Open Standards - Jeremy G

Sign in Subscribe

Open Standards

A collection of 14 posts

My Frustration with Mozilla

I recently decided to stop using Firefox as my main Browser. I'm not alone there. While browser statistics are notoriously difficult to track and hotly debated, all sources seem to point toward a downward trend for Firefox. At LQ, they actually aren't doing too badly. In

Wikipedia changes its license

(via David A. Wheeler) The proposed change that the copyright licensing terms on the wikis operated by the WMF - including Wikipedia, be changed to include the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) license in addition to the current GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) has been approved. From the official results: If

ISO puts standard for Microsoft's OOXML document formats on hold

From Heise: After member states filed four complaints against the standardisation of Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) document format, the International Standards Organisation (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in Geneva have responded by postponing publication of the revised specification. As the ISO announced, the planned ISO/

As the ODF-OOXML world turns

I'm a bit behind on this, but it's a topic I've been covering for a while now so I wanted to follow up. First, from the the 451 group: Oh the drama. Most of us knew ISO approval of Microsoft’s OOXML format was

Microsoft Makes Strategic Changes in Technology and Business Practices to Expand Interoperability

A little late on this, but better late than never. By now, you've probably heard about the Microsoft press release regarding "New interoperability principles and actions": Microsoft Corp. today announced a set of broad-reaching changes to its technology and business practices to increase the openness of

OOXML Payback Time as Global Standards Work in SC 34 "Grinds to a Halt"

A couple weeks ago, Andy posted about the current problems the SC 34 was having as a result of the sudden surge in "P" members. From the post: One of the more egregious behaviors observed in the recent vote on OOXML was the sudden and last minute surge

Yahoo Acquires Zimbra For $350 million in Cash II

A quick follow up on the Zimbra acquisition. While I'm extremely happy for Yahoo! on picking up a great company, I agree with Jack that it would have been a great fit for Red Hat. Had they made the pickup 6-12 months ago they surely could have gotten

IBM joins the OpenOffice.org

To the collective cheer of "It's about time", IBM is now officially supporting the OpenOffice.org project. From the press release: The OpenOffice.org community today announced that IBM will be joining the community to collaborate on the development of OpenOffice.org software. IBM will be

Microsoft Fails to Gain Approval for OOXML

There are so many posts flying around about this that it's been difficult to keep up (and I'm still digesting a lot of it), but the bottom line is that the OOXML is not an ISO standard. Well, at least not yet. A bit oddly, Microsoft

OOXML Approval Vote Fails in INCITS

From Andy (who recently accepted a more formal role at the Linux Foundation): As I reported on July 23, INCITS, the US balloting body on the OOXML vote, put out a ballot to see whether the US should vote to approve OOXML, with the ballot to close on August 9.

Massachusetts Falls to OOXML as ITD Punts

From Andy Updegrove: In a not unanticipated move, Massachusetts announced today that Ecma 376, the name given to the Microsoft Office Open XML formats following their adoption by Ecma, would be acceptable for use by the Executive Agencies of the Commonwealth. The announcement was made even as it appears more

IBM Pledges Free Access to Patents Involved in Implementing 150+ Software Standards

From the press release: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that it is granting universal and perpetual access to certain intellectual property that might be necessary to implement more than 150 standards designed to make software interoperable. One likely result of the pledge to commercial and open source communities is that

Update on ODF and Massachusetts

As Andy points out, "Silence means consent". If this is a topic that is important to you (and it should be), I'd also encourage to take a few minutes and make your opinion known. A few days ago, I posted my comments to the Mass. ITD

Massachusetts May Adopt OOXML - What Say You?

Andy continues his prodigious coverage of the Massachusetts OOXML/ODF debate. From a recent post: The Massachusetts Information Technology Division (ITD), the state agency that effectively launched the voyage of ODF around the world in August of 2005, has released a new version of its Enterprise Technical Reference Model. And