troll. As for Nokia’s products, they’re a joke. As one new review put it, “Nokia’s new 2520 tablet is one to avoid” and “After testing the device, I wonder why Nokia bothered.”

Making products enables Nokia (Microsoft) to look less like a troll and a bit like a real company. Either way, Elop killed this company and he became somewhat of a meme. █

Summary: Controversies around OOXML gradually vanish, at least in Wikipedia; the UK is encouraged to embrace ODF for savings

Ronald Raegan’s page in Wikipedia (and other reference readings) is a good example of gradual whitewash of one’s career. See the “history” and “discussion” pages. One by one, many scandals disappear from the face of historical record and thus from public awareness. What does that have to do with OOXML?

In the years 2007-2009 we wrote almost a thousand posts about document formats, particularly about Microsoft’s crimes (bribes, extortion, etc.) in this area.

“…even Microsoft tries to distance themselves from OOXML these day.”
      –Rob WeirThe FFII has just warned that, based on Wikipedia changes, Microsoft is managing “to get rid of controversy” (we are not suggesting that Microsoft paid for these edits like it did before).

Alex Brown too played a role in such games and IBM’s Rob Weir told me today that “even Microsoft tries to distance themselves from OOXML these day. [...] Thinking of the recent OData/OOXML article”

Separately, Weir pointed to this new article about benefits ODF would bring to the UK. The figure of £51,000,000 gets mentioned.

Do you really have to standardise on ODF, I asked? Won’t the existing Microsoft formats do the job just as well?

Now Maxwell has got in touch. He’s got an interesting story to tell – and his council is one which is thinking very seriously about how to get the cost of IT in local government pushed down. The logic: reduce those costs, and you don’t have to cut other services when you’re faced with an across-the-board reduction in your grant from a central government bringing in austerity measures.

I spoke to him earlier today and asked if he was serious about the necessity of ODF being mandated before real change could happen – and how much the savings could be, and what’s happening with local government. Here’s how he explained it – and these thoughts are going to be expanded in a paper that he is preparing to release next week with much more detail.

The British police ought to seriously consider ODF now that it cuts expenses. This would also improve security. █

Update: here is more coverage on the topic (“Money makes the Wikipedia go round”).

The Open XML process is a great case study why Wikipedia is not always reliable, when money comes into play. Even before the heated phases of the Open XML discussions at ISO a scandal rocked the Wikipedia scene. Rick Jelliffe disclosed in his blog that he was offered money by a company to edit the Open XML article. At that is exactly how this article looks until this very day, a honeypot for young wikipedians who want to watch the dirty tricks.

Throughout the controversial phases the editing process demonstrated a clear bias of professional editors towards a certain corporate agenda and pushed the Open XML article towards a “shadow article” as a target, close to advertisement. So regardless what was changed by the ‘ordinary guys’ would be reversed, step by step.

Summary: The belittling of Richard Stallman follows his reminder of the Mono problem and Microsoft apologists play a part in it

IT IS NOT news that the FSF formally discourages use of Mono (and Moonlight which depends on it). Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza carries on bragging about new features in Mono 2.8, which is essentially co-developed with Microsoft now.

Freedom champion Glyn Moody spoke to Richard Stallman earlier this month and revealed that Stallman had not changed his mind about Mono. To quote the relevant bits:

GM: Could you please explain the problems with Microsoft’s .NET? Is all of it equally problematic, or just some, given that Microsoft has made its Open Specification Promise for parts?

RMS: Eben Moglen told me that “open specification promise” is not something we can rely on.

For the C# language that was standardized by a standards committee, Microsoft was required to make a stronger commitment. But that does not apply to the rest of .NET.

GM: Against that background, what is your current advice to people in terms of using .NET technologies, and why?

RMS: You shouldn’t write software to use .NET. No exceptions.

The basic point is that Microsoft has patents over features in .NET, and its patent promise regarding free software implementations of those is inadequate. It may someday attack the free implementations of these features.

The Source has responded to this by writing:

Team Apologista refuses to honestly acknowledge that the patent promise covering .NET is insufficient. In fact, a favorite tactic of Mono Apologists is to mention some other technology (usually AJAX or FTP) and then pretend the Mono situation is similar to AJAX, and so if one is opposed to the former, they must also oppose the latter, or are ignorant/hypocritical/whatever.

The truth of the matter is that .NET is NOT under the same “promise” that these other technologies are, so this ruse is inaccurate. Shockingly, Mono apologists continue to use this faulty “defense”.

Additionally, much of .NET (and corresponding portions of Mono) are NOT covered by any promise whatsoever – and despite Team Apologista’s occasional concession on this point (often with vague promises to “split” Mono into “covered”/non-”covered” portions), I feel it is not unfair to say Team Apologista downplays this distinction.

At a later point The Source showed that Mono boosters are censoring in Wikipedia, suppressing criticism as others did before them.

Today I was looking through the logs and it struck me I haven’t seen any Wikipedia traffic of late, so on a lark I went to the site and saw someone had (anonymously of course), removed the link to my site, with the following “explanation”:

The Source and BoycottNovell are not trustworthy “news” sites and are known to be anti-Mono/anti-Novell propagandists.)

Note that same users edit history; every edit (excluding a handful back in 2008) is a .NET/Mono-related topic and in every case that I bothered to look at are all non-factual and (in wiki-speak) non-NPOV edits.

Especially devious is how this individual edits articles to downplay patent concerns for Mono, while emphasizing the issue of patents for Portable.NET.

Gotta let people know where they can get that “IP peace of mind” I guess.

umad?

This is just more of the same from Team Apologista. Today I was looking through the logs and it struck me I haven’t seen any Wikipedia traffic of late, so on a lark I went to the site and saw someone had (anonymously of course), removed the link to my site, with the following “explanation”:

The Source and BoycottNovell are not trustworthy “news” sites and are known to be anti-Mono/anti-Novell propagandists.)

Note that same users edit history; every edit (excluding a handful back in 2008) is a .NET/Mono-related topic and in every case that I bothered to look at are all non-factual and (in wiki-speak) non-NPOV edits.

Especially devious is how this individual edits articles to downplay patent concerns for Mono, while emphasizing the issue of patents for Portable.NET.

Gotta let people know where they can get that “IP peace of mind” I guess.

umad?

This is just more of the same from Team Apologista.

Watch the comment which says:

There is no excuse for removing criticism from Wikipedia, no matter how controversial the subject is.
Heck there is even this on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wikipedia
So whoever made the change you describe should instead have created a new section on the Moonlight page, called “Criticism”, and moved the content there.
Or created a new page called:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Moonlight
and moved the content there, and linked to it from the main Moonlight page.

Needless to say, I am disgusted by this form of perception management, it has a stench of Microsoft.

But let’s go back to Stallman’s criticism. It appears as though Florian Müller — as misguided as he is when it comes to the subject of Microsoft — has decided to personalise and mass-mail journalists (as usual) with his thoughts on “RMS’s call to boycott .NET, C#, Mono, DotGNU” (notice the strength of the words).

“Avoid .NET and C# at all costs.”
      –FFII President“It’s kind of predictable that you and some others will interpret my latest blog posting (on Richard Stallman’s call to boycott .NET and its free implementations) in a certain way but that consideration can’t limit me in my expression of opinions,” Müller explained. “I doubt that RMS’s advice to developers hurts Microsoft but the people who do DotGNU, Mono or software running on top of those platforms may be hurt by it, at least emotionally. And for no good reason because .NET isn’t less free than Java or PHP, as I explain on my blog.”

Müller misses the point entirely for reasons we explained before. Maybe he is trying to miss the point, but deliberate misinformation is too hard to prove. Müller is conveniently ignoring Microsoft’s past and he is whitewashing instead, due to an irrational fixation. This latest post of his makes his irrational defence of Microsoft even more apparent and one of our readers broke Godwin’s law when he described what he saw here. There is more of that in the IRC logs.

“Avoid .NET and C# at all costs. Platform dependencies all the way,” told the president of the FFII to Müller, who replied with: “Platform dependencies are a different topic, I just said #swpat aren’t a particular problem of .NET, C#, Mono, DotGNU.”

Michael Widenius, the founder of MySQL who had Müller as a sidekick while serving a Microsoft board, is currently debating the whole “open core” mess and he says:

To me it’s clear that just because some of your product(s) is available under an open source license, you can’t claim to be an open source company, as that would make the term meaningless. Under such a definition even Microsoft would be an open source company, as some of their products are now available as open source.

On what platform/s? Under what conditions? What about software patents? What about Microsoft’s history of criminal abuse? Does that not count? █

Summary: Overview encompassing 3 weeks of ODF progress and victories

IT has been a long time since our last ODF update, so here is a long post catching up with key events and developments.

According to Peter Krantz, a seminar on ODF took place at Copenhagen Business School one week ago. Bart Hanssens and others noticed it and Hanssens has added this event to the ODF Web site at XML.org.

Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Date: 12 Jan 2010 – 09:30 – 15:00
Event Type: Conference

According to published reports in Norwegian and in English, Norwegian Broadcasting moves to OpenOffice.org and ODF. This is great news, but it’s nowhere as big as the news from Munich, which was mostly covered in German (rarely in English). Coverage includes:

• Umstieg auf ODF in der Stadtverwaltung München komplett
• ODF es el formato de documentos oficial en Munich
• Münchner Verwaltung hat auf offenes Dokumentenformat umgestellt
• Munchen áttér ODF-re
• München Linux/Open Source projektje jobban fut mint valaha
• ODF es el formato de documentos oficial en Munich
• ODF es el formato de documentos oficial en Munich
• ODF es el formato de documentos oficial en Munich
• Munich se inunda de documentos ODF
• Munich trabaja oficialmente con ODF
• ODF es el formato de documentos oficial en Munich
• Munich completa la migración al formato ODF
• Munich completa la migración al formato ODF
• [Alemania] ODF es el formato de documentos oficial en Munich
• LiMux: München erreicht weiteren Meilenstein
• Umstieg auf ODF in der Stadtverwaltung München komplett

There is a lot more about this coming from individual people, with one person saying: “congrats to the #limux team for the complete switch to #odf #linux”

Wikipedia has been updated to reflect on this and the debate carries on. Over in Denmark, a decision on open standards was said to be on the eve of a final decision after the scandals. According to a rough translation from Denmark, Midtjylland is turning to ODF and possibly leaving Microsoft Office. They cite problems with interoperability between Microsoft’s versions of Office. So typical.

Some people still wonder what software is good for ODF support and Sun releases ODF Plugin 3.1 for Microsoft Office, which includes support for ODF 1.2. Microsoft itself supports MSODF, which is not ODF [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7].

There is also freeware and GPL-licensed software that adds ODF support to Microsoft Office.

Drupal’s support of ODF was mentioned here before, but here it is again in some blog posts and in the ODF Web site, sitting there alongside another new page about OfficeReader (also see OffiViewer).

“Jesper Lund Stocholm and his friends from Microsoft are generally still trolling ODF, as usual.”Sander Marechal adds an anonymiser to Officeshots and the Microsoft provocateur Jesper Lund Stocholm trolls such a feature nonetheless.

Jesper Lund Stocholm and his friends from Microsoft are generally still trolling ODF, as usual. It seems as though Alex Brown and his buddies from Microsoft are bound to make another BSI fiasco. The Internet never forgets.

A Microsoft-sponsored ODF seminar (yes, from the company that attacks ODF) is to take place, according to Microsoft’s ODF-hostile trolls. Unlike IBM for example, Microsoft still wishes to eliminate ODF. That’s just its business objective.

Over in Brazil, there is a debate about ODF [OGG]. A rough translation of some coverage says that the “The director of the ODF Alliance Jomar Silva, @Homembit, was a guest at the table discussion on memory International Seminar of the Forum of Brazilian Digital Culture.”

Direct link

Over in the UK, the OSA’s Mark Antony is told that politicians can be believed “they’re sincere when Whitehall is running on Ubuntu & documents on govt. websites are available in ODF…”

“Currently, Microsoft does not properly support ODF and it still treats it like a second-class citizen.”SJVN has his personal interpretation of the impact of the i4i decision [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]. “Maybe in the aftermath of the i4i decision,” he argues, everyone will “just have to bite the bullet & support ODF.” Currently, Microsoft does not properly support ODF and it still treats it like a second-class citizen. Google too has some catching up to do, based on D. R. Evans, not to mention Apple, which has been helping Microsoft against ODF. As one person put it earlier this month, “ISO’s current defect report for ISO 29500 (OOXML) has 809 pages. That are 71 pages more than the full specification of ODF 1.1! !” Miguel de Icaza helped Microsoft address some of these errors, but since then he has been crowned and named Microsoft MVP [1, 2]. He’s like part of that company.

The UX OpenOffice.org blog marks the beginning of the new year and reports from the UX meeting in Hamburg [1, 2] while ZDNet Germany writes about KOffice 2.1.1 (there’s more about Lotus Symphony). Bart Hanssens writes about ODF content at FOSDEM. He is preparing a talk and he has also uploaded a new draft of ODF 1.1 Interop Profile. His colleague Dennis Hamilton is happy about it.

Our reader The Mad Hatter is making valuable information future-proof right about now:

Open Formats – I’m Moving all Mom’s Poetry to Open Document Format

[...]

Of course if you do want access to Mom’s poetry, you can just go to OpenOffice.Org, and download Open Office at no cost. There’s no reason you can’t have both Microsoft Office and Open Office installed on the same computer.

In summary, even though there are no major ODF events, this international standard continues to develop and be adopted all around the world. █

Summary: Microsoft is sending partners from India to jail and also hiring from the East in order to lower expenses that are wages

THERE is nothing more absurd than a criminal company sending others to prison while managing to stay out of jail or decommissioning. Almost exactly one year ago we wrote about Microsoft sending Chinese businessmen to prison and now this is happening in India:

i. Software company MD arrested for piracy

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested two persons on Friday, including the managing director of a Delhi-based software company, allegedly for carrying out piracy of Microsoft products.

ii. Partner Cheats on Microsoft

We have been covering Microsoft a lot lately. But for all the wrong reasons these days. First it was the unrest amongst channel partners in the East and North East regarding the arm twisting technique to increase sales. Now it is about the Microsoft Gold Certified partner KK Solutions in Delhi, which the brand caught recently counterfeiting not just the software but also all the certifications.

This is a sure way to drive sellers to GNU/Linux, as Microsoft recently found out in China. In India too, as Microsoft is finding out, this war on so-called ‘piracy’ (it is not piracy^*) is having a negative effect.

Related to the above we also have this news:

H1-B Enrollment Up At State Colleges

[..]

As the state lawmakers head back to Olympia this month, we take a look at how one bill passed last year is playing out. The bill granted in–state tuition to foreign professionals and their families. Many of these are H1–B visa holders who work at places like Microsoft and Amazon. Since the law passed, new enrollments among this group have shot up at the UW and at community colleges around the region.

We last mentioned this here or here. █
_____
^* When people do not like something, then they tend to assign to that something a bunch of words with very negative connotation. In the case of “piracy”, murder and rape are implied. Even the word “terrorism” is said to have been cheapened by overly extensive and broad use. Today in Slashdot we found: “Novelist Blames Piracy On Open Source Culture”

The direct link says, ‘”With the open-source culture on the Internet, the idea of ownership — of artistic ownership — goes away,” Alexie added. “It terrifies me.”‘ What does that have to do with “open-source”? Nothing. The headline says that “Digital piracy hits the e-book industry.” Open source is wrongly being associated with copyright infringement. Our reader Oiaohm says: “They are looking for someone to blame. [...] Problem is projects like wikibooks is cutting in on there normally easy payday jobs [...] Then projects creating open source text books. So writers of conflicting items with open source find no one prepared to pay for what they have made.” Goblin says: “I don’t think they are trying to blame, I think its merely ignorance and lack of understanding on their part.” Oiaohm says “it’s a mixture” of those two factors. “I.e. open source project cutting into the markets, then normal people who don’t give a rats about copyright doing there normal thing. Copy protection in media has been a losing battle. Expect authors of books to get more hostile to the open source world. Think how may books the Wikipedia has undone. I cannot say fear [of] open source based documentation is groundless.”

As newspapers are already hostile towards Wikipedia and FOSS-like economics, this explanation makes sense. These sources devalue the older ones. A lot of resistance to DRM comes from FSF and the same goes for defense of P2P (where Free software is often obtained, especially GNU/Linux distribution torrents). The RIAA/MPAA (MAFIAA for short) openly complained about the FSF more than once for no justified reason.

Summary: Peer-To-Patent skepticism, ACTA rears its ugly head with Microsoft as an excuse, the effect on the sight-deficient noted

EARLIER ON we wrote about Peer-To-Patent Australia. It was mentioned critically in this new post and others agree that “this [might] do more harm than good by legitimising “good” software patents…”

More staffing around patents is hardly a solution. Abolishment is the best option.

In the same vein of endorsement through expansion, argues Glyn Moody in relation to the news about “ACTA Secretariat”, “just what we need: *another* global intellectual monopolies body…”

The indispensable Jamie Love has posted a much more convenient version of an earlier leaked “non-paper” from Canada which proposes an ACTA “Council”, i.e. secretariat, that would stand apart from WIPO and the WTO.

We previously wrote about ACTA [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13] and about who/what WIPO represents. Here is WIPO expressing skepticism about Wikipedia, which WIPO must absolutely hate because it weakens monopolies (over information). In general, WIPO views Free software as illegitimate.

But going back to ACTA, Moody shows its connection to Microsoft:

Microsoft Gets in on the ACTA

[...]

Now it looks like Microsoft is joining in:

a common tactic of intellectual property holders is to blur the distinction between counterfeit and pirated goods (and even legal generic goods, in the case of the pharmaceutical industry). Microsoft’s press release exemplifies this, talking about “counterfeit Microsoft software purchased at resellers” and the “black market for pirated software” as if the two were synonymous. In fact, most consumers who obtain pirated goods on the black market realise that they are not original. Whilst Consumers International discourages consumers from using pirated goods, in many countries they have little choice, because originals are either unavailable or are priced far beyond their means.

We wrote about this subject the other day. Microsoft is lying.

Moody adds the observation that “Intellectual Monopolists Scorn the Blind”. This is not the first time we see (or fail to see) it.

This, then, is the reality of “modern” copyright: it fails to serve huge numbers of people, many of whom are already suffering from discrimination in other ways.

Given this situation, various organisations are not unreasonably trying to facilitate access to copyrighted works for those who are visually disabled with a new WIPO treaty that would define basic rights for this group. Who could object to such a humanitarian cause? Well, the publishers, of course.

Last but not least, Moody opines that patent power is drifting over to Asia and he uses this news report as proof.

Asian Tech Firms Buy Up Patents

The days of U.S. technology companies wielding patents to block Asian competitors from the market or collect big royalties may be waning. Ron Epstein, the chief executive and co-founder of IPotential, a San Mateo, Calif.-based patent broker, says South Korean and Taiwanese technology companies have been contacting him to purchase patents. Their goal? To ward off potential intellectual property disputes before conflicts flare.

The trend mirrors a path U.S. companies took several years ago when they first began buying patents defensively, say Epstein, who calls patents a “competitive tool.” “Asian companies have seen the success U.S. companies have had with patent purchasing and are doing it themselves,” he says. He estimates that Asian firms are two to three years behind their Western counterparts in this regard.

A wealth of patents is simply the centralisation of monopolies. Nowhere does it say anything about innovation; it’s just a monopoly, it’s a protection.█

Take a look…

And on it goes. █

Summary: OpenDocument Format (ODF) suffers more interferences and interruptions from Microsoft and its followers

A FEW days ago, Novell's and Microsoft's role in harming Web standards was mentioned, but Adobe has a similar agenda and Jan Wildeboer from Red Hat warns that “Adobe plans to redefine the Internet with their proprietary stuff.”

Adobe also has PDF for documents, which is not particularly good, but it is far less malicious than Microsoft’s attempt to control documents. As one person has put it, “rtf is as bad as .doc, ideally I’d say use ODF, but MS users will gripe it’s not supported”

“Microsoft insists on making ODF look as though it is proprietary and its lobbyists do the same type of thing in panels they invade.”Microsoft is a company far less ethical than Adobe, simply based on its actions. For instance, Microsoft subverts Wikipedia's entry on ODF such that it advances OOXML. Jomar Silva has just told Tim Bray that “the ODF entry is a mess, and don’t try to fix it, because a jerk named hAl is keeping the mess there !”

That would hardly be news, but hAl is just one among a group that carries on making the article on ODF worse and worse. John Drinkwater has undone yet another hostile and unnecessary change (“Undid revision 317727032 by Cybercobra not a useful change, standard is built upon XML”). This was done in response to a couple of edits from Cybercobra.

Here is Cybercobra removing mentions of “free” and “open” as though they are dirty words. We have seen this before. Microsoft insists on making ODF look as though it is proprietary and its lobbyists do the same type of thing in panels they invade.

ODF has sincere following (not Microsoft partners) and the ODF Toolkit continues to be mentioned a lot, as well as the next Plugfest — an event we previously mentioned in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 9 10, 11]. Microsoft attended the last Plugfest where it promoted its agenda along with its partners and MVPs.

A pro-Microsoft saboteur wants more access to ODF, probably hoping that people do not remember what he did. Bart Hanssens meanwhile prepares a working draft of an ODF interoperability profile and publishes the following about Xapian.

Xapian is an open source search engine library written in C++ with bindings for C#, Java, PHP and Ruby. It supports the most commonly used document formats, including of course ODF.

What’s the deal with OLE objects, which are Microsoft's way of blocking standard adoption? █

Summary: The Internet wants to be free and so do computer users; Microsoft keeps standing in their way

BACK in 2007, Wikipedia embraced ODF. The software on which it is built, MediaWiki, happens to be used by Boycott Novell and one of Microsoft’s loyal users has just decided to abandon Microsoft Office in favour of MediaWiki. This is not particularly surprising and by all means it is another win for Free software. The following is a sort of eulogy for Microsoft Office.

I chose MediaWiki, the open-source software that powers Wikipedia. It was relatively easy to install on a virtual Linux server. Since everyone has read Wikipedia, the interface was familiar and so our users needed no training. Because Wikipedia managed to efficiently store—at the time of this writing—all human knowledge, speed and scalability weren’t a problem. Finally, the price (free) was acceptable.

[...]

So farewell, Microsoft Word. Don’t feel too bad—you had a long and prosperous run. We had more than twenty years of fun together. You added feature after feature after feature, and I learned how to avoid your crazy style changes whenever I deleted an invisible formatting command. Maybe if you just had “Reveal Codes”… nah, it wouldn’t have mattered. The world simply changed.

The Microsoft-faithful crowd keeps vandalising Wikipedia’s article on ODF, turning it in favour of Microsoft. We last saw this a few days ago, but it just doesn’t stop [1, 2, 3]. Who the heck is “SmackBot“?█

On abuse against ODF at Wikipedia:

• Microsoft Starts Attacking the ODF Alliance, Sends Paid Wikipedia Editors to ODF Article (Updated)
• OOXML BRM Convenor (Alex Brown) Joins the Pro-Microsoft Wikipedia Spinners
• Microsoft Folks Rewrite ODF’s History and Build Anti-ODF Social Network
• Fraunhofer Again Lobbies for Microsoft Lock-in
• Is Microsoft’s AstroTurf Against ODF Still On?
• Microsoft Accused of Anti-ODF Whisper Campaign

“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:

• Microsoft Starts Attacking the ODF Alliance, Sends Paid Wikipedia Editors to ODF Article (Updated)
• OOXML BRM Convenor (Alex Brown) Joins the Pro-Microsoft Wikipedia Spinners
• Microsoft Folks Rewrite ODF’s History and Build Anti-ODF Social Network
• Fraunhofer Again Lobbies for Microsoft Lock-in
• Is Microsoft’s AstroTurf Against ODF Still On?

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

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:

• Microsoft Starts Attacking the ODF Alliance, Sends Paid Wikipedia Editors to ODF Article (Updated)
• OOXML BRM Convenor (Alex Brown) Joins the Pro-Microsoft Wikipedia Spinners
• Microsoft Folks Rewrite ODF’s History and Build Anti-ODF Social Network
• Fraunhofer Again Lobbies for Microsoft Lock-in
• Is Microsoft’s AstroTurf Against ODF Still On?
• Microsoft Windows Discriminates Against ODF, FSF Denounces Microsoft for ODF Abuse
• Microsoft Agents from Waggener Edstrom Airbrush Wikipedia, Glorify Paymaster
• Microsoft Seeks Experts to Corrupt Wikipedia Information on Open XML

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)

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:

• Microsoft Starts Attacking the ODF Alliance, Sends Paid Wikipedia Editors to ODF Article (Updated)
• OOXML BRM Convenor (Alex Brown) Joins the Pro-Microsoft Wikipedia Spinners
• Microsoft Folks Rewrite ODF’s History and Build Anti-ODF Social Network
• Fraunhofer Again Lobbies for Microsoft Lock-in

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

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. █

“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:

• OOXML BRM Convenor (Alex Brown) Joins the Pro-Microsoft Wikipedia Spinners
• Microsoft Starts Attacking the ODF Alliance, Sends Paid Wikipedia Editors to ODF Article (Updated)
• Is Microsoft’s AstroTurf Against ODF Still On?
• Microsoft Folks Rewrite ODF’s History and Build Anti-ODF Social Network
• From MSODF to MSPDF?

Albert Zonneveld (“hAl”) keeps censoring Wikipedia for Microsoft today. How kind. █

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

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.

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.

A new survey has just been published.

-Glassdoor.com®, a career and workplace community bringing greater transparency to company cultures and compensation, today released its first annual Employees’ Choice Awards¹, listing the top 50 “Best Places to Work” based on surveys² collected from employees at more than 11,000 companies operating in the United States. General Mills had the highest rating from its employees, followed closely by Bain & Company, Netflix, Adobe, and Northwestern Mutual, which round out the top five companies on Glassdoor’s inaugural list.

Novell is not ranked particularly well and its CEO did not receive an impressive approval rating, perhaps due to the poor decisions that he makes with Microsoft. For those in Novell who are not popular, there is always the possibility of corrupting Wikipedia. From the news:

On top of it all, some critics are still jaded over incidents that surfaced earlier this year in relation to Wikipedia and Jimmy wales. Former Novell scientist and Wikipedia donor Jeff Merkey issued a statement earlier this year essentially accusing Wales of extortion—he claims Wales offered him “special protection” for his Wikipedia entry “in exchange for a substantial donation and other financial support of the Wikimedia Foundation projects.”

Novell is also rewriting history for Microsoft's gain. █

“Our partnership with Microsoft continues to expand.”

–Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO

–Bill Gates [PDF]

“Another suggestion In this mail was that we can’t make our own unilateral extensions to HTML I was going to say this was wrong and correct this also.”

–Bill Gates [PDF]