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Comments: 184 +- Politics: New York Jumps Into Open Formats Fray on Thursday June 07 2007, @11:16PM
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cyrusmack writes "Hot on the heels of the bad news regarding the defeat of all open formats bills, New York has become the latest in an area that has seen a flurry of activity already this year. In the article on InfoWorld, it's pretty clear that this bill is significantly watered down from what other states have attempted to do this year. You can bet Microsoft will be there in force, just as it has been elsewhere."
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open formats win, MS loses (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:open formats win, MS loses (Score:5, Funny)
Their three weapons are FUD, disinformation, and ruthless efficiency
There four weapons are....
Amongst their weapons are...
Ok, lemme try this again....
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Re:open formats win, MS loses (Score:5, Funny)
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One Missing Weapon (Score:5, Interesting)
Cool Stuff that people want.
The rest is all bullshit. Vendor manipulation, marketing, bogus laws are only needed by a company that lacks product. The harder they try, the weaker they look.
The tipping point is here. If Dell makes money selling GNU/Linux desktops, it's all over for M$. If they don't, someone else will. Firefox has proved free software to all the "decision makers" M$ usually courts, and it's only a matter of time before they realize Firefox and much more works better outside the M$ cage.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's already happening where I live.
Most of the wholesalers and whitebox distributors here are offering budget computers with Ubuntu installed. They're cheaper and perform better than the Windows equivalents.
Dell can survive without offering a Linux alternative since they pay little or nothing for their Windows licenses, but they risk being swamped by the next wave of boxshifters if they hold back to
Re:One Missing Weapon (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:open formats win, MS loses (Score:5, Insightful)
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bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
"Open formats" is a well-defined term. It means what it has always meant: a format that is unencumbered by copyrights or patents, and is sufficiently well documented to permit interoperable, independent implementations.
Of course, Microsoft has been trying to muddy the waters by calling their closed, proprietary format "open".
using this term is one of the best ways we can bring down Microsuck
Well, yes, in the sense that Microsoft's business model is monopolistic and involves closed formats. If Microsoft adopted open formats themselves, then things would be fine.
Ultimately, this may mean more leverage for one or a group of interests--something that is never good for a dye-in-the-wool open source believer.
Adoption of open formats, in the usual meaning of the word, is not just good for open source, it's good for the industry as a whole (except, of course, for Microsoft).
What is bad for everybody other than Microsoft is Microsoft's attempts to confuse people about what an open format is. ODF is an open format, OOXML is a closed, proprietary format.
Open source/format is such a misunderstood term
Well, yes. Quantum mechanics is also such a misunderstood term. Nevertheless, both "open format" and "quantum mechanics" have important, well defined meanings, and the responsibility is on you to understand and use them correctly.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's both closed and proprietary.
OOXML is a dump into XML of all the data from existing Office formats. It can only be fully implemented by the vendor of MS Office.1 720521698
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200701
Re:bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, although the above astroturfers are not going to listen it is pretty simple.
All those OOXML importers you say "prove it is an open standard" are simply programmers applying their previous work in reverse-engineerning
Any claim that it is an "open standard" is blatently false. There are commands in it like "work like Word 95", yet the standard does not include the source code to Word 95. Well, you say, just ignore that command, it's a minor detail, right? But that is exactly why those office documents come out mangled. It is in fact exactly the same as
You can continue to spew your lies. You will probably win. But this is one of the sickest things I have seen coming out of Microsoft ever and you can bet that you are making enemies that you never had before. Slashdot is a big cesspool of crazy zealots, but when you see Microsoft doing such a blatent, desperate ploy to save their monopoly, and the absolute insane direct lying in their posts here, I start to agree with slashdot.
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Re:bullshit (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep, and the GPL3 stories seem to draw a lot of flies as well. http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/07/149 240 [slashdot.org]
Makes you think the FSF might be on the right track after all.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sorry, but why can't we just
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Re:bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
I provided you with a link to explanations clearer and more concise than anything I could include here.
I'm aware you're not prepared to look at evidence which would conflict with your view, but for the convenience of other readers, I've posted the headers to the Groklaw articles which contain the complete explanations.
* 7.1 The Gregorian Calendar
* 7.2 ISO 8601 (Representation of dates and times)
* 7.3 ISO 639 (Codes for the Representation of Names and Languages)
* 7.4 ISO/IEC 8632 (Computer Graphics Metafile)
* 7.5 ISO/IEC 26300:2006 (OpenDocument Format for Office Applications)
* 7.6 W3C SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics)
* 7.7 W3C MathML (Mathematical Markup Language)
* 7.8 ISO/IEC 10118-3, W3C XML-ENC, and other cryptographic hash standards
* 7.9 W3C SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language)
# 8 Ecma 376 is immature and inconsistent
* 8.1 Fabricates units of measurement
* 8.2 Internal inconsistencies: the w:sz element
* 8.3 Internal inconsistencies and omissions: ST_Border
* 8.4 Confusing and inconsistent definitions of lengths of hexadecimal numbers
* 8.5 Unspecified terms: plain text
* 8.6 Poor names and inconsistent naming conventions for elements and attributes
* 8.7 Inflexible notation for percentages
* 8.8 Inappropriate non-document settings (application settings)
* 8.9 Non-XML formatting codes
* 8.10 Inflexible numbering format
* 8.11 Uses a Microsoft-specific namespace
# 9 Ecma 376 uses bitmasks, inhibiting extensibility and use of standard XML tools
* 9.1 Background: bitmasks
* 9.2 Bitmasks in Ecma 376
* 9.3 Bitmasks are not extensible
* 9.4 Bitmasks cause significant validation problems
* 9.5 Bitmasks defeat XSLT manipulation
* 9.6 Bitmasks conflict with the Ecma TC45 charter
# 10 Ecma 376 relies on undisclosed information
* 10.1 Undisclosed proprietary specifications
* 10.2 Cloning the behaviour of proprietary applications
* 10.3 Relies on application-defined behaviors
# 11 Ecma 376 cannot be adequately evaluated within the 30-day evaluation period
* 11.1 Ecma 376 has not met the stability requirement
# 12 Ecma 376 cannot be reasonably implemented by other vendors
* 12.1 Ecma 376 requires implementation of undisclosed specifications
* 12.2 The "compatibility with legacy formats" can only be implemented by Microsoft
* 12.3 Patent rights to implement the Ecma 376 specification have not been granted
o 12.3.1 The Microsoft covenants not to sue grant no rights
o 12.3.2 Microsoft licensing documents are ambiguous
+ 12.3.2.1 The Microsoft Open Specification Promise is ambiguous
+ 12.3.2.2 The Microsoft Covenant Not to Sue is irrelevant and ambiguous in any event
* 12.4 End-User License Agreements (EULAs) may forbid full implementation
Anyone wishing to understand the full risks of implementing OOXML in their own software should read the Groklaw page very carefully.
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Re:open formats win, MS loses (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: Dont confuse Open Format with Open Source (Score:3, Informative)
Open Standards, just mean that, Open Standards. Both proprietary software and open software can implement the API and formats. We can not skew the Standar
Re:open formats win, MS loses (Score:4, Insightful)
ODF is a great idea. But it is only a tiny step away from propriatary formats.
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I wish they would do it for the blind people. (Score:3, Informative)
I bet MS already has ODF compatibility ready to put on their website for download if a bill like this were to pass.
A M$ rep has bragged as much in this very thread [slashdot.org]. If it's true, I wish they would shut up about ODF being harmful to blind people.
I don't see any reason it would not be true. ODF is a sane standard and everyone else has been able to use it.
ODF is a great idea. But it is only a tiny step away from propriatary formats.
The difference between published and non published "standards" is n
Mod Lying Parent Down (Score:4, Interesting)
Plus since 99.9% of the rest of the world still uses
What is so evil about this well-crafted statement is it manipulates the reader by doing the "everyone uses it" argument. When your Mom said, "If everyone you knew wanted to jump off a cliff, then I suppose you would jump too." when you wanted to do something justified by referring to your friend's activities. Maintaining closed standards is harmful, like jumping off a cliff.
The truth is everyone doesn't use it. Look at the standard document format in the American legal system. Most documents published on the web are in PDF and there's a Free (as in speech) pdf generator for every platform. Even windows. http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/ [sourceforge.net]
ODF is a great idea. But it is only a tiny step away from propriatary formats.
This statement is materially false. No patent encumbrances, no license encumbrances, no distribution encumbrances, and an API that a programmer can _actually_ use. versus Microsoft's API which should win an award for documents that say nothing.
Microsoft harms everyone who uses a computer by defending their closed document formats. Congratulations, you've blown the truthiness meter up.
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Re:open formats win, MS loses (Score:5, Insightful)
No one would ever use MS Office, or Visual Studio, or Windows, if there wasn't sufficient quality therein to justify the expense of staying. There are huge flaws and gaping shortcomings, to be sure, but somehow MS still manages to have enough quality over the free alerternatives that they stay in business.
If you think otherwise, I offer that you may not understand exactly what "quality product" means. A Ford Yarius might be a crappy toy car, but it's weird and efficient enough that it fits an exact niche big enough to earn a profit -- it is a quality product.
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Re:open formats win, MS loses (Score:5, Insightful)
We deploy MSO and it borks up big time, it's all good cause, well I don't really know why, seems management have all the forgiveness for MS products but not for any others
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why don't they have office for Linux? Then they could compete on the quality of their Operating System. Oh wait, they don't want to do that. What about making Visual Studios work under Linux?
What about opening up their formats so you're not locked into them? Oh wait, they don't want competition on quality, they want you to buy their stuff no matter what. That's not necessarily
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The only reason no one changes from MS office is due to the low pain threshold users have. The equation is thus - as long as the pain of changing does not exceed the painfulness of using office no change will happen.
MS has also been CONVICTED of leveraging it's OS to prevent all new comers from challenging. the pain isn't from any failings of other software options, it's interference from MS.
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No one would ever use MS Office, or Visual Studio, or Windows, if there wasn't sufficient quality therein to justify the expense of staying. There are huge flaws and gaping shortcomings, to be sure, but somehow MS still manages to have enough quality over the free alerternatives that they stay in business.
According to Sun's CEO [sun.com], pretty much the same seems to be happening with Office suites as happened with Linux on the server OS market. More and more students are using OOo and many of them will be making decisions about which software to deploy in corporations in years to come and MS Office won't always be the neurologically hard-wired default choice like it is today. Whether this will lead to OOo becoming the threat to MS Office, that Linux is to Windows 2003/Vista Server is another story but the presence
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That is the funny thing. They all use it and keep their premire products on windows rather than doing better on Linux, so ppl have no reason to leave it. Once the premire products on Linux, then you will see a slow trickle explode.
It doesn't matter... (Score:5, Insightful)
However, in the long run, Free software will win out since eventually more people will understand that software itself has no intrinsic value. The value lies in service and support and Free software tends to have lower support costs, since it is usually designed better.
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Speak for yourself. The code I write is quite valuable to me.
Re:It doesn't matter... (Score:4, Insightful)
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ya.. (Score:5, Insightful)
so you have a situation where Microsoft being public relations geniuses are believed by the politicians who in all likeliness dont have much experience outside MS's products. the old it's good enough for us because we're familiar with it still applies as disturbing as that is
... really (Score:3, Insightful)
As software openness becomes a mainstream issue, the political types _will have_ to form an opinion about, and that is good, because at least some of them will start paying attention and hopefully reading online.
The discussions mean more interest and wider coverage of the topic, and more awareness -- in the politico circles as well as the general public.
What is hitting the general public now is the first level of awareness -- they start to realize that there is this iss
Doesn't matter.... (Score:3, Insightful)
What's really going on is that they've spotted that simply mentioning "open source" makes Steve Ballmer fly in from wherever he happens to be at the time and offer them a "more competitive pricing structure".
Office is 90% profit so there's quite a bit of wiggle room.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
2. Yes, open format document is easy to spot -- if you get it into your email box regardless of the OS, and can open it with tools from several different vendors without trouble, it is probably open. Sorta like PDF or ODF.
3. There are a lot of good explanations on the web about it, try your favourite search engine
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You're missing the point. ODF doesn't require legislation to be successful as a format for those who are motivated to use an open format. Legislation is required to ensure that documents issued by governments use open formats such as ODF. In the absence of such legislation, we will continue to see governments produce documents in closed formats such as Microsoft's.
The crucial difference between ODF and OOXML is not one licensing. The problem is that ODF is truly open, while OOXML references a number of
Bias Showing (Score:5, Informative)
From Computer World: [computerworld.com]
That undermined the credibility of each side, but it particularly damaged the position of ODF proponents.
Bogus "Sides" (Score:2)
From the InfoWorld article:
They left out KDE, Gnome, Correl .... and the rest of the world. How can anyone see this as anything but M$ pushing it's next format despite unified opposition from everyone else in t
Why should they shut up? (Score:2)
Perhaps this time round IBM will keep its mouth shut and the government will be able to see this isn't a battle for commercial gain ...
What exactly did the IBM representative not follow though on? Unless you know, you should not repeat the smear. M$ is well known for lying with and without oath, but most of us expect more from IBM.
In any case, IBM and everyone besides M$ should come to the aid of ODF. Legislators want to see professionals who can talk about money more than they want to see idealis
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Well if you had bothered to look it up IBM were caught lying about the ODF project in Massachusetts.
" That undermined the credibility of each side, but it particularly damaged the position of ODF proponents. After Wyne testified publicly that in Massachusetts, only a handful of computers had thus far been con
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The differences between the licensing of OpenXML and ODF is really about hair splitting about the only differences I can discern are, one was written by Microsoft and the other by Sun.
At the moment I would say Microsoft is almost looking like the party that is playing the most fairly. Read this...
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/may0 7/05-20UOFODFPR.mspx?rss_fdn=Pre [microsoft.com]
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You mistakenly present the situation as symmetric. It isn't. We only need one document standard, and we already have it. ODF is already an ISO standard and implemented by numerous products from a variety of sources. OOXML, on the other hand, is a Johnnie-come-lately, and is not a standard in any real sense. It is not an ISO standard and is not in use by anyone other than Microsoft. Furthermore, since it is not truly open, it simply doesn't meet the criteria. Thus, if Microsoft decides that it wants to join
Just once (Score:5, Insightful)
The advantage of using Microsoft is in economies of scale, and network effects. The same advantage will make open formats spread very quickly once established in one state to other states.
Microsoft is very afraid. They should be. Office is one of their few products that has the distinction of actually turning a profit. A move to open formats would force them to compete on price, support, and features, something that they haven't had to do for a very long time.
That's why M$ Sucks. (Score:5, Informative)
What, do you think Office is incapable of supporting ODF or something? That can be changed quite fast. I work on the Live Meeting team, and we are constantly working on communication/productivity tools...
Great, we all know that M$ could use ODF. The standard is complete and easy enough to implement that everyone else has already done it.
The problem is that your company would rather waste money on their own special format and propaganda so they can keep their little format franchise. Where was your bragging in Mass. when M$ was complaining that ODF would hurt blind people? If ODF is so easy to implement, was it really worth smearing Peter Quinn's out of job and reputation? It's this kind of arrogance that will cost M$ everything. People remember what you do.
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States' rights (Score:5, Insightful)
State: Hi I like open formats because they're an open standard, owned by the world community. They're less risky, more durable, and extensible. And open.
Lobbyist: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa... whoa... whoa there buddy. You don't know what you're talking about. Microsoft Office format documents are used by 90% of the corporate world. Plus, Microsoft is huge. And has lots of money.
State: Who are you?
Lobbyist: Hi I'm Microsoft.
State: Oh, hi. Can I have some money?
Lobbyist: Sure
State: I like Microsoft Office.
What Microsoft wants to happen (Score:4, Funny)
Eternal source of campaign money! (Score:3, Interesting)
Slightly off-topic... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Fair Enough? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the difference between Microsoft's OOXML and ODF is that ODF can be implemented fully and interoperably by third parties, while OOXML cannot. That's not a legal question or a licensing question, it's a question of bad specification of OOXML. That's why ODF is an open format, while OOXML is a closed, proprietary format.
In addition, Microsoft has applied for a patent on OOXML, while there is no patent pending on ODF. That means that there is good reason to believe that OOXML is, in fact, a restricted format.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Wrong. Third parties are implementing parts of OOXML and trying to do the best they can, but nobody other than Microsoft can ever create a complete implementation because the behavior of OOXML is defined in terms of Microsoft software. The situation isn't much different from current Microsoft Office formats: others try to support them as best they can, but nobody has been able to create a fully interoperable implementation.
So you're saying you know for a fac