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

This one from the ever vigilant and articulate Glyn Moody about how no-one seems to be that interested in OOXML any more and some possible reasoning behind the apparent apathy.

The other quite literally had me in hysterics (ROTFL). It’s not the post so much as the comments attached to it. Apparently those few who remain interested in OOXML enjoy nothing more than discussing between themselves what OOXML is for and how various versions of the notorious specification should be augmented/updated or even simply maintained.

The debate is on such things as should the “Transitional” format be forward or backward looking and if the later then it shouldn’t be Transitional but Strict. Hmmm – yes I hear you say gripping stuff. Here’s a snippet from one of the comments just to whet your appetite:

So, ECMA-376 (1ed) is “looking back”, but ISO-29500 Transitional is not simply “looking back”: it is a “mutant”, that is both looking backward and looking forward. ISO 29500 Strict is indeed “looking forward”.

For those readers who “have a life” and missed all the excitement of 2007/8 a brief synopsis of the history goes something like this:

Microsoft implemented OOXML (their XML based file format which is essentially a binary dump of the memory footprint of your document wrapped in an amazingly obscure and illegible XML schema) in Office 2007. You may have even received the odd file with a .docx or .xlsx extension. Then some kind of panic happened in MS and they decided that because Governments and other public bodies were asking for ODF (ISO/IEC 26300 Open Document Format supported by many applications including OpenOffice.org) they’d better get OOXML standardised too. So in a rush job, Microsoft’s specification publicist ECMA took the format used on Office 2007, got the developer documentation and wrote a bit more stuff around it and published it as ECMA 376. It then got submitted to the ISO for “fast tracking”. Oh yes, did I mention the “specification” was over 6000 pages long? Needless to say there was lots of argy bargy back and forth, the document got changed quite a bit, lots of money changed hands, loads of small countries from the developing world suddenly got very interested in XML Document Specifications and decided to become paid up members of the standards bodies and the specification scraped through about a year ago to become probably the worst example of a supposed International standard the world has ever seen (IMHO).

Do be advised also that today, as far as I am aware. there is no currently available end-user product (free or commercial) for reading and writing ISO IEC 29500 (OOXML) files. Microsoft Office 2007 doesn’t; it supports something similar to the first edition of ECMA 376 but probably not quite the same and I’m not sure anyone really cares anyway.

But do go and read the discussion on this blog post. Even if you don’t really understand it, the discussion of such irrelevant minutiae and semantics really does show to me that even those who support and think it is a useful and worthwhile specification don’t really know what it is for…

Here’s a bit more just to highlight the trouble they are all having:

Thanks for the clarification. “Transitional”, at present, is definitely looking like the superset of “Strict” the way you explained. The word “transitional”, however says to be that it is temporary. If we insist “transitional” will always be the superset, then there is no way “Transitional” will ever be a temporary thing.

Moreover, with the superset definition, it means anything that makes it into “strict” will automatically make it into “transitional”, which will make Brown’s statement that the working group is considering mirroring new features into “transitional” moot.

I will say “transitional” is the superset of “strict”, with a time limit imposed. Therefore, for a limited time only, it can be “looking forward”. What is happening is someone forgotten to specify the time limit, which leads to the discussion whether new features in “strict” should be mirrored into “transition”.

To me, it does not make sense to put new features introduced in Office 14 into “Transitional”. “Strict”? Yes, but not “transitional” since it unnecessarily extended the time frame for “transitional”.

One question still remains, how does one add new features to Transitional or Strict given the charter can be read to exclude new features introduced in future version of MS Office, including Office 14?

We have a [ahem] story about how the Tories are unwise to promote Open Source because of, apparently, some inherent security flaws:

But Kirk said Fortify’s own research has shown that OSS exposes users to “significant and unnecessary business risk”. This is because security is often “overlooked,” according to Kirk, which makes users more vulnerable to security breaches.

Glyn Moody explains that this research from Fortify, was actually on just “11 of the most common Java open source packages”. Big deal. The research was from July of last year too and was discussed at that time.

I won’t dwell on the merits, or not, of the research itself. There are many excellent reports in the public domain that quite clearly demonstrate the strengths of the Open Source Software production model. Between proprietary and OSS methods I know which I believe is inherently more secure, and more robust too. Just recall on the last couple of months of Microsoft security holes.

But this whole saga really gets-my-goat because it isn’t news; it is an old story, and not even a good one, wrapped up in the shiny new cellophane of the Conservatives’ recent public commentary. And why? Because I can only believe that companies like Fortify are running shit-scared as they are seeing their profits dwindle to nothing and are being constantly beaten in competitive sales situations by the better, and cheaper, product.

Sowing some FUD and getting some cheap publicity doesn’t fool anyone anymore.

Matt Assay has an unusually succinct post on his blog today that sums it up nicely:

Jeffrey Hammond, principal analyst at Forrester, just Twittered something that is about to hit the traditional software world like a ton of bricks:

Just got off the phone with a client who’s been mandated to use [open-source software] because licensing costs are killing them.

Call it the beginning of the end, if you like, but it’s coming.

Spot on Matt.

A thoroughly shocking saga from “across the pond”.

This blog is momentarily interrupted to bring you a snippet of recently received email.

…observed one of my students with a group of other children gathered around his laptop. Upon looking at his computer, I saw he was giving a demonstration of some sort. The student was showing the ability of the laptop and handing out Linux disks.

After confiscating the disks I called a confrence with the student and that is how I came to discover you and your organization. Mr. Starks, I am sure you strongly believe in what you are doing but I cannot either support your efforts or allow them to happen in my classroom. At this point, I am not sure what you are doing is legal. No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful. These children look up to adults for guidance and discipline. I will research this as time allows and I want to assure you, if you are doing anything illegal, I will pursue charges as the law allows.

Mr. Starks, I along with many others tried Linux during college and I assure you, the claims you make are grossly over-stated and hinge on falsehoods. I admire your attempts in getting computers in the hands of disadvantaged people but putting linux on these machines is holding our kids back.

This is a world where Windows runs on virtually every computer and putting on a carnival show for an operating system is not helping these children at all. I am sure if you contacted Microsoft, they would be more than happy to supply you with copies of an older verison of Windows and that way, your computers would actually be of service to those receiving them…”

Karen xxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxx Middle School
AISD

Where on earth does one start? I assume that AISD is the

Austin Independent School District,
1111 W. 6th Street,
Austin,
TX 78703

This teacher’s position is frankly scary; to be in a position of authority and yet be so ignorant. I would suggest that she is sent on a two day FOSS course at AISD’s expense and then asked to give presentations/tutorials to the rest of her teaching community. She could also burn some CDs and give them out too.

I really hope that my children (who both use Edubuntu) will not encounter such blind ignorance during their school life.

I hereby pledge that I will do my utmost to help any offending teachers should this arise.

Update: Helios has written a postscript to this story after it became caught up in a frenzy of /. and digg mania. It seems as though Helios thinks he needs to apologise for something. Personally I didn’t feel that he had done anything wrong in his original post (he did keep the teachers identity private afterall) but clearly he didn’t like the tone of many of the comments. That’s honourable and almost certainly the right thing to do. But surely this is a two way street? Don’t you agree that Karen should have done at least a modicum of research before launching her exocet? Afterall she is a teacher…

Firstly, the main story. It is that Russia has had such a successful time using Open Source software in some School pilots that the government have decided to roll it out across ALL schools in Russia.

It began with a few pilot projects, and apparently these have been so successful that the Russian government has now decided to make it the standard for *all* schools:

До конца 2009 г. на всех школьных компьютерах будет установлен пакет свободного программного обеспечения (ПСПО). Об этом, как передает «Прайм ТАСС», сегодня сообщил министр связи и массовых коммуникаций РФ Игорь Щеголев на пленарном заседании «Информационное общество и современные технологии доставки информации» в рамках международной выставки «ИнфоКом-2008».

[Via Google Translate: By the end of 2009, all school computers will be installed package of free software (PSPO). This is how transfers «Prime-TASS», today announced Minister of Communications and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation Igor Shchyogolev at the plenary session «Information Society and the modern technologies of information» in the international exhibition «InfoCom-2008».]

This isn’t just an option for those brave souls who might want to try something different: this is now the official approach. If schools want to use proprietary software, they have to pay for it themselves:

Read the full article to get further details.

Then scroll down the page and read some of the comments…

It starts with the first post saying we should teach M$ because that’s what business uses today. It’s the only “pro” proprietary comment and rightly gets pretty short shrift from every subsequent commenter.

But then a remarkable thing starts happening, which emphasises yet again, why Free Software is SO important in Education: In that it absolutely encourages innovation, inquisitiveness, collaboration, and – above all – learning from and with others.

The Number 10 website fiasco just keeps going.

New Media Maze, that “Full Service New Media Agency”, look to have really screwed up. Not only have they nicked a free WordPress template and removed the attribution and removed the license, but it seems the site itself is actually full of bugs and errors too.

Dizzy Thinks has found some lovely errors and a strange chap called “Adam Test”… ROTFL.

And when you’ve finished rolling around on the floor laughing take a look at this research on The Rouseabout to see what a little more digging throws up: (I’ll give you a clue: 404s).

Honestly, if this is what we get for £100,000 of taxpayer’s money from New Media Maze then, quite frankly, I’m glad I hadn’t heard of them before.

How much are the Gov. going to spend on our ID card database? The one that nobody wants. Do you trust them to get it right? Nahhh.

And Glyn Moody discovered a little known government project to build a “massive central silo for all UK communications data…”.

It’s at times like these that I fall on my virtual knees and bless the cyber-gods that ensure every single major UK government project is a complete and utter failure, so this doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of ever working properly. Phew.

PLEASE!!!! Someone take these huge IT projects out of the Government’s hands! They are so crap at it our whole lives will end up on Facebook if we aren’t careful… Oh, most already are.

All we need now is for Microshaft to come rolling along spouting off about how much better the site would have been if they’d spent the money on Blog Server 2008 running on Windoors 2010 with Sequal Server 2012… or whatever crap it is they are pushing this week.

Glyn Moody has covered most of the bases in his usual eloquent style.

I’m in complete agreement with Glyn here. This is a really big deal. Perhaps not today or tomorrow, but it is making a HUGE statement to the business community at large that there are credible alternatives to M$, and, with IBM’s help they can choose from Novell, Red Hat or Canonical for their desktop IT.

Of course, we [ the enlightened ones ] have known this for sometime. But the dark-grey-suit brigade didn’t really have a clue. They simply believed what they were told.

Now they are being told something new.

The story in question, from The Inquirer, is basically this:

Becta refused to satisfy a Freedom of Information request made by the INQUIRER for details of the latest Microsoft schools megadeal, “after consultation with Microsoft.”

Which is pretty bad really. We are talking about Taxpayers’ (that’s you and me friend) money here. Why should we not be allowed to know what our beloved Government is spending with a US Software company on our children’s behalf? And don’t forget that it’s a company that has been convicted of monopolistic and anti-competitive practices, so it should be even more important we know what we are giving them. Shouldn’t it?

Well, on the face of it I bought the argument from Becta that goes:

If Becta, a UK government quango, published details of schools’ Microsoft spending, it “could give rise to an actionable breach of confidence by Microsoft against us,” it said. This was a “considerable risk”, it added.

And further, plausibly stated:

Becta said there could also be repercussions in disclosure for itself: “We have concluded that disclosure of any part of the MOU would prejudice the commercial interests of Becta and of schools throughout the UK because the significant savings achieved under the MOU would be put at risk,” it said. “We believe that our future negotiating position with Microsoft would be weakened and we would not be confident of our continuing ability to obtain the best deal possible for those UK schools that choose to purchase Microsoft products,” it added.

If we ignore the fact that the Microsoft products are pretty crap, and they aren’t really the right thing for education to be using in the first place, I can sort of understand the bit about their negotiating position – if they know no better.

But I wasn’t totally convinced… Something was niggling at the back of my mind as to why this is really bad…

Enter Glyn:

I do realise that it’s too much to hope that Becta will take open source seriously, but I wonder if it has ever crossed Becta’s chosen minds that putting themselves in this position of snivelling dependence on Microsoft isn’t actually the optimum way to get the best deal for UK schools – even for those benighted enough to want to bathe their charges in the delicate glow of BSODs. Has it ever occurred to them that if they started negotiating from a position of dignity and strength, rather than abject, supine servitude, they might just possibly do their job a teensy-weensy bit better?

Microsoft is scared witless by the prospect of open source getting a foothold in schools, and would agree to any deal rather than let the UK education system discover the power and value of free software. Becta is actually in an incredibly strong position, and yet somehow manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The idea that “our future negotiating position with Microsoft would be weakened” if it dared to cross Masher Microsoft, as it has claimed to The Inquirer, is simply risible, and shows how desperately out of touch it is with the realities of the marketplace. The sooner this particular quango is abolished, and decisions are made locally, the better.

Ouch!

Thanks for clearing that up Glyn

A fellow colleague on the blogosphere, Russell Ossendryver, sent me an email linking to a recent on-line petition instigated by John McCreesh (of OpenOffice.org) on 10 Downing Street’s petition engine.

Basically it calls for the UK Government to:

(1) Procure only information technology that implements free and open standards;

(2) Deliver e-government services based exclusively on free and open standards;

(3) Use only free and open digital standards in their own activities.

as adopted and proclaimed by the founders of the Digital Standards Organization in The Hague on 21 May 2008.

That sounds like a fine idea to me! It would save the country literally hundreds of millions of pounds just for starters.

There are some particularly interesting names already on the list of signatories:

Mark Taylor (Open Source Consortium), Chris Puttick (CIO for Oxford Archaeology), Glyn Moody (Journalist and Open Source Commentator: http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com), and Ian Lynch (of INGOTS fame).

I’ve signed it. If you think that Open Standards are important (and you SHOULD if you are reading this!) then what are you waiting for? Click here and register your opinion.

The Digital Standards Organization (Digistan) seeks to promote customer choice, vendor competition, and overall growth in the global digital economy through the understanding, development, and adoption of free and open digital standards (“open standards”).

I first came across the group via a post on Glyn Moody’s blog the other day which in turn led me to this piece written by a chap who calls himself Dennis Byron (I can only assume that he has no relation to the famous poet). To be frank, he must be either very stupid, or on the payroll of a large software company the world’s largest convicted monopolist. To make the comments he does shows such ignorance that it quite beggars belief…

Let’s start with the opening paragraph shall we? (highlight mine)

Another anti-Microsoft (MSFT) front group has emerged in favour of “free and open standards,” hyping what it calls the Hague Declaration and making some absurd connection to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The propagandists, partially funded by publicly traded companies, have a little trouble describing what that term “free and open standards” means (or even using it consistently), but the group has no trouble indicating its political stripes. Unbelievably it calls itself Digistan, apparently to identify with the fascist terrorists based in countries and regions using the Farsi-based suffix “stan.”

Honestly. Where the f*** did that come from? Stan means “place of” or “land” for pete’s sake. And “Digi”, well I’m sure you can guess. How you get from Digital Standards to Fascist Terrorists is really just too much for my simple mind to comprehend.

All of these front groups percolate around about two dozen individuals, mostly European. The vast left-wing conspiracy of George Soros works around the edges of their mostly web-site-only organizations…

So, let’s see. Dennis now draws what must be one of the world’s largest generalisations by tying all groups who support freedom and Openness to just 24 people and somehow manages to ink in George Soros and Left Wing (Socialist by inference) politics. Blimey, I must say, having read the Digistan Mission and the Hague Declaration I didn’t see any of those conspiratorial links at all! Just for the record I’m a Tory (Conservative, Capitalist) voter and supporter of free and open source software and open standards. I see no conflict there at all. And neither do the Conservative Party who are quite vocal in their support for Open Source software; unlike our current Labour (left wing) government. So how would I fit in with Byron’s analysis I wonder?

I’d also like to educate our very ignorant Mr Byron about Left Wing politics in Europe: there isn’t much of the kind he seems to imagine. Our socialist and left wing governments and opposition parties are, in the main, capitalist by nature and support free market economics: they wouldn’t get in the EU if they didn’t. This is unlike the Government of the USA for example who engage in and condone market distorting activities such as allowing convicted monopolists to go unpunished, or using embargoes and punitive import tariffs to hinder free trade with anyone who doesn’t pay the right homage to Uncle Sam.

And how did George Soros come into this absurd rant? From the Wikipedia we read:

“George Soros has made his mark as an enormously successful speculator, wise enough to largely withdraw when still way ahead of the game. The bulk of his enormous winnings is now devoted to encouraging transitional and emerging nations to become ‘open societies,’ open not only in the sense of freedom of commerce but – more important – tolerant of new ideas and different modes of thinking and behavior.”

Ahhh now I see. Mr Byron clearly feels extremely jealous of George’s speculative skills and also seems to hate anyone who is interested in protecting or advocating freedom and openness. (Who is the terrorist now Mr Byron?)

I love this…

If only these lefties could be time warped back to the last century so that they could ‘fight the right’ in Spain (or sit in the Les Deux Maggot and talk about fighting the right in Spain). Then the rest of us could avoid having our tax dollars wasted and our share values diminished.

I wonder if Mr Byron has ever been to Spain? Do you think he might like to ask some of it’s inhabitants about General Franco and whether they prefer fascist dictatorships to democracy, freedom and membership of the world’s largest free trading community? I like the “Les Deux Maggot” reference but can only guess as to what he really knows about it.

And why has Digistan got anything to do Mr Byron’s Tax Dollars? As for his portfolio, rather than bleating on about his dwindling share value in a tired and very last-millennia software company monopoly that is finally getting some serious competitive pressure from the left-field that is really hard to attack (since it is free), he’d be much better dumping his M$ stock and looking for the “new money”, especially in some of the highly successful and rapidly growing Open Source software companies.

The rest of his rant continues in much the same vein. No research or facts to support his claims and little argument that makes any sense anyway.

But, having said all the above, I must thank you Mr Byron for introducing me to Digistan. I signed the declaration immediately after reading it and will now be contacting Digistan to see how my company can help to support and grow their campaign to fight for freedom and open standards.

If I were you Mr Byron, I think you probably need to retire to the golf course…

In the last day or so he’s posted three articles (among several others) that have really grabbed my attention:

First this one: I would not have believed it had I not gone to Tesco’s web site and verified it myself.

Tesco may not be a name that means much outside the UK, but the fact that this huge retailer is selling GNU/Linux-based systems – some for as little as £140 (without a screen) – is pretty significant.

PRETTY SIGNIFICANT? It’s nothing short of amazing in my book. I can understand how Dell and Lenovo can do it. But Tesco? They must have a very strong conviction in Linux to sell it to what I imagine to be their “typical” customer. I notice they are supplying the LTS (Long Term Support) version of Ubuntu (6.06) so I wonder if they have a support arrangement directly with Canonical? Does anyone know anything more about this?

Then this on the EU vs. Microsoft case:

I worry that there’s some wiggle room here – just what exactly is “the open source business model”? – but given the soundness of its thrashing, maybe Microsoft really has given up fighting the EU. Let’s hope.

I love a damn good thrashing don’t you? (Bit of an English Public School joke in there somewhere). I tried to get the detail on this yesterday via Groklaw but PJ’s analysis seemed a little dour. But maybe that’s just because of the stupid IP/Patenting laws in the USA.

And then to cap it all this from Mozilla:

It’s also doing rather well on just about every other metric, as Mitchell’s post “Beyond Sustainability” explains. Recommended reading.

Which I hadn’t seen. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Mitchell’s post is indeed great reading. Mozilla is a true powerhouse in the Open Source ecosystem, and seems for the most part, to be successfully juggling the twin balls of making money and keeping a strong public community behind it. Some of the statistics are incredible… Go and have a read.

And stick Glyn’s blog on your RSS feed reader while you’re there.