December 2007

Those who forget Santayana…

December 20, 2007

It must have passed beneath my radar it when it first was filed in 2004, but it caught my eye recently when Andy Updegrove mentioned it in Chapter 3 of his book-in-progress, The War of the Words. I’m talking about Novell’s November 2004 antitrust complaint against Microsoft, filed shortly after settling an different, OS-related, complaint [...]

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A Lick Back in Time

December 20, 2007

Updating a post from 2006, I’d like to take a look back at the commemorative stamp issues of 1957. What do we choose to remember, and how do we remember it? What was considered significant back in 1957, but is now forgotten? What icons have remained with us, and which have faded from view? First [...]

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The Right and Lawful Rood

December 13, 2007

So what do we have here? Sixteen men, lined up. They seem to be having a good time. Some are older, some younger. A historian of fashion might be able to tell us their relative social status, and perhaps their trade, by looking at their clothing. In the background, three men are observing and comparing [...]

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Bait and Switch

December 6, 2007

Promises have been made. Assurances have been given. Commitments have been proffered. But far less has been delivered. Let’s review the record. We start with the Ecma whitepaper, “Office Open XML Overview” [pdf] which was included in their submission to ISO: Standardizing the format specification and maintaining it over time ensure that multiple parties can [...]

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662 resolutions, but only if you can find them

December 2, 2007

Microsoft risks a repetitive stress injury from the recent frenzy of patting themselves on the back for responding to some of the ballot comments submitted in the failed OOXML ISO ballot of Sept 2nd. They claim to be transparent and acting so that NB’s can easily review their progress in addressing their comments. Well, let’s [...]

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