rants

Eric Raymond is back and has written, with his very recognizable style, that he dislikes what Microsoft is doing to get OOXML approved by the International Standards Organization.  Good old ESR is so disgusted by the maneuvers to destroy ISO’s credibility only to maintain Microsoft’s monopoly on Office that he is willing to change his mind about Open Source Initiative’s position:

OSI will treat any licenses submitted to Microsoft strictly on their merits, without fear or favor. That remains OSI’s position. But…

Yes, there is a but, he says:

Despite my previous determination, I find I’m almost ready to recommend that OSI tell Microsoft to ram its licenses up one of its own orifices, even if they are technically OSD compliant. Because what good is it to conform to the letter of OSD if you’re raping its spirit?

I agree with ESR: who cares if some of Microsoft’s license technically grant four freedoms (or 9 principles). The problem is that Microsoft is not being a good member of the digital society, it’s still acting as a bully in the school backyard.

Now I wish Eric recognized that what he said means that OSI is about moral principles as much as FSFs are and there is nothing to be ashamed for this.

Boy, FakeSteveJobs is so funny, even when he calls us ‘freetards‘.  This post is not about rms not getting an iphone, but it’s aimed directly at Gates and about Vista. It’s an interesting read because it could be a post that one of us could have written (and probably did).  I love the advice to get rid of Ballmer: I think that most of the bad in Microsoft comes from him, too 🙂

Because you know what you’ve become? You’ve become the Grinch. You’ve become a tax collector. You’re the guy people hide from when you ride into town. It’s not good. You need to do something about that. 

Architects are taught from day one at school that pictures are worth a thousand words if you want to describe something.  Look at the picture of the specifications of Microsoft OOXML standard: doesn’t it scream Interoperability is IMPOSSIBLE to you?

Read more on Pavel’s diary

Oh, come on!? This is not a community, it’s a list of companies  that are doing business with Microsoft and have been doing so for a looooong time. There is no space for discussions, comments, hints and tips, chats or any other form of interaction.  Anybody that agrees that his

Company Name and URL may be published on this website and shared with ISO national standards bodies.

What is Microsoft trying to demonstrate here? That they have many partners? It’s not a secret, we all know it already.  How that site is going to demonstrate that OpenXML deserves to be called an ‘open standard‘ is beyond my understanding. Unless Microsoft really thinks that the ISO national standards bodies can be fooled by a list of companies on a useless web site.

Sam Hiser has started giving a look at Microsoft’s Office Open XML License.  His first reading classify this license as

a promise that, in practice, is not a promise.

PlexNex: Analyzing the Microsoft Office Open XML License

What do you think of it?   

There is a song translated in Italian (the original in English  says ‘eveybody must get stoned’) that more or less says:

you’re beautiful and they throw stones at you, you’re ugly and they throw stones. Whatever you do, they will always throw stones at you.

This article made me think of this song 🙂

Che giornate sono state quelle appena passate.  Carlo Piana, Georg Greve, Andrew Tridgell, Joachim Jakobs e Antonella Beccaria hanno trascorso una settimana intera in Lussemburgo, sveglia alle 8, colazione e inizio a lavorare alle 9 per finire intorno alle 23.  Tutto per preparare le presentazioni necessarie a convincere la corte che la Commissione Europea ha avuto ragione a condannare Microsoft.  Per sapere com’è andata invito tutti a leggere i post di Greve sull’argomento (giorno 2, 3parte1, 3parte2, e i restanti due giorni 4 e 5) e le interviste su NYT/IHT e altro recuperabile con google news.  Purtroppo pare che la stampa italiana sia in vacanza (e impegnata a seguire la soap opera ‘avanti miei prodi’) e nessuno¹ abbia segnalato nemmeno che le udienze fossero in corso.  Neppure i blogger nostrani se ne sono accorti.  Peccato, anche perché su GNUvox l’avevamo detto. E dal Lussemburgo Antonella ha anche aggiornato il reportage parlando della strategia brevettuale e la ‘blue bubble‘  (Recitiamo il mea culpa: abbiamo ancora bisogno di migliorare l’efficacia della nostra comunicazione, e lo stiamo già facendo).

Credo sia doveroso ringraziare tutti quanti per il loro impegno e per aver trascurato lavoro e affetti per la trasferta in Lussemburgo.  Nei prossimi giorni pubblicheremo maggiori resoconti e commenti su GNUvox e sui blog di fsfe.org:  freedom bits e JJ’s blog. 

¹ Aggiornamento: repubblica.it ha riportato brevemente che le udienze erano in corso

The golder words, used by Microlobbyists is always the same:

The market should decide

But the same Microlobbyists don’t accept that a perfectly legitimate market player, the Commonwealth of Massachussets has decided not to choose Microsoft.

Then the Microlobbyists go on and repeat the same words:

The market should decide

Are we talking to automatic bots? If so, AI programmers Microsoft should be doing a better job. 🙂

It is quite funny sometimes to wake up and read that Microsoft is ‘suggesting’ the people of Massachussets to hold on and wait for their own standard to be deployed. Groklaw has a transcript of the hearing held on Dec. 14th where Microsoft simply says "well, ok, there is one standard (ODF) already approved and ready to be deployed, but you should also wait for ours to be approved and deployed because the public administration should not interfere with the market". This is such a load of unacceptable "fuffa" (buzz, noise). The real question should always be "Why on hearth Microsoft doesn’t provide import/export support for ODF?" We don’t need two standards! That would be a technical mess, IMHO: imagine the same document, released by the government in two formats, and the two documents don’t have the same content. What will be the official doc? We need Microsoft to stop its arrogance NOW. They had their chances to hand their formats to independent standard bodies but they FAILED to do so. Now a open standard exists and it is the OASIS OpenDocument Format, it is acceptable for ALL players (free and non-free software) and it is on its way to become a ISO standard. What shall we Fellows do to make it clear that Microsoft has put itself in a corner and the ‘market’ should force it to adapt to ODF?