“Video games are a huge market with a focused “captive” audience. Bringing advertising into the game experience in a natural way, in the background, with product placement, integrated with the characters, will greatly improve the experience.”

I’m really sorry Don, but how on earth is ANY advertising going to “greatly improve the experience”? Maybe in the USA you consider advertising as some sort of public service, but here in the Europe we have a different opinion of it. And improving the experience couldn’t be further from the truth…

As I have said before, if you really understand what they are about, please don’t buy any more Microsoft products, don’t even steal them (and think you are winning). Backup your data, wipe your hard disk of that infectious disease called Windows and just go and get an Open Source alternative - free from advertising, usage restrictions, litigation threats, upgrade fees, vendor lock-ins and eternal damnation (O.K. I made the last one up!)

I cleared my computer of the M$ infection only recently and have had an extremely pleasant experience ever since: No BSOD (Blue Screens Of Death), no strange days when my printer disappeared from the network, no warnings about viruses, threats, scams or malware which needed me to buy MORE software, no crashes, no downtime, no file corruption, no annoying pop-ups telling me I don’t know how to use my application properly or that my license will expire unless I do something; that usually involves money.

Anyone think of any more crap that comes with their stuff? I’m starting to forget now

Tell Someone Else!

I have just read this paper from the Adaptive Technology Resource Centre at the University of Toronto. It is clear, articulate and concise. Unlike the 6000+ page “specification” document to which it refers.

Many of it’s findings are not new in themselves but when discussed in the arena of accessibility it makes for a very good read.

How, please, have we got into this mess? We have one of the world’s largest and richest companies, producing a totally sub-standard specification and trying to force it through our International Standards bodies.

There is only one winner if Ecma-376 gets ISO approval in its current form - and it isn’t you or me….

Tell Someone Else!

Some more stuff is coming in on the NoOOXML site that should make you think really carefully about using any more microsoft products…

• Rumours of M$ BRIBING the New Zealand Government and their standards committee,
• Making FALSE claims on behalf of the Spanish Andalusia Government the day before their committee goes to vote
• Dodgy goings on in Azerbaijan??? (New entry added 24/07)

Really, how much more dirt do you need? Just go and download Ubuntu, Thunderbird and OpenOffice (You’ve already got Firefox haven’t you?) and break free…

Tell Someone Else!

The UK’s adoption of Open Source technology is lagging the US and the rest of Europe, according to a new survey published today by one of the leading new generation Open Source companies Alfresco.

The report called the Open Source Barometer should be an absolutely fasciniating tool as Alfresco plan to issue it every six months. This should give a great insight into trends which are otherwise hard to identify.

The survey was carried out between April and June this year (2007) and the information was garnered from approximately 10,000 new members joining the Alfresco community.

Among the highlights revealed by the Open Source Barometer Report are:

• Operating systems: Surprisingly, users evaluated Alfresco as much on Windows as they did on different flavors of Linux, but they strongly preferred to deploy production systems on Linux. Windows plays an increasingly important role in testing and evaluation because it is the operating system on most desktops.
• Application servers: Users strongly preferred open source Tomcat or JBoss over the leading proprietary offerings from Sun, IBM and BEA, even in production environments.
• Databases: Overwhelmingly, users test and deploy on MySQL with PostgreSQL a surprisingly close second for both evaluations and production deployment. Oracle was the most popular proprietary choice among the proprietary databases.
• Browsers and portals: To access the Alfresco ECM repository, users preferred browsers over portals. And Firefox was the most popular choice among different browsers. When users selected a portal preference, 80 percent chose Liferay or JBoss Portal.

Also, another very interesting result from this survey seems to suggest that Novell’s alliance with Microsoft has done them no favours whatsoever… In fact whilst use of Red Hat Linux has more than doubled, Novell’s Suse Linux has remained flat.

For me one of the key findings is that while the report shows Windows is a popular evaluation platform for open-source software, most enterprises use Linux when they go into production. That says it all really

A fascinating and excellent report from a very high quality company.

Tell Someone Else!

The further along the road the MS-OOXML standardisation initiative goes the further into the badlands M$ is taking itself. As far as I can imagine, this whole process must be a complete PR nightmare for them. For a number of reasons (not all listed here):

• The more rigorous technical inspections of their proposal have found it wanting in many, many areas (especially from the guys at the BSi),
• the more committee baiting they do, just makes them look like some kind of gangland-mob whose power and control relies purely on brute-force,
• the more weasel-words they use to try and convince us of their sincerity, the less people believe them,
• and the more pompous and self-righteous answers to sensible questions they give, just makes them look plain stupid and naive.

I really, really hope that the ISO are actually following what is going here, and will act in a responsible manner when the time comes to make their decision on Ecma-376. It really is a sham and Microsoft should be disgraced with themselves.

PJ at Groklaw did an excellent summing up in this post:

Now, I don’t care how proprietary Microsoft wishes to be itself. It can DRM itself up to its eyeballs for all I care. I don’t use the stuff, so it doesn’t affect me. And when I read about their latest patent application, the one that proposes riffling through all our personal papers on all our computers so as to report to advertisers what we are interested in, I note it with alarm for my friends and loved ones who still use Microsoft software and make a mental note not to let a company that can come up with that idea anywhere near my computer, but other than that, I just laugh.

But when you proprietize standards, you touch me. And that is precisely what is happening with OOXML. Microsoft’s own expert at the Portugal meeting said so pointblank: Microsoft will add proprietary extensions, he said, to do things ODF can’t do. Now, as someone else on the committee pointed out, proprietary extensions are not the only choice. Microsoft could open up so we can all interoperate on a level playing field. I believe that is the EU Commission’s goal. Proprietary anything isn’t appropriate in a standard, because it forces those of us who are not interested in proprietary software to use it or deal with it anyway. It compels those of us who wish to avoid that vendor to have a relationship with it against our will. And it gives the vendor control and a head start in the market, which is exactly what standards are supposed to prevent. It’s Microsoft saying, “I’ve got mine. I can open my documents fine. Too bad about you. Your solution is to limp along in Linux or buy our products or pay for our patents. One way or another, you have to pay us.” That, to me, is a subversion of the standards process.

This gargantuan proposal, and their efforts to force it through, should be a clear enough warning to everyone. If you believe in the free market, fair competition and honesty in business please do not buy, nor indeed just use any more Microsoft products (even if they’re pirated¹); switch to something else…

… anything else.

1” … about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don’t pay for the software. Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”
– Bill Gates, pusher, Money Magazine 1998

Tell Someone Else!

Over the last few months I have been following Microsoft’s attempts at getting their badly flawed document specification through as an “Open Standard” using the “fast-track process”.

It appears as though the mighty M$, with their army of expert[English Sarcasm] coders and lawyers, are having to use additional methods to make their spec stand up to robust technical scrutiny.

In the US - Rob Weir reports how a recent vote of one of the bodies that make recommendations with regards to approvals has been rather swamped with new voting members recently, and most of them are M$ Business Partners. This changed the voting pattern dramatically but the attempt failed to get past the final hurdle by just one vote it seems.

In Portugal, three separate reports (here, here, and here) suggest the committee (which has a Microsoft employee as its president!) refused to let representatives from Sun and IBM into the room on voting day due to “lack of seats” - funny that in the days running up to this several new members appeared from Microsoft backed organisations…

New note (18/07/07): Today I read here, that more skulduggery has been going on it Italy too. But it also appears that M$ have failed to win there too! Well done Italy.

I’m sorry but this is getting really, really smelly.

This site has about the best consolidated record of what’s going on around the world.

I’d really like to know this: In whose interests is the approval and development of International Standards for; ours or Microsoft’s? Anyone care to give their opinion?

Tell Someone Else!

I found this link in an article entitled “Microsoft’s Advertising Framework” on Glyn Moody’s blog.

I have been following the Patent saber-rattling by Microsoft and their simultaneous attempt to own the world’s data by trying to force through impossible document standards with feelings of unease, hilarity and cynicism… All at the same time.

The Patent to which Glyn’s article refers is - in my humble and non-legal opinion - complete hogwash. It reads just like a description of any page in any of the world’s advertising driven content networks like Google’s for instance.

How this could be:

• An Invention
• Unique
• Innovative
• Unlikely to come about by evolution
• Having no prior art

is a complete mystery to me. What is the US Patent Office thinking it is doing by approving such things?

There is a cracking bit of typical Microsoft legalease at the bottom of the page too; it’s a bit like a disclaimer and catchall rolled into one and basically seems to allow them to use this patent for pretty much anything to do with advertising presented on-screen…

[0038] Although the forgoing text sets forth a detailed description of numerous different embodiments of the invention, it should be understood that the scope of the invention is defined by the words of the claims set forth at the end of this patent. The detailed description is to be construed as exemplary only and does not describe every possibly embodiment of the invention because describing every possible embodiment would be impractical, if not impossible. Numerous alternative embodiments could be implemented, using either current technology or technology developed after the filing date of this patent, which would still fall within the scope of the claims defining the invention.

[0039] Thus, many modifications and variations may be made in the techniques and structures described and illustrated herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. Accordingly, it should be understood that the methods and apparatus described herein are illustrative only and are not limiting upon the scope of the invention.

The US is a very mysterious place sometimes…

Tell Someone Else!

After the release of Ubuntu Feisty on several of Dell’s computers last month, things seem to be moving at a pace…

On their Linux blog, Dell have stated that they WILL start selling outside of the USA (”Hey Dell! Over Here - The UK Please”). AND they have also committed to supplying Ubuntu to SME customers. This is great news and it must be indicative of the current rumour control-centre that is suggesting that Dell has seen better than expected demand for the small portfolio it initially launched.

Kindly, Dell has set-up a separate RSS feed just for their Linux news, comment and technical commentary. In true Open Source style, the blog is open and allowing comments and feedback.

Finally, as another indication that the Linux thing must be going quite well for Dell, they have made this little video about what’s going on at Dell’s HQ. It is very funny…

Tell Someone Else!

The recently introduced GPL version 3 gets Samba - the ubiquitous Open Source networking stack for interoperability between Windows^tm and pretty much everything else.

The next version of Samba to be released (3.2.0) will be issued under the GPLv3 license. This, in effect, means those organisations who have recently signed deals with Microsoft will most likely have to recind on their agreements or stay on the old version of Samba. They could, potentially fork it, but that’s an immensely non-trivial task to say the least

The Microsoft/Novell deal is already tumbling with M$ backing away from their side of the bargain and leaving Novell to pick up the pieces. An excellent analysis of this is at the groklaw blog.

Samba is supplied with almost every Linux distribution I can think of and in recent years has become a better Windows networking stack than Windows itself provides… Better performance, better reliability and, of course, better price

You can read the Samba news article here: http://news.samba.org/announcements/samba_gplv3.

You can also get a snapshot of which Open Source projects are adopting the new Version 3 license from Palamida.

This is good news for the GPLv3 as it will now almost certainly propagate very rapidly around the world. There are a large number of applications that use the Samba libraries. Some of these apps will have to change their licensing too.

If your code is released under a “GPLv2 only” license, it is not compatible with the Samba libraries released under the GPLv3 or LGPLv3 as the wording of the “GPLv2 only” license prevents mixing with other licenses. If you wish to use libraries released under the LGPLv3 with your “GPLv2 only” code then you will need to modify the license on your code.

Tell Someone Else!

I really can’t believe it (well O.K. I can - it’s just M$ being M$), but here in the UK the National Archive Office (the place that is SUPPOSED to look after all our important documents) is being duped by Microsoft.

They are working with the evil empire Microsoft to enable access to their old Word and other proprietary document formats by - get this - running M$’s vitual machines so they can have Windows 95 and old versions of MS Office running on top of more Microsoft software, to get access to these files!

Then, to add insult to plain stupidity, they are singing the praises of M$’s OOXML specification. Yes, that 6000 page document, calling itself a technical specification that contains, amongst other things:

• Bugs that mean dates before 1900 are handled incorrectly
• 60 pages of CLIPART!!!!!
• Technical implementation notes like “DoLikeWord95″
• Proprietary encryption routines that don’t conform to ISO approved standards and have not been verified safe
• Implementation details kept hidden or removed from public scrutiny so only M$ will be able to fully implement it
• A strong reliance on a single vendor’s operating system.

Why oh Why oh Why are they being so stupid?

Yesterday, Sun released a free ODF plug-in for Microsoft’s Office product line which allows bi-directional conversion to and from proprietary, closed and locked file formats, and the ISO approved Open Document Format.

Surely, that seems a far more sensible route than having more M$ software, virtualised, running yet more M$ software ( and old software at that) just to get access to your files?

The National Archive news item is here: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk…

Sun’s ODF Plugin can be downloaded from here: https://sdlc3b.sun.com/ECom/EComAction….

If you are at all interested in this issue, please write, email, telephone the National Archive office and your MP. This action is NOT in the public’s interest. They will find themselves going down a road that will lead to one company only having control over your national archive… Think about it.

Oh yes. And the other very interesting fact on the news item is this: “Adam Farquhar, Head of eArchitecture at the British Library and co-chair of the Office OpenXML standards committee said:…” Head of our British Library AND chair of Microsoft’s document specification steam roller? Hmmmm… doesn’t sound too impartial to me, does it to you?

Tell Someone Else!