MS Awarded "Best Campaigner Against OOXML"

HansF writes "Microsoft itself is the surprise winner of the FFII's Kayak Prize 2007, offered by the FFII in its call for rejection of Microsoft's OOXML standards proposal. The software monopolist is honored as 'Best Campaigner against OOXML Standardization.' FFII president Pieter Hintjens explains, 'We could never have done this by ourselves. By pushing so hard to get OOXML endorsed, even to the point of loading the standards boards in Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy, and beyond, Microsoft showed to the world how poor their format is. Good standards just don't need that kind of pressure. All together, countries made over ten thousands technical comments, a new world record for an ISO vote. Microsoft made a heroic — and costly — effort to discredit their own proposal, and we're sincerely grateful to them.'" If Microsoft doesn't send a representative to claim their 2500-Euro prize at the FFII General Assembly in November, FFII will give the money to Peruvian earthquake relief.

Y'know....

In addition, MS has helped IT security improve more than any other company.

Re:Y'know....

And their CEO is a sane, rational man that is well respected by us of Slashdot.

Re:Y'know....

Which one is he? The sweaty one or the idea thief?

Chairstorm at Microsoft

I'm imagining a hailstorm of flying chairs in an office somewhere.

I wouldn't be too smug

They nearly won, and it isn't over yet - there is another vote coming up in Februrary.

Vista makes me smile.

I don't think the ISO organization will allow M$ to damage their reputation that way. The OOXML vote is an international scandal and the people who count are not going to forget it. The whole business has already been damaging to ISO and they would do better to bury ooxml.

Just the same, I don't feel smug about how easily they damaged ISO. When I want to feel smug, I contemplate Vista's failure and what that means for the whole next generation of M$ crap and lock in.

Vista is one of the best things that ever happened to free software. It's later, more restrictive more expensive and less functional than anyone could possibly have imagined. There is zero enthusiasm for it and a plenty of rejection.

Re:Vista makes me smile.

Just the same, I don't feel smug about how easily they damaged ISO. When I want to feel smug, I contemplate Vista's failure and what that means for the whole next generation of M$ crap and lock in.

I'm not sure why it looks "easily" to corrupt ISO to you. It did take a lot of effort behind the scenes, give them credit where it's due.

Re:Vista makes me smile.

Vista is one of the best things that ever happened to free software. It's later, more restrictive more expensive and less functional than anyone could possibly have imagined. There is zero enthusiasm for it and a plenty of rejection.

One of the best parts is WGA. Microsoft doesn't have the users who build their custom machines, but decide against the cost of the MS retail boxed version taxes. Spending $600-1200 on a custom box build soon finds the cost of an OS and Office suite a good part of building that can no longer be migrated from the old box. Alternatives to expensive restrictive software are now part of the cost decision.

I used to upgrade hardware re-using my legal copy of Windows 98. XP and Vista have ended that process. XP now simply means it is residing on the oldest slowest machine in the house as it is not upgradable (without playing mother-may-I with Microsoft who may say no way). Vista is the same dead end. I am test driving Ubuntu Dapper Drake (the long term support distro), Fiesty Fawn (newer but has issues), and Freespire (out of the box rich Web browsing with codecs and flash) on my new home built hardware. XP will retire on the hardware it arrived on. In it's lifetime it only got a hard drive repalcement due to hardware failure and a memory upgrade. It won't be moving on to a Core 2 Duo box simply due to the EULA, vendor hardware specific recovery disc, and WGA to enforce it.

Thank You Microsoft for closing the door on software re-use, right of first sale, and encouraging me to expand my horizons. I have learned the advantages first hand of not runing with administrator privilages, Software not vendor tied to hardware, open standards, community developement, GNU GPL, and no longer dealing with a per seat restrictive EULA.

Thank You Red Hat, Caldera (pre SCO), Novell SUSE, Mozilla, Sun Microsystems, IBM, ODF, EFF, Adobe, and everyone else who made this possible.

Comments

I wonder how many of those comments are duplicates. Oh well, as long as they're technical comments upon which constructive changes can be made then they are a good thing. It's a learning process.

Thanks

...but this is not enough! Please MS step it up!

You bastards !!!

that kind of humor makes one go jump with joy for having chosen IT field to work in

Some have already sipped the Kool-Aid...

I've already started seeing .docx format attachments in my email at the office. Never mind the fact that my office is nearly 100% Linux/FOSS (except for the sole Windows machine running proprietary apps requiring outdated API's); I'd figured that since the vast majority of companies I've seen haven't (yet) started to migrate to Office 2007 then maybe sending .docx fils to everyone might not be such a smart move. For now we simply kick these emails back along with a friendly reminder that we don't do .docx or OOXML here, and will never accept anyhting in that format. Microsoft says the 'O' in 'OOXML' stands for "open". My ass...

Re:Some have already sipped the Kool-Aid...

thats an Office 2003 doc XML (not quite the same thing). You'd have had to unzip the docx first if it was actually one, and then would have a crap ton of files and stuff... which I beleive is similar-ish to the "competition".

Re:Some have already sipped the Kool-Aid...

thats an Office 2003 doc XML (not quite the same thing). You'd have had to unzip the docx first if it was actually one, and then would have a crap ton of files and stuff... which I beleive is similar-ish to the "competition".

Not necessarily. There is a plug-in for Office 2003 - provided by Microsoft [microsoft.com] to certain organizations[1] - that allows Office 2003 to produce OOXML natively through the normal methods - i.e. more natively supported than PDF and ODF.

Also, I believe Office 2003 uses a normal ".xml" extension [filext.com][2] for its version of OOXML, while OOXML from Office 2007 uses the normal Office extensions with an appended "x" or "m" (the "m" is if you have macros embedded) - e.g. ".docx" and ".docm" [filext.com].

[1] Last I knew it was not available publically, however, a Google search [google.com] turned it up (3rd result).
[2] Search for "OFFICE" and you'll find a number of "OFFICE11" paths.

Re:Some have already sipped the Kool-Aid...

That plugin is for Office 2003 and XP to use OOXML natively, correct. It works quite well, it IS available publicly, and its quite commonly deployed (well, relative to the amount of environments using 2007, not in absolute terms).

And the Office 2003 using XML is for a totally different format, which was also available in a previous version of office (though with less features), which is literally the Office 2003 format but in XML instead of binary, and is a totally different deal than the docx format from 2007, and existed years before Office 2007 came out. It is, for example, the format that is often used to generate Office documents through XSLT. It was used a "long" time ago, and I personally still use that format since it is simpler to generate document with for internal, short term purposes compared to docx, since it doesn't require the additional operation of putting the files together and zipping (which isn't a big deal, but its nice to be able to simply invoke an XSLT processor with no additional steps).

The plugin above will use the virtually the same docx format, used the same way, as Office 2007.

The medium is the message

I'd figured that since the vast majority of companies I've seen haven't (yet) started to migrate to Office 2007 then maybe sending .docx fils to everyone might not be such a smart move.

Each time MS releases a new Office version, many corporate assholes^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H managers set a policy of using the new format on any communication. They don't care if you can't read the content, in fact, they hope you cant.

Their message is "I am cool. I use the newest stuff. My dick is bigger than yours".

Re:Some have already sipped the Kool-Aid...

"open". My ass...

That's the idea, yes.

you did the icon wrong

the foot should have been on top of gate's head...

Microsft? A hero?

Microsoft made a heroic -- and costly -- effort to discredit their own proposal, and we're sincerely grateful to them.

If I see an armed mugger robbing two women, and then run away screaming, and the robber looks at me for a second, giving one of the women enough time to open a can of woop-ass, that doesn't make me a hero.

Re:Microsft? A hero?

A but you see there's no third party in this situation... the robber and the hero are one in the same.

A better analogy would be the Yen Buddhists, who believe that the accumulation of money is a great evil and a burden on the soul and they therefore, regardless of personal hazard, see it as their unpleasant duty to acquire as much money as possible to reduce the risk to innocent people.[1]

[1] With apologies to Terry Pratchett

They could win another award

If OOXML finally dies, shall we give Microsoft a Darwin Award [darwinawards.com]? Or perhaps a Richard Dawkins Award since it's a dying meme?

NO!!!

Don't send the money to MS!!! Send it to me - I trolled bravely and gratuitously against/for whatever the thing is, and I've already send my money to Peru. Email me here to get contact info:

[e-mail]

A ploy?

What prevents them from modifying odf to whatever they want in the future anyway? They may have given up OOXML, but that doesn't mean they don't have enough power to make odf proprietary either.

Re:A ploy?

History only partially backs you up on this one. Remember Microsoft's numerous attempts to define a networking standard so that they could crush the TCP/IP network protocol? NetBUI anyone?

But yes, it can be hard to overcome the market leader. But, then again, if Microsoft were really sure that they controlled the market, why go through the trouble of standardizing? Because large parts of the world were looking elsewhere, especially governments.

On behalf,

I just got off the phone with Mr Bill. He said I am supposed to accept the award for Microsoft. The only problem is that I am busy on the night it would be awarded. I could make a teleconference appearance but sadly would need assistance in getting the money back to Microsoft. If it is wired to me, I couldn't get through customs and we all saw that movie with tom hanks who had to live in an airport.

If anyone with a valid checking account could help with this, I am willing to give them a small convenience fee of 10% plus any expenses. Please down load my personal instant messaging program [wikipedia.org] and shoot me a message. If you have difficulty installing it, you can email me directly at 419 at nigeria.embasy [wikipedia.org] Notice I used the "at" instead of the "@" sign in the email address to avoid spammers and scammers.

Thank you in advance to anyone able to help.

FFII?

Is this the Japanese numbering of Final Fantasy II, or the USA releases?

Re:FFII?

Is this the Japanese numbering of Final Fantasy II, or the USA releases?
actually, the abbreviation stands for the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure [ffii.org], a not-for-profit organization that has campaigned (in Europe), among other things, against software patents, excessive "intellectual" "property" rights and for open standards.

hey ms

Hey, microsoft... if you don't want to pick up your prize, because you are too embarrassed, i can do so for you.

New Country Tune

"YEE-HAW!!! Let's go buy us some votes!!!" by The Redmond Cowboys

Unfortunately...

The problem is that this doesn't change much.

They're still going to deploy it as the default document format for the new Offices. Lots of small and large companies are still going to upgrade their software at some point. OOXML is still very likely to become the new de facto standard due to common usage.

And then there were none...

For all the noise they made it was the FFII who publically put money on the table, in the form of this award, with the goal of recruiting people to subvert the standards process. It is good to see that they have seen sense and chosen this route of getting out of their fix, good to see a little humer from them as well.

MS is experienced in shooting their own foot

Let's face it, folks. MS had the OS market in a stranglehold. They could've gotten away with pretty much anything. Bundling with hardware? No problem at all. Actually made the Average Joe user happy. Crappy bundled software like players and browsers? Zero problem either. Who doesn't know that there's better alternatives is happy with what he got. Mandatory registration? Already a bit of a nuisance to the average user (especially if he doesn't have internet access), but still bearable. Anyone will make a single phone call to use his computer.

But then they stepped across the line where the average user grins and bears it. After a major repair, another call. After a few more, the spanish inquisition starts. People start to get nervous. They didn't do anything wrong, yet they feel as suspects for copying software. Software they bought honestly. People also care whether they can do what they used to do. Now DRM is hanging over their heads, and they start looking at their friends who use Linux, who don't have to call, who don't have to register, who get tons of software for free and legally so, and with the various installers the distributions have, it's also only a mouseclick away.

People start to look around for alternatives. Being the moderator of a "non-geek tech board", I got a pretty good idea what bugs the "Average Joe" users and what direction they take. For about a year now, we have had a vastly increasing number in postings containing questions about Linux, which distribution to take, how to install it and how to get it going, quickly followed by quite happy notes how easy it was.

I've been trying to talk them into it for a few years now. Until recently the response was mostly "What for?". Now there's a reason. So if anyone helped Linux become more of a mainstream system, it's MS.

Oooooo....

If Microsoft doesn't send a representative to claim their 2500-Euro prize at the FFII General Assembly in November, FFII will give the money to Peruvian earthquake relief.

Now they're going to have to go and claim it.

MS could recover

by turning up to collect the prize, then donating it to charity for themselves?

*Kayak* award?

Point of order:

This [kayakcam.com] is a kayak.

These [noooxml.org] are canoes.

That is all.

lol

This is actually too funny to laugh at

This is awesome

More and more proof that Microsoft sucks big time. I really really hope that the money goes to Peru, because MS is the last organisation that needs cash.

Re:Please help

Yay somebody finally found out where AC lives and is going to sort out the problem of trolls and frist posters once and for all!

Re:Please help

Congratulations on managing to post AC without power.

You need a bit of a rewrite on that troll and then you can give it another try. We'll still be here, promise.

Re:Darwin Award

Unless they are trapped in a burning building and the only way to call for help is by sending an OOXML document saying "Send the fire Brigade to [address]", and no one they send it to can open it, I don't envision them actually killing themselves by their failure.