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GNOME Foundation Helping OOXML?
christian.einfeldt writes "According to long-time OpenDocument Fellowship member Russell Ossendryver, it appears that GNOME founder Miguel de Icaza's widely-publicized praise for OOXML as a 'superb standard' is being followed up with on-going support by the GNOME Foundation in 'resolving' the thousands of criticisms leveled against Microsoft's proposed standard. In an open letter in his blog, Ossendryver urges the GNOME Foundation to halt its apparent support for OOXML as a standard and to put its efforts behind enhancing adoption of the genuinely open standard, ODF, which was approved by the world standards bodies as ISO/IEC standard 26300 on 2 May 2006."
I was just about to say something closely approximating that.
What annoyed me most before this (which is simply unthinkable) was his extremely strong support of Mono. Personally, I feel that Mono, like Wine, should be treated as a compatibility layer to run software intended for other operating systems, not a viable target for open-source application developers. If everyone likes C# so much, then we should take matters into our own hands and implement a language with the features we like that is under our control! (My concern with Mono following Microsoft's language is that in the event that Microsoft changes a significant feature, like Java did when it added assert, Mono would almost certainly make the same change, leaving a bunch of open-source developers to deal with the whims of Microsoft.)
At some point, until Microsoft starts releasing truly open-source code and letting everyone hack on Windows, we have to keep at least some distance from Microsoft. There's nothing wrong with attempting to run their software, but we shouldn't be writing Windows software just because it's more convenient and we now have a way to run it on Linux.
ttuttle is a rankmaniac
"What better way to lure Windows users away than to provide support for the formats their existing documents are probably already in?"
Accommodation will only get you so far, sometimes it's time to fight back. This is why I use OGG and ODF when I shares books/music etc. with people, I made a conscious decision to promote these standards.
>What better way to lure Windows users away than to provide support for the formats their existing documents are probably already in?
.doc
Which is fine - if you had any chance of competing. But as you said - large sections are binary. With that in place, you're not much better of than parsing a
Peter.
The article author is either stupid beyond belief or deliberately trying to cause spite and malice. Neither GNOME the project, nor The GNOME Foundation is in any way or form backing OOXML! Miguel de Icaza is, but most other foundation members are staunchly against it. Not that it matters, there is a big fucking difference between individuals opinions and the stance of an organization. If the author has some beef with de Icaza, then he should say so, but don't try to paint the GNOME Foundation with the same brush. Fucking moron troll.
Football Odds
The vast majority of Windows users do not have any documents in the OOXML format. The handful of people I know who use newer versions of office are pissed off everytime they forget to "save as" into an older format and that is because of where I work. All work computers are setup with an older version of office (can't remember the version number off the top of my head). These people usually end up switching to an older version of office and I have been able to con some of them into using openoffice.org. A handful have been happy with oo.org, but most just wanted the same version of office as they have at work.
I agree that binary compatibility should be strived for, but it is not ooxml that needs compatability. its the older binary office formats that need to be standardized against. What needs to be done about ooxml is a concerted effort to prevent adoption. This means pushing organizations to switch away from newer versions of office. This also means helping oo.org or your fav alternate office suite getting competitive (assuming u have any means to help).
at my work, people use powerpoint and recently access (my fault - i needed something that was there and people could use). oo presentation is good enough (import and export from powerpoint), but database capabilities are severely lacking.
When all else fails, try.
But I wouldn't be surprised. Mr. Miguel de Icaza has been very clear about his love for Microsoft and "their" technologies. I never actually hear him choosing community technologies to boast, but maybe that is just due to bias reporting. Either way, it will be interesting to see his reaction if think ever really go bad. I'd also be interested in hearing his opinion on the recent law suit against RedHat.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
The profit part. You are focused on 1) and 2) but what's important is 3) "Profit!"
1) Support OOXML
2) ?
3) Profit! (i.e. get $$$ from M$)
Gnome has made linux a viable alternative for common users by embracing technologies and techniques that embrace popular convenience over sensationalist activism. I hope some random passive aggressive blog attack doesn't do anything to defer them from this path- lest we go back to the dark ages of linux as a curiosity, aka the KDE days.
We're close to something big, and gnome's practicality is the driving force behind it, linux be damned- he is not linux.
Miguel has stated why he likes OOXML: it's easy to take an existing Microsoft Word reader/writer and turn it into an OOXML reader/writer, because the file structures are so similar. That makes transitioning existing Microsoft-compatible software to OOXML much easier than transitioning to ODF.
That's a reasonable position. I still think it's wrong.
The purpose of an XML document format is to enable other people to do interesting things with the format, not to make life easy for the few people porting existing Microsoft Word compatible software. Furthermore, open source projects need to support ODF anyway because ODF is here and it's here to stay.
And no, KDE's not "pulling away" from gnome. Indeed, from what I've seen, gnome is more popular.
I used to think it was only Redhat/Fedora that deliberately crippled KDE in their distros. Every time I run across someone in real life (not Slashdot) who thinks KDE is slow and crippled compared to GNOME, I ask what distro they use. Invariably it's Redhat or Fedora.
I'm a FreeBSD user myself, but will use Slackware if I need proprietary drivers for a laptop. But I recently put Kubuntu on my work laptop. After last week's Kubuntu 7.10, I started to realize that "KDE-friendly" distros will also bloat their KDE. If you want to know what KDE is really like, build a plain vanilla KDE from sources.
p.s. Of course, running a stand-alone window manager will always be faster than any flavor of desktop. If all you want are frames around your windows and an application launcher, stick with Blackbox.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
There definitely are financial ties between Miguel and Microsoft. Back when I was studying, he held a Microsoft-sponsored speech about Mono, where Microsoft raffled off Xboxes to the people who attended. I didn't win one :-(
For all I know, they offered him a better job outside Microsoft for a nice thirty pieces of silver collectible at some future date. Every time I read his name, it's in connection with something I see as damaging to Linux and the Free Software movement. And surely nobody can describe OOXML in these terms without some sort of bias?
Gnome is GPL, isn't it? Doesn't that make it inherently possible for people to sideline this person no matter his current position, before we risk serious damage? In terms of patents, introduction of copyrighted code, or perhaps other issues, presumably someone in his position acting deliberately, could cause some nasty legal wrangles. And actions so far give reason for distrust, do they not?
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
I dislike Gnome more by the day. While I know and fully agree with the idea that you can't make an unpaid programmer work on something he doesn't want to work on, I can't help but wonder where KDE would be if Gnome wasn't siphoning off potential developers. Since it's generally accepted that at least one of Gnome's core developers (Miguel) is a Microsoft patsy, and that FOSS market fragmentation is very convenient for Microsoft, the professional paranoid in me can't help but to see connections even if there aren't any.
Gnome devs: ditch Miguel. I'm not the only person that's starting to look at you guys suspiciously. Guilt by association, you understand.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Participation doesn't imply support, however it does indicate that they're interested parties. For instance, the British Library and Library Of Congress wouldn't want to sit idly by while a new format that's likely to be as much used as OOXML is approved, only to find it's a dead end format that's a nightmare to index or cross reference. Remember that both institutions no longer archive most material in the form of paper books, but as electronic copy instead.
He always gets sidelined. He mostly starts something or writes it badly but with some key interesting kernel. The "badly" is usually trying to mimic some underdesigned overengineered buzzword from MS - he seems to be enamoured by their financial success and thinks it is the intrinsic value of their technology that did it. Of course, it isn't - their success is due to acute business acumen and marketing ability.
GNOME (the GNU Network Object Model Environment) was designed around a COM approach (it actually used that well-known failure and DCOM copycat, Corba). Microsoft is abandoning COM, and using it (usually because the financial director told them that it will save money and is better anyway) costs developers a vast amount of time, money, and reputation as the interface conventions are appallingly unstructured. Suffice it to say, GNOME is moving away from corba and has been for some time.
Generally, it is a good idea to watch for what problem Miguel de Icaza wants to solve and then start solving the problem differently before he can damage Linux' reputation for several years until his plans are ripped out and replaced as they usually are.
None of those Unix-friendly languages is known for its strong desktop application support. So, how does .NET compare to KDevelop or Xcode for cranking out apps? At least those two aim to compete in the same problem space.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
What surprises me the most is that this actually has to be said. It is ridiculous that mono is so actively used to actually make programs for official gnome, we got python, we got Java, we got Ruby, we certainly did not need MONO here.
I can foresee somebody telling me it is about picking the best tool for the job. But then HOW IN EARTH would MONO be the best tool for this job? The intention is to make open source free software, and adding any unnecessary dependance on MS technology is ridiculous, and it is really making gnome look bad, I actually hope KDE4 lives to the expectations so I can move. Really.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
For the life of me I cannot figure out why KDE isn't the default desktop of Ubuntu. Kubuntu at the moment is an inferior product but only because it receives a fraction of the resources that Ubuntu does. Hopefully KDE4 will be enough to sway the Canonical crowd. I'm a happy user of the KDE desktop on Arch Linux and until Gnome has an answer to kioslaves, dolphin, or the many superior QT apps (amarok, kmail, etc) I'll stay that way.
Why does everyone seem to assume that De Icaza is getting some kind of kickback or that it's some sort of conspiracy? It seems to me that the likely explanation is much simpler: Miguel De Icaza simply likes Microsoft! I mean, he applied for a job there; you don't do that unless you would want to work there, generally speaking. He appears to admire Microsoft's technology... I assume he just doesn't care about its business ethics.
The guy that runs Valve has a hard-on for Microsoft too (which, I believe, is why Valve ported the HL1 engine from OpenGL to Direct3D when such a thing was a horrible idea, and why Source is D3D-only) and nobody invents conspiracy theories about him.
It's like the old saying: why attribute De Icaza's actions to malice, when they can just as well be explained by stupidity?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
probably because Ubuntu strives for simplicity, and KDE is anything but.
personally I prefer XFce since I find both GNOME and KDE to be huge, bloated desktops filled with near-useless libraries and duplicated functionality (with respect to the rest of the system, not just themselves), but GNOME's goals are much closer to Ubuntu's than KDE's, so I do understand them there, and the LGPL'ed libraries are probably a nice bonus, too.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Which is exactly the point!!!!!!!! An open document format has different requirements than a spreadsheet application. Going from a document format to an application is often hard, so deal with it. Letting a document format be dictated by an application is exactly what one avoids!
Thanks for clarifying your position, I now understand it, and disagree with it totally.
Bart
I am afraid you ruined your previously well balanced post. :(
If Jody thinks OOXML should be an ECMA standard (there's an explicit Jody post in the discussion) that's fine, but is only a one person opinion, and it is in frontral contradiction with your previous post about the Gnome foundation being not against OOXML ECMA approval.
Overall, it seems you/(Gnome?) are forgetting about the primary goal: OOXML should not even exist, is a trap plain and simple, it's a deliberate MS effort to keep promoting incompatible formats. So your 'balanced' view does not help end users.
About 'whinging vs rocking', 'overwhelming strength of his credibility' and 'utter lack of relevance' I just can hope to be non representative on the Gnome foundation.
What's in a sig?
The patent license from Sun for ODF only covers version 1.0, plus any subsequent versions that Sun participates in the development of. That means that if Sun doesn't like the direction ODF goes, they can stop it by stepping back. Sun has stated that ODF is meant to support exactly those features needed by StarOffice, no more. Until Sun makes ODF an actual open standard, that can be evolved outside of Sun's control, so that it can evolve to handle both Office and StarOffice documents, it is simply not an option.