Group items tagged

EndNote installations and uninstallations are too often a PITA. 

unfortunately the MS argument that support for OOXML equals "conformance" is also the same argument used by OpenDocument supporters to prove multi vendor, multi platform, multi application support.

Matt Asay's commentary pointing out that the Microsoft monopoly is moving from the desktop to the SharePoint Server. Matt's cites a recent Wall Street Journal article as his reference. And both have it right except that i would have called this the Exchange/SharePoint Hub juggernaut.

The idea is to migrate existing MSOffice bound business processes to the E/S Hub. From there, end user documents, collaboration and workflow interfaces are wired into Microsoft backends and web fronts (MS SQL Server, MS IIS, MS Active Directory, MS Dynamics, MS Communications Server, etc.)

Surprising post from Sun's Michael Brauer supporting the mandatory "shall - must" preservation of the metadata XML:id. Preservation of metadata information is critical to the high fidelity "round trip" interoperable exchange of ODF documents.

Marbux is currently locked into a raging interoperability battle with the ODF Metadata Sub Committee where it's been proposed that preservation of metadata be optional!

The entire thread is located here:
ODF-Metadata-Proposal-22August2007

This is one worth watching. The fight to limit ODF interoperability continues. Marbux is a distinguished Universal Interoperability expert with a blazing background in International Trade Agreements and anti trust based on interoperability violations.

An eWEEK must read.  I think the recent aquisition is having a positive impact on the eWEEK journalist and reporters.   What a great series they've put together on SOA. SaaS and the Web 2.0

Thus spoke the little Dutch Boy, his finger in the dike, his confidence large.  Meanwhile, people with half a brain were heading for the high ground.  California, Texas, Massachusetts and the EU IDABC come to mind.  Hello bob!  Can you say ODEF?

Excellent coverage of a very important interview!

Part of the sad but enduring "History of Failed ODF Interoperability Attempts".  This particular message is dated November 20th, 2006. 

The OpenDocument Foundation was notified a week earlier that the "benefactor" ODF Community group Louis Gutierrez had asked IBM and Oracle to put together in Massachusetts had failed.  This was the group Louis formed around the da Vinci plugin and our InfoSet APi. 

Florian has been hired by Novell, and his first day on the job he finds out about the IBM - Novell deal with Microsoft.  Now he has write the MOOXML plugin for OpenOffice using the MS-CleverAge Translator Project work.  So he writes this message to the ODF TC [office] list. 

The interoperability enhancements Florian suggests are based on the <interoperability eXtensions> submitted in August to the ODF Metadata SC for consideration.

The first element in this list tha tFlorian chose to tackle related to "Lists".  He called it the "LIst Override Proposal".  This became the now infamous "List Enhancement Proposal War" that resulted in Sun having OASIS boot out the Foundation.

Such is life in big vendor ODF'dom

~ge~

The title here has nothing to do with the content.  The original title is, "Politics is only a small part of this story". 

It's been a while since i last posted to the ZDNet TalkBack, and was totally thrown by the TalkBack formating needs.  My first post dropped all line breaks, and came out as one long run on sentence.

Now maybe that's the way i write, (and think), but at least with some formatting i can hide that fact!

Still, "Butcher This!" is not a bad title. 

~ge~

Eben explains that the process behind the GPL3 is actually a newly christened collaborative legislation process that uniquely supercedes nations, treaties and the traditions of legialative law making.  He traces the evolution of the disemination of ideas. the protection of ideas, and the rise of digitized representation - computerized ideas.

It's a wonderfully sweeping speach that takes collaborative community possibilities far beyond the realm of software.  I'm left wondering if this same approach can be used to re invent the open standards process?   Just as big vendors have come to control and stifle innovation in software through the assertion of property ownership of mathmatical ideas, open standards are similarly under the command and control of these same big vendors. 

The GPL3 process may in fact be a model for a new open standards process.  And it comes non too soon!

~ge~

Now you're talking!

Walt Hucks and Stephane Rodriguez have taken on the MS Ecma response to ISO/IEC JTC S1 National Bodies objections and contradiciton findings that were filed at the end of the ISO/IEC Ecma 376 fast track - contradiction review phase.  

The one - two punch Walt and Stephane provide is the clearest statement yet of what's really behind th eenormity of Microsoft's effort to establish their own international standards for XML file formats.  In particular, they discuss the issue of business processes bound to the MSOffice - VBA API layer through macros, scripts, OLE, DRM, and password protection type mechnaisms.

They also point out that Ecma 376 is just a baseline file format that will be eXtended by MS Applications on implementation.  It is the this collection of embedded system specific processing instructions that bind current business processewss to MSOffice, and will hold the monopoly base of 500 million desktops intact as MS makes the tranistion from desktop shrinkwrap sales to server side systems and services stacks.

The press coverage on GOSCON is outstanding.  Kudos to Debra Bryant and Andy Stein for stoking the fire here. 

Check out the comments below this article.  There are links to Ian Foster of Globus and to the Marbux license disseration posted with the OpenDocument Foundation's NO VOTE at OASIS.

For a Web 2.0 application, Buzzword is very slick.  It's more sophisticated and feature rich than Glide Writer, which is also written on Adobe Flex.  Glide however offers an incredible array of portable office 2.0 features.  It's the whole enchilada.  And, Glide runs on iPhone!

Another interesting plus for Glide is that Google uses Glide Presentations for their on line PowerPoint alternative.  Which is to say, Google is likely to purchase Glide while Adobe tries to build on Buzzword.

One of the disturbing things for me is that Buzzword uses a proprietary file format!  In the future they will provide conversion to ODF, but that will probably be based on the OpenOffice conversion engine.  Which everyone in the Web 2.0, Office 2.0, enterprise 2.0 space uses.  Including Google.

The thing is, the OpenOffice conversion engine lacks the conversion fidelity to crack into existing MSOffice bound business processes.

Because they can't crack into these existing MSOffice bound business processes, the entire Office 2.0 sector is at risk.  All it takes is a competing entry from Microsoft, and the entire sector will ge twiped out by the superior interoperability - integration advantage to the MSOffice - Outlook desktop that Microsoft owns and carefully guards.

Oh wait.  That just happened today with the announcement of MSOffice Live!  Suspiciously timed to take the oxygen out of Adobe's announcement too.

~ge~

Here we go.  The final piece to the MS Stack puzzle falls into place.  Nick Carr provides excellent commentary and analysis.  As usual.

The battle to break ODF away from being limited to only those features supported by Sun's OpenOffice/StarOffice continues.  This eMail thread sets the stage for the upcoming presentation of the metadata proposal to the ODF mainline TC.

SEction 1.4.3 of the metadata proposal is a list of existign ODF elements that developers can apply RDF to.  And the reason given fo rwhy the list is so constrained?  Svante Schubert, co-editor and Sun employee has claimed on more than a few occassions that the reason for limiting the lis tis that Sun will only support RDF on those particular ODF elements in OpenOffice/StarOffice.  Therefore, everyone is similarly limited!

I kid you not. 
~ge~

Wow!  Another great quote from Nick.  When we were at the Office 2.0 Conference a few weeks ago, this was the problem every single collaborative computing initiative was facing.  Sure they had great collaborative efforts.  But these efforts were outside exisitng businesss processes and applications!  That's fine for kids and consumers.  But it's the kiss of death for enterprise, smb, and organizations with workgroup busines sprocesses based on MSOffice and Outlook.

So no matter how innovative the WEb 2.0 - Office 2.0 - Enterprise 2.0 applications and services are, they are setting the marketplace for Microsoft to come in and take everything.  Because Microsoft and Microsoft alone ownes the interoperability - integration interfaces into MSOffice and Outlook, they are in a position to destroy any of the 2.0 players at will.  It's simply a matter of entering the space with their own 2.0 application or service.

The more i see of this, the more convinced i am that the governemnts of the world are going to have to step in stop Microsoft's push to move from the desktop into server, device and web systems.

~ge~

Another article from Charles Forelle of WSJ on Microsoft's efforts to corrupt the international standards process