Microsoft, Novell reported in Linux accord

[Charles Curley]

On Thu, Nov 02, 2006 at 08:11:48PM -0700, Gabriel Gunderson wrote:
> On Thu, 2006-11-02 at 15:53 -0500, Grant Shipley wrote:
> > Exactly what does this mean?
> 
> It's BIG.
> 
> http://www.novell.com/news/press/item.jsp?id=1196
> http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/faq.html
> http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/webcast.html
> http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/openletter.html
> 
> I haven't read it all yet.  I don't yet know what to think.

I find one thing disconcerting. According to the Open Letter
(http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/openletter.html):

	# Office Open XML

		* Novell engineers have been working for the last year
          together with Microsoft engineers through the ECMA TC45
          working group in producing a complete specification that
          would allow for interoperability across office suites.

        * Novell will develop the code necessary to bring support for
          Office Open XML into OpenOffice, and we will contribute that
          support back to the OpenOffice.org organization. We will
          also distribute the Office Open XML plug-in in our own
          edition of OpenOffice. In addition, we will participate in
          the Open XML Translator open source project.

I just wrote an article on interoperability between MS Office and FOSS
for the Society for Technical Communications. Everyone except MS is
jumping on Open Document. MS is the major player in the ECMA standards
effort and Open XML (MS's XML document format for Office). There are
several efforts to provide Open Document plugins for Office.

In short, we don't need Open XML. Yet here is Novell jumping on the
Betamax of office document formats. To whatever extent Novell lends
credibility to Open XML, it is divisive in both the open source
movement and in the office products market.

-- 

Charles Curley                  /"\    ASCII Ribbon Campaign
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