OSNews

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/internet.asp

Thanks for the link, I recommend everyone in OSNEWS to read it.

Please stop posting links to netflix popup ads.

Since looks like you haven't discovered AdBlock plus I'll put a piece of the article:

Often petitions contain no information about whom they are ultimately intended for and instead are no more than outpourings of outrage. Expressions of outrage are fine and good, but if they don't reach someone who can have impact on the core problem, they're wasted. Thus, a petition that doesn't clearly identify the intended recipient may have some small value as a way for its signers to work off angst, but as an instrument of social change it fails

And here is another one related:

Slacktivism: We can't claim credit for having coined this term, nor do we know its actual origin, but we love it nonetheless. Slacktivism is the search for the ultimate feel-good that derives from having come to society's rescue without actually getting one's hands dirty, volunteering any of one's time, or opening one's wallet. It's slacktivism that prompts us to forward appeals for business cards on behalf of a dying child intent upon having his name recorded in the Guinness World Book of Records or exhortations to others to continue circulating a particular e-mail because some big company has supposedly promised that every forward will generate monies for the care of a languishing tot. Likewise, it's slacktivism that prompts us to want to join a boycott of designated gas companies or eschew buying gasoline on a particular day rather than reduce our personal consumption of fossil fuels by driving less and taking the bus more often. Slacktivism comes in many forms, but its defining characteristic is its central theme of doing good with little or no effort on the part of the person inspired to participate, through the mechanisms of forwarding, exhorting, collecting, or e-signing.

There you go.

Edited 2008-05-17 20:13 UTC

While I agree with the sentiment of this (and I doubt MS will ever correct this problem)

OOo doesn't implement ODF correctly either.

I'm sure Koffice and OOo etc... will implement the OASIS standard fine in future, but neither of the "standards" have a fully working implementation anywhere.

I here this oft repeated, daft remark time and time again, and it's usually used as some kind of bizarre justification for Microsoft to go off and implement their own OOXML format in Office, and it makes it all OK. It's quite funny as well, because it's an admission that Office 2007 is not OOXML compatible as the specification is now.

With ODF, people involved with Open Office, KOffice and other software are continually contributing to successive versions of ODF, and no, they're not going to have all of it implemented right now. However, there is an awful lot that has been implemented that is common between different implementations of ODF, and there are test suites and coverage reports available so you can verify how far they have got.

Can Microsoft provide that? Is there a coverage report and test suite for OOXML and Office? Considering that OOXML has been set in stone before it was ever submitted to the ECMA, and no changes have ever been made to it and no successive versions have ever been made, one would have thought that Microsoft would have had a fighting chance of implementing OOXML in Office, per their own specification, properly, no?

Edited 2008-05-18 08:57 UTC

I don't see it as a justification. It's just an interesting footnote in illustrating how difficult it is to live up to published standards. Anybody who doubts this should consider the history of Acid2/3.



Ditto, Microsoft.



I'm not sure that I'd trust anybody's coverage reports without independent verification.



If you want to promote standards compliance, the best way to do it is to establish an independent test (akin to Acid2), and then hold the vendors' feet to the fire.

Edited 2008-05-19 04:20 UTC

That's another justification (oh, it's so difficult to implement our own specification!) - and the reason why we have real compliance issues with web standards is largely down to IE.

Yes, it's difficult to get different implementations of the same thing, but that's assuming that people are actually trying to implement said specification. In the case of ODF there's evidence that people are working towards covering the whole spec, and you can happily exchange documents today to a larger extent. In the case of OOXML, and Microsoft, there's little evidence to suggest they're trying that hard.


Hmmmm, no. I haven't seen successive versions of OOXML submitted to the ECMA and ISO, and I've seen no activity out of the discussion groups as to what will change. It's all fire and motion, as Joel Spolsky would say.


It would be nice if they provided anything for the purposes of any kind of verification ;-). It is, after all, their specification.

Catch-22. How would an independent test suite be developed without real input from Microsoft into what their own specification and its elements mean?


There's no fire to hold Microsoft's feet to here, which you and they probably know, which is why people have talked about open document standards and why ODF was developed in the first place. OOXML is a Microsoft backed, owned and developed specification, pure and simple. Unless other people can implement it, and unless Office itself implements it faithfully in a way that lends itself to wider compatibility, it's all a huge waste of time.

See? We just end up going around in a big circle talking about this, which is what Microsoft and their sympathisers hope will happen.

Microsoft appears to have properly supported the ECMA version of the standard in the released Office 2007 product. It will obviously support the final version when the standard is released and the release wave (perhaps a service pack) comes out.

There's a lot of evidence to suggest otherwise, and this is the only way that people can go about verifying what OOXML as in Office 2007 is implemented:

http://ooxmlisdefectivebydesign.blogspot.com/


What final version would this be? We already have it. There have been no successive versions of OOXML submitted to either the ECMA or ISO, and there is no timetable of improvements that Microsoft is going to make as a result of the review sessions and the list of objections.

OOXML was basically granted ISO status on the promise that all those objections could be fixed later. No such undertaking to fix anything has happened.

A good source of information and informed opinion on OOXML's fast track process (among other things) can be found here:

http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/

It is what Groklaw could have been if only Pamela could keep her vitriol under control well enough to avoid it damaging her credibility.

Andy ( http://www.gesmer.com/attorneys/updegrove.php ) is a real, honest to goodness attorney, with long experience practicing in this area of law, which is a real plus. (No IANAL but I think blah blah blah in *his* blog.) His views are, IMO, well balanced. And he is just suspicious enough of Microsoft to keep on eye on things, without spitting venom, making wild claims about them, or making it his life's work to destroy them.

All in all, it is a very informative and useful site for people interested in Groklaw-like topics, but turned off by Pamela.

Edited 2008-05-17 16:03 UTC

In 2005 he was elected to the Boards of Directors of ANSI and the Free Standards Group (FSG), and in 2007 to the Board of Directors of the Linux Foundation

I don't thing we can spect an objetive posture on him, since he is to close to the FSF.

The objetive people I know (not close to MS or the FSF) are ok with the format.

In what way does his being involved with ANSI and the Free Standards Group or the Linux Foundation place him too close to the FSF, which has little to do with those organizations? Have you even bothered to read his opinions?

As a reminder, the original topic was "irregularities in the OOXML fast-track process" and not the quality of the standard, which is a different issue. Please don't try to muddy the waters.

Every minimal flaw in the process will be extrapolated for MS oposers, not because the flaw, but because it gives an excuse to atack MS and OOXML.

If we stay in the technical matters, the ones that count, all the anti-OOXML statements boilds down to nothing.

The anti-OOXML promoters have lost all credibility making false statements and acusations.

Till now, I don't know of any credible source that opose OOXML.

Hilarious. If somebody had even the slightest connection (however many degrees of separation) to Microsoft, practically everyone around here would be jumping him as a "shill" or "astroturfer". Which strikes me a bit hypocritical when FOSS fans think nothing of associations with causes they embrace...

I don't need to be lawyer to come to a correct conclusion whether Microsoft sees GPLed implementations of OOXML as covered by their promise.

When MS lawyers were directly asked if GPLed projects can implement OOXML or any future derivative of it without ever beeing in danger of getting sued by Microsoft, they avoided to say a clear "yes".

So obviously Microsofts lawyers think that sueing somebody over OOXML related patents is possible.
As someone without the money to pay for a lawyer I would not touch OOXML with somebody else's 3 meter pole.