Comments on: Three strikes and you’re out!

By: Don Christie

Don Christie — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 00:43:28 +0000

I agree that the NZOSS should change its name. There have been discussions about this but I would like to bring the proposition to the next AGM.

I looked at Peter Murray-Rust ‘s response to this article. Several points concerned me. The main one was this “OOXML is therefore an Open standard”.

That is very misleading. If you look at the most recent comments from Alex Brown, convener of the ISO controversial Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM) that was supposed to resolve issues around OOXML’s acceptance as a open standard you will see just how badly OOXML and Microsoft have failed in meeting the requirements set out by the BRM.

http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20100401074623393

So, the fact that Peter lauds OOXML as an “open standard” should really set alarm bells ringing about the real intent behind this software.

By: Vik Olliver

Vik Olliver — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:45:59 +0000

I note that the code has zero downloads and zero ratings…

http://chem4word.codeplex.com/

Vik :v)

By: John Rankin

John Rankin — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 02:01:58 +0000

Jason, in fact, “open source” software which requires a particular proprietary software stack seems to be a relatively new phenomenon. All free software and most open source software is platform-neutral by design. That’s what makes the 3 recent examples I mention so interesting.

By: John Rankin

John Rankin — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 22:20:51 +0000

PeterH: I have added an explanatory sentence after the link to the release announcement. Thanks.

By: John Rankin

John Rankin — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 22:08:45 +0000

Peter, thank you for your thoughtful and constructive response. For me, it highlights the difference between “free” and “open”. Since I share your dislike of OpenOffice, let’s use LyX (a front-end to LaTeX) as a counter-example. What Chem4Word does is give chemists even more reasons to use proprietary software, making them less free and increasing the pressure on others to give up their freedom too. On the other hand, those who wish to run LyX on Windows can do so, and they can share documents with those who run LyX on Gnu/Linux or Mac OS X. They can export their LyX documents as LaTeX, so those who prefer a different editing environment can use that too.

Software which requires its users to run a specific proprietary stack might be open, but it is not free. I also wonder if ODF might have been a better choice than OOXML, since there is already a choice of compliant implementations. As far as I am aware, there are no compliant implementations of OOXML strict and it is impractical for anybody other than Microsoft to implement OOXML transitional, since I understand the standards working group is still changing the transitional standard to make it comply with that company’s implementation. As it stands, if somebody ports the Chem4Word software to OpenOffice, will this require use of OOXML? And if they create an ODF-compliant plug-in, will documents created in the OpenOffice version interoperate with those created using the Word version?

Your point about semantic markup is an excellent one. In my view, LaTeX still has a place as the output of a transformation from semantic markup to produce a document that is suitable for printing. But is Microsoft Word really the best editor for implementing semantic markup? For example, might it not be better to create a Chem4LyX plug-in that embeds semantic chemical markup in the source document and transforms this into LaTeX and PDF or HTML on output?

So my challenge to you, Peter, is to use your talents to help give chemists a reason to choose free software, instead of giving them more reasons to stay with proprietary software.

By: Peter Harrison

Peter Harrison — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 21:45:25 +0000

Are you missing anything? Yes; any mention of the actual name of the project or any background of what they are doing that is so terrible. You can’t write a rant about something and totally fail to provide any context about what you are actually talking about.

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 19:19:13 +0000

Isn’t the point that anyone can fork and merge the code into any stack that they wish? Any requirement that to be “Open Source”, it must first be on an open stack is too limiting. That would mean that you can’t develop open source software for Windows, OS X, and depending on your definition of Open, Linux.

By: Peter Murray-Rust

Peter Murray-Rust — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 16:59:24 +0000

I have published my comments in
http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/blogs/murrayrust/?p=2233

By: Peter Murray-Rust

Peter Murray-Rust — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 09:28:27 +0000

These are valid comments and I will adress them on my blog

http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/blogs/murrayrust

By: Francois Marier

Francois Marier — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 08:57:48 +0000

Simon Phipps also warns about putting too much emphasis on licensing and suggests instead that an Open Source scorecard is needed.