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KDE and KOffice Rebuke OOXML, GNOME Dithers
Peter writes "Free Software Foundation president Richard Stallman and ITWire have praised KDE and KOffice developers for taking a principled stand against OOXML, while raising serious concerns about the GNOME Foundation's decision to give credibility to Microsoft's broken format. This comes on the heels of GNOME co-founder Miguel de Icaza's depiction of OOXML as a 'superb standard', and GNOME Foundation director Quim Gil's stonewalling of the patent-free Ogg Vorbis / Theora format on behalf of Nokia. Will the GNOME Foundation's indifferent response to Richard Stallman's appeal drive him to throw his weight behind KDE?"
Is he on MS's payroll?
Grrr... and I was refusing to touch KDE because way back when they linked other people's GPL code against pre-GPL Qt. I'm not happy now. Fuck you Novell, for being Microsoft's bitch.
is to constantly fight about it amongst ourselves. That'll do the trick.
Since all recent popular Linux distributions uses Gnome by default, does this really matter anymore?
As was extensively explained in various GNOME places recently, Miguel is not GNOME, and has borderline zero impact or influence on GNOME at present (hence the best 'looks-serious' tag the author could find for him was "co-founder"; Woz was the co-founder of Apple, does that mean he's running iPod codec policy?) . Quim Gil is rather more directly involved in GNOME right now, but he also works for Nokia. He also clearly does not set Nokia's corporate policy. Therefore what he's doing on that bug report is reporting a corporate policy that stinks. This is obviously an uncomfortable position for him, but has sod all to do with GNOME.
Gnu drama.
Gnome does *not* support OOXML becoming a standard. The *only* thing they are doing with it is trying to make sure that *if* and when it becomes a standard that it's good enough and open enough for Free software like Gnome apps to able to implement it. But they are *not* helping to get it passed.
Furthuremore, this crap article praises KDE for backing ODF implying that Gnome isn't. Of course Gnome backs ODF.
Finally, look for Jeff Waugh's comments in the comment section of TFA to see how it really is.
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
For the love of god, why don't people have balls(women excluded)? I'm getting tired of people bowing down to pressure or being bought out. Doesn't anybody stand up for what they believe in anymore? I mean, way to go KDE. But, Gnome? I mean, as a community aren't we supposed to stand up for the FREE as in FREEDOM we claim that open source is? I mean, this isn't just the Gnome community, I'm talking about the community as a whole. We need to stop OOXML. It's a big bloated piece of crap, shilled out at the last moment simply because MS saw a threat. But this rant isn't even about OOXML alone. Just now Ogg was kicked out of the HTML5 spec due to pressure from Nokia and Apple. I mean, WTF! Ogg was a great choice, good quality, free as in beer, and free as in freedom. The best of both worlds.
Anyways, I'm done talking.
With Linus preferring KDE, could Stallman's support put more weight behind KDE? I'm rather surprised that the GNOME Foundation's decision. They could at least have kept their mouths shut instead of praising OOXML, which severely damages their credibility in the GNU world.
Hydraulic pizza oven!! Guided missile! Herring sandwich! Styrofoam! Jayne Mansfield! Aluminum siding! Borax!
Will it matter?
I am reminded of Henry Kissinger's famous quote: "Even a paranoid has some real enemies."
I appreciate RMS and his views. He is a pragmatic alarmist, he is playing the chess game that is computers several moves ahead of most people. That's why so many take his statements with a grain of salt, they don't see he has been "right," consistently, for over two decades, often years before the first real signs begin to show.
GNU/Linux and F/OSS have enemies. It is an undeniable fact. There are people working against us. One need only hop over to groklaw and see the black hand of Microsoft (and greed of course) guiding that whole thing. So, maybe we are paranoid, but even paranoids have real enemies.
I am really starting to believe that GNOME is a trojan horse, or at least some aspects of it. I don't trust Miguel de Icaza, he's either incompetent of a shill and he's potentially dangerous.
...if we didn't?
Especially on an issue where it really does matter.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
The folks governing GNOME needs to either decide to be free or not free, and if they chose "not-free" there's nothing to stop one of the rest of us from forking the project, starting a new project, or whatever. So RMS gets nothing from joining the conversation at all. That said, if Richard Stallman or the FSF was to basically slap Novell upside the proverbial corporate head with a "get with the program with Gnome/Ogg/etc." cluestick (communique), I wonder if there would be movement more than if one of us tried to do the same thing...
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
As a long time KDE user, I sincerely hope not.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I guess we all - people who pay attention - knew for a long time that Miguel is Microsoft's shill. People who drink and laugh with people like Ballmer don't deserve much trust, IMO.
Gosh. You guys are a bunch of angry morons. Life isn't about taking your ball and going home. It's about doing deals to gently move the status quo over to your side. Taking your ball and going home isn't going to actually SOLVE anything.
It is a sucky standard. Who cares? Not me. I'd sure rather it work than everybody cry about it.
It amuses me how so much journalism seeks to make the world a smaller place. There are bigger things than personalities.
Wikileaks, no DNS
1. KDE was good, but not free (Free? phree?) enough.
2. Gnome was established because we couldn't accept that un-free KDE?
3. KDE fixed its problems and Gnome became Microsoft's bitch
4. ???
5. Profit!!!
This is exactly the sort of thing the GNU/Linux, F/OSS people need to be careful of. These are serious matters, and this joker wants to ad-hominem RMS in an attempt to minimize the impact of his statements. Note, no refutation of fact, merely insults, childish ones at that.
Yea, maybe RMS's appearance is, lacking a better phrase, unorthodox, but his words and actions are the issues here. Stop being a child and focus on the subject, or is it your job to distract from the subject?
Tune in next episode as exciting new revelations are unveiled!
Now look from GNOME/OO.o side: We are interested in implementing it, regardless of it being a standard or not. Yes, but that doesn't mean we cannot denounce it! Everyone is getting in a tizzy (RMS included) over this. Read what RMS says above. He's not above supporting OOXML to give users a choice. His point is that KDE has publicly denounced OOXML but Gnome has not. That's all.
FYI, just because you like some stuff that he has done, doesn't mean everything he says is gold. Just a little pet peeve of mine...
Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
... what Miguel de Icaza's obsession with shoving Microsoft technologies in to Gnome?
Is it to try and attract Windows developers to the Linux platform? Is it to ease transition from Windows to Linux? Is it to make it easier for Microsoft to threaten the entire community with patent infringement threats..? What is it?
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
Isn't that statement essentially an admission that KDE purposely linked GPL licensed code to the older, proprietary Qt code (thus violating copyright law)? In that case, yes, the original copyright holder can revoke their privileges under GPL 2. This is one of the things that was changed in GPL 3.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
I will say yet again: I hope Miguel de Icaza takes responsibility when Microsoft's stranglehold over the open source software I like grows. Because he sure seems to be infatuated with the company and their products.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
considering that GNOME was RMS's baby to start with. Which is something I hold against him. There are many factors which prevent Linux from being widely acceptable, but having GNOME vs KDE business belongs to the major one.
Once upon a time, KDE was lambasted for using the not-Free-enough Qt libraries. There was a project to replace Qt and create a truly free KDE; but in the end, Trolltech released Qt under the GPL. And not the mealy-mouthed LGPL, like the GNOME libraries, which allows use in Caged software; but the full-on, not-sharing-is-stealing GPL. So the leeches still had to pay to use Qt in a Caged application; but if you played fair and wrote Free software, you could use Qt with the blessing of the copyright holders. (This didn't please the Windows fans. Windows users, raised on a diet of "illegally copying the Software is my way of Sticking It to the Man, and if you don't pay me $49 for this crapplication to do something petty that Unix has had since forever that I built with my pirate copy of Visual Studio, I'll turn off saving and bring up nag screens every five minutes", bitched loudly that there was no GPL Qt for Windows -- but the only thing stopping them porting it was the fact that the average Windows user would rather drown in shit than make the effort to swim.)
Now, the "freedom" to write Caged applications is a thorny issue. But I see it like this, and I'm sure RMS does too: in a nation where the ownership of slaves is forbidden, citizens tend to be freer on average than in a nation where the ownership of slaves is permitted. So KDE are actively promoting freedom, by taking a stand against OOXML. Novell and GNOME and Mono are getting rather too cosy in bed with Microsoft for comfort. It's very hard not to think about Microsoft pulling some kind of bait-and-switch operation which would put OSS users in trouble. If this happens, I think it's actually more likely that the Governments of the world would just pass Enabling Acts to annul whatever IP Microsoft are trying to abuse; but that's still a waste of taxpayers' money that doesn't have to happen, and by the time it gets to that stage the damage (in terms of unopenable public and private records) will be severe.
Not everyone is as responsible a citizen as you. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you, and just because you don't understand the importance of having access to Source Code doesn't mean it isn't every bit as big a deal, in its own right, as slavery.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
No one cares.
Really.
That back in the day... Gnome was championed for it's openness over the "evil" KDE for choosing to using encumbered libraries? (Anyone remember FreeQT? Or RMS Making noise about the whole thing?) My how things change over time.
Have you painted a shed today?
- GNOME (and Novell) do not support the standardisation of OOXML. They are both members of the ODF alliance, both use it as the default file format, and if it was even remotely realistic to have a decent office product without OOXML support (where the Windows desktop is unfortunately in such an insane over-dominance currently), then they would of course be all for it.
- The implementation of OOXML is all about interoperability. I don't see anyone (wrongly) trashing Samba as a project, and yet its existence and the effort to implement OOXML support is virtually identical in terms of free software.
- You like software freedom and hate the software patent system? Great, so do I. Free implementations of proprietary solutions, though, are a good thing; not a single one of my friends are going to be using Linux if they can't submit their assignments to their lecturers. We need interoperability, to ease the transition for people coming from the proprietary world.
- The KDE/Koffice developers issued a statement basically saying they didn't have the resources or the time to implement OOXML, and suddenly a lot of silly talk gets thrown at GNOME. If I volunteered to implement OOXML support in Koffice I doubt (i) that they would object, and for sure that (ii) any distribution would not include it.
- Even if you dislike Jeff Waugh, it's pretty tough to find a rational basis for criticising him based on the podcast or his approach to the problem other than (i) not getting the GNOME statement (again, which you really can't fault) out soon enough, or (ii) giving Roy the publicity he wants.
- The itwire article plays Roy as some sort of victim in the podcast talk. That is ridiculous. Unfortunately -- and to the detriment of the FLOSS community -- Roy is an incredibly prolific, poisonous person willing to do or say anything that might cook up some self-publicity, and with an irrational hatred of Novell. And in fact on the contrary, Roy skipped around every question that was directly asked to him; instead opting to just give background on Microsoft's "evil" nature and talking about how bad OOXML is (both of which we palpably know).
- Finally, even if you decide to ignore all the other above facts, please tell me why you're not also staging wide protests against OpenOffice.org or your distribution for including OOXML support, as well.
To save any comments of bias, I'm an ardent KDE aficionado.Stallman may fancy himself some sort of holy man, but to be honest, he's a bit of a loon. To suggest that he's some sort of wizard whose magic touch will make all the difference is ludicrous.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
loon.
Yeah, de Icaza makes stupid comments about OOXML and Gil's employer has some obsession with proprietary video formats. Neither of those is a big deal to me, in particular since they are so utterly without consequences: Gnome supports ODF anyway, and lack of Ogg support on the N800 affects almost nobody and is, frankly, the least of Nokia's problems.
To me, the biggest problem in the open source world is still those stupid dual-licenses from companies like Troll Tech and Sun. I therefore take a principled stand against KDE: as long as it is based on a dual-licensed toolkit, I consider KDE evil and will not use it.
Silverlight
Bill's married. It will never work.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
> this joker wants to ad-hominem RMS
Dude, realize that you don't sound one bit smarter by throwing around bits of latin when you respond to a troll. Especially when you verb it.
given that KOffice uses ODF natively, providing good evidence that ODF is not simply a one-project/company proprietary format being dressed up as a standard, yes it is important. it's a very compelling argument in favour of ODF that has been used quite a bit in the push towards ODF standardization; it's not uncommon to see ODF stalls at tech events showing OpenOffice one one computer and KOffice on another displaying the same document. more examples of ODF usage are appearing every day now, of course =)
and yes, a good number of people do use KOffice. certainly not as many people as use OpenOffice, but to the users of KOffice knowing that they are working with apps that use an interoperable format is indeed pretty important to them.
If RMS says "use KDE" I will instantly switch to Gnome.
ISO/IEC 26300 would like a word with you outside.
(rot13) rpbzbab@tznvy.pbz
proprietary software is to constantly sue one another over patent infringement. Both sides are brilliant, no?
Insert self-referential sig here.
Chill out dude, he's just making a damn Rocky and Bullwinkle joke, just go with it.
Not likely, unless TrollTech (or somebody who buys them out) releases Qt under a license that's compatible with versions of the GPL greater than 2. As it stands, you can't distribute a GPLv3 KDE app, because Qt is licensed as GPLv2-only (and a proprietary licence, which is useless in this context).
http://outcampaign.org/
In the present state, GNOME still seems clunky to me.
KDE is being re-licensed to GPL 3+ as we speak. See the draft licensing policy. Once that is near completion, it is likely that Qt will also be relicensed to GPL 3 since Trolltech has proven to be receptive to the idea.
Sure compared to KDE gnome is minimalist but that is a feature!!
Some, a lot, of us choosed GNOME on our own. Stop saying GNOME users only use it because it is the default desktop or because we want to disagree.
Saying that I have to mention that lately GNOME has been pulling features from under my feet, If they weren't adding features to compensate I would become very pissed about it.
I'm so used to GNOME, and find it so much more comfortable than KDE that it is probable that i'll stick with it for a long time.
On the other hand, KDE 4 is coming...
But... the future refused to change.
At least RMS has the courage of his convictions and stands up for what he believes in. RMS is a visionary genius and with all he has accomplished still takes the time to give encouragement to someone who is using Gnu/Linux for the first time. Maybe you should read the comment about growing a pair and take a stand.
Interestingly, the Nooxml.org web site, which is dedicated to finding any and all OOXML conspiracies that seem to legimate the broken OOXML format seems to side with GNOME on this issue:
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-30201/the-linux-com-chat-files:jeff-waugh-on-poop-and-pita
Personally, I think that the only way ODF can become a universal file format is if it's possible to convert *all* formats (broken or not, Microsoft format or not) into ODF. Conversion from ODF into broken formats isn't required nor is round-trip conversion (If you have to round-trip for OOXML, use DOC which has almost universal reverse engineered support). The reason is simple. People currently have a lot of legacy out there and late ODF adopters will have a lot of OOXML legacy. Imagine you're early adopters with a lot of legacy (not necessarily DOC or OOXML) or late adopters with a lot of OOXML legacy. Without a way of escaping the legacy trap, you'll have no choice but to give up their terabytes of legacy or forever pay Microsoft to access their legacy and force people to live (for at least 10 years since many financial and health documents require at least this much retention) with two system (and implement the necessary duplicate infrastructure and retraining). The cost of adopting ODF will likely be too high. If Y2K has taught us anything is that even when a clear problem is know, people won't do anything about it until the last minute unless it threatens to shut down the company.
ODF is a fantastic concept that will save you a lot of money and give you a lot of freedom and flexibility in the future. If there is no at least moderate fidelity legacy format to ODF conversion, sticking with OOXML or other legacy formats gives managers a whole lot less (company) political and (transition cost, legacy duplication) financially a whole lot less grief *in the present* (where bonuses are decided).
If, OTOH, there is a moderate fidelity legacy format to ODF conversion available for all popular legacy formats, the world open up to you. You can get rid of hundreds of incompatible systems and formats and have a more uniform system that is free from vendor lock-in. Managers can save *a lot* of money, especially since they no longer have to worry about being held hostage to one vendor that charges them whatever they can get away with and they don't have to support multiple incompatible systems.
With Linus preferring KDE, could Stallman's support put more weight behind KDE?
You have to realize that a VERY small portion of desktop users give half a rat's ass what Linus and Stallman do with their desktops.
And Gil did not seem to be anti-ogg at all, he merely stated that his employer is very pro-MPEG and as such actively tries to remove chances for non-MPEG codecs.
I would agree in saying that Gnome is simply taking on the engineering challenge of paving the road for implementations for a growing standard- whether or not it becomes canon, it will be widely popular due to its use in Microsoft Office. I support gnome in continuing the spirit of open source by choosing engineering solutions and support over choosing sides and making this issue into a soap opera drama.
This will help linux to continue its growth as a viable alternative platform for home users and businesses- as a growing platform it needs to SUPPORT MORE FORMATS instead of trying to throw its limited weight around and "make the rules". This will make it easier on mixed OS environments.
Gnome is the only serious desktop environment for linux anyway. I mean, KDE is sort of *rough*.
Is that the gay flu?
He thinks long-term. That's good enough for me. I wish more people (me included) could do that.
And if he gets angry enough with the GNOME devs to actually leave their camp, he will do one of 2 things (note to zealots: the following ideas are a little tongue in cheek):
1) Fork GNOME. Because thats what FOSS needs, another fork!
or
2) Clone GNOME. Because thats what FOSS needs, another clone of something that someone got mad at.
Im sure he could do something else, but the above options are what immediately comes to mind.
But one thing is for sure, if he ever does get that angry, Im sure he will never take option 3:
3) Realize that sometime people disagree with you, and you cant have a tantrum when they do, because then you end up like Kanye losing a Grammy nomination.
The one big problem with Gnome is that it embodies exactly what ordinary folk would imagine when you asked them about the meaning of "computer nerd". The image is that of a clumsy, pimply boy living somewhere in a basement, desperately trying to be anti-establishment. In a way, it wants to be a techno-hippie. Now imagine that the nerd's world was suddenly turned upside down by his views becoming mainstream, at least to a certain degree. By now, it has become kind of common to think and say that Microsoft is the devil, that the whole proprietary software crap should be buried in an unmarked grave, etc.
That's exactly the situation Icaza and his cronies are finding themselves in. They wanted to be rebels, even saviors. One sign of that is the (rather fruitless) experiment that is Gnome. In an attempt to describe it, I arrived at the following:
Or in other words: Epic fail! You want proof? Until today, Gnome has consistently failed to even grow a usable file selection dialog. I rest my case.
Ironically, denouncing the rest of the "scene" has that way become the logical way to again be different. It's a purely religious reflex: if someone threatens your perceived dominance, it is declared evil. If you think about it, deep in its absolute retardedness, it's kinda cute on that level.
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
Now is the time to try to stop them and there is no harm in trying. Projects don't need OOXML support right now because basically no one is using it yet and everyone using it needs to interoperate with people who have not migrated.
Their market share is so great that they can quite easily push OOXML onto Office users, and as they provide a nice upgrade path fromAhh, but not until they can get most users to upgrade to Office 2008, which will take a lot of time, if it ever happens. And people are already complaining. Municipalities and governments and large companies are passing laws and regulations requiring the use of ODF. More will do so if pressured and if OOXML is not wrongly seen as a viable alternative with the same benefits.
Even if we do manage to stop them getting OOXML ratified as an ISO standard, it'll still takeSort of like Vista has taken WinXP's place as the dominant OS? MS is competing on two fronts here, with their own .doc which has better interoperability and lower cost right now and with ODF which also has lower cost and which brings new benefits. Giving up on one front right now benefits us not at all since no one needs OOXML yet. Why not push for ODF all the way as the new standard and if it loses to OOXML in the long run, at least OOXML will have been weakened and it can be implemented at a later date with no loss of revenue.
Then which format does Gnumeric use to save files? Ooxml or ODF? What about Miguel's quotes? Yes he is in charge of Gnome.
.NET and disapproval for Java? Silverlight support?
What about his support for
What about Miguels comments about how after visiting a trip to MS to see COM and ActiveX is what inspired him to create Gnome as an alternative to KDE?
Do any gnome apps support ODF?
And now another gnome member bashes the free Ogg format that his employer labeled proprietary because it doesn't support DRM.
I think I am going to use Kubuntu and not ubuntu. Sorry but this just scares me and looks very suspicious. I love C# on the windows platform but all these activities smell like a trap that I do not want to contribute too. I can't find any logical reasoning for these biases and decisions at the Gnome camp.
We all rejected SCO Unixware and the ReiserFS and Gnome should end the same way. KDE 4.x looks very good!
http://saveie6.com/
OOXML is never becoming a standard. If it were ever near becoming one, MS would ditch it because as a standard it serves no purpose. It's only useful as a PR artifact.
I would really like to see KDE or a similar system becoming an official GNU project. It is really awkward to have GNOME in GNU while RMS is recommending them to make an announcement against Microsoft's OOXML. I mean... GNU projects are supposed to be the ones with utmost respect of freedom, openness, etc... what the hell do pseudostandards like OOXML have in free software and especially within GNU projects? Yea, I know it's a historial artefact resulting from the Qt licensing issue... but this is past, isn't it? I personally do have some issues with Qt other than licensing, but I think that GNU could accept KDE or a similar desktop project within its ranks. I think RMS should invite KDE to join the GNU project officially as an alternative to GNOME.
....this will give Canonical a reason to put more focus on Kubuntu. Honestly, people behind GNOME has been pulling some stupid moves recently, I remember when GNOME was only for free standards, now all they want to do is just keep backing M$ it seems.
... This "users are idiots, and are confused by functionality" mentality of Gnome is a disease ... Please, just tell people to use KDE." -- Linus Torvalds
"
Windows users are not going to adopt OOXML as their default document format. This is because MS will make sure that the documents default to be saved as .doc and since all Windows users do is click buttons mindlessly they will continue to save all their documents as .doc.
Any Windows users who care about cross-platform compatibility are already using OpenOffice.
Look at these benchmarks:
http://zrusin.blogspot.com/2006/10/benchmarks.html
Compared to Qt, the GTK+ 2 rendering engine is sorely lacking.
Miguel may have been a founder of the GNOME project, but he is not even on the GNOME foundation board anymore. His opinion matters no more than that of anyone else who contributes code to GNOME. Though he has written some excellent software his baffling statements probably with respect to OOXML will not likely be taken seriously.
RMS is worried about compromising on principles of Free software by putting efforts into making software that reads or writes this technically and philosophically nasty format. Since when has AVOIDING interoperability furthered the spread of Free software? Linus has yielded to pragmatism many times in the past (using BitKeeper for example, and being cautious about GPL3) whereas RMS remains steadfastly rigid in his ideals at all levels. RMS' stance is admirable, but look at where the Linux kernel is...then look at how far the HURD has come in comparison. Perhaps some pragmatism isn't always a bad thing?
Now, as far as compromising "principle" with the pragmatic decision to work on making GNOME read the OOXML format, where exactly is this a more serious concern than with countless other interoperability projects? What about the work that went into making NTFS mountable in Linux? What about the Samba project? What about the ability of OpenOffice, KOffice, AbiWord, GNUMeric, etc. to at least partially support Microsoft's legacy binary file formats already? Where do we draw the "principled" line here? Microsoft's "core dump" binary formats, NTFS file system, CIFS and the Active Directory are not proper open standards yet great effort has been made thus far to reverse-engineer and deal with them so as to break down the Microsoft lock-in. How come, all of the sudden, RMS has to chime in about OOXML and now suddenly we should all ignore it on principle?
Perhaps the KDE people should become even more principled and drop all the hooks it has with Samba to browse and be browsed on Microsoft's "network neighbourhood". Perhaps Linux-based OSes should not only all drop GNOME as the default desktop, they should also drop the ability to mount NTFS volumes too. After all, if we're gonna snub OOXML because it's crap and it's closed, then we should be consistent and do the same across the board.
When MS decides to natively support ODF in MS Office.
Microsoft often talks about dual, equal standards, but it obviously bullshit unless MS Office, with the vast resources behind it, can support the same formats as the relatively resource poor OO.org, or KOffice, or Wordperfect.
I'm certain that the world would drop its objections to OOXML if MS decided to support ODF, without an addon plugin. Instead, by making it an us (ooxml) or them(odf) decision, they've invited hostility.
The shocking thing is the syncophants in the OSS community would eat Microsoft's propaganda/excrement while being slapped in the face.
Why should we support two new formats, when they only support one? Especially since OOXML is not yet used by most organizations; and if it is a real "open" standard, we can implement it "when customers demand it".
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
1. Developers are making their own standard.
2. This is dangerous because it will allow heavy competition: no-no-no-no!
3. We do the standard, give to them freely and make sure it becomes -- practically -- the only one accepted/acceptable.
4. We activate the standard internal triggers so that it cannot be implemented, or can be implemented just when and by whom we want.
5. Voilà! The developers' standard is history and the monopoly can thrive further.
He should simply say "I'm afraid I have a conflict of interest" and get someone else to handle it. If his employer isn't OK with that (presumably they know that he has a committment to GNOME as well), then he should quit. Simple as that.
Will the GNOME Foundation's indifferent response to Richard Stallman's appeal drive him to throw his weight behind KDE?"
I sure hope so.
Gnome sucks. Their UI is inconsistent and awkward.
While competition is usually a good thing, in desktop UI, we / GNU-Linux would be way better off with a single standard and KDE is far superior to Gnome.
I have no affiliation with either Gnome or KDE.
Does Stallman weight enough to make a difference?