I have trimmed down the add-ons I am using with Firefox 2, and added a couple of new ones. Here is what I am using now:
Check out Scott Moschella’s Silent Protest at Plastic Bugs. This guy is braver than I am, but I applaud him and people like him.
He’s also the guy who hacked GIMP to make it usable by human beings: Gimpshop. The Windows version is pretty out of date, unfortunately. It’s a pity the GIMP developers have such a “not invented here” attitude toward Gimpshop. If they’d incorporate Scott’s improvements (and make no mistake: they are huge improvements), they’d see the GIMP community double in three months. I pretty much guarantee it.
Microsoft is back with more vague threats and bogus claims concerning their patents being violated by open source software.
In an interview with Fortune, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, claims that the Linux kernel violates 42 of its patents, the Linux graphical user interfaces run afoul of another 65, the Open Office suite of programs infringes 45 more, e-mail programs violate 15, while other assorted free and open-source programs allegedly transgress 68.
(from eWeek, Microsoft Claims Open-Source Technology Violates 235 of Its Patents)
You first heard this noise back in 2004. It was piffle then, and it’s piffle now. The fact that a company would continue to make empty threats like this, year after year, should be enough reason for you to stop doing business with them.
That’s aside from the practical ramifications of using Microsoft’s software. Anyone who runs a mission-critical server on a Windows machine rather than a Linux or Unix machine, anyone who runs a web server on IIS rather than Apache, anyone who chooses to use Microsoft Office instead of OpenOffice, anyone who chooses to use Internet Explorer rather than Firefox — these people are all technological illiterates who shouldn’t be allowed near a computer keyboard or an IT architecture meeting.
A hack for Microsoft is spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt (aka “FUD“) concerning GPL3. This is no surprise, since that’s primarily what hacks for Microsoft do.
Almost two years ago, the FSF (Free Software Foundation) started work on the first update of the GNU GPL (General Public License) in over a decade. A last-minute hitch, though, is keeping the license from appearing.The FSF announced at the May 2005 LinuxWorld Expo that the GPLv3 would be out soon . The project has taken a little longer than expected. At last report, the GPLv3 (GNU General Public License 3) was to be out by early 2007.
According to Peter Brown, the FSF’s executive director, “We continue to work on the details of the GPLv3 as it relates to the situation presented by the Novell and Microsoft deal. We are researching issues related to potential unintended consequences of the language we plan to adopt. As soon as we are satisfied with the results of our research we plan to bring forward the next draft.”
As written, the patent clauses in the Novell/Microsoft agreement do not violate the current terms of the GPLv2. The leader of the FSF and chief author of the GPL, Richard Stallman, explained at a GPL meeting in Tokyo in November 2006: “What has happened is, Microsoft has not given Novell a patent license, and thus, section 7 of GPL version 2 does not come into play. Instead, Microsoft offered a patent license that is rather limited to Novell’s customers alone.”
Stallman went on to say that “perhaps it’s a good thing that Microsoft did this now, because we discovered that the text we had written for GPL version 3 would not have blocked this, but it’s not too late and we’re going to make sure that when GPL version 3 really comes out it will block such deals.”
Sources close to the creation of the new version of the GPL believed that correcting this language wouldn’t take long to craft. If so, the GPLv3 would still have appeared by its last scheduled delivery date of January 15, 2007. That did not prove to be the case.
It now appears that there may be one more draft of the GPLv3 before the final version is released. [Sources believe] that the next draft should appear on or immediately before its annual associate member and activist meeting March 27 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.
(from eWeek, Where, Oh Where, Is the GPLv3?)
This is crazy. It’s like an arms race: companies like Microsoft keep trying to find new ways to screw people over, and the FSF keeps having to come up with new defenses against them. Well, I’m glad at least the FSF is in my corner.
Microsoft Office program manager Brian Jones, whose work has centered around the Open XML document format, now says the “format war” with OASIS OpenDocument is officially over. The winner, he claims, is both.
Jones made the statement in a blog post over the weekend following the release by Novell of an Open XML translator for OpenOffice.
Personally, I think this reply in the blog’s comments sums it up nicely:
There never was a war between ODF and OOXML. To declare that the war is over is therefore disingenuous. ODF was designed to be a comprehensive standard for document interchange. To that end, it has been adopted as an ISO standard and mandated by a growing list of organizations and governments around the world.
OOXML, on the other hand, was designed to fit a particular niche. It does that reasonably well, although even a cursory reading of the spec will reveal its poor design and even poorer architecture. There is little likelihood that it will be adopted as an ISO standard.
(from MSDN Blogs, OpenOffice support for the OpenXML formats)
“Boo-hoo-hoo, people have caught on to our scheme to hold the world’s documents hostage. Boo-hoo-hoo, people are finally waking up and realizing that paying for MS Office for suckers. Boo-hoo-hoo, our sacred cash cow may only bring in 95% of the king’s ransom we expected because a few people have been educated thanks to IBM. Boo-hoo-hoo.” — Microsoft
See: Microsoft Accuses IBM of Limiting Choice for Interop, Standards
And what the hell is “interop”? Are people so lazy that they can’t be bothered to type “interoperability”? This is the same kind of sloppiness that gave us “donut”, “nite”, “thru”, and “tranny”. Still, Simon Jenkins does have a worthwhile counterargument.
Microsoft’s goal of getting governments across the globe to embrace its so-called “Open” XML format has hit roadblocks in both the United States and abroad.
In the United States, legislation was introduced in Texas and Minnesota the week of Feb. 5 to mandate the adoption of open document formats that will essentially preserve all documents in an open, XML-based file format that is interoperable among diverse internal and external platforms and applications.
The formats will also need to be fully published without restrictions, available royalty-free and implemented by multiple vendors. In addition, they will have to be controlled by an open industry organization with a well-defined inclusive process for evolution of the standard.
These new legislative moves follow the decision by Massachusetts to switch to the Open Document Format for its official documents, with sources telling eWEEK that even more states are likely to follow suit if these bills pass.
In fact, the ODF Alliance reports that Bloomington, Ind., has already moved to the format, while government leaders from California and Wisconsin have spoken publicly on the value of open standards and/or ODF.
Adding to the bad news for Microsoft is the fact that 19 countries have submitted “contradictions” to the bid to get fast-track approval of the standard by the International Standards Organization.
(from eWeek, Microsoft’s Open XML Format Hits Roadblocks in U.S., Abroad)
Way to go, Texas and Minnesota! Time to step up to the plate, Virginia….
A fourth yet-to-be-patched security vulnerability in Microsoft Word is actively being exploited in cyberattacks.
In other news, water is wet, teen-agers are horny, and politicians lie and steal. Switch to OpenOffice, you blockheads.
M.A. is one of the world’s foremost experts on neural networks. His undergraduate specialty was artificial intelligence, his master’s thesis was about genetic algorithms, and his doctoral dissertation covered evolutionary programming. Such an extensive computer science education opened up a wide range of career options, ranging from a professor at a university to … a professor at another university. When someone outside of academia sought out his expertise for a project, he jumped at the opportunity.
The company that wanted to hire M.A. was a small programming firm that developed and maintained software used by the Bureau of Water Management. They were recently awarded a large contract to redo a rather inefficient part of the system and were convinced that implementing a neural network was the way to go. After the initial interview, M.A. told them that a neural network was the wrong tool for the job and that they should use a traditional approach. Management disagreed with his assessment and insisted that he come aboard to help rebuild the system. Had they not offered such a generous salary, he might have recognized this as a first warning sign. […]
Go read the whole thing. Don’t worry, it has a happy ending. I am tempted to hand this article to every client I have from now on.
Hats off to M.A., though. He told them the right way to do it, and then did what the client wanted instead. And then three years later, he told them the right way to do it, and then did it. That’s a professional. I want to be like this guy.
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Blackmoor Vituperative