It is heartening to read that the NZ government’s negotiations with MS for NZgovt to fork out more money to MS for a licencing deal has failed spectacularly. I was hoping that something like that would also be a outcome of the, now faltering, SOE (Standard Operating Environment) project in Singapore. Well, who am I kidding? Portions of my tax dollars will go to Microsoft anyway because of how MS has cleverly structured the deal (or so I am told by sources). Even if MS is thrown out of the Singapore SOE, they will still get monies. Hmm. We need a FOIA/RTIA system here to find out exactly what sweetheart deal was cut. Obviously the sweetheart deal model did not work in NZ! Someone’s KPI is not going to be met! #fb
Monthly Archives: May 2009
When will MS try to overturn this?
For every attempt at doing the right thing, there will be the MS Mafia who will go in to reverse any attempts at implementing open standards and open source. Let’s see how long they will take to turn the cart over. Today is May 25, 2009. #fb
[SG Politics] Changes in SG political engagement?
Am intrigued about the proposals that are to be put forward by the establishment about some changes in how politics and government functions in Singapore. I think Chok Tong is clever in putting the “hints” out, but I think there are bigger issues behind the idea. I think it is crucial that there be consultation and review and if needed, a referendum, to ascertain if whatever proposal makes sense.
We have to do a few things off the bat.
a) Remove the whole idea of walkovers. It is an abomination of democracy. Even if there is only one person or a team (for the Group Representative Constituency or, more accurately, GeRrymandered Constitutuencies) or for the presendential elections, that person/team must garner at a minimu 30% of valid votes in favour. No vote, no seat. Plain and simple.
b) An independent Elections Commission. No more “Elections Department reporting to the Prime Minister’s Office”.
These two, or at least a) above, will go a long way in bringing this country to the heights of greatness it is capable of. #fb
Work To Rule
What a great post by Jeremy !Of all people, he knows how to do interoperability right. He had to reverse engineer the SMB protocols so that Samba can work. If interoperability against a black box is to be measured, Samba would get the top prize. No specs, badly written documents etc etc is what the Samba team had to content with. And yet, when the ODF 1.1 is released, MS goes out saying that “oh, there is no way to save spreadsheet formulas because ODF 1.1 does not say how” so we just did it our way. That is going by the letter of the law (standard) and not the spirit. I like Jeremy’s analogy about working to rule – that is exactly MS is doing with their honest-to-the-letter ODF implementation. #fb
Is Wolfram Alpha interesting?
MDA losing it’s focus?
While I would be kinder to the MDA, I think this article is quite telling. The two agencies (EDB and the MDA), have in their ranks people who are smart, but not street smart. It is a pity. There are good things these two agencies can do (and have done) but as the organizations mature, there is a significant amount of complacency that creeps in. #fb
How you get information
Looking at the charts, it sorta confirms what I have always felt – that traditional TV and traditional newspapers are quite passe. In 2006, I posed a question to a group of university students (about 70 of them) as how they get information. When asked about if they watch TV news, no one raised their hands. Reading the traditional morning papers – one hand. So, how do you get information/news? Websites, blogs, friends. The new media – however you define it – is what is driving the students’ information acquisition. Perhaps I should ask the same questions to a bunch of students this year and get a sense of how accurate the charts are. #fb
Failed leadership
I’ve always thought that Sony Corporation was a business that was both innovative and cool. But to hear their CEO thinks that he “doesn’t see anything good having come from the Internet” is amazing. It is 2009, even for Sony. This is no different from the way Microsoft continues to ignore the value of open source and competing on fair terms rather than to continue with their (MS’) convicted monopoly business model. It is failed leadership on the part of both Sony’s Howard Stringer and Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer. #fb
Thinning of the coding ranks
Rather bleak report about the thinning of coders globally. This will have a huge impact on how software gets written and shared.
It is therefore, timely that the ITSC has been running a programming contest since 2007. The 2009 code::XtremeApps:: contest hopefully to stem this decline marginally. If you don’t cut code, how would you understand what goes on inside a piece of software to help make it better? Yes, there is a class of people who are good testers – without writing code – but ultimately, it is the coders who make the whole thing tick. It is like saying “oh, the blub in the lamp has fused. I have to call in an electrician to fix it.”
I am excited that we are running the 24-hr contest using Andriod and Python as the platforms for the open category and for the under-12-years-of-age, Squeak. Quick. Sign up. Closing date is May 25th – in 12 days. #fb
MS forking ODF? They would love to.
By the looks of it, I cannot but feel that MS has found a way to fork the ODF 1.1 to suite their world view of having their product as the only one out there. I have to agree with IBM’s Rob Weir in this post.
