MS Awarded "Best Campaigner Against OOXML" 190
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.
Some have already sipped the Kool-Aid... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Some have already sipped the Kool-Aid... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Some have already sipped the Kool-Aid... (Score:5, Informative)
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:A ploy? (Score:2, Informative)
In MS's defense, TCP/IP wasn't a great option at the time either. MS was working with NetBEUI before DHCP came on the scene for instance.
Sure, they could have put the effort they spent in developing NetBEUI into fixing their objections to TCP/IP, but there was also plenty of work done on NetBEUI by that point already as well, so I don't think it was clear at the time that TCP/IP was going to win out even on LANs.
Re:Some have already sipped the Kool-Aid... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Some have already sipped the Kool-Aid... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:FFII? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Some have already sipped the Kool-Aid... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Vista WGA (Score:3, Informative)
That may be OK for a retail boxed version that comes with an install disk. This isn't OK for the OEM factory installed system. Just try to use a Dell recovery DVD on a homebuilt box. The EULA forbids the OS transfer and the recovery DVD program won't recover to another machine. With that in mind, the WGA hasn't actualy been tested. I just figured it was registered with a genuine Dell model XXXXXX and anything else is "Not Genuine".
Therefore I didn't even try when I built a Core 2 Duo box to play with. I just stuck Feisty on it and enjoyed it.
Re:Vista WGA (Score:3, Informative)
If you're moving to a new home made whitebox then you cannot move your licensing. OEM licensing is tied to the hardware itself.
*Kayak* award? (Score:3, Informative)
This [kayakcam.com] is a kayak.
These [noooxml.org] are canoes.
That is all.