The W3C and a small number of other socially-responsible standards organizations are working hard to ensure that the benefits of the Internet and the Web are made available to all, regardless of where they live or their physical limitations. These organizations have done their part. Now it’s time for us to do ours.
PDF: FEDERAL COURT RULES AGAINST QUALCOMM IN A “SON OF RAMBUS” SUIT
Recently, telecom giants Qualcomm and Broadcom have seemed to be spending more money suing each other than marketing their products. In one suit, Broadcom accused Qualcomm of abusing the standard setting process – and this month, a Federal judge agreed.
THE FORWARD MARCH OF OPEN FORMATS IN STATE LEGISLATION
Legislators in three states (thus far) this year have introduced coordinated bills uniformly addressing a key standards-related policy issue: how can governments best protect public records?
PDF: THE CONTRADICTORY NATURE OF OOXML
Microsoft’s Office Open XML specification has been approved by Ecma, and is now under review by ISO/IEC for adoption. OOXML will be of great use to software developers and Microsoft customers. But the eligible members of ISO/IEC must now determine whether OOXML meets the global standards organizations’ rules – and whether the world needs a second de jure document format standard.
PDF: THE ITU AND ICANN: AN INTERNET GAME OF CAT AND MOUSE
In 1998, the US Department of Commerce agreed to give up direct control of the root directories of the Internet. ICANN got them, and the ITU didn’t – and we haven’t heard the end of it yet.
ORACLE JOINS THE FREE STANDARDS GROUP AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL
When Oracle announced that it would compete with Red Hat for the support business of Red Hat’s own customers, it also sent a message intended to comfort the Linux community, announcing that it would join the premier Linux standard setting organizations.
PDF: STANDARDS AND THE LESSONS OF 9/11
On 9/11, the Twin Towers didn’t fail – the standards they were built to did. Are we willing to pay for the costs of implementing new standards that can withstand the impact of terrorism?
PDF: THE MICROSOFT CONVERTER, NEWS SHOPPING AND TECTONIC SHIFTS
Microsoft has long refused to support ODF in its Office productivity suite, but this month it announced that it would support an open source project to develop an Office to ODF converter. Just about everyone has an opinion about what it all means. Including me.
MICROSOFT, ADOBE AND WHAT’S WRONG WITH “RAND”
Early this month, the IT world was scratching its collective head over the breakdown of PDF licensing negotiations between Microsoft and Adobe. At issue was why Adobe allowed OpenOffice.org and Apple to bundle native support for saving documents in PDF format for free, but told Microsoft it would have to charge its customers more for Office 12 if it included the same capability. The dispute helps illustrate What’s Wrong with RAND.
LET THE READER BEWARE AS ODF NEWS COVERAGE INCREASES
As the battle heats up between the OpenDocument Format (ODF) standard and the Microsoft XML Reference Schema (now called “Open XML” by Ecma), there’s more and more press coverage. And that’s not necessarily a good thing.