Skip to main content

Home/ IBM: Standards and Double Standards/ Group items tagged definitions

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Paul Merrell

On the scalability of a standard - time for a 'Weirotron' - 0 views

aristippus303.wordpress.com/...-standard-time-for-a-weirotron

rob weir conformance

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 May 09 - Cached
  • After the drama of the initial Office 2007 SP2 ODF support was initiated by Rob Weir, related arguments spilled out all over the place.  I got involved in a few places, but then left it alone whilst I got on with some productive work.  There’s only so many ways you can say “it’s does not exist in the standard – admit it, fix it and move on”.
  • I was always under the impression that it was good practice for something that was invalid against the schema to be deemed non-conformant.  Rob shows just what a absolute noob I am to assume that.
  • Now if Alex Brown and various other highly qualified commenters can misread the ODF specification so heinously, needing the expert advice from the ODF Technical Committee Chair himself to put them right, what chance do lowly developers have? It appears from this there is no chance that any developer will be able to interpret the specification properly, since only Rob Weir (and perhaps the folks working on OpenOffice) has the intellectual capacity to navigate this ball of semantic string. 
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • So, the solution to this is clear – we need to implement Rob Weir as a web service, a Weirotron if you like. That way, everyone can query the Weirotron and get back the definitive answer to any ODF question, without having to deal with the obviously labyrinthine spec that has bamboozled so many leading XML experts. In addition, the Weirotron could help solve those pesky interoperability issues that stem from some areas that ODF relies on the OpenOffice source code for, like Formulas, and areas where the spec is a bit light, so to speak, like Change Tracking etc.  I’m sure that this would really assist Microsoft and many other struggling developers in implementing support for ODF (or rather the Weir-approved cod-ODF) correctly, with the inherent blessing of the ODF TC Chair.
  • Paul Merrell on 22 May 09
     
    Gareth Horton offers a satirical view of IBMer Rob Weir's recent arguments but captures the dilemma Weir's arguments put developers in.
Paul Merrell

Fallacy: Appeal to Belief - 0 views

www.nizkor.org/...appeal-to-belief.html

definitions fallacies appeal to belief fallacy

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 May 09 - Cached
  • Appeal to Belief is a fallacy that has this general pattern: Most people believe that a claim, X, is true. Therefore X is true. This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because the fact that many people believe a claim does not, in general, serve as evidence that the claim is true.
  • Paul Merrell on 20 May 09
     
    The appeal to belief fallacy is one of IBM's most frequently deployed weapons in regard to office document format standards, perhaps most egregiously when the beliefs were manufactured from whole cloth by IBM's propaganda campaigns. For example, IBM trades heavily on the ODF Inteoperability Myth, a false belief created by an IBM disinformation campaign.
Paul Merrell

Fallacy: Circumstantial Ad Hominem - 0 views

www.nizkor.org/...circumstantial-ad-hominem.html

fallacies ad hominem circumstantial definitions

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 May 09 - Cached
  • A Circumstantial ad Hominem is a fallacy in which one attempts to attack a claim by asserting that the person making the claim is making it simply out of self interest. In some cases, this fallacy involves substituting an attack on a person's circumstances (such as the person's religion, political affiliation, ethnic background, etc.).
  • Paul Merrell on 20 May 09
     
    As will be seen in other bookmarks, one of IBM staffers' frequently employed tactics is the circumstantial ad hominem fallacy. Often, the IBM fallacious argument takes the form of suggestions or innuendos that a speaker is biased by their employer's identity or innuendos suggesting that someone is acting in an IBM competitor's interests.
Paul Merrell

Fallacy: Ad Hominem - 0 views

www.nizkor.org/...ad-hominem.html

definitions fallacies ad hominem fallacy

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 May 09 - Cached
  • Translated from Latin to English, "Ad Hominem" means "against the man" or "against the person." An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting).
  • Paul Merrell on 20 May 09
     
    The ad hominem fallacy is a tactic frequently employed by IBM and its followers, most notably by Rob Weir, against those who disagree with IBM's positions and goals. Those who advocate for repairing the badly broken ODF standard or prepare bug reports on that standard are among the most frequently targeted victims of IBM's ad hominem fallacy attacks.
  • Paul Merrell on 20 May 09
     
    As will be seen in other bookmarks, many IBM staffers' arguments relevant to office document format specifications have been based on variations of the ad hominem fallacy, more commonly known as the "personal attack." .
1 - 4 of 4
Showing 20▼ items per page