Rob Isn't Weird writes "Microsoft has finally responded to the resolutions concerning OOXML (or 662 of them at any rate). The only problem? The JTC1 NBs who are deciding OOXML's fate have to download 662 individual PDFs from a slow, password-protected server; and many have had trouble getting the password. Don't misunderstand the ECMA's intent, though: there would have been 662 OOXML files if they had wanted to make it hard for people to read and criticize the responses. Thanks to the Internet, other interested parties have put all 662 resolutions online in a searchable, taggable format and are requesting that everyone interested help examine them. That means you, Slashdot."
Customer's ISP here - just loaning this chap's virtual machine some more memory to deal with the hoardes. Ah there, it's back up again and using no swap, hooray. Apache might be hitting its MaxClients limit as well, I'll keep an eye on it:)
"Our company monitors Slashdot and keeps you running even when the Slashdot effect kicks in." (Wouldn't you like *YOUR* job to involve reading Slashdot.....well on purpose.)
It is very good value for money, the bandwidth and latency is very low, performance is excellent. No way could I afford that level of bandwidth and processor and rack space as a dedicated box. The initial slashdot shock caused the VM to run out of memory (it is doing a lot of stuff in just 128MB) and I was struggling to fix it. One email to support and 10 minutes later they have boosted the memory, restarted the box, sent me a reply and posted that they had fixed it on Slashdot! I would unhesitatingly recommend hosting stuff in a VM from Bytemark.
As evidenced in politics, provided the "few" make enough noise and communicate amongst themselves efficiently, they can definitely have an influence over issues that have long-term impact. An unfortunate side effect is the fact that this works both ways...
Why the PC terms? It's called inbreeding. I should know, I'm from another people that was almost wiped by European diseases that we couldn't handle.
They weren't trying to in-breed, unlike your bunch;-). They just never had contact with any new migrations after the land bridge closed up (three or four waves of migration from 40k to 10k years ago are represented in their mitochondrial DNA). With a 28% chance of having a near identical immune system as somebody else, versus 2% for Europeans, the virulence was unheard of, even by European standards.
Though, they main reason they're around today in some form is due to hybridization with the new visitors
We could comment on it now if you wish... We would download it anyway to archive the world's internet and determine the melting point of silicon in your everyday datacenter...
It does not even load in Microsoft's own Office 2004 for Mac for which they still aren't selling an alternative. Their OOXML converter is a silly joke. Convert an old Word XP HTML to Word 97 (doc) to Wordperfect to Word 95 to RTF and it will still look much better than the laughable output of their converter.
... especially coming from a full-time salaried employee of International Business Machines, who by cosmic coincidence recently released a product that uses ODF and competes (or tries to compete) Microsoft Office.
I must've missed the memo that declared "evangelism" as the new corporate-sponsored FUD. But boy, it does feel wholesome.
This means a lot...especially coming from a full-time salaried employee of International Business Machines,
So what? Don't you think an open dialogue between competitors is much better than shady backroom dealings that screw the customer?
who by cosmic coincidence recently released a product that uses ODF and competes (or tries to compete) Microsoft Office.
ODF was the first to be recognised as an ISO standard, it's MS that's trying to compete and catch up... and making a very bad attempt of it, besides.
I must've missed the memo that declared "evangelism" as the new corporate-sponsored FUD. But boy, it does feel wholesome.
If it's FUD, why not expose it by refuting any opinions in the article. Not every corporate-sponsored research is FUD... not every company is Microsoft! Maybe you are a full-time paid shill for them?
I must've missed the memo that declared "evangelism" as the new corporate-sponsored FUD. But boy, it does feel wholesome.
Where in the article do you see "evangelism"? Weir is stating a bunch of relevant facts and providing a bunch of useful pointers. What is wrong with that?
2+2 is always 4. You may disagree with everything I stand for; you may think I represent evil incarnate, or that I'm just lazy hippie scum; but if I say "2+2=4", you kind of have to agree with me.
So, unless you're actually going to dispute the fact that:
There are 662 separate PDFs
The comments and the resolutions to the comments are on completely separate pages
The whole thing is password-protected
Unless there's something factually wrong with that, pretty much anyone can independently figure out that the process sucks giant donkey balls.
by Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday December 04 2007, @01:29AM (#21568839)
Well you're not missing much because the 662 responses are mostly grammatical fixes and the big stuff is yet to come. Read the country comments at iso-vote.com/comments [iso-vote.com]
just woke up to find the server not responding, checked slashdot whilst starting to fix it . . . OH SHIT, now I know why it is down! I will try to keep it up.
I can confirm that Microsoft's plan all along was to get Rob to publish something like this, then have it pushed to/. to ensure that all sites quickly become unavailable!
Hopefully, normal service should be resumed shortly.
FTA: "The CHAR() function converts an integer into a character. But no character set was defined in the DIS to govern this conversion. Microsoft clarrified tis saying that the function uses the "Macintosh character set"on the Mac and ANSI on all other platforms."
That means the same soon-to-be-ISO-standard OOXML file can be interpreted differently, depending on the 'platform' in which it is being used / read! Typical Microsoft rubbish.... and AGAIN!
Also Rob responds to a query: "Even their correction is ambiguous. What is the "MacIntosh Character Set"? There is Mac OS Roman, MacCyrillic, MacIcelandic, Mac Central European, and with OS X we have UTF-8 as the default." Hilarious!
And again, probing a bit deeper into the ANSI character set for Windows... there's no such thing apparently: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI [wikipedia.org]
In Microsoft Windows, the phrase "ANSI" refers to the Windows ANSI code pages (even though they are not ANSI standards[1]). Most of these are fixed width, though some characters for ideographic languages are variable width. Since these characters are based on a draft of the ISO-8859 series, some of Microsoft's symbols are visually very similar to the ISO symbols, leading many to falsely assume that they are identical.
To top it all, quoting from a response:
One thing to note here is that MS explicitly do not support UTF-8 as an non-UCS2 encoding[1], while most Linux distributions are moving towards putting everything in UTF-8. So it would likely be the case in the near future that Linux and Windows users would not share a common platform character set, even if they spoke the same language. (e.g. Windows English British in Windows-1252, and Linux en_GB.UTF-8)
And I thought Vista was the most confusing stuff from Microsoft!
by Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday December 04 2007, @02:48AM (#21569219)
In Microsoft Windows, the phrase "ANSI" refers to the Windows ANSI code pages (even though they are not ANSI standards...
I think Microsoft should rename its text encoding as Windows Text Format... or WTF! Everyone can undesrtand exactly what WTF means, without any ambiguity! Hell.. even rename OOXML as WTFML, no need to look it up on Wikpedia to understand!
Although I work for Microsoft, I really have no personal interest in whether or not OOXML becomes a standard. I do, however, enjoy playing devil's advocate (and believe me, I do the same in support of non-MS tech at work).
That means the same soon-to-be-ISO-standard OOXML file can be interpreted differently, depending on the 'platform' in which it is being used / read! Typical Microsoft rubbish.... and AGAIN!
This link gives me reason to believe that Brian Jones and his team have at least done their homework:
the site is a Wordpress blog on Apache and MySQL with Debian as the operating system. It is on a fairly well occupied server, it is actually running in a xen virtual machine. It has loads of bandwidth available, it is in a big datacentre in London. At the moment I can't SSH into the box, I am doing a reboot from the xen admin console (just saw it switch to runlevel 0 - it is running still, but very very slowly.)
What settings should I tweak to help it stay up under the impressive load of a slashdot effect? I am going to get more of the host resources allocated to it later (more RAM for a start) but I am not sure what else I can do. I might turn off some of the logging (although I would like to see the logs for today).
Since it sounds like bandwidth isn't your problem, you can start by optimising your filesystem mount options for speed, particularly the partition carrying your log files, as these will be writing like crazy right now. For example, in/etc/fstab, for xfs use "noatime,nodiratime,logbufs=8". For reiserfs, "noatime,notail". Do mount -a to effect the changes right away.
Wordpress is notorious for killing servers with heavy loads when there are many incoming connections. You could try making a temporary static page and disable Wordpress for a day or two; then in the comments section make a notice along the lines of "Sorry, due to server issues, commenting has been disabled until 2007-12-06". You could also see if CoralCache [coralcdn.org] can help you out a smidgeon. Check this page [coralcdn.org] for further details.
Also, a piece of advice: don't sink money into an upgrade because you've been on/. frontpage once. If the load continues to be high, then yeah, go for it, but slashdotters have a short attention span. See a tale about slashdottings here [smu.edu]
on the site at the moment are the 3492 (ECMA say there are 3522, not sure where the extra ones came from) comments from the.zip file of.doc files of the country comments. About 750 or so (I would tell you exactly if I could see my site) have been classified. I think in my inbox there is a mail with a leak of the 622 responses, I would tell you for certain if my email server hadn't just been slashdotted. I will identify the 622 comments as soon as I can and we can all laugh at them together. I think the general format is "we agree . . . blah blah blah . . . we are not going to do anything about it"
The only thing good ECMA is widely known for is ECMAscript. I'll assume everyone here knows that is Javascript (a.k.a. ECMA-262, ratified in 1999; 56-63 years ago in Internet Years). Otherwise, all ECMA is knowing for is taking Microsoft's money and then bending over. By this point ECMA should have as much pull with sovereign governments (and the populaces that grant them power) as the hand written standard for communicating standards via written language I have here beside me that I just wrote.
Why doesn't Microsoft use their super productive RAD tools to give the comments/resolutions in multiple formats? Why does some (well intentioned) dude have to do all the work himself? I have been led to believe that Microsoft has several hundred employees and billions of dollars, and their marketting people assure me that Visual Studio.NET + ASP.NET + SQL Server are the best things since the invention of the internet. Surely they should be able to slap together a web app with their own tools, _and_ still have a button/link which gives the results as an archive of multiple.doc files.
Would have sworn it is a comment on a slashdot thread! Way to go Alan Bell!! 3 cheers. - - - - - - US - 270
Naming DIS 29500: The current name of DIS 29500, Office Open XML is seriously misleading in several respects. First, it is not a document format based on XML but rather an XML representation of a legacy document format with particular processing semantics. Second, reference should not be made to commercial products and clearly "Office" in the title of this proposal is meant as a reference to Microsoft Office. Lastly, the proposal is no more or less open than any other ISO proposal and so "Open" is meaningless in this context.
It is suggested that a new name be chosen for the proposal that reflects its goal of representing and continuing a legacy document format as represented in XML. Such a name should not carry an implied reference to a Microsoft product nor should it use the term "open." One possible name would be: Legacy Document Formats Represented in XML. The principles developed from this effort might well prove effective for other legacy document formats that should be represented in XML.
There are very many anonymous posts today, which all share a common style. Absolutely lacking any arguments, maybe to not attract further discussion, but clearly intended to make the whole issue around OOXML appear as a solely political one. Posts discrediting the slashdot crowd, post discrediting critics as IBM puppets.
OOXML IS a seriously flawed standard. There were endless very level headed comments on slashdot listing serious issues (e.g. the recently talked about "ANSI" and "Mac codepage" references)
Hrmph. (Score:3, Funny)
Is there a mirror to be found?
Re:Hrmph. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Our company monitors Slashdot and keeps you running even when the Slashdot effect kicks in." (Wouldn't you like *YOUR* job to involve reading Slashdot.....well on purpose.)
Layne
said customer is very happy to be running on a VM (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yet another server casualty that could have been prevented with BitTorrent.
I like the country count. (Score:5, Interesting)
Goes to show a few people CAN make a difference.
Re: (Score:2)
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...due to a lack of genetic biodiversity...
Why the PC terms? It's called inbreeding. I should know, I'm from another people that was almost wiped by European diseases that we couldn't handle.
They weren't trying to in-breed, unlike your bunch ;-). They just never had contact with any new migrations after the land bridge closed up (three or four waves of migration from 40k to 10k years ago are represented in their mitochondrial DNA). With a 28% chance of having a near identical immune system as somebody else, versus 2% for Europeans, the virulence was unheard of, even by European standards.
Though, they main reason they're around today in some form is due to hybridization with the new visitors
I believe I speak for most of us.. (Score:5, Funny)
We don't RTFA much more those 662 files.
- but
We could comment on it now if you wish...
We would download it anyway to archive the world's internet and determine the melting point of silicon in your everyday datacenter...
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
A) I think you answered what the problem is. That "Open" file format only works on your closed system.
B) Don't ask what the 662 comments can do for you but what you can do for the 662 comments.
Re:I believe I speak for most of us.. (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Bill's 662 responses (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bill's 662 responses (Score:5, Funny)
640 should be enough evil for anyone.
Parent
This means a lot... (Score:2, Interesting)
I must've missed the memo that declared "evangelism" as the new corporate-sponsored FUD. But boy, it does feel wholesome.
Re:This means a lot... (Score:5, Insightful)
So what? Don't you think an open dialogue between competitors is much better than shady backroom dealings that screw the customer?
who by cosmic coincidence recently released a product that uses ODF and competes (or tries to compete) Microsoft Office.
ODF was the first to be recognised as an ISO standard, it's MS that's trying to compete and catch up... and making a very bad attempt of it, besides.
I must've missed the memo that declared "evangelism" as the new corporate-sponsored FUD. But boy, it does feel wholesome.
If it's FUD, why not expose it by refuting any opinions in the article. Not every corporate-sponsored research is FUD... not every company is Microsoft! Maybe you are a full-time paid shill for them?
Parent
Please get an account (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
and the problem is... ? (Score:2)
Where in the article do you see "evangelism"? Weir is stating a bunch of relevant facts and providing a bunch of useful pointers. What is wrong with that?
...It kind of does. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes, you don't have to consider the source.
2+2 is always 4. You may disagree with everything I stand for; you may think I represent evil incarnate, or that I'm just lazy hippie scum; but if I say "2+2=4", you kind of have to agree with me.
So, unless you're actually going to dispute the fact that:
Unless there's something factually wrong with that, pretty much anyone can independently figure out that the process sucks giant donkey balls.
Parent
obligitory anti-MS line.... (Score:5, Funny)
662 strikes against OOXML? (Score:3, Funny)
Slashdotted (Score:5, Informative)
662 responses? (Score:5, Funny)
Open (Score:5, Insightful)
db
sorry about the slashdotting (Score:5, Funny)
This has been our plan all along... (Score:2)
Interesting 'resolution'.... still confusing! (Score:5, Informative)
That means the same soon-to-be-ISO-standard OOXML file can be interpreted differently, depending on the 'platform' in which it is being used / read! Typical Microsoft rubbish.... and AGAIN!
Also Rob responds to a query: "Even their correction is ambiguous. What is the "MacIntosh Character Set"? There is Mac OS Roman, MacCyrillic, MacIcelandic, Mac Central European, and with OS X we have UTF-8 as the default." Hilarious!
And again, probing a bit deeper into the ANSI character set for Windows... there's no such thing apparently:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Interesting 'resolution'.... still confusing! (Score:4, Funny)
I think Microsoft should rename its text encoding as Windows Text Format... or WTF! Everyone can undesrtand exactly what WTF means, without any ambiguity! Hell.. even rename OOXML as WTFML, no need to look it up on Wikpedia to understand!
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I do, however, enjoy playing devil's advocate (and believe me, I do the same in support of non-MS tech at work).
That means the same soon-to-be-ISO-standard OOXML file can be interpreted differently, depending on the 'platform' in which it is being used / read! Typical Microsoft rubbish.... and AGAIN!
This link gives me reason to believe that Brian Jones and his team have at least done their homework:
http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2007/02/20/beyond-the-basics.aspx [msdn.com]
I'd rather a well-defined platform-specific behavior than an ill-defined application-specific behavior.
On an unrel
Any suggestions to slashdotproof it? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: (Score:2, Funny)
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Just my 2 cents.
db
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Wordpress is the problem (Score:4, Informative)
You could also see if CoralCache [coralcdn.org] can help you out a smidgeon. Check this page [coralcdn.org] for further details.
Also, a piece of advice: don't sink money into an upgrade because you've been on
Parent
Better: WP-supercache (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
sounds good (Score:2)
whilst the server is rebooting, a small correction (Score:5, Interesting)
Pardon the Language: Fuck ECMA (Score:2, Interesting)
By this point ECMA should have as much pull with sovereign governments (and the populaces that grant them power) as the hand written standard for communicating standards via written language I have here beside me that I just wrote.
That stupidit
The response. (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't you mean "Screw you guys, I'm going home"
Re: (Score:2)
MS Tools (Score:3, Interesting)
Sharepoint (Score:2)
Sharepoint: embracing and extending Intranets (Score:2)
Very interesting amendment, from USA no less!! (Score:5, Interesting)
- - - - - -
US - 270
Naming DIS 29500: The current name of DIS 29500, Office Open XML is seriously misleading in several respects. First, it is not a document format based on XML but rather an XML representation of a legacy document format with particular processing semantics. Second, reference should not be made to commercial products and clearly "Office" in the title of this proposal is meant as a reference to Microsoft Office. Lastly, the proposal is no more or less open than any other ISO proposal and so "Open" is meaningless in this context.
It is suggested that a new name be chosen for the proposal that reflects its goal of representing and continuing a legacy document format as represented in XML. Such a name should not carry an implied reference to a Microsoft product nor should it use the term "open." One possible name would be: Legacy Document Formats Represented in XML. The principles developed from this effort might well prove effective for other legacy document formats that should be represented in XML.
DIS 29500
Re:slashdotted (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Paid anonymous posters (Score:3, Insightful)