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Novell "Forking" OpenOffice.org
l2718 writes to mention that In the wake of their recent deal with Microsoft, Novell has announced a new version of OpenOffice.org which will support Microsoft's planned Office formal, Open XML. From the article: "The translators will be made available as plug-ins to Novell's OpenOffice.org product. Novell will release the code to integrate the Open XML format into its product as open source and submit it for inclusion in the OpenOffice.org project. As a result, end users will be able to more easily share files between Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org, as documents will better maintain consistent formats, formulas and style templates across the two office productivity suites."
It is if the main OpenOffice.org project decides not to accept the contributed code.
But if you think it's FUD, blame Groklaw, not Slashdot. They're the ones who came up with the headline.
Apparently OpenOffice is going to include import filters for the OpenXML format.
If anything Novell is jumping the gun and getting ahead of the competition by including it into their version of OpenOffice before it hits upstream. I wouldn't call such a thing a fork.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
It's not really a fork. Openoffice.org already said they were in favor of this.
That's just completely wrong. OpenOffice absolutely loads it's filters via dlopen, etc. Here is a tutorial on how to build them: A link proving the AC is completely making crap up.