____/ Mark Kent on Tuesday 28 August 2007 11:53 : \____
> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>> ____/ Mark Kent on Tuesday 28 August 2007 10:18 : \____
>>
>>> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>>>> ____/ Mark Kent on Friday 24 August 2007 18:56 : \____
>>>>
>>>>> [H]omer <spam@xxxxxxx> espoused:
>>>>>> Verily I say unto thee, that Roy Schestowitz spake thusly:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> | Linus: I actually don't worry about MS at all.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Why should he? After all he "likes Tivoisation", so the prospect of
>>>>>> Microsoft turning GNU/Linux into just another proprietary blob of
>>>>>> Microsoft patented code shouldn't bother him at all. They're just
>>>>>> "sharing" his code then "giving" it back, aren't they? So OK, what
>>>>>> they're "giving back" is toxic waste designed to poison the Free
>>>>>> Software community, but hey ... that's just nit-picking.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> There's also this:
>>>>>
>>>>> " Linus: I don't really have a hugely strong opinion on it. Business is
>>>>> business, and I don't get involved with it; "
>>>>>
>>>>> And yet, what could be more critical to business than the patent threat,
>>>>> and the need for GPLv3, and the elimination of binary drivers as a
>>>>> lock-in mechanism? The problem I have with the above statement is that
>>>>> he clearly /does/ get involved, very frequently, and very deeply, and
>>>>> yet often lacks the kind of experiences myself and others have had, so
>>>>> fails to recognise what business actually needs. At least, the
>>>>> customers, anyway. From a vendor perspective, binary drivers are a
>>>>> great lock-in enabler.
>>>>
>>>> I have been thinking about it recently. What Linus does is, on one level,
>>>> brilliant. He is very focused on ensuring that he keeps kernel stuff in
>>>> mind. He doesn't want to be distracted, so he leaves the 'politics' to
>>>> others. The problem with that is that he /TOTALLY/ fails to understand
>>>> what Microsoft is up to (Mark Shuttleworth, on the other hand, knows it
>>>> all too well), so he makes licence choice with only technical issues (e.g.
>>>> TiVo) in mind.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Of course, the GPL was always a political issue, so you can't really
>>> make licence choices without considering the politics. Naive people
>>> always like to think that they can be separated, like sport and
>>> politics. They can't.
>>
>> In an idea world they could. But look what Microsoft does to OOXML debates,
>> which ought to have been technical. It was long ago that people around the
>> world, some of whom I know, accused Microsoft of turning the whole thing
>> into politics. As OOXML is very weak on technical grounds, making
>> non-technical people concentrate on politics is much easier. Later on, the
>> corruption came as well.
>>
>
> Even way back when only Telcos were in the ITU, when I used to attend,
> many debates were hotly political. Many countries had their own
> manufacturers just like they had their own telcos, and would work to try
> to get standardised the work of their indigenous suppliers. The IETF
> merely made this process overt!
>
> OOXML has highlighted that the ISO process is completely broken, and
> amazingly easy to rig, in this case by Microsoft, but who knows who
> might try it next time?
>
> ECMA is a joke; it always was a mouthpiece for a handful of vendors,
> but the OOXML disaster has highlighted the uselessness of ECMA.
In BN we referred to ECMA as a coin-in-the-slot organisation and a production
line. Rob Weir (of IBM) showed some slides from Ecma that could leave you
speechless.
The closer I looked at OOXML (Groklaw got me more into it), the more crime I
saw. This appealed to me because it became the next "DR-DOS"-type attack, ODF
being the target.
In years to come, all these information from the TC and anonymous leaks from
those who attended to meetings could truly serve the courts. I don't think
Microsoft will walk away calmly and peacefully. It's downtown Beirut in the
ISO panels.
--
~~ Best of wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | Useless fact: Digits 772-777 of Pi are 999999
http://Schestowitz.com | Open Prospects | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
Tasks: 122 total, 1 running, 120 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
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