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The GNOME Foundation on OOXMLThe GNOME Foundation on OOXMLPosted Nov 26, 2007 14:07 UTC (Mon) by dulles (guest, #45450)Parent article: The GNOME Foundation on OOXML
FIRST NOVELL AND NOW GNOME SELLS OUT TO MICROSOFT These people can rationalize all they want about the details of their "partnership" with Microsoft. Just like Miguel de Icaza, a Microsoft whore, the Gnome developers are now selling out to Microsoft. I quit using Gnome years ago after Nautilus wiped out my research work. The Gnome GUI is not only broken, it is retarded. You'd have to be crazy to work on Gnome, much less join a Gnome project.
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The GNOME Foundation on OOXML Posted Nov 26, 2007 14:26 UTC (Mon) by nhasan (subscriber, #1699) [Link] Take this rant elsewhere please...is Slashdot not accessible right now?
The GNOME Foundation on OOXML Posted Nov 27, 2007 5:17 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Gnome knows what most people here know. ODF is going to lose. That's all. It's like a football game were it's the fourth quarter and the score is 75 to 3. Even if ISO caves into pressure and rejects Microsoft's OOXML outright.. it realy won't matter. Microsoft won. OpenOffice.org isn't good enough. It doesn't do enough, it's not compatable enough, the documentation is too poor. Adoption is too low. ODF is not supported by enough people, by enough programs, by enough other companies. There are not enough people that understand the issues that are in positions to make decisions. Even out of the people that do know and understand the issues probably most of them don't realy give a shit. OOXML is here, and it needs to be delt with. Do you know what happens if Open Source and Gnome completely ignores OOXML? ... Nothing. It doesn't matter. It'll only hurt Gnome, it'll only hurt the Linux desktop. Does that mean ODF isn't important? Does that mean that people shouldn't protest the take over of the ISO process? No, of course not. What they do is critically important. When Microsoft controls the OS everybody uses (95+%), controls the servers that everybody uses (75+%), and controls the Office tools that everybody uses (90+%) then they dictate the file formats. They know this. This is why they are doing what they are doing. They are leveraging their influance in ways to keep themselves relevent, to keep their customer base locked in. Microsoft knows what they are doing. What is important right now is to have a way people can migrate away from OOXML 5 years from now. It's important to get on the ground floor and get compatable enough that it's worth people's time to consider it. Look at it this way... In Linux right now you have Koffice, then you have Gnome Office with it's Gnumeric and Abiword. Koffice can do much more then OpenOffice.org can. It's more pleasent to use.. it's also faster. Gnumeric is better then OO.org Calc.. It does graphs better, it's faster, it's UI is probably better. Abiword is also much faster then OO.org's Writer. It's much faster, it uses less ram. It starts up faster then the splash screen for OO.org can. It's also more pleasent to use and the UI is more consistant with the rest of the desktop. But you know why OO.org gets all the attention? Because it's more compatable with everybody's files and everybody's files are made, or are made to read by others, using Microsoft Office. And people don't have to re-trained to use it. That's all. Gnome will try to support OOXML not because they want to, but becuase they feel they have to.
The GNOME Foundation on OOXML Posted Nov 27, 2007 9:52 UTC (Tue) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] Even if we took this pessimistic point of view, then why bother? MS-Office de-facto document format will not be OOOXML anyway.
The GNOME Foundation on OOXML Posted Nov 29, 2007 9:50 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] > Even if we took this pessimistic point of view, then why bother? It's not pessimistic, it's just reality; Microsoft dictates file formats because the vast majority of people use their software and will use it irregardless of any sort of OSI technical commity. As to 'why bother?'.. Why bother at all making a Free and open source operating system? Answer: Because there should be one and people should be able to use it. That's all. It's the right thing to do and if everything works out then everybody will be using open standards and open formats and not be shackled to the whims of major corporations. Just because something does not have a likely success in the short term does not mean it's not worth doing. The very fact that Microsoft is now forced to engage in, at least the pretense, of documenting and establishing their formats as a standard shows how much of a impact ODF is having. If it wasn't, ultimately, a danger to Microsoft's hegemony over the computer industry then they would not of reacted at all. (another example.. after years of stagnation Microsoft is forced to update IE in response to Firefox)
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