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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."
So if anybody uses this version of OO in debian or redhat will be sued by MS right?
evil is as evil does
This is the type of thing Ballmer has in mind, I think, when he's talking of patents, lawsuits, etc. Microsoft can and has special rights to all these formats. I don't see anything inherently wrong in "forking" open office. Especially if their mods can be Freely integrated into open office.
..." or perhaps Novell approached MS about better VBA integration.
I'd guess Microsoft wants to maneuver Novell and other companies into the situation where they are writing plugins not necessarily covered by the GPL. "Ohh, only Novell Office can understand Microsoft Office formats." In other cases like the MA case Microsoft can say there are other apps that can deal with their formats when in fact it is perhaps smallest slice possible of the whole *office crowd, smaller even than folks using staroffice and other incarnations, that can deal with the formats.
Novell offer Novell Open Office to other distros? Why bother. I bet it is part of their "strategy" for pushing novell.
Novell already has some plug-ins to deal with VBA and they work really well. SLE desktop, from a business standpoint, seems very slick and usable. Novell needs to get their marketing act together, though. Novell seems to have the magical product stack for small businesses but they keep dropping the ball in the PR and Marketing departments. I could do a better job than they are doing! But that is a rant for another time... (I really, really hope Novell/Groupwise turns into an exchange killer. )
My guess is, after having read the article and the links, Microsoft phoned up Novell and said something along the lines of "You know, we invented that language there. VBA.
I don't see anything inherently wrong here... but if the goal of Microsoft is in fact to encourage situations where the community can't benefit from one company's advancements, hinder group,cross-company efforts, etc then shame on them.
!111one
No it's a trap. The code that Novell puts in there will violate MS patents. Novell is rushing so that the only "safe" was to use OO is to use theirs. Everybody who uses OO that does not come from Novell will be open to a lawsuit from MS.
evil is as evil does
Hope Novell get royally shafted bu Microshaft just like all those before them who sold their souls to the devil.
Were testing RedHat as a replacement for all our SLES/SuSE clients. Testing should be done next week.
When is Novell going to compensate thier current clients that have been using OpenOffice and Samba for years? Lost sales, way to go Novell. Alienate current clients and move them to a different distribution.
There is a reason I dumped your stock after OpenSuSE.
Enjoy.
It's just the normal noises in here.