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

[Jody Goldberg]

On Sat, Nov 03, 2007 at 07:30:28PM +0200, Lars Nood??n wrote:
> Jody Goldberg wrote:
> 
> > Until MS decides to release their source code in a way that I can
> > see it without being forever polluted the only way to get
> > information about their spec is to ask them.
> 
> Specs have nothing to do with source code.  In fact in many cases, the
> source code is not useful or even usable for divining the specs.
> 
> To get information about the format, the only way is for the
> specification to be published, source code or not.

That is only partially true.  From my perspective ODF as a spec is
not sufficient to implement OO.o compatible content.  ODF has
several advantages over MOOX, but for me the most important
differentiator is that ODF comes with OO.o.  The existence of a true
free software implementation of ODF is the differentiator.
 
We should be advocating for the adoption of free software, OO.o and
Gnumeric are the useful bits.  ODF is a tool to facilitate them.