09.21.21
Posted in Formats, Microsoft, Office Suites, Open XML, OpenDocument, Patents at 8:30 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Related (USPTO angle): USPTO Rewards Microsoft for Corruption at ISO by Teaching People Proprietary OOXML and Promoting Its Use | USPTO Craziness: Changing Rules to Punish PTAB Petitioners and Reward Microsoft for Corruption at ISO | Conflict of Interest: Microsoft and IBM Controlling the USPTO and Leaving GNU/Linux Users Shut Out (in the Cold) | Why Wouldn’t an Office That Grants Monopolies Support Microsoft Monopoly? | USPTO Promotes Microsoft Monopoly and Proprietary Software (Updatedx2) | David Kappos (IBM/Microsoft Lobbyist) Reported for Misuse of Authority and Conflict of Interest
The corrupt typically attracts the corrupt and protects the corrupt
Summary: The World Intellectual Property [sic] Organization — like the EPO (where António Campinos outsourced IT systems to Microsoft) — is choosing the most notorious/corrupt ‘tech’ ‘company’ (cult) instead of open standards and, as the links above show, this is nowadays done inside the United States and outside the United States as well, raising legal questions/ire
OVER a decade ago we wrote many hundreds of posts about corruption of Microsoft in the document formats dispute. Instead of accepting and adopting open standards Microsoft decided and insisted on openwashing its proprietary formats, which basically correspond just to Microsoft’s proprietary Office. The specifications contained not only Microsoft’s product name but also many versions of it. Retrofitting something proprietary — with binary enclosures! — into XML and then calling it “open” was an early example of the Open Source brand rotting to death. To quote Microsoft’s Jason Matusow, an integral part of the ‘Open’ XML corruption (further background in [1, 2, 3]): “More Open Than Open [...] I am constantly amazed at the flexibility of this single word.”
Yes, it had already become almost meaningless when he wrote this (around the time we coined the term “openwashing”).
Anyway, here we are more than a decade later and the corruption of Microsoft paid off. Agencies around the world shamelessly promote Microsoft’s proprietary formats as a de facto standard, as a default, and moreover financially penalise people who refuse to (or cannot) use Microsoft’s proprietary formats.
“…here we are more than a decade later and the corruption of Microsoft paid off.”Bar complaints against David Kappos notwithstanding (links above, still ongoing), we recently learned that WIPO is also rotten in the sense that it promotes Microsoft and discriminates against Microsoft’s rivals. “The USPTO has been bombarding me with E-mails about DOCX,” a reader has told us. “Just got one from the WIPO.” (It says “ePCT-Filing in Docx”)
To quote:
Dear ePCT user,
You are invited to join our next ePCT webinars on ePCT-Filing in Docx.
In these sessions you will discover the advantages of using Docx and you will be guided through the different steps on how to create a Docx specification to be uploaded in ePCT for receiving Offices accepting Docx.
Two sessions with the same topic and content will be provided to cover different time zones and are free of charge.
-Tuesday 05 October 2021: 09-10:30 am Geneva Time (CET) for Asia, Europe time zones, etc.
Registration link: https://wipo-int.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-7j8UAt7QGiD7MHavzxwCg
-Thursday 07 October 2021: 4:30-6:00 pm Geneva Time (CET) for North and South America time zones, etc.
Registration link: https://wipo-int.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KH8E-RyYTOGtIl1sVzhUpw
The PowerPoint slides are already available for download at https://www.wipo.int/pct/en/seminar/webinars/index.html under ePCT-Filing in Docx.
The two webinars will be recorded and made available on the PCT Webinars web page https://www.wipo.int/pct/en/seminar/webinars/index.html.
If you require further details, please contact pct.eservices@wipo.int
Best regards,
PCT Operations Customer Support Section
So are they trying to train people for Microsoft? Is this even legal? Well, WIPO is immune and cannot be sued. It’s like the EPO. It would be interesting to know who exactly was behind this decision and what was behind it. As we’ve seen countless times before, Microsoft does not play by the rules — it bribes, cheats, infiltrates, blackmails, and worse. █
“Really, I’m not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect.”
–Linus Torvalds
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05.31.21
Posted in Office Suites, OpenDocument, OpenOffice, Oracle at 10:53 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Millions of people who use and support the software deserve greater transparency
Summary: StarOffice, OpenOffice, LibreOffice and the languishing AOO (Go-OO is dead already) are still the go-to office suites for Free software users; they’re based on similar if not the same codebase (in the same sense many of today’s Web browsers are based on Chromium) and the business objectives of the main stewards (whose corporate DNA goes into the code) need to be understood because even longtime volunteers aren’t sure what’s going on
During the weekend, amid postings about the Annual Report 2020, TDF or LibreOffice published a blog post entitled “Get printed copies of LibreOffice handbooks!“
Of course there’s nothing morally wrong with selling printed copies of something that’s online, but one reader asked us, “I am curious about where the funds from printed books for LibreOffice go… to the project or to the documentation volunteers?”
“We’ve always been supportive of LibreOffice because unlike Go-OO it had a real purpose, seeing the threat of neglect by Oracle.”So we’ve decided to ask around and research for a bit, as we have some key contacts. “I have not been doing anything there nor following it for ages,” one person told us. “Last I checked, most of the developers had gone over to LO from AOO anyway…” (from Apache OpenOffice to LibreOffice)
Every now and then, maybe a few times per month, the official LibreOffice account interacts with me in Twitter. In fact, we were one of the sites to first announce the LibreOffice project way back in 2010. We’ve always been supportive of LibreOffice because unlike Go-OO it had a real purpose, seeing the threat of neglect by Oracle.
“Having volunteered with both libre and apache openoffice.org, (majority of AOO documentation team going to Libre and not returning) I had felt as though Libre documentation team was all about selling manuals,” said our reader to us. “Just a feeling I had while there. When I went over to AOO (after Libreoffice’s rudeness toward AOO), and we were discussing licensing (cc by 3.0 then libre used cc 4.0), it seemed like the AOO documentation lead person was also moving in this direction (selling printed manuals) or had some work relation with Jean Weber, formerly of AOO, and now at Libre. I’m just curious if the funding for the printed books go to Libre project or to the authors. There are mailing list posts of Jean Weber and AOO where Lulu login/accounts are discussed.”
An informed person whom we spoke to, one who was involved in LibreOffice but especially in AOO, noted that the “latter was languishing.”
“It would be important to know how their finances are arranged,” the person noted. “They have a foundation based in Germany, but as mentioned I have not followed it nor know what their economic sources and priorities are. Perhaps that is published somewhere.”
I noted, based on my understanding, that there are companies like Collabora throwing some “added value” at it and now there’s some introduction of “community edition” or something along those lines… (they called it "Personal Edition" several months back)
“That sounds like it might be an unfortunate change of direction,” the person added. “It could end up “open core” instead soon in one of the worse scenarios.”
Are we moving back in the direction of StarOffice? Hopefully not…
As far as we’re aware, the TDF/LibreOffice folks never fully or entirely withdrew from this ambition of theirs. We’ll be watching this situation closely. The most important thing, or the aspect of utmost importance, is the freedom (libre) in LibreOffice. Dual licensing is one of the worst possible outcomes. █
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10.04.20
Posted in Bill Gates, Microsoft, Office Suites, Open XML, OpenDocument at 6:12 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”
–Bill Gates
Summary: Preying on so-called ‘users’ is the nature of proprietary software, which puts digital shackles on people and then starts manipulating them
THE simple fact is that many of today’s interfaces are designed to be “addictive”, especially on the Web where the ‘currency’ is screen time (opportunity to spy on people and foist ads onto them). This is certainly true about Facebook (with admissions from the company) and Twitter is hardly better with its infinite scrolling, suggestive (yet cryptic) “trending” clickbait and so on.
“…if many ‘addicts’ get together, they can fork the implementation to better suit their needs and distribute the fork free of charge.”It wasn’t too long ago that Richard Stallman asked geeks to submit to him examples of interfaces that had been designed to be addictive.
In the case of ‘traditional’ and native software, formats that are secret and proprietary software with lock-in mechanisms have long been used to force people to ‘upgrade’ (pay for the same thing over and over again). The network effect, or peer pressure by format incompatibility, is an issue long documented (for decades; it helped rationalise the vendor-neutral OpenDocument Format).
It’s time to communicate these issues using the jargon or slang of narcotics. The term “users” is heavily used in that context because of the helplessness of the addicts, who are reduced to mere zombies that consume and cannot think clearly.
Free software addresses some but not all of these issues; there’s no guarantee that addiction elements will be entirely obliterated just by virtue of some piece of software being free (to study, modify, share as well as run without restrictions). One can easily get addicted to Free (as in freedom) computer games. But the leverage the developer gains over individual people or large groups of people (even entire nations) is clearly limited; if many ‘addicts’ get together, they can fork the implementation to better suit their needs and distribute the fork free of charge. That’s very much unlike what a certain Bill Gates (nowadays a vaccine profiteer) sought to achieve with Microsoft products. It’s all about power, unjust power and coercion. It’s not about technical excellence; technology here is merely the means by which to gain power (political, not technical) over a lot of people while amassing endless wealth, controlling the lives of so many without democratic oversight. █
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08.23.20
Posted in Europe, Free/Libre Software, Office Suites, OpenDocument, OpenOffice at 10:39 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The Document Foundation (TDF) is a very important supporter of OpenDocument Format (ODF) as well as Free software (notably LibreOffice), but there’s a story about LibreItalia (“Italian home of LibreOffice”) very few people know about
Italo Vignoli is well known in the Free software world, both inside and outside Italy, both inside and outside the realms of LibreOffice. He’s connected to the likes of Simon Phipps and Paolo Vecchi. I, personally, have much respect for him. For those who never heard of him before, his introduction to himself in the OSI’s site (for this year’s election) can be found here (it’s very detailed and includes his LibreOffice/ODF/TDF work/credentials). There’s more in the comments.
He won a seat as a Director seated by affiliates (term until 2023) and the Board’s page now describes him as follows: “Italo Vignoli has been involved in FOSS projects since 2004, when he joined the OpenOffice community as a user, to contribute to marketing and communication activities. In 2010, he was one of the founders of the LibreOffice project and has been involved in marketing and community development activities since then. He has also launched Associazione LibreItalia, representing LibreOffice users in Italy, and the ODF Advocacy Open Project at OASIS, and has contributed to large migration projects to LibreOffice in Europe. He co-leads LibreOffice marketing, PR and media relations, co-chairs the certification program, and is a spokesman for the project. He has contributed to large migration projects to LibreOffice in Italy, and is a LibreOffice certified migrator and trainer. Italo is Managing Partner of Hideas, a marketing and communications agency retained by The Document Foundation and by other companies active in the networking and healthcare industries.”
A few years ago he had an altercation inside LibreItalia, the “Italian home of LibreOffice” (@libreitalia). It was more specifically an argument with Sonia Montegiove, President of the LibreItalia association who calls herself a “journalist out of passion”; there are reasonable posts from her (in English) and in Italian. Vignoli and her weren’t always in disagreement; she wrote about him half a decade prior on at least 4 occasions in the LibreItalia blog. The blog became inactive the following year or maybe moved elsewhere. They’re both mentioned in “Italy’s Ministry of Defense to Drop Microsoft Office in Favor of LibreOffice”.
The following message was written by Alessandro Rubini, aged 70 (half a decade older than Vignoli). He’s a very, very technical person (books include Linux Device Drivers and others) and he says “Free Software” rather than “Open Source”. This one particular bio of his says he “installed Linux 0.99.14 soon after getting his degree as electronic engineer. He then received a Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Pavia despite his aversion toward modern technology. He left the University after getting his Ph.D. because he didn’t want to write articles. He now works as a free lance writing device drivers and, um…articles. He used to be a young hacker before his babies were born; he’s now an old advocate of Free Software who developed a bias for non-PC computer platforms.”
He has associates like Cristiana Larizza, Tullio Facchinetti, Greg Kroah-Hartman amongst other drivers folks and his homepage mentions GNU, then says: “I am an independent consultant specialized in the Linux kernel, device drivers, real time, embedded systems, low-level networking.”
How many people are aware of the following incident?
Subject: problem in TDF
From: Alessandro Rubini <rubini@gnudd.com>
Date: 20/08/2017, 13:07
To: ga@fsfeurope.org
A quick note to let youknow that italo vignoli left libreitalia, after serious arguing w/ sonia montegiove about management in general and organization of the LO conference in particular.
The thing escalated from italy to TDF, where another italian board member is siding w/ sonia and trying to shed bad light on italo.
I talked with both, in different days, and I still have to make completely up my mind. One of the side effects is that italo will likely ask for membership in fsfe.
I’m all for it, actually i suggested to invite both him and sonia. Now clearly the thing is a little hot, and timing is suboptimal.
I’ll call again sonia in a few days, after italo’s final move is official, w/ reference to official documents.
All of this is very bad, pr-wise, for FS in italy and europe.
/alessandro on the train, no keyboard
Publishing this isn’t expected to cause a rift (which didn’t exist already). Italy has long been a success story for ODF (especially in the public sector), so let’s hope relations can be amended. █
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07.06.20
Posted in FUD, OpenDocument, OpenOffice at 9:48 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Don’t panic
Summary: Had LibreOffice developers (and the Document Foundation) communicated these changes more openly, they would have averted/avoided some of the FUD
OVER the weekend, in the “Planet” of LibreOffice, one contributor complained [1] (links below) about what was addressed a day later (Monday) by the Document Foundation [2]. Some sites took notes of the clarification [3], some did click-bait nonsense [4] and others said that it had “raised some alarms since it implies that businesses, governments, schools, or other institutions might need a different license to use LibreOffice in the future.”
“From what we can gather, there’s nothing nefarious and/or sinister here. It was an honest mistake.”Transparency is very important. Had the Document Foundation negotiated this language prior to implementing the changes (in “dev” build), a lot of negative publicity and rumours would be spared. From what we can gather, there’s nothing nefarious and/or sinister here. It was an honest mistake. It served to highlight the need for participation at all levels. To avoid unnecessary misunderstandings always work in the open. █
References
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Look at LibreOffice logo with “Personal Edition” phrase, look at sidebar in Start Center with the same phrase and note to “The Personal edition is supported by volunteers and intended for individual use.”
And what is mean? Where is any public announcement? They say it was in marketing mail list. How many people read that mail list? Five?
It means that I can’t install LibreOffice 7.0 in any organization in Russia, because our controlling people will be see very simple to legality in this case: open the About dialog -> read that “intended for individual use” and LibreOffice logo with “Personal Edition” -> you can’t use LibreOffice here! Nobody will check what say MPL 2.0 license about it or why TDF made it, they just point a finger at it and they will be right!
It will close for LibreOffice any education organizations like schools or colleges or universities.
I wont popularize LibreOffice for young people because they will never see LibreOffice in them schools.
I against these changes. Please revoke it!
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Thanks to the hard work put in by many individual and ecosystem contributors, working together as a team in different fields, such as development, QA, design, marketing, localisation, release engineering, infrastructure, just to mention some, in a few weeks’ time we will be welcoming our LibreOffice 7.0 milestone.
At the same time, we are discussing our vision for the next five years, with a starting point being marketing and branding. See our marketing and board-discuss mailing lists.
Due to draft and development work in the area of branding and product naming, some speculation, in particular related to the “Personal Edition” tag shown in a LibreOffice 7.0 RC (Release Candidate), has started on several communication channels. So let us, as The Document Foundation’s Board of Directors, please provide further clarifications:
1. None of the changes being evaluated will affect the license, the availability, the permitted uses and/or the functionality. LibreOffice will always be free software and nothing is changing for end users, developers and Community members.
2. Due to the short time frame we are working with, the tagline appeared on the RC and we apologise if this caused some of you to think we unilaterally implemented the change. Rest assured that the consultation with the Community is still ongoing.
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Yes, it’s true the LibreOffice builds in recent days — including the new LibreOffice 7.0 RC1 — have “Personal Edition” branding for the open-source builds. But given user concerns, The Document Foundation board has issued some clarifications to try to ease any immediate rumors, etc.
The LibreOffice builds provided are indeed marked now as “LibreOffice Personal Edition” as part of planned but not yet finalized marketing changes for LibreOffice. These builds of the open-source office suite remain free and available to anyone without restrictions.
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If you are a Linux nerd or Windows user without much money, you probably use LibreOffice. That free software is actually quite good, although Microsoft’s Office is far superior. Regardless of how you feel about the Windows-maker, its office suite of software is second to none. If you use Windows or Mac and can afford it, I always recommend using “real” Word and Excel over knockoffs, such as the aforementioned LibreOffice’s Writer or Calc. Sadly, other than the web version, Microsoft Office is not available for Linux. With that said, as a Linux user, I appreciate LibreOffice’s existence and use it regularly.
But what if LibreOffice wasn’t free? Would people still use it if it cost money? Some folks became very worried about that exactly, as the release candidate of LibreOffice 7.0 labeled itself as “Personal Edition.” To some, it was a sign that a paid version of LibreOffice was on the horizon. Well, guess what? They weren’t totally wrong. In the future, you might find yourself paying money to use LibreOffice software. According to a new blog post from The Document Foundation Board aimed at quelling fears, however, there is no need to panic.
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LibreOffice is a suite of office applications for creating, editing, and viewing text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and databases, among other things. LibreOffice is free and open source software. Anyone can download it, use it, and even examine and modify the source code.
But with version 7.0 set to launch next month, some users have been noticing unusual language in pre-release builds suggesting that LibreOffice “Personal edition” is “intended for individual use.
That’s raised some alarms since it implies that businesses, governments, schools, or other institutions might need a different license to use LibreOffice in the future.
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11.16.19
Posted in America, Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument, Patents at 10:29 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
USPTO locked in
Summary: The world’s most important patent office promotes Microsoft lock-in, revealing not only corporate bias but also highlighting ways in which Microsoft crimes continue to pay off
THE U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) seems to be working for famous criminals like Bill Gates et al while ‘dissing’ actual judges (e.g. looking for tricks to overcome 35 U.S.C. § 101 caselaw). It’s starting to remind us of what happens in Europe, where Microsoft bribed a lot of people to rig ISO in Switzerland.
“So the USPTO isn’t just looking to penalise people who aren’t Microsoft customers; now it’s actively advertising OOXML instead of something FOSS-friendly such as OpenDocument Format (ODF) or even PDF.”As we noted here before, the USPTO now considers penalising people for not using Microsoft products/formats. It’s almost as if the Office works for Microsoft to reward it for corruption and it’s no laughing matter. Dennis Crouch has quoted the USPTO: “Join us for a seminar on filing DOCX, which is structured text. The DOCX Information Sessions will start Wednesday, November 13 from 2-3 p.m. ET. We will discuss DOCX as an efficient way to file a patent application electronically. You’ll learn what the DOCX format is, how you can use it to file nonprovisional utility applications, and the benefits it provides to you and your patent applications.”
Donald Zuhn has also just mentioned that: “In a Patent Alert e-mail distributed today, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced that it will be offering several seminars on how to use DOCX for EFS-Web filings and on PAIR. The DOCX Information Sessions will focus on the advantages of filing patent applications using structured text (DOCX).”
So the USPTO isn’t just looking to penalise people who aren’t Microsoft customers; now it’s actively advertising OOXML instead of something FOSS-friendly such as OpenDocument Format (ODF) or even PDF. This is an ongoing problem which we will likely revisit if (or when) the USPTO makes these penalties official. █
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07.15.19
Posted in Microsoft, Office Suites, OpenDocument, Standard at 2:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Microsoft implemented ODF with all the grace of a 6 year old asked to tidy up their room”
–Jeremy Allison, LCA 2010
Summary: OpenDocument Format (ODF, a real standard everyone can implement) and Free/libre software should be taught in schools; it’s not supposed to be just a matter of privacy
Days ago we included in our daily links some early reports about Microsoft Office 360 getting banned in German schools. CBS (ZDNet) is helping Microsoft spin all this with a bunch of lies [1], but this development must worry Microsoft as it can inspire other countries and even non-schools to do the same. We’ve meanwhile noticed (hours ago) that some “Linux sites” promote proprietary software with “ribbons” and OOXML [2] (because there are binaries for Ubuntu). Why not Free/libre software? Are bloggers really this clueless? What does one gain by swapping one piece of proprietary software with another? Or one surveillance form (Microsoft) with another (Google)?
Software Freedom needs to be stressed more and more for such poor advocacy to be discouraged. Choosing something like Google or Apple instead of Microsoft isn’t swapping digital slavery with freedom but instead just swapping ‘masters’. █
Update: For the second time in just hours [3] that same “Linux site” promotes yet another piece of proprietary software as a “replacement” for Microsoft Office.
Related/contextual items from the news:
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A major update to FreeOffice by SoftMaker, a gratis set of productivity apps modelled after Microsoft Office, is now available to download.
Dubbed the “anniversary update”, the latest version of this office suite intros compatibility with the latest Microsoft Office file formats.
All three apps in the family, TextMaker, PlanMaker and Presentations, are said to be fully compatible with the latest Microsoft Office file formats, allowing users to open, edit and save in native Office formats like .docx.
The suite now lets users choose an interface layout, with the standard “Ribbon” interface mode and a more traditional menu-based UI available.
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Do keep in mind that SoftMaker Office 2018 is not free software so you will need to buy a subscription or make a one-off purchase to use it longterm.
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12.01.18
Posted in America, Europe, Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument, Standard at 5:49 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The EPO and Britain’s UKIPO join the USPTO in making Microsoft’s proprietary format the ‘standard’ in filing; this merely perpetuates the negative publicity associated with patent offices
THIS IS not an unfamiliar topic. A decade ago (or more) we wrote hundreds of articles about Microsoft’s OOXML-related abuses. Corrupt European Patent Office (EPO) officials now help the abusers from Microsoft by advancing their fake ‘standard’ that they bribed and corrupted ISO for. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) does too, but the latter is based in the US (where Microsoft is based, unlike ISO, which is Europe-centric).
“We suppose they’re perfectly OK being agents of Microsoft, rewarding the company for its corruption instead of embracing open standards anyone can use (not just clients of Microsoft).”As IP Kat put it two days ago: “The EPO and UKIPO are teaming up to make online filing easier to understand. In the EPO and UKIPO online services workshop you will learn about the EPO’s web-based online filing system and the second phase of the DOCX filing pilot. Witness a live demonstration of Mailbox and hear an overview of best practice interaction with the EPO.”
No ODF pilot? Why not? We suppose they’re perfectly OK being agents of Microsoft, rewarding the company for its corruption instead of embracing open standards anyone can use (not just clients of Microsoft). █
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