Making the best of MS Office files
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The law says that it's not allowed for schools to make computer-related demands towards parents and pupils
You know, a good start would be for students, parents, and donors to get behind a particular product and then pressure the schools to change on their own. You kind of sound like you're looking for the heavy hand of government to step in, kind of like how the EU mandated USB Mini B as the standard phone connector right before Micro B came out.
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That's a lie.
Well, you can set Windows to do that, but it's certainly not the default behavior.
No, you're an idiot. It's well-known that windows elevates programs with names like "setup.exe" and a couple of others I can't remember. Guess what most installers are named?
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No, you're an idiot. It's well-known that windows elevates programs with names like "setup.exe" and a couple of others I can't remember. Guess what most installers are named?
The clarification is RIGHT ABOVE YOUR POST, idiot.
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Nope. Windows Auto-Asks-For-Elevation. It does not automatically elevate.
Again, unless you set your security to "Auto-Pwn"
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The clarification is RIGHT ABOVE YOUR POST, idiot.
Oh, I suppose YOU read the entire thread before responding, eh?
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You know, a good start would be for students, parents, and donors to get behind a particular product and then pressure the schools to change on their own. You kind of sound like you're looking for the heavy hand of government to step in, kind of like how the EU mandated USB Mini B as the standard phone connector right before Micro B came out.
But aren't the schools part of the heavy hand of government? Probably? We don't know where @johnsnick is from do we?
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But aren't the schools part of the heavy hand of government?
Not enough information to go on, so I ignored that.
Also, it would take a huge amount of effort, if it's even doable. I understand that, I just didn't really want to get into the weeds. But it's a clear starting point, at least.
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Oh, I suppose YOU read the entire thread before responding, eh?
Always. Three times.
The real problem is the people are, apparently, reading "elevate" as "prompt for elevation", when those are two very different things.
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@tarunik said:
I hope you're concerned about this, because if you aren't...
What? WHAT? I need to know because I don't give a flying fuck!!!
So, you don't give a flying fig about whether a single corporation can completely corrupt the ISO standards process. Imagine what'd happen if you had a well-established ISO standard in your field, and some company rammed through a bunch of incompatible changes just so they could sell more of their widgets. This is what is at stake here, and that's why people like me, who see the value of a standards process that at least has a hope of neutrality to it if only from the natural tensions of a multi-party market, are up in arms.
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Bro, you're confusing DOM with javascript again.
Wait, what?
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So, you don't give a flying fig about whether a single corporation can completely corrupt the ISO standards process.
No. Explain to me why I should.
Imagine what'd happen if you had a well-established ISO standard in your field,
I don't think I've ever worked in a field that made use of ANY ISO standards. At least none I'm aware of.
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I don't think I've ever worked in a field that made use of ANY ISO standards.
Ever had to deal with payments processing? Everyone in that field makes at least some use of ISO 8583; I'd guesstimate that without it, Visa and MasterCard might have started speaking completely foreign languages at each other by now...
(I can point out many others, none the least the ISO 8601 timestamps that pop up all over the place...)
No. Explain to me why I should.
Because it allows a single corporation to use "look, our product implements ISO-such-and-such" as nothing, nothing, more than a clever marketing gimmick, with no bearing on whether it's actually interoperable with anything at all. This is fantastic for cheesing off systems integrators, who actually count on some semblance of standardized behavior from products that say they implement a standard. (They may implement it imperfectly, or diverge from other products due to extensions and standards defects, but they at least are speaking the same language at the same table.)
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No mention of ISO-9660, which defines the data format that data CDs and DVDs use?
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No mention of ISO-9660, which defines the data format that data CDs and DVDs use?
I forgot that one, thanks. That'd be quite a killer to change!
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kind of like how the EU mandated USB Mini B as the standard phone connector right before Micro B came out
Did this happen in the real world? I can't ever remember anything except micro being decided upon .
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"this guy" -- you mean, you?
Yeah, if "this guy" came here to defend his essay, he might actually be MORE of an idiot than I thought.
Read my mind...
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Like I explained multiple times: you are really insulting and unfriendly. That's the reason my colleague showed me your post in the first place.
That should be in your "About me" section, @blakeyrat
You know, the statement from that guy, the one, uhhh.....asking for a friend.......
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If people want to know about me, I've posted plenty both here and in the old forums. And it's all brilliant. And reading it will lead you to enlightenment.
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Do you post on another site under the moniker "Maddox"?
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I'm still waiting for the day when someone reveals, DaVinci Code style, that the GNU license contains hidden provisions stating that Richard Stallman owns all your software, your house, your car, your soul... and so on.
Also, I don't understand what this guy is going on about; I never have trouble opening MS Office files in LibreOffice programs--not even fairly baroque Word nonsense. I also think that PDFs should come from desktop publishing software, not Word or any of its ilk.
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Hm. Looks like maybe it didn't after all.
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They can't be the same person because maddox is usually amusing and insightful.
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At the end of the day whining about Microsoft dominating office software is like whining about about most mobile websites only render on apple and android devices properly ... It is pointless and won't get you anywhere.
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At the end of the day whining about Microsoft dominating office software is like whining about about most mobile websites only render on apple and android devices properly ... It is pointless and won't get you anywhere.
I'll even grant them their market-leading position in productivity software. What they don't have the right to do is pressure people to incorporate a mandate to use their blobular file formats into government policies, laws, and other documents of record.
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Except they made it a standard so anyone can make a competing piece of software that adheres to that standard, so it isn't a fucking blob. I am pretty sure Google could implement it, but they probably don't want to spend the money because they probably make fuck all out of google docs..
Also I am pretty sure any Government can pressure them back by making it difficult for them to trade there ... like China already does.
In any case the cost of office licenses compared to the really shitty software costs from people like SAP and Oracle is negligible.
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Except they made it a standard so anyone can make a competing piece of software that adheres to that standard, so it isn't a fucking blob
Had the ISO process done its job with regards to OOXML, that'd have been true; then again, I would not be complaining about it one bit if that were the case. Instead, due in part to Microsoft's abuse of the standards process, the resulting 'standard' is half-baked and practically impossible to comply with (not even Office gets to the point of 'modulo reasonable bugs/standard DRs' compliance with OOXML that VC++ is to these days with the C++ standard, which actually is a multi-party, consensus standard with a good handful of conforming implementations).
Also I am pretty sure any Government can pressure them back by making it difficult for them to trade there ... like China already does.
Agreed for a sovereign; I was also referring to 'sub-governments' as well with my statement, though, which do not have that form of leverage.In any case the cost of office licenses compared to the really shitty software costs from people like SAP and Oracle is negligible.
I'm with you on this one. Oracle and SAP sound like the folks that would happily swallow up crisp $100 bills in unit train quantities.
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I hear people saying that office doesn't comply with it own standards, I have never seen a test suite to demonstrate this. Even if this was the case, it sounds very much like people complaining that a browser doesn't comply with web standards ... none of them do.
As for local government, if a department can't cover the cost of a office 365 subscription ... they have bigger problems.
There is an ISO standard for bicycle components ... nobody complies with it any more either.
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When OOXML was first filed with ISO, the spec provided was not met by any application, not even the only application that created OOXML at the time.
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Still doesn't mean the spec is invalid does it?
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Not exactly, no. But it should have made the ISO process invalid since you're kind of supposed to provide a working reference implementation.
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Well that is the ISO's fuck up then isn't it?
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And the rest of us are the ones suffering for it.
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Why is it that software engineering the only industry where people that use niche stuff feel that they need to impose their vision of how the world should work?
High end road bikes these days have component sets that are for the most part incompatible between manufacturers. Shimano dominates the market and most competitors have shimano compatible kit.
I have Campagnolo components (which nobody is compatible with). Guess what, I don't expect Shimano or shops that stock Shimano (almost every bicycle shop) to cater to my rather niche needs to use only Italian components on my Italian framed bicycle.
I don't complain that Shimano are pressuring me to use their components or they are taking away my choice or other such gibberish. I buy from people that supply Campagnolo components (aka the internet).
I don't use Campagnolo components on my bike for any practical reason, it purely because they look nicer on the frame. Much like people use Open office for ideological reasons.
You suffering isn't enforced, you are choosing to suffer by using a niche product. If you don't want the headache, pay for a copy of office and be done with it.
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unit train quantities
I like this phrase. It sounds like you were going for something like "great carload lots" but "unit train" makes me think of a train with one engine and one cargo car, which kind of derails[1] the intent.
[1] See what I did there?
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When OOXML was first filed with ISO, the spec provided was not met by any application, not even the only application that created OOXML at the time.
Has Office ever conformed (modulo genuine bugs) to OOXML-as-codified-by-ISO? Last I heard, the answer was no.
Why is it that software engineering the only industry where people that use niche stuff feel that they need to impose their vision of how the world should work?
You misinterpret the problem, sir. The original problem (pre-OOXML) was 'depending on closed, blobular formats for document transmission and storage has some very negative long-term consequences'. ODF was originally created to fix this, and in many regards the OASIS group has sat down and hammered out a workable, multi-party, consensus standard for common document archetypes (text documents, spreadsheets, drawings, and the like). Microsoft had the option before them to be a big boy and contribute to the group, or even abstain from the process and quietly implement ODF on the side as YADF (Yet Another Document Format) that Office supports (which is a long list, so I doubt it'd be a big deal, and it really hasn't been, save for a known issue in ODF 1.0; namely, the lack of a definition for spreadsheet formulae). They could have even plodded along, blissfully ignorant of the efforts, and I'd have been naught but mildly annoyed by it.
But no, they decided not only to invent a new default file format for Office (OK...) but decided to RAM it down the throat of ISO themselves! (Or the rear end, depending on which ugly metaphor you prefer.) This was a gross violation of ISO's very reason for existence: the development, maintenance, and promotion of consensus standards.
So: TL;DR: MS done goofed hard. They had the chance to sit in the corner with their ball, or play nice like a big boy. Instead, they hurled it at the heads of everyone else at the room at 100mph.
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I like this phrase. It sounds like you were going for something like "great carload lots" but "unit train" makes me think of a train with one engine and one cargo car, which kind of derails[1] the intent.
[1] See what I did there?
Har, har. "Unit train" is actually a term for "this train takes one kind of lading (say coal or autos) from one origin to one destination, not being broken up in yards along the way".
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"Unit train" is actually a term for [etc...if you care, look up].
Ah, interesting. I'd actually never heard the term before.
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Microsoft have no business reason to play nice, because they don't have another competitor, much like Shimano don't in my example using bicycles. I don't misinterpret the problem. You misinterpret how the world works.
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Right. If you want Microsoft products to improve, compete with them. Look at the difference between IE6 and IE11. Gee, what caused that extremely fast improvement? Oh yeah, real genuine competition.
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If only there were other software companies that had huge piles of cash, programming resources and platforms that are arguably more popular than Microsoft's ... oh there are and they don't see it worth their while getting into this market.
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Yeah, but that's the point I was getting at before.
If you want Microsoft Office to get better, here is the wrong way to do it:
Fine Microsoft
Here is the correct way to do it:
Incentivize non-Microsoft companies to compete at building office software
But then you get to the real meat of the problem: governments don't give a shit about effectively competing with Office, all they want is big cash $$$ payments from Microsoft.
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If only there were other software companies that had huge piles of cash, programming resources and platforms that are arguably more popular than Microsoft's ... oh there are and they don't see it worth their while getting into this market.
Right...because nobody came along and wrote a better browser and forced Microsoft to produce IE11. Disclaimer: That first link is guessed/from memory. I don't know that it's not actually porn.
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I'd rather use Rockmelt than Firefox.
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I'd rather use Rockmelt than Firefox.
Neva hoid of it, but which browser is really beside the point, isn't it?
Don't "you must be new here" me, either! You kids get off my lawn!
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To give you an idea of what that means, the company was acquired by Yahoo.
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To give you an idea of what that means, the company was acquired by Yahoo.
That, ah, actually, doesn't mean anything to me.
ETA: but don't worry about it. I can barely stand Chrome, even though it works better than IE. I don't use FF except for compatibility testing, and then only to the minimum extent possible.
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"I kind of want to insult Microsoft, but I also don't want to make fun of the day-to-day guys who just work there and do their job and draw a paycheck..." "Easy! Just lie and say the company execs are the ones documenting and implementing file formats! Greasy open source hippies will never be able to call that out as being obvious bullshit, it's not like any of them will admit they have ever had jobs at Microsoft!"
FTFY
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Which was funded largely in part by google
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There's some wank going on in my industry boards about the new ISO 29119 they're working on. Frankly, I could care less, since the existing IEEE 829 is complete bullshit so I don't expect much from the ISO standard, but a lot of people are super upset and claiming that consulting firms are ramming this through the ISO process so they can make more money being "standards-compliant" much like how Microsoft is being accused in this thread....
Thoughts?
