I was just listening to a comedy show

Well, actually it was an interview by a jounalist from Computerworld, Kurt Westh Nielsen. Be carefull, this is a one hour long mp3 file (45 Mb). He was supposed to make an interview with Stephen McGibbon from Microsoft, but it sounds more like a monolog. Stephen is talking without any interuption from the journalist, and when Stephen is out of words, Kurt will help him going again.

It all explodes when Kurt asks Stephen why the ODF support from Microsoft has to come from plugins developed by someone else. Why don't Microsoft incorporate native support for ODF ? Kurt said:"I am a Microsoft Office user. As a user, I don't understand why I can't open a document from OpenOffice.org". The answer from Stephen is a very long description of how to download and install the plug-in from SourceForge.

Kurt repeats: "I, as a normal user don't understand why the support don't come from the Office application. Why do I have to do all this installation stuff ?". Stephen answers:"Ohh, native support ? Our customers don't require native suppoert. We supply our customers with what they require, but they didn't ask for native support for ODF !".

Kurt asks the same question about five or six times.

Hey Stephen, wake up !

The guy is sitting no more than a microphone away from you, and he's asking for ODF support. And you are telling him, that you customers are not asking for ODF support ?

This is making a fool out of him.

And what is the Danish Parliament saying ? Asking for native ODF support ?

To me it sounds like a request from one of your customers mr. McGibbon.

But you are making a fool of your customers, just as you used to do, in the commercial where you made a grin out of customers by dressing them up as dinosaurs.

Stephen, I think you are underestimating your customers.

Solveig Haugland on the new Chart module

Solveig has made a brief introduction to the upcoming new chart module in Clac spreadsheet. Look at this blogpost. Remember to see the reference she made on this occation.

What should we call this ?

Some time ago I was criticized for using the expression Format war. I apologize if anyone was offended by that. I know that a lot of people actually live in parts of the world where war is a sad part of your lives. Sorry.

On the other hand, what's going on here in Denmark at the moment, more and more battles, fights and dirty discussions are going on. One of the Computer magazines made a short summary yesterday, claiming that Microsoft is about to win or at least that the battle is approximately equal. How can you measure if a discussion is being equal, when the outcome is still unknown ?

In the article is mentioned that Simon Phipps earlier said that it is understandable if the Parliament chooses dual standards. This, despite that Simon has made a very clear rejection of this interpretation of an earlier interview. The same article claims that the Danish UNIX User Group (DKUUG) is moving towards accepting dual standards. The user group has arranged a demonstration and comparison of the conversion tools, with representatives from both Microsoft and Sun. DKUUG is about to deny their support to dual standards. The presentation was a way to demonstrate how complicated things will be, if we implement dual standards. The article also gives credit to Microsoft for accepting ODF as a American National Standards Institutes (ANSI) standard. Yearh right ! Hi's the nice boy in the class, isn't he ? Prince Charming, we call him. As soon as the teacher turns his back, Microsoft will start teasing again. Taking things out of a context is one of the most popular arms.

Okay, I admit it. Microsoft is not the only one to throw mud. Sun, Novell and IBM can do pretty good as well.

Now the Danish IT-news has begun to make short summaries in English (e.g. http://www.computerworld.dk/art/39748 ). Funny development, because this has never happened before.

Call it a war, battle or fight. Call it what you like. I call it dirty and unnecessary.

Alternative operating system

Just came across this specification of a new and very useful operating system. By the way, Das is Danish for a toilet.

Scientist wonders ...

Professor Peter Møllgaard from Copenhagen Business School is wondering why the National IT- and Tele Agency is recommending dual standards. As he says: "Nobody else than Microsoft has an interest in dual standards".

Peter Møllgaard has just released a report about the competitive impacts of EOOXML (Microsoft) and ODF (FOSS). The only logical reason, as Peter says, must be the fear of the unknown. Microsoft FUD machine has been rolling for some time now.

I have another possible reason, but that I must keep for my self. -Advise from my solicitor.

Reference Version2 (Danish)