I have been pretty busy these days, travelling to Brussels, London and also Bordeaux (that last one for one of my best friends’ thirtiest birthday) and as a result I haven’t had the time to blog as regularly as I wanted. So I thought I could briefly discuss what will …
Some random stuff for this week-end. Hope it is sunny for you all. I’m writing -as usual- from Paris but my thoughts are geared towards Le Mans’ s 24 hours car race. Go Corvette! – Are the GPL and mergers compatible? That’s the topic I have recently discussed on FOSSBazaar …
The story of OOXML and in general the story of proprietary formats and protocols being used and promoted to control the market and the access of citizens to digital re sources is a long but fascinating one. The three (yes, three) last episodes of the OOXML story are a good …
We are on the 14 th of May and OOXML is an ISO standard. Slight problem: there is no known specification or definitive draft of that ISO standard. To be sure, we know what the first version of Ecma 376 looks like, and we know it pretty well, although it’s …
We’re now on the 9 th of May and the final version of OOXML is still not be published either by the ISO or the Ecma as they had to do so. This ongoing scandal affects the industry as a whole and proves once again that OOXML has never been …
I shall not complain that much about what happened with OOXML. In fact, the act of standardizing OOXML has not really brought any significant advantages to OOXML. ODF is an ISO standard and so is OOXML. That’s what I call a draw, and Microsoft has been battling hard for a …
It is now certain that OOXML has been approved by the national standards organizations. France finally abstained after an interesting last minute intervention by Microsoft. Odd things happened and the final announcement by the Afnor today would have been a farce if it had not been official. It is always …
Today is Document Freedom Day: Roughly 200 teams from more than 60 countries worldwide are organising local activities to raise awareness for Document Freedom and Open Standards. To support the initiatives surrounding the first day to celebrate document liberation, DFD starter packs containing a DFD flag, t-shirts and leaflets have …
Today the Easter Bunny (that means me on this blog), who’s very early because it’s Good Friday but also the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad and the first day of Spring, is bringing you some links for you to read this week-end. – Rick Jelliffe gets a cold shower by …