…continued
This fight is over the future of Microsoft's desktop monopoly. If OOXML gets passed as an ISO standard, Microsoft will be rolling out more 'standards' and end up with a stack of ISO standards that only it can implement. It is already spinning "open standard" to mean "closed format heavily protected by secrets and patents". Free software won't be able to implement OOXML, and users will be locked-in to Microsoft's proprietary world for decades. It's a clever abuse of the standards process. See NoOOXML.org for lots of details.
Benjamin Henrion, one of the guys behind NoOOXML explains why he likes Wikidot: "It's a wiki so of course I can change it really easily. Click-edit-finished. I can also invite people to participate. We're about five active editors on the site now. But wiki is just half the story. Of course the petition module is essential for collecting support for a campaign. Then we used the forum module to let people discuss OOXML and also submit translations. Our front page shows news
stories, from a forum. We have the petition in 27 languages! Wikidot makes it easy to create a solid, focused microsite, that grows quickly and looks nice, and at the FFII we're starting to use this for lots of issues."
Benjamin says he most of all likes Wikidot's simplicity. "It was easy to learn, and does pretty much everything I need." What does he miss? "Blogs. I want blogs. Email aliases and lists would be fantastic - we use these very heavily to bring together workgroups. Also, a simple issue tracker would help a lot. And lastly, more themes."
Benjamin finishes: "If you care about free and open source software, go sign the NoOOXML petition. Oh, and if you can help locally to educate and democratise your ISO committee, that would be great."
michal frackowiak, 24 Jul 2007 14:24
