The Fire Next Time
,----[ Quote ]
| There are no true altruists in the standards game.
|
| Every urge government has is to extract the setting of standards from the
| market and establish them for the common good, as monopolies are inherently
| anticompetitive. The problem is that in fast-changing, evolving spaces - like
| IT - bureaucratic or communal attempts at setting standards are hopelessly
| slow.
`----
http://www.govtech.com/gt/224391?topic=117688
"It just tells you how desperate Microsoft is for a competitor that they’re
holding up a software box produced by 100 guys in the hills of North Carolina.
Who are they trying to kid?"
--Robert Young, CEO of Red Hat
About Microsoft, being anticompetitive is one thing, but being outright corrupt
is another.
Related:
Corrupt countries were more likely to support the OOXML document format
,----[ Quote ]
| Is this just a random coincidence? The median of the CPI index of the above
| mentioned 70 countries is 3.95. Of the most corrupted half (CPI index less
| than 3.95) 23 or 77% voted for approval (approval or approval with comments)
| and 7 or 23% for disapproval; 5 abstained. Of the least corrupted half (CPI
| index more than 3.95) 13 or 54% voted for approval and 11 or 46% voted for
| disapproval; 11 abstained - see the table below.
`----
http://www.effi.org/blog/kai-2007-09-05.en.html
Microsoft accused of more OOXML standards fiddling
,----[ Quote ]
| However the 11 new countries are refusing to say how they will vote. These
| include Cote d'Ivoire, Cyprus, Ecuador, Jamaica, Lebanon, Malta, Pakistan,
| Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Uruguay and Venezuela. Most people seem to think
| that these have been put there by Vole to make sure the standard gets pushed
| through.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=42106
Legacy format FUD
,----[ Quote ]
| From CyberTech Rambler (and Slashdot) comes the news that the Office 2003
| Service Pack #3 disables (blocks) access to a number of legacy document
| formats. Details are in this MS support article. Formats so blocked include
| legacy Lotus 1-2-3 and Corel Quattro Pro formats. Why? According to the
| Microsoft support article, "By default, these file formats are blocked
| because they are less secure. They may pose a risk to you.".
|
| [...]
|
| Now it may be entirely possible that these old import filters in Excel are
| poorly written and poorly maintained and that Microsoft may be trying to
| reduce the overall security exposure of MS Office by ditching old code that
| is not strategic for them. But call it that. The MS Office code has the
| problem. Don't malign the formats. Don't make up some untenable story that
| DIF format is "less secure" and "may pose a risk for you".
`----
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2008/01/legacy-format-fud.html
|
|
