Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Fights OpenOffice.org and ODF Using FUD, Technical Problems (Updated)

[Update (19/06/2008) : We have supplementary screenshots in this follow-up post.]

It is already known that Microsoft fought ODF like fire. It even ran a Get the Facts-type campaign against it. It's easily provable because it is all well documented.

In the IRC conversation below (a fragment from Monday), you will find some of the latest examples.




<Eruaran> Currently if you attempt to open a .odt document for example in Microsoft Word, you get assailed by dialogues that say the document is corrupted, asks you if you want to 'fix' it, and it insinuates you shouldn't trust it or the source it came from. <schestowitz> Remember DR-DOS? <Eruaran> I know there are many people who will think negatively about ODF because of this kind of flat out BS in Microsoft products. <Eruaran> yes <schestowitz> http://boycottnovell.com/2007/08/03/do-dos-odf-microsoft-sabotage/ <schestowitz> http://boycottnovell.com/comes-vs-microsoft/text/msg00083.html <schestowitz> http://www.boycottnovell.com/comes-vs-microsoft/text/msg00194.html <Eruaran> I love this one: "If Microsoft says you’ve got five fingers on each hand, many people will insist on an independent count." <schestowitz> Microsoft: "what the guy is supposed to do is feel uncomfortable, and when he has bugs, suspect that the problem is dr-dos and then go out and buy ms-dos, or decide not to take the risk for the other machines he has to buy for in the office." <Eruaran> Even if they tell the truth, nobody trusts them, such is their history and reputation. <Eruaran> yes, they are up to the same old tricks <schestowitz> "Concerns have been raised that DR-DOS incompatibilities and flaws are being overlooked by reviewers. [...] We recommend that we *informally* plant the bug of FUD in their ears. “Have you heard about problems with DR DOS?” <Eruaran> I decided to try and open an open document in Word one day just to see what happened... what I saw simply disgusted me. * PetoKraus (n=Peter@host-77-247-224-25.isper.sk) has joined #boycottnovell <Eruaran> Have you seen the clip on YouTube where a guy attempts to use Vista's voice regognition with OpenOffice ? <PetoKraus> :D <Eruaran> He tries it out with MS Word, then word pad and it all works fine <schestowitz> http://www.odfalliance.org/resources/BurtonGroupResponseFinal.pdf [PDF] (Microsoft's Burton puppet: "ODF is simplistic" (bad word). Beat in mind that Pete O'Kelly later had contracts with Microsoft. Lots of money. <Eruaran> Then he tries it with OpenOffice and Vista's speech recognition suddenly develops selective deafness and an inability to comprehend basic speech patterns. <PetoKraus> Eruaran: got vid? <PetoKraus> *link <schestowitz> Yes, please. <Eruaran> yes, just a sec PetoKraus (and hello) <PetoKraus> i'd even launch firefox to see that :) <schestowitz> That;s something to write about. Also your easrlier observation., <Eruaran> If you like I could take some screenshots tomorrow at work <Eruaran> of the dialogues MS Word gives you when you try to use and ODF document <schestowitz> Please do. The error message. I can make an Ogg from YouTube vids. <schestowitz> Yes, a screenshot would be good. <PetoKraus> schestowitz: how do you do that, anyway <Eruaran> I was disgusted when I first saw them because I knew that Microsoft knows damn well what a .odt is <schestowitz> akf told me about a service that allows you to download the flvs. I used to have PyTube working, but Google broke its functionality.




It ought to be pointed out at this stage that Microsoft claims to have become 'buddies' with ODF [1, 2, 3, 4]. Not quite, eh? Later on came the video, which we have produced an Ogg Theora version of.

Ogg Theora



As embedded Flash, for those who prefer it in this form:



This conversation then continued:




<Eruaran> Vista speech recognition refusing to work with OOo: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=5sVQlphmqsU <Eruaran> One commenter says: It is a demonstration of how Vista speech recognition is deliberately crippled with a non-Microsoft piece of software. * mark_antony_ken1 (n=user@host86-152-103-82.range86-152.btcentralplus.com) has joined #boycottnovell <PetoKraus> LMAO <schestowitz> Wow. <schestowitz> The "Wow" starts.... now. <Eruaran> yes * mark_antony_ken2 (n=user@ellandroad.demon.co.uk) has joined #boycottnovell <schestowitz> So we can conclude from this that Notepad is better than OOo <PetoKraus> sure! <Eruaran> oh yeah ;) <PetoKraus> it has more useful features




In conclusion, Microsoft hardly changed its way. The predatory nature of the Beast lives on to this date.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

A Week After a Worldwide Windows Outage Microsoft is 'Bricking' Windows All On Its Own, Cannot Blame Others Anymore
A look back at a week of lousy press coverage, Microsoft deceit, and lessons to be learned
 
Links 26/07/2024: Tesco Cutbacks and Fake Patent Courts
Links for the day
Links 26/07/2024: Grimy Residue of the 'AI' Bubble and Tensions Around Alaska
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2024: More Computers and Tilde Hosting
Links for the day
Links 26/07/2024: "AI" Hype Debunked and Elon Musk's "X" Already Spreads Political Disinformation
Links for the day
"Why you boss is insatiably horny for firing you and replacing you with software."
Ask McDonalds how this "AI" nonsense with IBM worked out for them
No Olympics
We really need to focus on real news
Nobody Holds the GNOME Foundation Accountable (Not Even IRS), It's Governed by Lawyers, Not Geeks, and Headed by a Shaman Crank
GNOME is a deeply oppressive institutions that eats its own
[Meme] The 'Modern' Web and 'Linux' Foundation Reinforcing Monopolies and Cementing centralisation
They don't care about the users and issuing a few bytes with random characters costs them next to nothing. It gives them control over billions of human beings.
'Boiling the Frog' or How Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) is Being Abandoned at Short Notice by Let's Encrypt
This isn't a lack of foresight but planned obsolescence
When the LLM Bubble Implodes Completely Microsoft Will be 'Finished'
Excuses like, "it's not ready yet" or "we'll fix it" won't pass muster
"An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs"
The lesson of this story is, if you do evil things, bad things will come your way. So don't do evil things.
When Wikileaks Was Still Primarily a Wiki
less than 14 years ago the international media based its war journalism on what Wikileaks had published
The Free Software Foundation Speaks Out Against Microsoft
the problem is bigger than Microsoft and in the long run - seeing Microsoft's demise - we'll need to emphasise Software Freedom
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 25, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, July 25, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Links 26/07/2024: E-mail on OpenBSD and Emacs Fun
Links for the day
Links 25/07/2024: Talks of Increased Pension Age and Biden Explains Dropping Out
Links for the day
Links 25/07/2024: Paul Watson, Kernel Bug, and Taskwarrior
Links for the day
[Meme] Microsoft's "Dinobabies" Not Amused
a slur that comes from Microsoft's friends at IBM
Flashback: Microsoft Enslaves Black People (Modern Slavery) for Profit, or Even for Losses (Still Sinking in Debt Due to LLMs' Failure)
"Paid Kenyan Workers Less Than $2 Per Hour"
From Lion to Lamb: Microsoft Fell From 100% to 13% in Somalia (Lowest Since 2017)
If even one media outlet told you in 2010 that Microsoft would fall from 100% (of Web requests) to about 1 in 8 Web requests, you'd probably struggle to believe it
Microsoft Windows Became Rare in Antarctica
Antarctica's Web stats still near 0% for Windows
Links 25/07/2024: YouTube's Financial Problem (Even After Mass Layoffs), Journalists Bemoan Bogus YouTube Takedown Demands
Links for the day
Gemini Now 70 Capsules Short of 4,000 and Let's Encrypt Sinks Below 100 (Capsules) as Self-Signed Leaps to 91%
The "gopher with encryption" protocol is getting more widely used and more independent from GAFAM
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 24, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 24, 2024
Techrights Statement on YouTube
YouTube is a dying platform
[Video] Julian Assange on the Right to Know
Publishing facts is spun as "espionage" by the US government and "treason" by the Russian government, to give two notable examples
Links 25/07/2024: Tesla's 45% Profit Drop, Humble Games Employees All Laid Off
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/07/2024: Losing Grip and collapseOS
Links for the day
LWN (Earlier This Week) is GAFAM Openwashing Amplified
Such propaganda and openwashing make one wonder...
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Blog: Microsoft Operatives Promoting Proprietary Software for Microsoft
This is corruption
Libre-SOC Insiders Explain How Libre-SOC and Funding for Libre-SOC (From NLNet) Got 'Hijacked' or Seized
One worked alongside my colleagues and I in 2011
Why We're Revealing the Ugly Story of What Happened at Libre-SOC
Aside from the fact that some details are public already
Removing the Lid Off of 'Cancel Culture' (in Tech) and Shutting It Down by Illuminating the Tactics and Key Perpetrators
Corporate militants disguised as "good manners"
FSF, Which Pioneered GNU/Linux Development, Needs 32 More New Members in 2.5 Days
To meet the goal of a roughly month-long campaign
Lupa Statistics, Based on Crawling Geminispace, Will Soon Exceed Scope of 4,000 Capsules
Capsules or unique capsules or online capsules are in the thousands and growing
Links 24/07/2024: Many New Attacks on Journalists, "Private Companies Own The Law"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/07/2024: Face à Gaïa, Emacs Timers for Weekly Event, Chromebook Survives Water Torture
Links for the day
Why Virtually All the Wikileaks Copycats, Forks, and Rivals Basically Perished
Cryptome is like the "grandpa" of them all
A Total Lack of Transparency: Open and Free Technology Community (OFTC) Fails to Explain Why Over 60% of Users Are Gone (Since a Week Ago)
IRC giants have fallen
In the United Kingdom Google Search Rises to All-Time High, Microsoft Fell Nearly 1.5% Since the LLM Hype Began
Microsoft is going to need actual products or it will gradually vanish from the market
Trying to Put Out the Fire at Microsoft
Microsoft is drowning in debt while laying off loads of staff, hoping it can turn things around
GNU/Linux Growing at Vista 11's Expense
it's tempting to deduce many people who got PCs with Vista 11 preinstalled are deleting it, only to replace it with GNU/Linux
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 23, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 23, 2024