I actually agree wholeheartedly with Italo here - please do not try to hamstring the developers with your (or our) own preferences! The idea of community discussion is to guide developers, not to instruct them to do the impractical or impossible and equally not to instruct them (for whatever reason) *not* to do what can be done.
On the other hand, though I have already done so in another message, I am more than happy to discuss why some options are more or less pragmatic for developers and will do so inline with Italo's comments as quoted below:- On 02/01/2011 18:47, Italo Vignoli wrote: > On 1/2/11 7:15 PM, Larry Gusaas wrote: > >> No, that was not the point. Italo Vignoli wrote: "LibreOffice >> writes OOXML and will write OOXML, and this is not under >> discussion." That is the point I objected to. > > [snip] > > I am a member of the Steering Committee, and I totally second this > decision just because it makes sense for the users (as I have tried > to explain in another message). LibreOffice is the office suite > with the widest document format support, and this is a plus. > This is, and long has been, a *major* plus for both OpenOffice and now for LibreOffice - we do need to keep this as an objective. > > As long as OOXML is a standard recognized by ISO, it makes sense > to support it completely. This is different from the fact that we > are trying to make ODF the only winning standard, and that we are > telling people that they should not use OOXML. > Again, this is exactly the point I also made - although I did perhaps attribute a little more evil to Microsoft by suggesting the issues with OOXML may be a deliberate move to capture that standards compliant high-ground from us. > >> [snip] > > TDF is a community driven project, not a mailing list driven > project. Community is not just writing in a mailing list, is a lot > different and a lot more than that. I do not think that we ever > gave the perception that this is a mailing list driven project. > Well said, Italo! Where the wider community has something relevant to say on this, it should begin from the presumption that we somehow *will* write OOXML to the best practical ability of the developers. That, not personal preferences, is the real issue. I remain convinced that it is for all practical purposes not possible to write OOXML in the currently active Microsoft format since that is both a rapidly moving target and might leave us open to claims of patent-breaking unless we can demonstrate clear reverse-engineering of the format. Even if we could do that, we would then face the problem of the target rapidly moving away from us. Rather than play a "catch up to Microsoft" game, it remains my view that we should write OOXML in the ISO-standard format for so long as that standard lasts. That gives Microsoft the chance to either catch up and use the standard they set themselves or to change the standard so that they can meet it. In either case, LibreOffice would be ahead of the game Microsoft plays rather than behind, provided we do make sure to pop up a warning to remind users we are using the standard and Microsoft may not yet be able to deal with it. -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***