Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> ____/ Mark Kent on Thursday 31 January 2008 07:52 : \____
>
>> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>>> ____/ Mark Kent on Wednesday 30 January 2008 13:25 : \____
>>>
>>>> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>>>>> Going to OOXML great lengths
>>>>>
>>>>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>>>>| We landed directly at the Seattle-Tacoma airport to attend a press
>>>>>| briefing by software giant Microsoft, in the nearby cities of Kirkland
>>>>>| and Redmond.
>>>>>|
>>>>>| Why am I telling you this? Well, I'd like to think that Microsoft is
>>>>>| going out of its way to reach out to technology journalists from the far
>>>>>| corners of the world, to argue its case in what has become a very
>>>>>| contentious issue in the IT industry.
>>>>>|
>>>>>| [...]
>>>>>|
>>>>>| The Philippines is one of the countries that voted "no", which partly
>>>>>| explains why we were invited to attend the press briefing.
>>>>> `----
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.zdnetasia.com/blog/pinoypost/0,3800005677,63001918,00.htm
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> "Reach out" meaning, err, shut up? I suspect a lot of Philipino
>>>> journalists would be deeply disturbed if the Philipines vote were to
>>>> change from the right and proper "no" to a "yes, we think an
>>>> unimplementable standard should be approved by ISO so that Microsoft can
>>>> con government purchasers into thinking they're getting something which
>>>> is interoperable".
>>>
>>> I'm still finding more of that stuff at the moment. Microsoft has amassed a
>>> small army of "zombie journalists" (one of them told me he found this phrase
>>> offensive because I'm sort of at war against that astroturfing now).
>>> Microsoft is showing its true colours. Media control!
>>>
>>
>> We need to be at war with that kind of Astroturfing - it always has been
>> wrong, and for professional journalists to do it is reprehensible. They
>> should know better.
>
> He is aware of this issue and this information was passed on to various other
> forums.
>
> http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/29/journalists-digest-odf-fud/
> http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/30/quick-mention-brett-winterford-at-it-again-microsoft-mouthpiece/
>
>>
>> Incidentally, there was a piece in this week's Private Eye about the
>> "death of British journalism", indicating that they only ever carry
>> stories about breasts, sex, footballers, television programmes about
>> sex, breasts, footballers, and "pop stars" etc.
>>
>> You only have to look at the Madeleine McCann incident to see how easy
>> it is now to manipulate the press - the papers just print what they've
>> been told to by the McCann's "publicist".
>
> Well, here it's not about football and boobs. It's about people's businesses,
> which mustn't be locked in to a single bad and expensive application that only
> works properly on one convicted monopolist's platform.
>
Indeed, and also governments, government agencies, corporations (like
the BBC and others), Libraries, Archives, etc.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
| Cola faq: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/linux/advocacy/faq-and-primer/ |
| Cola trolls: http://colatrolls.blogspot.com/ |
| My (new) blog: http://www.thereisnomagic.org |
|
|
