[WSIS CS-Plenary] About the UN document system, and lessons for information diffusion

[Martin Olivera]

 --- Jonathan Cave <j.a.k.cave at warwick.ac.uk>
escribió: 
> Hi!
> 
> I am using Firefox 1.0 on an XP pro system and get
> the same problem. 


Hi! I am a software engineer and web programmer, adn
the problem in UN document site as you told is the "M$
Internet Explorer"-biased javascript.

It has no sense doing in that way regarding the
increasing market-share of other browsers like Firefox
(due to several critical security failures of MS IE).

I have only two explanatins:

1) UN web programmers know nothing about WWW
standards, field testing and software diversity, so UN
and all of us in WSIS-CS are in problems...

2) <paranoia mode> They do know and programmed it in a
MS-biased way as part of the confidential agreements,
so we have a serious problem </paranoia mode>

> Pursuing a bit deeper, Javascript console (latest)
> reports:
> 
> Error: langSel has no properties
> Source File:
> http://documents.un.org/javascript/query.js
> Line: 1839
> 
> The ODS does, of course, work with IE. This is a
> poor show, since it is 
> neither necessary nor appropriate to endorse a
> proprietary 'standard' over 
> a real one. It also raises other questions - for
> instance, I'd guess that 
> Brazilian government personnel might be absolutely
> unable to access this site.

You're right. Most brazilian government personnel uses
Software Livre, not Microsoft.
 
> 
> I look forward either to a redesign 
it should be so


> or an explicit
> statement on the banner 
> page saying that the site only works with IE.

NO, NO, NO!
Why must I, a World citizen, to purchase a product of
any company to see UN docs, if there are a lot of
options using Free/Libre Software for that in the
Internet, and the WWW is standardized by W3C.org???? 
(ok, I know that Microsoft Internet Explorer is free
as free beer, but it only works on Microsoft Windows,
the operating system, that it is NOT free)
 
> 
> Cheers,
cheers!

Martin
> 
> J.
>  

=====
SOLAR Software Libre Argentina
http://www.solar.org.ar


		
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