HackFUD

David Berlind has written the best summary of the events which occoured over the last few months to do with the OpenDocument Foundation’s activities, which I also did an antiFUD article about a while ago.

Highly recommended reading. Click on the link above to read it. Thanks, David!

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I smiled when I read the title of this item in InterOp News, written by Jeff Gould.

There are a number of things I find wrong with this particular article, lets go through it, starting with the title:

Linux needs to try harder if it wants to catch Vista

Nice one! In one fell swoop the title alone makes some assertions:

1) That “Linux” is “behind” Vista.

The implication is that desktop use of Linux distros is behind Vista. How does he know this? Does he have concrete evidence to back this assertion up? Are there comparison figures which have definite Linux distro desktop use and the actual amount of desktops running Vista? I sure can’t find any definite numbers, therefore I am not prepared to make any assertions one way or the other. But I do suspect there is much greater use of Linux on desktop systems than is implied in that title.

2) The connotation in the title is that “Vista is superior to Linux”.

Perhaps I read too much into titles. Perhaps I’m paranoid. Perhaps I am merely suspicious when I see titles like that, but if you’re going to create a certain amount of doubt then your skill and use of language in your article title is important, and this one is very sly because of its wording. If the author meant to write it this way then that was quite clever. Perhaps I’m giving him more credit than he deserves.

Lastly, I was going to make this as point 3 - but it’s really just an amusing observation - well it amused me anyway. The title to me makes Vista look like some of disease to catch. I sure as heck don’t wish the Linux distro I use on my desktop to catch Vista! Sounds positively fatal!

Let’s get to the article itself; Read the rest of this entry »

And it’s back to business for me, after my trials and tribulations getting this site performing the way I want it to. Almost…

This time, here’s Bill Hilf, Microsoft’s…well, let’s let InformationWeek introduce him…

Microsoft’s leading light on open source issues. Since coming to Microsoft from IBM in 2003, Hilf has been inextricably involved with Microsoft’s strategy for dealing with Linux. He’s recently been appointed general manager of Windows Server marketing and platform strategy, which means he’s taking on an expanded role, but open source is still one of his core issues.

One of his core issues. Indeed. InformationWeek asks him:

InformationWeek: Are there any specific areas where you would see Microsoft placing things in an open source development environment as a way to further its own products or to better interoperate with things?

He replies with :

Hilf: When people buy commercial software, really what they’re buying is a guarantee. You’re buying a guarantee that what you have will perform, and has been tested and there’s someone you can call up, and if things go really bad someone’s liable if something doesn’t work. You’re buying this ecosystem of accountability. One of the challenges of open source and really the challenge with the open source business model is: it’s hard to replicate that ecosystem of accountability and that guarantee.

What he seems to be implying here is that if you use FOSS products, there’s no one to phone up and complain to if something with that product goes wrong. There’s no accountability. You can’t hold someone liable for something going wrong. What he’s also saying is that buying commercial (read : proprietary) software, then all these negatives Go Away. Not only that, but with the purchase of the commercial software, you’re getting a “guarantee that what you have will perform, and has been tested”, that you can hold the publishers of that software liable if something doesn’t work.

Oh, really? Yeah. Right.

Let’s deal with the issue of a piece of commercial software having a guarantee it’s going to work/perform, first. Read the rest of this entry »

After an epic few days I’ve updated the look of the site, which I hope you’ll find cleaner than the old one. Forums are now integrated into the site, and - hopefully - logins too, so if you create a user within the forums you should also have that integrated within the blog too. Expect there to be the odd bug or two on the site, and, if you saw some puzzling stuff happening on the site in the last few hours - apologies for the disruption. The changes were rather disruptive and large and I tried to minimise any disruption.

I’ll be making the odd tweak to the layout and the contents in the coming days, so if something happens to upset the site again then again my apologies - I’ll put that right ASAP.

>>>Discuss Here>>>

Read the rest of this entry »

The OpenDocument Foundation have closed shop.

When I asked Sam Hiser, one of the members, if they were going to wind the foundation down, his reply to me yesterday was “yes, its original purpose was to help develop ODF and we are directing our atttentions to CDF and other areas in part because ODF development is moving into better governance and into smarter hands (IBM);”

Now, their web site is no more.

I’m pretty sure they will return though, to market their “DaVinci” software. There appears to be a domain name called “da-vinci.us”, which was registered on October 17th, 2007, so I fully expect they are reforming themselves to market their product.

Update 1 : Nice article by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols entitled “Open Document Foundation closes up shop”, which fleshes out more details. Highly recommended reading.

Update 2 : Apparently, letters have now been sent to the “State AG” (State Attorney General) and the IRS to formally dissolve the OpenDocument Foundation.