05.16.08
Posted in Microsoft, Office Suites, Standard, OpenDocument, Europe, Open XML, FOSS at 8:36 pm by Roy Schestowitz
Nightmare scenario: no lock-in
Earlier on we mentioned in a post what some characterised as “Alpha-lunatic”; that post has been accordingly updated since yesterday. Wherever the insults come from, it’s despicable because non-profits serving the public need never be compared to terrorists. To give some information — as opposed to conspiracy-esque disinformation — about Digistan, Mr. Wheeler wrote down some clarifications a couple of days ago.
In my essay “Is OpenDocument an Open Standard? Yes!”, I addressed this problem of multiple different definitions by finding three widely-used definitions (Perens’, Krechmer’s, and the European Commission’s) and merging them. After all, if a specification meets all three definitions of “open standard”, then it’s far more likely to be a true open standard. Problem is, with all those trees, it’s hard to see the forest.
Andy Updegrove wrote about this too.
Standards and SocietyOn Wednesday, I introduced The Hague Declaration to those that visit this blog, promising to write again shortly to introduce the new organization that created the Declaration. That organization is called the Digital Standards Organization (Digistan, for short), and I’m pleased to say that I am one of its founders. In this entry, I’ll give you my perceptions of what Digistan is all about, and what I hope it will accomplish.
Attacks on Digistan and the Hague Declaration should not be surprising. In its latest quarterly disclosure, Microsoft reported a decline in sales of Microsoft Office, as pointed out at the time by Mary Jo Foley and others. In fact, both cash cows took a considerable tumble (Windows saw a decline of 24%). The cause? Well, there are several. It has a lot to do with timing of product releases, but as CRN put it yesterday, OpenOffice.org 3.0 is “Another Microsoft Headache.” The download volume and national policies/migrations we occasionally cite here speak for themselves.
The OpenOffice.org community is now beta testing the next major upgrade to its office productivity suite, version 3.0, and there is enough in it to cause Microsoft some more worry.
There is another new article about office suites becoming more of a commodity and it comes from ECT:
You don’t have to spend as much as you once did to get a decent computer nowadays, and thanks to free software, you don’t have to spend anything at all for a decent suite of office apps like OpenOffice. Even if you want to eventually migrate to a commercial office product, this is a good “starter” for a new computer user.
[…]
Of course, the expense of computing is not limited to the PC itself.
This article also covers a variety of other office suites, most of which are Web-based and rather powerful on the collaboration side.
The following good article from Market Watch comes to mind again, and particularly the following insightful quote from it:
‘Microsoft sees what’s coming. Things like Word and Excel are sort of like a drug now getting ready to go generic.’
We mentioned this article here. OOXML is the ‘new drug’, which almost nobody is able or permitted (patents) to replicate. █
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05.15.08
Posted in Formats, Microsoft, Novell, Deception, Office Suites, Mono, OpenDocument, SUN, Java, Open XML, OpenOffice, ISO at 9:14 am by Roy Schestowitz
Could Vote Rigging Get Any More Obvious Than This?
Many shameless deniers — spearheaded primarily through disinformation, which is notably disseminated by Microsoft — are out there continuing to rewrite history, badly. Let it be reiterated that the OOXML saga was so abundantly filled with corruption that setting up a page summarising it all is nearly impossible. There are literally hundreds of separate scandals that come to mind. One interesting new find is this one.
Microsoft Puppet countries are leaving the P membership. Lebanon, Turkey, Cyprus, and Trinidad & Tobago have already dropped out. All those countries voted Yes without comments to OOXML.
Let’s clarify what we see here. Andy Updegrove was astounded (he even publicly complained) around August last year when several nations suddenly joined in to vote for ‘no apparent reason’ (it was obvious to a prudent observer that knows all about OOXML).
The countries stayed there not only for the September 2007 vote, but for the second one at the end of March 2008 too. Now that it’s all over, just a month after the announcement from ISO, suddenly they drop out again (”back to normal, business as usual”), having just accomplished their mission, so to speak. Assignment completed.
It’s mildly amusing actually because Microsoft’s puppet don’t even try hard enough to cover their tracks by lingering on and sticking around for a while longer. It’s very revealing. Don’t believe us? Ask the man who was in charge before being replaced by another Microsoft puppet. Here is what he said:
“This year WG1 have had another major development that has made it almost impossible to continue with our work within ISO. The influx of P members whose only interest is the fast-tracking of ECMA 376 as ISO 29500 has led to the failure of a number of key ballots. Though P members are required to vote, 50% of our current members, and some 66% of our new members, blatantly ignore this rule despite weekly email reminders and reminders on our website. As ISO require at least 50% of P members to vote before they start to count the votes we have had to reballot standards that should have been passed and completed their publication stages at Kyoto. This delay will mean that these standards will appear on the list of WG1 standards that have not been produced within the time limits set by ISO, despite our best efforts.
The disparity of rules for PAS, Fast-Track and ISO committee generated standards is fast making ISO a laughing stock in IT circles. The days of open standards development are fast disappearing. Instead we are getting “standardization by corporation”, something I have been fighting against for the 20 years I have served on ISO committees. I am glad to be retiring before the situation becomes impossible. I wish my colleagues every success for their future efforts, which I sincerely hope will not prove to be as wasted as I fear they could be.”
–Martin Bryan, ISO ‘Escapee’
Formerly Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34 WG1
Speaking of ISO being hijacked, we mentioned this earlier today and it needn’t be doubted anymore. Many other strategic ‘forts’ got hijacked by Microsoft. Yes! Obey Microsoft or be bullied, even if you are a distinguished professor or a government official (probably several).
Another Clarification: OpenOffice.org Does Not Support OOXML
We stressed this before, but Microsoft and its apologists — even a few who are deceived inside the FOSS world unfortunately, trolls in this site included — continue to repeat the self-justifying nonsense. Let’s just say that again: OpenOffice.org does not support OOXML. Put more clearly:
Some others take a more pragmatical approach, but even that one is very much telling about the whole OOXML farce. In this category, we find the OpenOffice.org project. Despite what Microsoft will tell you, OpenOffice.org does not and will not provide OOXML « interoperability » . It will however provide an import filter that users will be able to use in order to import documents formatted in the format used by Microsoft Office 2007 and 2008 that bears the name of Microsoft Office Open XML(OOXML). What this means is that the OpenOffice.org project has to work directly on the files edited and created by MS Office 2007 and 2008 in order to provide compatibility and does not use the OOXML specification, as it is not implemented by MS Office 2007 and Microsoft Office 2008. So much for interoperability. The jury is still out, by the way, on the search for OOXML implementations. The ones that exist are either broken or else very limited (even the famous Novell plugin).
Once again you can hopefully see the role of an OOXML villain called Novell, which did a big favour to Microsoft in exchange for cash. Speaking of which, Mary Jo Foley disappointed yesterday with a headline suggesting that “Silverlight for Linux” is now available. There is no “Silverlight for Linux” and therefore it’s an inaccurate and deceiving headline that gives Web developers the wrong impression. Microsoft refused to support GNU/Linux, so instead it used Novell to make a clone that’s always behind and requires patent ‘protection’. It’s the perfect arrangement for Microsoft, which even Miguel de Icaza has denounced by now. Appended below are some new bits of information about Flash.
Why JavaFX (Maybe Flash) and Not Silverlight
Regarding Flash versus Silverlight, we have discussed this before.
In today’s news you might discover that Adobe was kind enough to finally treat GNU/Linux like a first-class citizen, at least as far as the Flash player goes (it made such promises back in 2006 but only in vain):
Once piece of welcome news is that Adobe is releasing the Flash Player 10 beta for all major platforms — Windows, Mac and Linux. Adobe has even upped the Linux ante with a new installer specially tailored for Ubuntu users. Barclay says that Adobe considers Linux a major platform and will continue to make all Flash releases simultaneous across platforms.
This is important because the Web is increasingly becoming a semi-replacement for some native applications. Here is a new article about this trend, with focus on Adobe AIR.
Twhirl is built on Adobe AIR, which has a lightweight client library that allows Web developers to use familiar tools and languages to build first-class desktop applications. Software created with AIR is fully interactive and network-enabled, with a rich UI. But unlike traditional Web applications, AIR apps gain the immediacy and user engagement that come from running outside the browser window.
Also recent is the following article which suggests that an open source Adobe Flash player might be inevitable: (colouring in red is ours)
Both Otte and Savoye do see some limited good coming out of the Open Screen Project. Otte suggests that the growing openness of Adobe might help to reduce the reservations in the free software community about working to reproduce proprietary technologies, as well as “the general ‘flash is evil’ attitude” that prevails in the community.”
Moreover, both Otte and Savoye see the announcement as a hopeful sign. “I think Adobe will open up Flash in the end, or at least the Flash player,” Otte says.
It refers to the following recent announcement:
Software maker Adobe announced Thursday that it would drop many of the licensing requirements attached to its Flash technology, which is used to display video and audio content on the web.
Let’s not forget that Adobe is now in the Linux Foundation, but there’s still work to be done.
I would hope that Zemlin will encourage Adobe to now treat Linux as a first class citizen as opposed to an afterthought for release after Windows.
I hope Zemlin will pressure Adobe to finally actually make Flash — not just the player — but Flash CS3 Professional, (the core Flash development tool) available for Linux as a fully commercially available and supported product. It is somewhat ironic in my opinion that Adobe can join the Linux Foundation, claim to support Linux and yet not offer its flagship Flash development tool on Linux.
Last but not least, as far as RIAs go, be aware that JavaFX is GPLv2-licensed. It’s probably the one to promote at the moment. █
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05.14.08
Posted in Microsoft, Office Suites, OpenDocument, Europe, Interoperability, Open XML, OpenOffice at 10:49 pm by Roy Schestowitz
To those who think that Microsoft’s OOXML scandals are over, looking a little further is recommended.
Microsoft Penalises ODF
There are several examples of situations where Microsoft not only promotes OOXML but also actively works against ODF [1, 2]. By its very nature in fact, OOXML is a case against ODF and it’s anti-competitive. But there’s more to it. Watch this analysis which seems to confirm that Microsoft makes ODF look bad, whether deliberately or not [1, 2].
Can someone explain to me why Microsoft Office needs almost 10 minutes to load an ODF file that OpenOffice can load in 14 seconds?
Microsoft Plays Politics Against ODF
You might still recall the maddening situation in France. Groklaw has a little update (translation) on it. The article is here and it’s in French. Part of Groklaw’s translation (from Sean Daly):
The article explains how the head of the DGME in charge of editing the RGI was sacked and replaced following that visit and this letter. Lemaire points out numerous errors and omissions in the document and points out in particular how Microsoft claims to have always been neutral:
“Microsoft, in the name of pluralism and technological neutrality of the State, has requested that OpenXML, open standard, rights-free and documented, in the sense of Article 4 of the LCEN, be recommended also alongside the standard called ODF. Microsoft has always presented a position which is balanced and neutral, asking that equal treatment be respected.”
Speaking of sacking & replacing, be sure to learn how ISO got sort of shuffled and other people met the wrath of Microsoft. Examples include:
Referring to the scandal from France, watch what a government delegate had to say.
Microsoft Won’t Inter-operare
BECTA’s complaint has already been mentioned in [1, 2], but here is another decent article covering this latest debacle, which generated a lot of press coverage.
ODF on the Rise
In this interview with Louis Suarez-Potts it turns out that ODF is doing pretty well indeed, despite all of the corruption we have been tracking for over a year. Microsoft not playing by the rules is bound to make OOXML look bad.
Q: How has the OOXML’s approval affected ODF’s penetration?
Louis : Zero.
[…]
Q: What do you see for the OOo and ODF community in the years to come?
Louis : Glory. I mean it. What is the future, I could ask, of Firefox? Will IE7 kill it? No. People appreciate freedom and what it brings, for it brings innovation and the possibility of it. And it brings, implicitly, community—by which I mean a coming together of interests that are not only generated by and dependent upon marketing agendas.
Call for Real Standards (Like ODF) in Europe
Several large European nations have already decided to ignore OOXML and more backlash ensued. Now comes openparliament.eu where you are encouraged to drop your signature if you live in Europe. It can be summarised thusly:
Citizens and stakeholder groups should not have to use the software of a single company in order to communicate with their elected officials or participate in the legislative process.
All companies should be given the chance to compete freely for contracts to supply ICT services to the European Parliament.
Under the shadow of imbalanced press it may be difficult to see the full picture, but ODF is doing pretty well. Declining sales of Microsoft Office, according to Microsoft’s latest quarterly report could — just could — be an indicator of this. As we last stressed yesterday, Microsoft is playing financial game. █
“Unregulated, and illegal, monopoly domination of IT technology that affects virtually every sector of society is a VERY BAD THING, and worth taking a stand in opposition.”
–Linux Today comment
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05.09.08
Posted in GNU/Linux, Office Suites, Patents, OpenDocument, Open XML, FOSS at 2:55 am by Roy Schestowitz
KDE’s KOffice has just reached Alpha 7 and it revolves around OpenDocument format.
This release is the first to see some results of the OpenDocument Format testsuite being imported into KOffice. The testsuite exists from a lot of little documents that each show one feature in ODF. Automated testing of loading those documents will allow developers to keep on working on the code without fear of breaking the already working code. This is known as regression testing.
In this release already 23 tests are added into KOffice and the results are visible in much better loading of text documents in KWord. KWord is also one of the target applications for 2.0, and NLNet has sponsored a developer working on that application.
KDE deserves some praises for refusing to touch OOXML with its the anti-FOSS poison pill (RAND+OSP), in addition to the impossibility of implementing something that nobody else will ever implement, not even Microsoft.
KDE’s views seem a little different from the views of Abiword, which has just spoken to Red Hat Magazine about the same issue and also from that of Gnumeric, which was discussed here before (a Microsoft ’success story’ and ‘case study’).
In other OpenDocument news, ODFDOM has just been released to the public.
I am pleased to announce that the first public version of ODFDOM is now available for download.
Europe seems to be quite firmly behind ODF. █
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05.08.08
Posted in Formats, Microsoft, Office Suites, Standard, OpenDocument, Open XML, OpenOffice, FOSS at 10:40 am by Roy Schestowitz
ODF is the future and OOXML is the past, claimed Bob Sutor last year
There is a lot of disinformative fuss at the moment with people claiming that OpenOffice.org 3 “supports OOXML.” It does not. The word “supports” has an active — as opposed to a negative — connotation. In reality, OpenOffice.org is all about ODF. The OOXML filter/importes are intended to help with converting Microsoft’s garbled mess (Office 2007 is not OOXML-compliant) into something standard, into ODF — for good.
Here is a nice way of laying out this situation: ODF implementations are already ahead of the existing elegant-yet-incomplete standard, whereas Microsoft is behind, never intending to actually obey its own broken specifications.
So what’s the difference between Microsoft/OOXML and OpenOffice.org/ODF ?
The difference is, that Microsoft Office is behind OOXML. OpenOffice.org is ahead of ODF. According to the ISO rules, a specification can only be approved as an ISO-standard, unless it has been implemented.
OOXML is not a standard yet. One thing which it sure is: a scandal. █
“37 letters with exactly the same words. Some of the senders didn’t even care to remove the ‘Type company name here’ text.
Simular letters has been circulating in Denmark as an e-mail from the Danish MD Jørgen Bardenfleth to customers and business partners.
I call it fraud, cheating and disgusting. If I wasn’t anti-Microsoft before, I am now. Disgusting !”
–Leif Lodahl
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05.06.08
Posted in Microsoft, Deception, OpenDocument, Open XML at 11:00 pm by Roy Schestowitz
“Working behind the scenes to orchestrate “independent” praise of our technology, and damnation of the enemy’s, is a key evangelism function during the Slog. “Independent” analyst’s report should be issued, praising your technology and damning the competitors (or ignoring them). “Independent” consultants should write columns and articles, give conference presentations and moderate stacked panels, all on our behalf (and setting them up as experts in the new technology, available for just $200/hour). “Independent” academic sources should be cultivated and quoted (and research money granted). “Independent” courseware providers should start profiting from their early involvement in our technology. Every possible source of leverage should be sought and turned to our advantage.”
–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]
Microsoft’s smear campaign [1, 2, 3, 4] against OpenDocument Format continues. It’s not only a Vice President from Novell who participates in this. It’s also comes from the usual suspects. As our reader Logan put it yesterday (using an excessively pessimistic tone):
You’ll see in coming months more and stories to discredit ODF, by Mr. Brown [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14], by Jesper Lund Stocholm [1, 2, 3, 4], by Jirka Kosek, by Rick Jelliffe [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]… The usual whores! They’ll be referenced daily by Microsoft’s employees in their blogs. Just like it’s happening right now.
This charade will only be over when the only way to exchange documents is by using only Microsoft’s file formats and by using only Microsoft’s applications.
Links above were added for some context. Andy Updegrove expects a war or words to carry on for quite some time. He wrote:
The series begins with BRM Convenor Alex Brown reporting on the results of a conformance test that he applied to assess OfficeOpen 2.4.0 to ISO 26300 (ODF 1.0) (an earlier blog entry reported on his using the same test to compare Office 2007 to ISO 29500 (OOXML)). Rob Weir filed the folloiwng reply, challenging Alex’s results. I see a comment at the end of Alex’s post promising “to put Rob right in a follow-on posting.” It appears that this is likely to run on for some time…
Last night it was Rob Weir who dispatched another item which, among other things, requested that Alex Brown retracts his invalidated [pun] ODF smear. Microsoft’s anonymous bloggers (or partners, or Munchkins) will probably respond with the usual personal insults [1, 2], even libel.
There’s a lot of funny stuff happening with business relationships that are too complex to follow, but it usually turns out that all those who support OOXML are in Microsoft’s pocket one way or another. We still have our suspicions about Patrick Durusau and his new buddies (mind the photo at the top), especially after he pulled links to his rather shocking pro-OOXML letters [Correction: see corrections in the comments below]. A source tells us this might be related to the ongoing antitrust case which revolves around OOXML abuses.
In other news that is actually more positive, the OpenDocument Fellowship received many donations.
The OpenDocument Fellowship has attracted nearly $40,000 (USD) in donations to help fund development projects under the Fellowship’s Targeted Donations Programme .
One donation will be used to reward volunteers from the OASIS ODF Formula subcommittee for their continuing work on the formula specification. The other donations are targeted at development projects. The Fellowship is producing an “ODF toolkit” for developers, and a light-weight ODF viewer.
Microsoft pretends to have accepted the existence of ODF, but based on its actions in South Africa at the moment, it remains nothing but a bully offering candy to attract victims. Microsoft wants to kill ODF. No more, no less. █
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Posted in Microsoft, Novell, OpenDocument, Open XML, Ecma, IBM at 4:34 am by Roy Schestowitz
A vocal ODF skeptic mailed us yesterday to say that Patrick Durusau had quietly pulled all links to his pro-OOXML letters, so all sorts of thoughts and old speculations [1, 2, 3, 4] began to resurface. What is truly happening in this mental poker game?
Other things are happening at the moment, whose main purpose is to eradicate ODF. It ought to be a little more than transparent and clear– albeit not to everyone — that when CompTIA does something, it does this for its paymasters. That’s just how such pressure groups operate, as we last showed only a few days ago. In fact, CompTIA’s agenda in South Africa continues to be slammed [1, 2, 3], more recently by the FFII folks. South Africa has the wrath and the shadow of the Beast looming over it simply because it ‘dared’ to choose ODF for all the right reasons. Shades of (or shadow over) Massachusetts?
You don’t have to convince press speakers and hired guns. But can you imagine that Jan ‘the answer is always the same, you are well paid, shut up’ van den Belt was hired for the comptia lobby after leaving as an ecma international general secretary? What an upgrade for the person to which the ISO jtc1 rewrite was dedicated. Will standards people also let his collegue Mr. Lueders rewrite the essentials of international standardisation? Or could the Dutch nihilist provide some technical assistance? Fast-track Lueders interpretations to the ISO directives?
This whole messiness with ECMA slash Microsoft slash CompTIA has gotten a lot of people thinking about the integrity of all those involved even after the controversial announcement on April 2nd. Here is Glyn Moody’s response to Alex Brown’s baseless assault, which was directed against ODF.
What this means in practice is that Microsoft will be able to get away with blue murder, by deftly moving between all the different kinds of standards – ECMA standards, putative ISO standards, de facto standards etc. - until people charged with procuring office software will simply throw their hands up and sign on the dotted line for another ten years of Microsoft Office bondage.
Now, you might argue that the ODF side can play the same games, and I agree that some of the more, er, commercially-minded outfits might well be tempted. But there’s a big difference from the OOXML world in that ODF is today a key part of the free software world. As such, there are crates of nitpickers and argumentative technical pub bores who really care about ODF and its inner wonders, and will delight in pouncing on such inaccuracies – not least because there is no love lost between them and the commercial side of things. If Sun or IBM or anyone else misbehaves, somebody will spot it, and blog about it.
OOXML, on the other hand, is essentially a product of one company, with practically no open source community around it (Novell hardly counts).
In practice, Novell counts as an example some people do fall for because they do not realise just how much Novell was paid to pretend that it likes OOXML. Novell was cited as a supporter of OOXML in the international press.
It’s far from the first time that Microsoft buys love from people and we haven’t seen the last such incident or contract yet. It’s in the DNA, the corporate culture.
Also noteworthy among today’s findings is the following comment from PJ, in reference to Alex Brown:
I think it’s worse. When people do bad things,
they usually try to perfume it, even to
themselves.
And when they plan to do worse things, they
spray and spray and spray to try to get
everyone to agree that it isn’t as bad as
it is.
That pretty much sums up possible approval of OOXML, even where no bribe (financial incentive) was involved and properly documented. It’s the convenience of finding truths in lies. As always, bullying lobbying is a nice addition, as illustrated and championed by CompTIA and others. █
“We should whack them [Dell over Linux dealings], we should make sure they understand our value.”
–Paul Flessner, Senior Vice President, Microsoft
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05.04.08
Posted in Microsoft, GNU/Linux, FUD, Deception, Marketing, OpenDocument, Open XML, Site News at 11:58 am by Roy Schestowitz
Rant alert
We sometimes hear from people who suspect that their Web site or forum’s community is getting poisoned by companies. The following is not necessarily related to the previous post about Microsoft ‘evangelism’, but one we received a couple of hours ago from a known and reliable source reads: “Do you have any way of finding out more about who is employing this shill on behalf of Microsoft?”
“Åtkomst nekad Du har inte behörighet till denna sida,” the request for this page returns, meaning that details are unavailable except for subscribers. LinuxPortalen’s sysadmin would have to provide details about user “plun” somehow, based on what we were told.
In a short conversation that soon developed it came up that Microsoft employs by proxy. “If I understood correctly Waggener Edstrom is [only] one of several (many) marketing firms, but the main one though.”
Watch the news in their front page at the moment:
“Yankee Group Chooses WE [Waggener Edstrom] as its Communications Partner”
Remember the Yankee Group, which we last wrote about just a fortnight ago? The apple doesn’t fall so far from the tree. Increased disinformation activity has been noticed not just here.
A reader points out that “though Microsoft is famous for lobbying / marketing, it isn’t even good at that. Those functions are outsourced. So, Microsoft is good at … well … nothing, except outsourcing.”
We had our share of problems too. This nymshifting troll (mind the comments) caused a lot of pain and hours of lost time. He keeps changing names and he harasses Beranger also.
In previous correspondence said the same reader: “It would also be useful to shoot down the Microsoft “talking points”, the blog entries [on ODF] can help compensate for Microsoft functional ownership of the media. I’d also like to know how Microsoft is gaming Google’s page rank.” (c/f ODF smear campaign, akin to “The Slog”)
“Earlier attempts to hire veterans from firms like Microsoft had awful results. “Google is so different that it was almost impossible to reprogram them into this culture,” says CEO Eric Schmidt.”
–Google Goes Globe-Trotting (2007)
Microsoft was caught spamming (the ‘proper’ way) search engines before and it still does that. It has no guilt or shame. It’s the beautiful naked emperor in its own eyes.
“Microsoft has warned Google to steer clear of corporate search, declaring that the market is “our house”.
[…]
“Those people are not going to be allowed to take food off our plate, because that is what they are intending to do.”"
–Microsoft warns Google off business search (2006)
Further says our reader: “I would appreciate if you could send [share] the link. Since 2004 and onward I’ve mentioned a few times to Google staff about the problem of developing toxic shock. I see former Microsoft employee as largely unreformable and unemployable inside of high-technology for the rest of their careers. However, be that as it may, taking them without a cooling off or acclimitization period at another company means that all the problems at Microsoft transmigrate to Google.”
It is a worrying thought, surely, but it doesn’t quite ring a bell. There was another recent example where Microsoft escorted a Microsoft-to-Google defector out of campus like he was a criminal. It was only mentioned in Microsoft blogs, but not in the mainstream media. Microsoft’s Google envy has spun a little out of control, which brought out vanity as we showed before. It’s a hard problem to solve.
“They use lies, insults, extreme libel and bury everything (comments, submissions) they want to intercept.”Going back to the problem with manipulation of content and search, the reader added: “Google and others could deal with the problem. Rather than let it slide. Google did announce a change in policy a few years back and said that it will interfere with pages and groups gaming their ranking system.
“Back to Slashdot. On Slashdot, for example, there has been a lot of offensive text (coprophilia, homophilia, etc) posted prominently in discussion of articles which strike at the core of the issues. Some of it is more low key, for example towards the bottom of the wiki page on codes, there is a link to a problem in Australia.”
Speaking from personal experience, the same tactics seem to be used in particular newsgroups in USENET, namely the use of vile language that drives readers away. It happens in forums that are focused on Linux or — more broadly — on Free software. The very same people (from the same newsgroups where they have harassed for over a decade) came to Digg.com where they systematically insult me in the same obscene way using libel (see this, for example, because the problem recurred just a couple of days ago). Memories of a recent article spring to mind because it’s not an unusual tactic (even outside technology):
“The activities uncovered by Wikileaks include deleting Guantanamo detainees’ ID numbers from Wikipedia, posting of self-praising comments on news websites in response to negative articles, promoting pro-Guantanamo stories on the Internet news focus website Digg, and even altering Wikipedia’s entry on Cuban President Fidel Castro to describe him as “an admitted transexual” [sic]…
The proof Wikeleaks assembled includes the IP address and whois ownership record for public.jtfgtmo.southcom.mil, which is Guantanamo’s Internet gateway server, google hits on that IP address, a traceroute through a satellite downlink, the whois ownership record for that downlink, links to the defaced Wikipedia entries, links to comments posted at news websites, records of approximately 140 promotions of news articles at Digg, links and quotes about three alleged US military propagandists who are stationed at Guantanamo, and fourteen links to other Wikileaks articles about Guantanamo.”
–US military propaganda team busted (2007)
The personal attacks that you can find in Digg (in my case, from users with the names “kretik”, “flatfish”, “harlowmonkeys” and several more) come from the same people who have harassed advocates of Free software for many years (in some cases for over 8 years with victims re-chosen until they give up or flee). They use lies, insults, extreme libel and bury everything (comments, submissions) they want to intercept. They lurk in Slashdot too and post anonymously sometimes, for a fact (it’s permitted in Slashdot, but not in all popular sites, whose reputation companies attempt to ruin if they dislike the message or topical focus they change).
An interpretation of this broad phenomenon comes from a reader: “That creates several problems, one of which is to turn new people off from both the topic and the site. Another, is that in regions or institutions using corporate censorship products, the site will eventually ease its way into the banned category. Yet another is that it tries to piggyback one issue onto another, unrelated, topic.”
There is a lot more to this and the issue was raised before, e.g. here. In addition, false accusation were made against my Web sites, saying they are the source of DDOS attack. Shades of Sys-Con and Groklaw. Then, my sites got blacklisted by Websense (Groklaw likewise).
“‘Riders’ are not any more appropriate in technology than they are in congress,” concludes the reader. It’s an interesting thing to explore, overall. █
“Ideally, use of the competing technology becomes associated with mental deficiency, as in, “he believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and OS/2.” Just keep rubbing it in, via the press, analysts, newsgroups, whatever. Make the complete failure of the competition’s technology part of the mythology of the computer industry. We want to place selection pressure on those companies and individuals that show a genetic weakness for competitors’ technologies, to make the industry increasingly resistant to such unhealthy strains, over time.”
–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]
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« Previous entries ·
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.