Free Software Linux

It has been a sad spectacle to see the British Library – without doubt once the greatest library in the world, and hence a powerful force for disseminating knowledge as widely as possible - become more and more enmeshed in locking down research in proprietary formats.
On Open Enterprise blog.

It's hard to believe that there was such sound and fury when OOXML was being pushed through the ISO process. At the time, it seemed like the end of the world, since it looked like Microsoft had succeeded in obtaining a nominal parity with ODF, which had been approved earlier.

My, what a difference a year makes....
On Open Enterprise blog.

One of the key moments in the rise of open source was when Massachusetts announced that it was adopting an open standards policy for documents. Since this was a gauntlet flung down for the dominant supplier in this space, Microsoft, it was inevitable that a battle of epic proportions would result. In fact, it turned out to be a very dirty fight, degenerating into ad hominem attacks on the person behind this move to open standards. In some ways, it was a prelude to the equally ugly struggle that took place over Microsoft's attempts to ram its OOXML standard through the ISO process – another important moment in the rise of open standards....
On Open Enterprise blog.

I’ve not penned much on OOXML for quite a while mainly because there really doesn’t seem to be much interest in it outside of a small circle of Microsoft lackeys and puppy dogs. Even MS themselves are making more noise about implementing native ODF support with the just-released SP2 for Office 2007.

Anyway - two blog posts crept on my radar today that are worthy of mention and the cause for my writing at all.

Remember Open Office XML – a name chosen to be as confusingly close to OpenOffice XML as possible – better known as OOXML? Remember how just over a year ago this and many other blogs and news outlets were full of sound and fury, as OOXML slouched its way through the ISO standardisation process, finally staggering across the finishing line at the beginning of April 2008? I certainly do, but it's extraordinary how things can change in a year...
On Open Enterprise blog.

One of the things that disappoints me is the lack of understanding of what's at stake with open source among some of the other open communities. For example, some in the world of open science seem to think it's OK to work with Microsoft, provided it furthers their own specific agenda. Here's a case in point:

John Wilbanks, VP of Science for Creative Commons, gave O'Reilly Media an exclusive sneak preview of a joint announcement that they will be making with Microsoft later today at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference.

As anyone interested in the politics and wider adoption of FOSS will know by now, the Government recently released an updated policy statement regarding “Open Source and Open Standards”. I made a brief comment on it when the news broke, but have now had more time to consider the document and air my thoughts on it.

Firstly, It’s quite minor but nevertheless a shame that the pdf document was issued using Arial and Times New Roman embedded fonts that are not available on a free license. This leads me nicely to my second general point.

Thanks to Roy’s tenacity and constant vigilance, I have learned how it now appears the MS Office binary format that is wrapped in XML and is now known as IS 29500 (OOXML), an ISO Standard Office Document Specification (ROTFL), is giving hackers everywhere a field day.

It is now official and also confirmed that OOXML files are not just insecure but there are also persistent attacks against new flaws (without any security patches being available, i.e. zero-day).

One of the great things about free software is that it transcends politics. Those on the left love it because it is a collaborative effort, born of altruism; those on the right love it because it is efficient and flexible. This has led to some interesting jockeying on the political scene, as politicians of all stripes have tried to prove that they were more open than their rivals.

Interoperability has always been at the heart of the Open Solutions Alliance. Here's what it's first president, Dominic Sartorio, told me just over a year ago...
On Open Enterprise blog.

Free software has tended to serve the leading edge of the computing community - hackers, etc. - first. General users have tended to follow later, and those with access problems after that. That allowed Microsoft to use the relatively poor support for these communities as a stick with which to beat ODF during the early stages of the ODf vs. OOXML battle in Massachusetts. Things have moved on, but it remains true that free software's support for all users, including those with disabilities, has lagged somewhat behind proprietary offerings.
On Open Enterprise blog.

Nicht slecht:

Der IT-Rat der Bundesregierung hat beschlossen, das offene Dokumentenformat ODF (ISO 26300) in der Bundesverwaltung schrittweise einzusetzen.

Staatssekretär Dr. Hans Bernhard Beus, Beauftragter der Bundesregierung für Informationstechnik und Vorsitzender des IT-Rats, bezeichnete die Entscheidung als „wichtigen Schritt, um den Wettbewerb zwischen den Software-Herstellern zu fördern, die IT-Sicherheit zu stärken und die Interoperabilität zu verbessern, denn offene Dokumentenformate werden vollständig und regelmäßig veröffentlicht.“

Last week I noted that the release of OpenOffice.org 3.0 seems to mark an important milestone in its adoption, judging at least by the healthy – and continuing – rate of downloads. But in many ways, success teaches us nothing; what is far more revealing is failure....
On Open Enterprise blog.

Nothing shows better what is wrong with the ISO, and why we need to replace it with a new global standards organisation, than the following post....
On Open Enterprise blog.

I am continually amazed by the amount of time, energy and expense that the ISO are going to to support the standard that nobody really wants or believes (in except for one corporation and it’s paid lackeys of course). Yes, it’s IS29500 (OOXML to you and me).

In the last few weeks we have had coverage with some lovely photos of the events taking place in Korea from that bastion of fair play and honesty Alex Brown. How the poor live eh? All sponsored by our friends and yours: Microshaft. Well actually, if you buy their software, you have probably been paying for the luxury hotels, drinks and food.