Open Sauce Software
Tasty titbits from people using Linux and other open source software in business.
Friday 7 March 2008, 10:49 AM
Why is it good to work at KPMG?
The Today programme this morning reveals that consultants KPMG will top this year's Sunday Times list of the best companies in Britain to work for.
The Sunday Times says the key factor is leadership - in "having managers in whom one has complete faith", and a consultant (from a company called Roffey Park) says it helps if the work is "stimulating and interesting", and that one "feels one is making a difference and doing worthwhile work".
Long term ZDnet readers will know another possible reason - the company's truly excellent corporate anthem (listen to the audio files), which won it legions of fans outside the company and, no doubt, inspires joy and enthusiasm in its offices.
The full Sunday Times list isn't released yet, but apparently the top five is mostly made up of financial services companies, leading to speculation that pay may be a factor in making workers happy. We can only wait with interest to see how many of them have also distinguished themselves in the field of music.
The Sunday Times says the key factor is leadership - in "having managers in whom one has complete faith", and a consultant (from a company called Roffey Park) says it helps if the work is "stimulating and interesting", and that one "feels one is making a difference and doing worthwhile work".
Long term ZDnet readers will know another possible reason - the company's truly excellent corporate anthem (listen to the audio files), which won it legions of fans outside the company and, no doubt, inspires joy and enthusiasm in its offices.
The full Sunday Times list isn't released yet, but apparently the top five is mostly made up of financial services companies, leading to speculation that pay may be a factor in making workers happy. We can only wait with interest to see how many of them have also distinguished themselves in the field of music.
Tuesday 4 March 2008, 3:42 PM
OOXML debacle - time to take away ECMA's toys?
There's one thing that comes across over and over again in the latest responses to the ODF/OOXML document wars, and that is a deep distrust of ECMA.
Originally known as the European Computer Manfucturers' Association, ECMA is 46 years old, and has had a "fast track" arrangement with the international standards body, ISO for more than 20 years.
National standards bodies have fast track arrangements. That way, if our own BSI or the US ANSI, make good standards, ISO can make them available to the world. ISO can also adopt standards from other bodies, such as the IEEE or the Internet's IETF.
But ECMA, for some reason, has the same status as a national body, and can push anything it likes ISO's way, in the hope that the international body will endorse it.
Sometimes this has good results - Sun gave it Javascript, and that is now an ISO standard, under the name ECMAscript. But ECMA's Wikipedia page has a very short list of successful standards, from the last twenty years.
ECMA is widely seen as pushing vendor-specific standards, and OOXML is just the lastest and most controversial: "If ISO doesn’t figure out away to detach this toxic leech, this kind of abuse is going to happen again and again," says Tim Bray, one of the writers of the XML standard.
Originally known as the European Computer Manfucturers' Association, ECMA is 46 years old, and has had a "fast track" arrangement with the international standards body, ISO for more than 20 years.
National standards bodies have fast track arrangements. That way, if our own BSI or the US ANSI, make good standards, ISO can make them available to the world. ISO can also adopt standards from other bodies, such as the IEEE or the Internet's IETF.
But ECMA, for some reason, has the same status as a national body, and can push anything it likes ISO's way, in the hope that the international body will endorse it.
Sometimes this has good results - Sun gave it Javascript, and that is now an ISO standard, under the name ECMAscript. But ECMA's Wikipedia page has a very short list of successful standards, from the last twenty years.
ECMA is widely seen as pushing vendor-specific standards, and OOXML is just the lastest and most controversial: "If ISO doesn’t figure out away to detach this toxic leech, this kind of abuse is going to happen again and again," says Tim Bray, one of the writers of the XML standard.
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