On Thu, Nov 02, 2006 at 08:11:48PM -0700, Gabriel Gunderson wrote: > On Thu, 2006-11-02 at 15:53 -0500, Grant Shipley wrote: > > Exactly what does this mean? > > It's BIG. > > http://www.novell.com/news/press/item.jsp?id=1196 > http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/faq.html > http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/webcast.html > http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/openletter.html > > I haven't read it all yet. I don't yet know what to think.
I find one thing disconcerting. According to the Open Letter (http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/openletter.html): # Office Open XML * Novell engineers have been working for the last year together with Microsoft engineers through the ECMA TC45 working group in producing a complete specification that would allow for interoperability across office suites. * Novell will develop the code necessary to bring support for Office Open XML into OpenOffice, and we will contribute that support back to the OpenOffice.org organization. We will also distribute the Office Open XML plug-in in our own edition of OpenOffice. In addition, we will participate in the Open XML Translator open source project. I just wrote an article on interoperability between MS Office and FOSS for the Society for Technical Communications. Everyone except MS is jumping on Open Document. MS is the major player in the ECMA standards effort and Open XML (MS's XML document format for Office). There are several efforts to provide Open Document plugins for Office. In short, we don't need Open XML. Yet here is Novell jumping on the Betamax of office document formats. To whatever extent Novell lends credibility to Open XML, it is divisive in both the open source movement and in the office products market. -- Charles Curley /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign Looking for fine software \ / Respect for open standards and/or writing? X No HTML/RTF in email http://www.charlescurley.com / \ No M$ Word docs in email Key fingerprint = CE5C 6645 A45A 64E4 94C0 809C FFF6 4C48 4ECD DFDB
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