[odf-discuss] Gnome, Ecma, and what governments (and FOSS?) should have done

[Alberto Barrionuevo]

On Saturday 03 November 2007 03:17:39 Jody Goldberg wrote:
> > they have a real full office suite, KOffice, not as Gnome that has
> > only two smaller-in-features independent applications only with
> > much less development resources
>
> Ahh, so you're not a spreadsheet user. 

Sorry?

> I'd recommend actually trying 
> the applications in question before making blanket assertions.
> I'm not a word-processor or DB person and can not defend Abiword or
> gnome-db (there are _three_ apps in gnome-office) effectively.  

Ok: "three independent applications", not a suite as OOo or Koffice or 
MS-Office. Sorry, I forgot gnome-db.  O:o)

>
> > The pity is that some people in the free desktops field see as
> > competitors to the other free desktops instead of seeing to the
> > real competitors: Microsoft and, perhaps, also Apple, that are
> > actually who are blocking the entry of the free desktops in the
> > market.
>
> So you brandish koffice as a non-OOXML polluted alternative to
> gnome-office and suggest that people should switch to avoid our
> tainted code.   

I haven't said this. I would love to have three non polluted alternatives in 
free software. Or indeed many more. I'm only promoting the non pollution 
_NOW_ because it damages our interests as MS competitors in the ISO process. 
I just ask: Please, just wait until end of March'08 to pollute publicly as 
much as you like...

> We restructured libgsf (library 
> to read MS OLE2 files) so that koffice could share it.  I wish the
> kspread developers the best of luck, there aren't many spreadsheet
> implementors out there.  It would be nice to spend an evening with
> them at some point.  They are not our competition, socially or
> technically.  It is not be a contest.

And I'm glad to listen to that you say you don't see to KOffice or OOo as you 
competition. I said "some people", it was not addressed to you (I didn't know 
your position on this).

Saludos,
//Alberto.