11.02.08
The One Thing That Novell’s Go-OO Gets Right
“Since when has the world of computer software design been about what people want? This is a simple question of evolution. The day is quickly coming when every knee will bow down to a silicon fist, and you will all beg your binary gods for mercy.”
–Bill Gates
People are encouraged not to use Go-OO because it’s controlled by Novell, it contains Microsoft traps and it discriminates against non-Windows platforms (also see [**] below). However, on the upside, the Go-OO team has just done something right.
“DRM is not about rights. It’s about taking people’s right away and Sun should know better.”OpenOffice.org developers added DRM capabilities to PDF without consultation involving users. Does that not contradict Sun’s stance on DRM? It did, after all, denounce Windows Vista and Microsoft for some of this. The explanation from a developer was that “the implementation of PDF import has been done according to the PDF specification, there is no plan to change this.”
So, Sun Microsystems once again shows a level of cowardice. It refuses to challenge an unethical — some would say “criminal” — system. DRM is not about rights. It’s about taking people’s right away and Sun should know better. Either way, Go-OO developers have removed this disease from the code. This means that the very latest openoffice.org-pdfimport package (in Go-OO) can open
DRM-protectedinfected PDFs. There is no ‘add-on’ disablement imposed on access. There are no unnecessary antifeatures.
Sun loses points for supporting DRM. Novell earns point for tossing DRM where it belongs. What a refreshing change. █
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[**] Over at InformationWeek blogs, there is a rave about the latest Go-oo, which was mentioned days ago.
Go-oo is actually the OpenOffice.org build used by Ubuntu, so if you install 8.10 it comes with the Go-oo edition of OO.o 2.4.1 This led me to go dig up the Windows build and try it out, and after some quick and dirty (and wholly unscientific) testing, I’m really impressed. It’s fundamentally the same program, but faster — visibly and noticeably faster to start up, even without the launch-accelerator app.
Needs Sunlight said,
November 2, 2008 at 1:02 pm
That’s an interesting Gates quote. When and where did he say it? Where is it first printed?
Anonymous said,
November 2, 2008 at 2:00 pm
See:
http://slated.org/pwot_bill_gates_interview
I don’t this it is real. Many of the things said in that interview are too way off to be real.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 2, 2008 at 3:10 pm
In magazines of the 90s (or late 80s), I’m told that he explicitly talked about world domination. This would probably require some digging in a library though.