Alex,
> Microsoft aren't putting themselves through ISO just to feel good,
> though, and I don't think that it will either help or hinder
> their monopoly position. I think they're mainly worried about
> it because they want OXML to be considered standardised, and
> feel that Ecma alone isn't sufficient.
It *will* help their monopoly -- that's why they are going to such
lengths to slow ODF and push their format to ISO. Ask yourself
this question: why, since 1987, has Microsoft never submitted
their Rich Text Format pseudostandard to any standards body? Or
Excel CSV?
ECMA is a rubberstamp organisation, and was chosen by Microsoft
precisely to avoid the same level of ISO review ODF went through.
It has been an effective shortcut; as ECMA is not a standards body
but an association of major IT companies, no review or criticism
took place.
The Microsoft Office suite has over 70 import and export filters,
but you won't find ODF among them. You won't find it in any Word
menu, either. There are add-in tools (including a one-way tool
developed by a Microsoft partner), but their use is anti-intuitive
to basic users. We computer whizzes probably have no problem
reading and writing MS binary blob .doc files, but then again none
of us probably is allergic to the command line, either. Microsoft
claims that ODF came along too late to be included in the next
version of Office, but they have been careful to avoid announcing
that they will include it in future. They are still betting on
marginalising ODF.
> Additionally, I wouldn't ask free software developers to refrain
> from implementing OXML if there is demand for it. Personally,
> I've seen no demand
There is no need for market "demand" for the MS format to appear;
as it is in the current version of Office, every Office upgrade
means another MS-OXML installation. If Microsoft really cared
about the "billions" of binary blob documents, they would publish
the binary formats, which they have not done. They are willing to
make the binary blob Office formats available, but only on terms
prejudicial to Free Software developers (you must be a company to
ask for the formats here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/840817
or subscribe as a company to their developer network).
Although ECMA doesn't care about writing Excel bugs into a messy
standard which disregards ISO standards such as 8601 (dates), ISO
standards bodies take their work seriously and don't like the
Microsoft maneuvering. Perhaps it's all for the best that the
fast-track ballot was maintained, it might make it easier for the
national bodies to strike it down.
Sean
I just wanted to make everyone aware of the 3rd Conference on Living
Knowledge - Communities building knowledge, innovation through citizens'
science and university engagement, taking place in Paris on the 30th of
august to the 1st of september this year. They would be very interested
to have people with experience from Free Software participating with
papers, since the ideas behind Free Software match very well with the
focus of the conference (one of which is "empowering of people and
promoting of active citizenship").
You can find more information at:
http://sciencescitoyennes.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=115
The deadline for submission of papers is the 13th of may.
--
Jonas Öberg
Free Software Foundation Europe ( Join the Fellowship )
Tel. +46-31-780 21 61 Mob. +46-733 423 962 ( http://fsfe.org )
> From: MJ Ray <mjr(a)phonecoop.coop>
> To: discussion(a)fsfeurope.org
> Subject: FSFE ignoring OOXML?
> Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 09:22:59 +0100
>
> There's just been a call for help on a debian mailing list.
> In amongst it, it includes the phrase "I did not get a response
> from the Free Software Foundation Europe." What's happened?
>
>> From bounce-debian-project=mjr=phonecoop.coop(a)lists.debian.org Tue Apr 24 06:41:23 2007
>> Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 07:41:08 +0200
>> From: "Torsten Werner" <twerner(a)debian.org>
>> Reply-To: mail.twerner(a)googlemail.com
>> To: debian-project(a)lists.debian.org
>> Subject: ballot period for ECMA 376 / DIS 29500 (aka OOXML)
>> List-Id: <debian-project.lists.debian.org>
[...]
>>
>> If you are interested in preventing that scenario please take action
>> *now*. Contact your national ISO bodies and tell them your interests.
>> In Germany you can become a member of DIN's working group. I can
>> explain the details if someone is interested. Maybe that is possible
>> in other countries, too.
Hi all,
my name is Davide Dozza and I'm president of a new and small association
which has the scope of supporting OpenOffice.org, Open Formats and more
in general Free Software. I am also an FSFE Fellow.
Some days ago I asked Stefano Maffulli if it was possible to get some
financial support from FSFE in order to subscribe and partecipate to
OpenXML discussion inside the UNINFO, the italian national
standardization body.
There was the concrete opportunity to influence the Italy's vote about
Fasttrack. Unfortunately the Georg Greve answer was negative.
I was quite disappointed about. At least I expected an answer like,
"yes, not for the whole, but we can contribute with few money. How much
do you need?". But I didn't expect a "No, we don't have such sum
available. We need to raise more funds, in particular in Italy. We are
looking for volunteers.".
The cost for the subscription fee was not so much. Just 2.000 Euros. A
lot for a 20-people association, but not a lot for an organization which
receives 240.000 euros of Incomes and spends 31.000 Euros for travels.
As I think the OpenXML fasttrack is *very very* important for the future
of free software I really wonder to know how Felloship fees are spent.
More in general, *who* decides how felloships fee are spent? As I just
received an answer from Greve, how are the decisions taken about?
Best regards
Davide Dozza
P.S: fortunately, thanks to a great friend, we managed to collect the
necessary funds to pay UNINFO fee. Now we can vote for or against
OpenXML fasttrack.
>>
>> A good starting point for more information is
>> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070123071154671 .
>>
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Torsten
>>
>> --
>> blog: http://twerner.blogspot.com/
>> homepage: http://www.twerner42.de/
>>
>>
>> --
>> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-REQUEST(a)lists.debian.org
>> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster(a)lists.debian.org
>>
>
>
There's just been a call for help on a debian mailing list.
In amongst it, it includes the phrase "I did not get a response
from the Free Software Foundation Europe." What's happened?
> From bounce-debian-project=mjr=phonecoop.coop(a)lists.debian.org Tue Apr 24 06:41:23 2007
> Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 07:41:08 +0200
> From: "Torsten Werner" <twerner(a)debian.org>
> Reply-To: mail.twerner(a)googlemail.com
> To: debian-project(a)lists.debian.org
> Subject: ballot period for ECMA 376 / DIS 29500 (aka OOXML)
> List-Id: <debian-project.lists.debian.org>
>
> Hi,
>
>
> I want to remind you that the ballot period about Microsoft/ECMA
> office document format runs until the beginning of September and
> national ISO bodies have to vote about the fasttrack process.
> Microsoft is very active in this process, free software people are not
> as far as I know, e.g. I did not get a response from the Free Software
> Foundation Europe. The risk of a successful standardization of OOXML
> is the marginalization of ODF (ISO 26300) which would make migrations
> from non-free software to free software more difficult in the long
> run.
>
> If you are interested in preventing that scenario please take action
> *now*. Contact your national ISO bodies and tell them your interests.
> In Germany you can become a member of DIN's working group. I can
> explain the details if someone is interested. Maybe that is possible
> in other countries, too.
>
> A good starting point for more information is
> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070123071154671 .
>
>
> Cheers,
> Torsten
>
> --
> blog: http://twerner.blogspot.com/
> homepage: http://www.twerner42.de/
>
>
> --
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-REQUEST(a)lists.debian.org
> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster(a)lists.debian.org
>
--
MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Experienced webmaster-developers for hire http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
Also: statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder, workers co-op.
Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
Hello,
I got a question where to find actual gpg keyring of people involved in
fsfeurope? I just imported one from savannah.gnu.org but it is either
incomplete or invalid. I got few of gpg keys which I cannot find on any
keyserver.
so my question is if the is any reason why some of you do not publish public
keys to some keyserver for example pgp.mit.edu or any other
--
Greets
Paweł Madej
Fight for freedom http://fsfeurope.org
Join the FSFE Fellowship http://fsfe.org
GnuPG KeyID: 0x0FF785FF
Fingerprint: 4698 3A4F 06FD C771 A0CF F2F3 A36A 3114 0FF7 85FF
Here is the Microsoft UK online petition to "strongly urge the British Standards Institution to support this Fast Track process":
http://www.microsoft.co.uk/openxml/
They are clearly watching this issue very closely ( http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/04/16/2019244 ), as the Office file formats are the cornerstone of their desktop monopoly.
Sean
Torsten is not saying whom he tried to contact... I don't know if FSFE is coordinating activity on this subject, however I have been contributing to the Groklaw coverage in particular this article for which I translated France's standards body AFNOR response:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2007030308154032
see also:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070312083134403
Andrew Updegrove, a US-based lawyer, is following these developments, see:
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=2007031221380…
Bob Sutor of IBM comments frequently on this issue and provided a link to the countries' responses (PDF):
http://www.sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=1528
The official Microsoft line can be found here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/
Sean
> Message du 24/04/07 10:26
> De : "MJ Ray" <mjr(a)phonecoop.coop>
> A : discussion(a)fsfeurope.org
> Copie à :
> Objet : FSFE ignoring OOXML?
>
> There's just been a call for help on a debian mailing list.
> In amongst it, it includes the phrase "I did not get a response
> from the Free Software Foundation Europe." What's happened?
>
> > From bounce-debian-project=mjr=phonecoop.coop(a)lists.debian.org Tue Apr 24 06:41:23 2007
> > Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 07:41:08 +0200
> > From: "Torsten Werner" <twerner(a)debian.org>
> > Reply-To: mail.twerner(a)googlemail.com
> > To: debian-project(a)lists.debian.org
> > Subject: ballot period for ECMA 376 / DIS 29500 (aka OOXML)
> > List-Id: <debian-project.lists.debian.org>
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> >
> > I want to remind you that the ballot period about Microsoft/ECMA
> > office document format runs until the beginning of September and
> > national ISO bodies have to vote about the fasttrack process.
> > Microsoft is very active in this process, free software people are not
> > as far as I know, e.g. I did not get a response from the Free Software
> > Foundation Europe. The risk of a successful standardization of OOXML
> > is the marginalization of ODF (ISO 26300) which would make migrations
> > from non-free software to free software more difficult in the long
> > run.
> >
> > If you are interested in preventing that scenario please take action
> > *now*. Contact your national ISO bodies and tell them your interests.
> > In Germany you can become a member of DIN's working group. I can
> > explain the details if someone is interested. Maybe that is possible
> > in other countries, too.
> >
> > A good starting point for more information is
> > http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070123071154671 .
> >
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Torsten
> >
> > --
> > blog: http://twerner.blogspot.com/
> > homepage: http://www.twerner42.de/
> >
> >
> > --
> > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-REQUEST(a)lists.debian.org
> > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster(a)lists.debian.org
> >
>
> --
> MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
> Experienced webmaster-developers for hire http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
> Also: statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder, workers co-op.
> Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
> _______________________________________________
> Discussion mailing list
> Discussion(a)fsfeurope.org
> https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
>
>
FSFE will be sending an open letter to the MEPs tonight when translations
are done:
http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ipred2/letter-april-2007.en.html
And I've put all the useful links I could think of into a blog entry:
http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes/act_now_on_n…
The amendments that FSFE endorses are on this page (now also in PDF):
http://action.ffii.org/ipred2/FFII_Analysis
The open letter is not exhaustive, and there is plenty I would like to add,
but it hits the key points:
* Short and simple enough for the MEP to read
* Short enough to be translated to many languages in a short timeframe
* Show that we have read the Directive and that we understand it
* Make it clear that we want amendments, and say which amendments we want
* Finish it and send it to the MEPs as early as possible
* Show that the current text is *not* supported by the free software
commmunity
(That last point is important because the person in charge of this
Directive, Nicola Zingaretti, likes to tell people he is a free software
supporter - so we have to tell MEPs that we do not support his version)
The amendments we're endorsing are very good. I would rather endorse
rejecting the Directive, but that proposal would fail in the European
Parliament, and I would rather the amendments didn't use the word "piracy"
so much, but there are two good reasons for doing this. One is that
"copyright piracy" is much narrower than "copyright infringement", which is
good, and the other is that the TRIPS agreement requires that signatories
prevent "copyright piracy", so by addressing "copyright piracy" in this
Directive, we prevent people from using "copyright piracy" as an excuse for
a further Directive.
The vote is next week and the MEPs are discussing it this week, so if you
want to get active on this, please do so as soon as possible. The most
useful thing to do is to contact your MEP and ask them to vote for the
amendments that I linked above.
--
Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \ GPLv3 and other work supported by
http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \ Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org
Hi,
I have some doubts about licensing which i didn't find them solved reading
the gnu.org's site and i thought of asking them here because maybe replies
can be added there later...
(maybe i haven't find the proper urls and maybe i'm asking dumb/repetitive
questions...ignore and sorry if so)
Multilicensing:
1-Could i license something under 2 diferent copyleft compatible licenses?
1.1-Could i license something under 2 copyleft uncompatible licenses?
1.1.1-If so, Could i also add a third one to the same document?
1.1.2-Could i also license it with a fourth free, non-copyleft, gpl
compatible one?
Re-licensing:
Project 'a' was GPL when it was 1.1, now is 2.2 and has changed into LGPL,
ok?
Project 'b' was GFDL and now hasn't got any license displayed, ok?
Project 'c' was GFDL and they changed the license banner into another
copyleft uncompatible one, ok?
Thanks in advance,