OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges

Posted Oct 16, 2008 7:52 UTC (Thu) by AlexHudson (guest, #41828)
Parent article: OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges

I'm not sure why OOXML is listed as a contentious issue. Clearly, as a format it is contentious, but both Go-OO and OOo have OOXML support, and indeed it's Sun who are putting the greater effort into it.

At this point, it's pretty difficult to see what the right way forward for the suite is. A bit of competition probably wouldn't do it any harm, but that's only going to work if people are making or seeing a choice. At the moment, Go-OO isn't really a fork because people using it don't realise they're using it.

OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges

Posted Oct 16, 2008 12:00 UTC (Thu) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link] (1 responses)

> I'm not sure why OOXML is listed as a contentious issue.

Because Novell's support of "OOXML" relies evily on .Net and MS-sponsored software.

OOXML in sun-ooo is reverse engineering of Office 2008 format. OOXML in go-oo relies on MS co-operation and indeed some Novell people have been pushing OOXML through the whole iso standardisation trainwreak.

OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges

Posted Oct 28, 2008 15:59 UTC (Tue) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link]

Because Novell's support of "OOXML" relies evily on .Net and MS-sponsored software.

Bingo! Novell as an independent entity would probably be on our side in many respects - they don't appear to have threatened people with patents, nor argued for software patentability - but the problem many people now have with Novell is that they aren't acting like an independent entity any more. By choosing their roadmap, you end up signing up for a Microsoft agenda: .NET, OOXML, dodgy specifications, ballot-stuffing, selective indemnity, and so on. That's why people are so uneasy about the Novell connection in any given project.