When is a standard NOT a standard?

On the 29th of September I posted that MS had no intention of publishing its own document format. I guess I spoke too soon, or rather too soon and not with the right publisher. Seems like MS has decided to have ECMA International do the publishing of their Office formats - Microsoft to Open up Office Formats from Slashdot. As noted in the comments, the spec won't be published until 18 months (best guess?) from whenever MS submits it to ECMAI, nor will it allow the READING of the file formats - just the WRITING of the file formats. There might be other conditions that apply to anyone looking to see/use the MS specification, but that is just conjecture at this point. However, it should be clear what MS is doing with this move.

1. MS will seem to have a standard Office file format - the ECMA Internation says so - but nobody can review it for another 18 months (remember vaporware?). Thus anyone wanting to impliment this new format has to wait...
   
2. MS appears to be opening up the Office file formats, yet this only covers the creation of files in the Office file format - you can't actually read those files, which makes any software besides MS Office (and perhaps an MS Office file reader) rather limited.
3. MS would rather make it so everyone has to play the MS game with the MS file formats, than to adopt a true open standard - ODF - and take on the likes of OpenOffice, StarOffice, Abi Word, KWrite, etc. in a feature to feature shootout. Probably because these other office suites/word processors can beat MS Office in features per dollar (StarOffice being the most expensive of the alternatives at roughly $70 per seat retail).

It seems strange that MS was part of the ODF specification team, yet refuses to offer that format in their office products. Is it just because they are too proud to allow somebody else's standard in their products, or are the MS coders just too inept to be able to impliment the ODF standard? Probably neither. It just might be the fear that MS Office would have to compete with FOSS and other low-cost software, and MS wouldn't stand a chance to bring in the multi-millions of dollars that the MS Office products do now.

So when is a standard not a standard? When Microsoft says it is a standard. The only Microsoft standard is making money however they can get away with it.

Office 12 beta out

Okay, from /. - Office 12 beta
If this new learning curve isn't enough to make you want to switch to an open source alternative such as Open Office then I don't know what will. That crap that MS calls "new" and "inovative" takes up more screen space than the document. How is that supposed to make me write better and be more productive? Do yourself a favor and save some bucks, go with Open Office.

J*

EFF: DeepLinks - Free Speech vs. Bad Advice - "Attack on the Blogs" and Fighting Back

Well, I blog here. This absolutely affects me and my right to free speech. Check out the link to the Legal Guide for Bloggers.

J*

OpenOffice.org Macros

The article has four macros for OpenOffice, and links to other macro repositories. Good info that can help you expand your knowledge and use of OpenOffice.

OpenOffice.org 2.0

Found this really great article on Mad Penguin (via Slashdot) today. Great stuff...

http://madpenguin.org/cms/index.php/?m=show&id=5304&page=1

Still more just not getting it...

Ran across this article on NewsForge: http://trends.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/10/01/1548246&from=rss

While I like the way this is reported, I noticed the discussion of the article has the usual mix of likes and dislikes. It is the arguments of the dislikes that bother me the most. Time for a clue.

Past unethical practices of a company, especially a continuous pattern of unethical practices, is worth reporting. It tells you something about the company. It tells you something about the level of trust you should give/have of said company. In the case of Microsoft, I am of the opinion that anything and everything they announce should be taken with a ton of salt. This is a company that has announced the intention to create software (vaporware) just to steal the limelight from a competitor, then later buys out said market-depressed competitor to finally have the software MS promised RSN. Who are you going to believe now?

They just don't get it...

It is quite obvious that some folks are just too close to Microsoft to be able to sniff the coffee. Take for example this article from Fox News:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170724,00.html

The thing that gets me the most is the lack of real thought put into that article. It seems that folks would rather continue with the status quo - which Microsoft is fine to see happen - than to take a moment or two to explore - as the IT folks in Massachusetts did - alternatives to continue paying for software that makes you dependent upon the good graces of a company to enable you (the author) and everybody else (the readers) to have access to the documents created by said proprietary software. The switch to the OpenDocument standard allows you to keep your rights as the author of the document without worry that some software manufacturer will take away or limit those rights; and allows software makers to create new software, or modify and expand existing software, to work with this STANDARD for documents. Since Microsoft wants to continue pushing their own document format (that continues to change every few years, isn't backwards compatible with previous versions, and does not have any plans to have published document format specifications open to everyone) regardless of any published, open standards - much as MS has done with every other standard designed to open up competition in software by setting a level playing field - and refuses to play nice with others. Instead, the Microsoft PR engine has geared up to fight with its usual arsenal of FUD and willing media shills.

More later...

particletree · Successful Strategies for Commenting Code

Code Commenting article...Very informative and useful!

particletree · Successful Strategies for Commenting Code

particletree · Quick Start Your Design with XHTML Templates

Interesting article about templating xhtml.

particletree · Quick Start Your Design with XHTML Templates

Opening Shot

Well, I've had this blog up for over two months and I am just now writing my first post. What's up with that!?! The truth is, I've not had the time or interest in posting anything. Some topic ideas came up, but I didn't feel motivated to post anything about them here. Today is different, however...

I found this article - a day late to boot - on Slashdot today. The lawsuit appears me (yeah, just my non-legal humble opinion) to be a way for the original author/corporation to CTA (cover their ass). They might have posted something that was "wrong" and don't want to be held liable for their "mistake" back then because they have since "fixed" the "wrongness".

HEYA! Just because you are a learned expert (doctor even) on a subject doesn't mean that you can't possibly ever be wrong! Mistakes do happen buddy. Live with it! For that matter, Joe Public needs to not think it is their civic duty to sue said expert for making a mistake. Maybe, just maybe, for those especially important and life-or-death decisions, you should get more than one opinion before you make the decision. And try not to hold the people that gave you those opinions to an infallible position of authority. They are merely people, no matter their level of education, and can/will make mistakes like everyone else does.

Of course, this has me thinking about my own web site and the copyright notice there. Time to explore the Creative Commons (link and link) to see what my options are.

J*