Software Free

One of the great things about the blogosphere is the scope it provides for the unfettered rant – a piece where the author is totally and utterly out of his or her pram. I should know: as a blogger, I've penned a few myself. So I was delighted to come across a fine example, which begins thus:

Another anti-Microsoft (MSFT) front group has emerged in favor of “free and open standards,” hyping what it calls the Hague Declaration and making some absurd connection to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The propagandists, partially funded by publicly traded companies, have a little trouble describing what that term “free and open standards” means (or even using it consistently) but the group has no trouble indicating its political stripes. Unbelievably it calls itself Digistan, apparently to indentify with the fascist terrorists based in countries and regions using the Farsi-based suffix “stan.”

Bookmark/Search this post with:

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Source: open...

ODF as a default format was first adopted by OpenOffice.org (OOo). Naturally, when OOXML’s approval cast a doubt on ODF, we sought reactions of the OOo team, on how they viewed the future of OOo, ODF and OOXML. Thus, this interview, which was conducted over a series of e-mails, with Louis Suarez-Potts, community manager, OpenOffice.org.

The problem with Alex Browns validation test is, that he is using a document from OpenOffice.org 2.4 and validates it against the ISO-approved standard. Jesper Lund Stocholm claims that he has created some documents with various versions of OpenOffice.org that doens't validates correctly.

read more

There was clearly a transaction of money made by Microsoft in Norway, which passed it on to ISO.

...and some dosh.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Standards are supposed to be about a process of creating points of reference that people can rely upon, arrived at through a process of careful honing and consensus. Against this background, the manner in which Microsoft's OOXML has been put through the ISO has been astonishing.

read more

The International Organization for Standardization's OpenDocument Format standard is broken and needs to be mended, according to an expert who claims to have carried out tests on the format.

A presentation from an IBM employee in Europe has just been shared a little more publicly. It describes the serious problems ISO will be facing after the countless OOXML scandals that worked in Microsoft’s favour.

The latest strip is available at Free Software Magazine.

This takes the cake. Alex Brown has just admitted on his Griffin Brown blog and further to ZDNET UK's Peter Judge that Microsoft Office 2007 has failed two OOXML conformance tests he ran. First ZDNET:
In a blog posting this week, Alex Brown, revealed that Microsoft Office 2007 documents do not meet the latest specifications of the ISO OOXML draft standard.

read more

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has not received a formal appeal of its approval of Office Open XML as a standard, but it looks more unlikely with each day that passes.

The meeting was a farce and the result was a scandal. But it’s not over yet, and one thing is clear: the “little one” is unfit to represent the interests of Norwegian users. It’s time he was told, “Roll over, roll over…”

Shine the light, shine the light, people...

"... Here's a computer translation of the email: «The project of RGI presented at the time of the last committee of the reference frames of October 12, 2007 had been put on standby, following the step engaged in the ISO by the ECMA concerning the OpenXML standard.

read more

A newly-appointed patent bomb gardener, better known as ISO, is unlikely to get much rest. Standards experts continue to have it harshly criticised, but they are gentle and polite. Andy Updegrove uses some sense of humour in response to ISO’s horrific FAQ.